You play with balls good? (Eric&Levi)

[Jared Park]

Jared has never been one for sports. One would think that his relatively lithe frame, combined with his height and the endurance he’s built from all that dancing he does, he’d at least be among those with above average skill (not really stellar, but a bit above the norm). Unfortunately though, the boy loses all his grace out of the dance floor, becoming a bit too lanky and frail especially when ball sports are involved. He blames his irrational fear of balls he says; they’re just too big and might just crush him.

So really, one could just imagine how stressed the boy was when he heard they had to team up in groups of three for their physical education class. Their instructor had the great idea to hold a volleyball competition for all his classes (and those of his co-teachers who teach kids of the same grade), and they were all required to compete. Else they’d lose 20-25% of their mark. Darn.


“I’m sorry you were stuck with me Eric,” Jared mused one afternoon, idly passing the ball to the boy. It was a good thing Eric was in his class though; if he wasn’t, he’d probably be left alone and would probably be assigned to a random pair. And he wouldn’t want that. “Tom and Drake are cheaters though. They didn’t give Ashton the chance to join us.” Because heaven knows how they need a good player to even out Jared’s lack of skills.

He was just about to continue ranting about how much of a fail he is in the said sport and how all the good players have been taken already (most of them forming groups of three by themselves), when he saw a familiar boy walk behind Eric. “Hey, Eric, isn’t that boy from our class?” he asked, pointing to the Chinese kid that just went by them, “What’s his name again?” But more importantly, “You think he’s good?”

[Eric Bower]

Eric had the capacity to be good at sports. He had the right attitude, an impressive amount of natural hand-eye coordination, but he lacked the aggressive nature one needed to really have any sort of oopmh for sports. He could run--well sprint--pretty good, and catch, but if he had to stare down someone or tackle them, or whatever the sport called for, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He was too nice for contact sports, and the ones with rackets bored him.

His lack of proper attitude aside, he rather enjoyed his PE class, because it was like Social hour for him. Jared shared the class with him, and the two were actually pretty tight friends, over the semester they had also had Dance club with each other and Eric quite liked the guy. He was hilarious and they often played video games in the student lounge (whenever Eric wasn't called away by Autie or Zac).

So he grinned when Jared came over to him and tossed the ball at him, he caught it and tossed it straight up in the air and caught it again, he grinned at Jared. "Oh, it's alright. I held no illusions of actually trying today, like every other day." PE was fun, and not something Eric ever wanted to get serious in.

Eric was blissfully ignoring the rest of the room as he tossed the ball into the air and caught it over and over again, but when Jared got his attention the looked at him, missing the ball. He fumbled after it after it rolled away after bouncing off his foot. Once he had it back in his possession he looked up and at the kid Jared meant. "Oooh uhm...uhm..." he snapped his fingers as he tried to remember his name. "Something about pants.......Levi!" He smiled victoriously when he thought of it. "I don't really know..but he looks like he needs a group."

Eric cupped one hand around his mouth, "Hey! Levi!" he gestured for him to come over to them, "wanna join the winners team right c'here?" His smile was big, who could say no to that smile?

[Levi Xu]

Gym was one of the classes Levi disliked marginally more than his others. Granted, he hated all of his classes, so it really wasn't a significant change in attitude for him. He wasn't an athletic kid. Full stop. He lacked coordination, motivation, and concentration, which were all pretty necessary when it came to playing volleyball. Plus, he wasn't tall, so he didn't even make a decent guard. When the teams were forming, he shuffled around, hoping a little that there wouldn't be the proper number, and the teacher would have him rotate out with someone, so he would only have to play half the games. Even though that meant he wouldn't get to choose which team he was on....well, he didn't care much, did he? None of the kids in this class were his friends.

So it took him a moment to react when Eric yelled at him to come over. Actually, it wasn't until the gesture that he understood that the other boy was talking to him, since he managed to get his name wrong. After checking behind him for any other Levi-like-the-jeans, he trotted over, unsure of what to say. "Um. It's Lev-ee. Not Lee-vye." Levi scuffed his sneakers on the floor and looked at the two other boys. Neither of them looked like ringers, but at least they were smiling. He grinned back nervously. "Uh....yeah, sure. If you still need someone." Other than them not knowing his name--he didn't blame them, he really had no clue what their names were either, and his power wasn't helping with that. "I'll be on your team."

