Life had days were people feel invincible, as if they have all the time in the world, that they could do anything. Good days happen all the time in all parts of the world, from a baby being born to someone winning the lottery. Love can bloom, long lost family can finally meet for the first time ever, and someone's birthday will include their favorite cake and tons of presents for them to unwrap and share with their friends and family.
Life also had days when nothing goes right, where people can feel so low that they feel at one with the dirt, worthless and like they have done nothing useful in their life. A beloved pet or family member can pass away, someone could get robbed of their life savings. A fire can destroy the way of life for both human and animal, the divorce of a long lasting marriage can suddenly come despite the couple being 'happy', and friends can suddenly become enemies after a simple fight.
For times like those, people usually turn to their friends or family for comfort and support, knowing that things will get better over time, and others had different ways of coping with when their days are glum. Going out with a large group of friends to party and forget, staying with family to talk about all of the good times, or even just staying home to let their emotions run their course.
However... at times even those methods start to lose their effectiveness, or just weren't effective in the first place.
"Aura Lotus! Hurry up, you don't want to be late! We have a project in Biology that we have to present today, did you forget?" A green-and-yellow haired male called out, the pink haired male that had been following him at a distance finally noticing how far the other had gotten and jogging to catch up.
"Sorry, Storm Fern. I've been kind of lethargic today, I wasn't feeling too well when I woke up," Aura said softly with an apologetic smile, rubbing the back of his neck before covering a cough with his arm. He had been coughing ever since he woke up and it confused the male to no end. Why would he be coughing like this even though just the day before he had been feeling just fine? He hadn't really done anything and slept properly the day before as it was a Sunday and he had stayed at home to help his mother bake for her friend's son's birthday the following Tuesday.
As he pushed those thoughts out of his mind for the moment, he suddenly lurched forwards as a tall as hell body collided with his back, arms wrapping around his waist to stop him from landing face first on the sidewalk.
"OI, JUPITER! You know I hate that!" He whined as the shit-eating grin of the giant Jupiter Fire came into view before disappearing behind a well-timed smack with a folder. The owner of the folder, Apple Custard, peeked over with an apologetic smile before laughing as Jupiter pouted with a slightly red nose.
"Sorry about that. Giant over here stayed at my house since we have a group Literature project to hand in tomorrow. We have to pretend to be teenagers in love..." Apple made a face of disgust before nearly sinking to the ground as Jupiter leaned all of his weight on the smaller boy, eliciting a strangled groan of effort as Apple tried his best to stay standing.
"You're lucky I'm such a wonderful lover, giving you huggles and cheek kisses~."
"If by wonderful, you mean annoyingly clingy with no sense of personal space, then I agree."
Aura and Storm couldn't help but laugh as Apple smacked Jupiter again as the taller tried to lean in for a kiss, cringing a little as they walked. Sometimes it seemed like the red giant really did have a thing for the brown-haired male, what with how often the smaller boy was complimented, the taller basically acting like a koala. Sometimes Aura wondered if Apple really didn't like the attention, or if he secretly enjoyed it and only pretended to hate it to keep the two from being teased and bullied.
The gates of the school finally came into view, three figures standing there as if they were waiting for someone before one started to wave to the four. Stalwart Sails, Torch Light, and Sky Melody - or Skymel as the group has taken to calling him - had been waiting for them, having gotten up a little too early due to Skymel's alarm clock, as the three roomed together in a dorm due to their families being too far away to commute properly.
"Hey guys, where's Wild Road?" Storm Fern asked as he looked around, trying to look for the colt who had recently dyed his hair brown in support for one of his favorite idols who had been injured in an accident.
"He in school already, teacher needed help printing test for students," Skymel said softly, his Japanese accent apparent even though he tried to sound the words out properly. Wild Road was go-to guy for teachers to ask for help, as his organizational skills were envied by even some of the school's faculty, due to his father being the CEO of a large consultant firm. While Wild Road was in the upper class in terms of wealth and status, he acted nearly the opposite, not wanting to take over his father's company and instead started taking singing lessons the previous month. He stated the reason being that he did not like to sit down for too long and that being behind a desk, signing papers and organizing more papers was boring and suffocating. He wanted to go out and experience the world doing something fun.
As the 7 friends stepped into the school and started on their way to Wild's homeroom, Aura had to cover a cough again, this one stronger than the last as he cleared his throat, accepting a water bottle from Storm and sipping it. He tried to give it back but was told to keep it as it looked like he needed it a lot more, thanking the other with a chuckle. This new cough had brought up concerns again, but before he could really try to look into them, Wild finally appeared.