[Jared Park]

Jared didn’t even bother controlling himself and just laughed right there and then when the boy corrected Eric’s pronunciation. “Forgive Eric. He’s got a white boy’s tongue and all that,” he teased, playfully nudging Eric’s side with his elbow, “I’m training him though.” Not that he thinks Eric’s (mis)pronunciation is due to his ethnicity anyway; though up until he’s 10, he did read the pants brand as ‘lev-ee’ instead of ‘lee-vye’, should that count for something and all that. “And yes, we definitely need someone to offset my ‘blackhole’-ness.” And by ‘blackhole’-ness he means his ability to suck so bad in the game that the power of a black hole is almost nothing compared to him. “I’m Jared by the way,” he added, extending his arm out for a handshake.

“Don’t worry Levi, we don’t bite. Well, at least I don’t.” The boy’s smile got even wider when Levi agreed to join them; thank goodness they won’t have a rotating member. While he’s got nothing about working with different people, he just thinks that having their team dynamics in constant flux isn’t really good should they want to win do good in the said inter-class contest.

As soon as introductions were over, Jared signaled Eric to begin tossing the ball back and forth between them, this time including Levi in the passing. “So, do you like volleyball Levi?” he asked as he tried tossing the ball back to the tree manipulator, trying to make himself comfortable with the whole three-finger position he saw his sister do around a year or so ago. “I’m not particularly good at it. Eric is though.”

“How are you liking Hammel so far anyway? You just arrived at the start of this semester, right?” Hopefully he’s got his facts straight. Else it’ll be extremely embarrassing, for both of them (or so he thinks).

[Eric Bower]

Eric genuinely felt bad when Lev-ee corrected his pronunciation of his name. Eric hung his head and scuffed his shoe on the ground, "sorry, man," he mumbled. Then he lifted his head and glared halfheartedly at Jared when he blamed his pronunciation skills on the fact he was white--which wasn't completely true. He has a long history of native-american hertitage, but Eric didn't actually care enough to bring it up, besides, he'd definitely lose the skin-color battle since both Jared and Lev-ee were both very Asian. Eric instead took the high road and stuck his tongue out at him and then laughed a little. Eric couldn't be serious (not necessarily saying that him sticking his tongue out was serious) for more than a minute, you see.

"I'm Eric! by the by. If you.. didn't catch it when he said it..." Derp. Eric extended his hand for a shake, while he curled the ball under his other arm, he was wearing his new-friend smile. Eric wriggled himself into a good stance as the three began tossing the ball back and forth, when Jared tossed it at him he took a step back as he caught it and tossed it nearly immediately on to Lev-ee. "Well I wouldn't say I am you know, good at it, just better than Jared here. And that's not really saying any much." He chuckled and then grinned at Jared in a 'it's not your fault you can't play' sorta way.

Jared beat him to asking the small talk, get-to-know-you questions, so he just smiled like his friendly self and waited for an answer. However he couldn't stay quite too long, "made any awesome new friends?" He was friendly, and could hardly help it.

[Levi Xu]

Oh, great. Levi rubbed the back of his neck nervously as Jared tried to laugh off Eric's mistake. Him being white would make up for him getting Levi's last name wrong, Xu didn't sound anything like how it looked, and Chinese names were just like that sometimes. His first name, on the other hand. "Uh, it's not 'cause you're white. I'm Jewish; my name is said the Hebrew way. It's not a big deal." That's what he always said, but only after he'd corrected someone.

"Okay, right. Jared and Eric." He could remember those names. Easy. "I don't really like vollyball, but hey, we've got to play, right?" Or they would fail gym and Levi would have yet another reason to be held back a grade. At least they seemed friendly enough, so he decided to give a more honest answer to Jared's other question. "Yeah, I came at the start of the semester. I don't really like it here, though; I'd rather be back home." He was careful, though, because even he wasn't sure what he meant by "home." Was it Portland, or the M.S.A.D compound?

Thankfully, though, he could answer positively about friends. He'd actually made some really great friends, and even though he'd be willing to leave them--even Evan...probably--when if Jake ever came back for him. "Yeah, I have. I'm friends with Sammy Rixon and Van--er, Evan Brackett. They're a bit older than us." Because Hammel had students from all over, and there wasn't some standardized national curriculum, the different class levels were a bit scattered. Plus, there were people like Levi, Sam, and Vincent, who for a variety of reasons were not performing academically with students their respective ages.