"WILD!" Jupiter suddenly boomed out, scaring the shit out of the guy and anyone else that was within 300 feet of the group. Wild had nearly dropped the papers that he was carrying, catching them just in time then whacking the giant in the shoulder, causing him to groan at the surprising pain. Who the hell knew that a stack of paper could weigh enough to make an audible smacking sound when hitting someone? "God, Wild, how much does that weigh?!"
"2.4kg," Wild replied easily, grinning at Jupiter's gaping mouth before catching one of Aura's small coughing fits, walking over and putting the back of his hand to the unofficial leader of the group's forehead. "You aren't getting sick, are you?" He asked, the pink haired male shrugging to show that he too had no idea what was going on before they all finally settled down in their homerooms.
It was during his and Storm's Biology class, where they were presenting their project about the different chemicals some insects created to protect themselves that Aura soon knew something was wrong. He suddenly felt dizzy, he couldn't breathe without pain stabbing his lungs and throat, and as soon as he went to cover his mouth upon feeling more coughing coming up, more violent than the last...
The class went dead silent. No one spoke as the world seemed to slow to a crawl for Aura. The instant the noise started up, it was slowly being drowned out by the sudden ringing in his ears. It was as if he was the only person in the room, his vision becoming blurry as he stared down at the tile of the Biology classroom.
All he could see was red on the floor that was coming up to meet him.
Aura Lotus’s vision swam as he laid on the floor of the classroom. Everything around him was muffled as if his head had been shoved underwater, his senses dulled as he felt someone picking him up and propping him up against the teacher’s desk. The screams and worried cries of his classmates sounded distant, as if they were just the background noise on a TV in the other room. Blood trickled down his chin, some smeared on the right side of his face from how he had fallen, and soon he vaguely felt small taps on his face, as if someone was patting his cheek, though it wasn’t enough to bring his senses back to normal.
The teacher had called the nurse, who came running in five minutes later to see the extent of the problem, taking the dizzy male’s hand into her own. She was shocked as her warm hand felt so strange against his clammy one, looking into his eyes and seeing that he while he was looking at her… it seemed like he was looking through her, as if she wasn’t even there. Aura could see her, but he was so out of it that it didn’t register at the moment. The nurse left for a moment before coming back and putting something under the male’s nose, and upon his next, strained breath…
Aura almost choked on the overpowering scent of smelling salts, trying to pull away though the nurse kept them under his nose, bringing the boy’s senses back as he whined.
Suddenly he could see again, could hear the worried voices of his classmates, could feel the blood on his chin and face… could see the sheer panic and worry on Storm Fern’s now pale face. However, the instant that his consciousness fully came back, he wished that he was still out of it as the realization that he couldn’t breathe properly dawned on him, panting hard and fast as he clutched at his throat, causing Storm to pull out his handheld fan. The youngest had gotten in trouble for having that during school, but as his teacher was about to scold him for having it, the green-haired boy had already turned it on and pointed it at Aura, the air slowly flowing into his nose and mouth as it blew over his face, both calming him down as well as slowly returning his breathing back to normal. Thankfully, Storm was an excellent student in his Health class and his Health teacher had gone over shortness of breath and how to treat it using home remedies in case there was no time to go to the doctors or there were no doctors near by.
Once the teacher noticed the ill student’s slow recovery thanks to the handheld fan, she let him off before sending Aura and Storm to the nurse for the rest of the day to recover. The blood was soon cleaned up carefully and bag the rag was thrown in tied tightly and discarded.
The pink haired male followed the nurse, being supported by the green-haired boy as they walked towards the nurse’s office, silent for the moment until Storm spoke up.
“So… Aura… what happened?” He asked as Aura shook his head, he was just as lost as his younger friend, slipping into the room and laying on the bed with a small groan, eyes closing as the nurse cleaned his face free of remaining blood.
“I don’t know, Storm… I really don’t, and it scares me. I woke up feeling like crap too…” He murmured softly, sitting up a little as the nurse brought him a bottle of water, thanking her and sipping from it before continuing. “You know how sometimes I would wake up, and the smoke from my dad’s cigarettes would make me so nauseous that it would cause me to become physically sick?” He asked, the young nodding before realizing where Aura was getting at, but suddenly became confused, eyebrows furrowing.
"But isn’t your dad on a business trip in Japan?” He asked, the pink-haired male nodding.
"He is, and I slept amazingly well the past few days, so why did this suddenly happen?” He asked softly as he drank some more water, laying back down with a sigh.
Storm and Aura stayed there for the next few classes, though soon the older gently shooed the younger to his classes, not wanting him to miss any of his schoolwork. Despite protests, Storm finally relented and told his friend that he would visit and tell the others to visit as well, making Aura smile and nod, feeling relieved that he had such amazing friends that cared for and worried about him just as much as he did for them. Sometimes they got into trouble, like Stalwart and Jupiter for physically fighting, Apple for verbally fighting, and the others for reasons he could not think of at the moment, but they would always stay loyal to each other.
Even if there were fights among the group, they wouldn’t let them ruin their friendship.
Aura closed his eyes as he started to doze off, dreaming about the days when he had first met everyone.
He had been the new student to the school, at the time his hair was snow white with dark roots and he didn’t care about friends or actually trying to do school work.
He was considered the ‘mysterious student’ who had a reputation of being aloof, even though most of the rumors of him ignoring other students was made up; he was merely shy as hell and wary about others after having some bad experiences in his old school. It had been pathetic… but then he met Stalwart Sails and Jupiter Fire. Their first meeting was… so close to being violent, to say the least. The black-haired Stalwart had been looking for this new student to show who was dominant in the school, red-headed Jupiter following because he liked watching his friend pound someone into the dirt. What the two had not expected was to have the new student seemingly not scared, gaining their respect when he managed to not flinch at Stalwart's threats and stare the giant Jupiter down as well. He soon realized that he had made two friends and, even though he was wary of them at first… he realized that their company made him feel less like a pathetic loner.
The next person he had met was the light green-and-pink haired Satin Borealis, who was older than the three but, instead of being just as angry as them, he was actually the most calm, gentle, almost motherly. He had surprised the three ‘angry’ boys by sitting with them at lunch and, upon seeing that their lunches had been either stolen or spilled by other people, got them new lunches and helped clean them up, earning their respect as he had been the only one to help them. Stalwart was the most touched and respected the oldest the most, as Satin wasn’t scared of him at all and even lightly smacked him when the black-haired male made a rude comment.
It was the very same day that Aura had gotten a little koala by the name of Sky Melody, precious teal-haired Skymel. It happened after saving him from bullies who were attacking the teal-haired male due to his broken English, and even though he was initially scared of the pink-haired male, the Japanese boy started to seek out his protection whenever he felt threatened or scared. The two quickly bonded as Aura noticed how pure and almost child-like the Japanese boy was, something that was rare in a school where the teachers seemed to let the students to their own things.
Brown-haired Apple Custard, black-and-gray haired Torch Light, and dark brown-haired Wild Road had already been friends when they met Aura and his group, and the first thing that Jupiter did was… make his moves on Apple, who had almost instantly slammed his face with a folder in retaliation. Aura and Stalwart had been prepared for a fight, but once Jupiter started laughing and called Apple a ‘cool guy’, they all started to talk… and that was how the whole group was formed. Everyone agreed that Skymel had to be protected, as it turned out that the Japanese boy and Torch were science partners and that Torch was helping teach Skymel English.
Aura woke up around and hour and a half later, sitting up with a groan as a headache pounded against his skull, making him close his eyes and rub his head as he looked to the nurse. “Do you have… anything for headaches?” He asked, his voice strained from the pain, and she quickly gave him some Ibuprofen, which he took quickly with his water and laid back down, eyes closing as he tried to sleep it off. Once he realized that it wouldn’t let him properly nap, he sat up, sighing before smiling brightly as Torch and Apple peeked in to visit.
"Storm told us what happened,” The brown haired Apple said, his sharp eyes gentle as he sat on the edge of the bed and ran soothing fingers through Aura’s pink hair, a gesture that usually helped the other relax, and it certainly worked. In fact, Aura could have sworn that his headache was finally starting to fade, chuckling when Apple placed a tray of lunch down. It seemed like lunch this day was beef seaweed soup, japchae, fried mini mung bean pancakes, rice with red beans, and cubes of muskmelon. The smell was amazing, and as soon as his stomach growled, Aura was on it like he had been starving, having passed up breakfast due to not feeling well.
"Hey Torch,, where’s Skymel? He was just behind you…” Apple suddenly asked, making Torch look around, eyebrows furrowing.
As he ate, he heard a strange sound, causing him to look up, swallowing the food in his mouth. It sounded like a whimper… an extremely familiar whimper. He slowly looked out the door… and saw Skymel quivering with a split lip, a slightly swollen cheek, and obvious pain on his cute face as someone the group didn’t know was advancing on him, his hand slightly bloody as he raised it to strike the Japanese boy again…
The blanket the lunch tray was resting on flew off, spilling the food to the ground.