[Jared Park]

They’ve only just begun and Jared’s committed a whole lot of blunders already. Hooray for the kid. Hopefully his mistakes would end there though; he’s already made enough errors to last him a lifetime.

Or not.

A small blush suddenly colored the boy’s cheeks as Levi corrected him, sticking his tongue out back as a preemptive strike at the boy’s gloating. And heaven knows how ‘great’ Eric is at teasing people lately. “Jewish? How?” asked the Korean teen, rubbing his nape in confusion, “But you’re Chinese right? How can you be Jewish?” Because being a Jew is a matter of ethnicity, not of belief. Nice job Einstein.

“I know right. It’s so unfair,” Jared whined as he sent Eric look of mock irritation, “They should totally make P.E. optional. Or at least not a reason to hold you down a grade. Especially when certain people have powers which let them do exceptionally well without trying.” Oh how the boy envies those with adaptive muscle memory. He felt bad when Levi said something about not liking Hammel that much; he could pretty much see himself in that position, at least when he was still new. “I miss my sister too. But it gets better, right Eric?”

Jared hasn’t heard of Evan Brackett yet, but he feels like he’s heard someone mention the name Sammy Rixon before. But where?

“Robbie!” he shouted all of a sudden, quickly cupping his hands to cover his mouth when he realized his outburst. “You mean Sammy Rixon the pot-pyrokinetic Sam Rixon?” asked Jared, catching himself the last minute. Inwardly he hopes they are talking about two different Sams. Robbie has tons of stories about the boy, none of them exactly well-meaning; while Jared has yet to decide whether the upperclassman is truly a menace to society or not, his image has been tainted quite well by the weather manipulator already.

[/justify][/blockquote]

[Eric Bower]

"Well geez, Jared." Eric couldn't help but blurt. It wasn't so crazy that the guy was Jewish and had a hebrew name--not that Eric was an expert about diversity, but really. Was it that big of a deal, or something? Eric thought it was pretty cool, but what did he know? "Never mind him, Levi. He forgot his manners when he got dressed today." Sheesh. Eric shook his head in Jared's general direction.

"We have to take P.E. because of the obesity epidemic." Or so said Zac, Eric's personal God (eyeroll). "So we all get active and don't grow to be five feet wide, or something like that." Eric shrugged his shoulders as he tossed the ball up into the air, "I think it's kinda fun. I love with when we play soccer. That's really fun." Though him playing outside was now dangerous if there were any trees outside, because his powers only seemed to work if he was having fun such as when he was dancing.

Back home...Eric was on the fence about it. Yes, he missed his brother and sister, and his parents as well, but his arrival at Hammel wasn't all fairytale and happy. The town he lived in made him out to be a freak of nature and all kinds of evil because of the tree-house accident, and that put a strain on the relationship with his parents but they seemed to have come around. And he still got his allowance every two weeks thanks to good grades. "It gets better, especially after you get a lot of friends, because then you're never bored." Or at least if you have the sort of friends Eric has. Jared, for one, was great to play video games with late into the night. Zac was....well Zac and provided all sorts of things to do. And Autie, let's not forget Autie.

"Van! Yeah I know him! Haven't seen him in a while, actually. He stuck up for me my first month here." Ironically Evan had stuck up for him against Zac, who was now a good friend of his. That was High School, apparently. It was also thanks to Zac, that Eric knew who Sam Rixon was. And Eric couldn't count how many times Zac had had something bad to say about the boy. Eric didn't really want to talk bad about him because he didn't know him personally and because no one wants to hear that they have bad friends. He did, however, nod his head in an echo of what Jared was saying.

(derp. sorry.)

[Levi Xu]

"....You can be both at the same time." Levi smiled nervously. He'd heard that kind of reaction before, but it didn't sound mean-sprited, just surprised. "My mom was Jewish, so me and my sister are too. And yeah, Mom was Chinese too." Chinese-American to be specific, but he was used to that just being implied. "It's really not a big deal, Jared. It's okay." He could tell the other boy was embarrassed about the slipup.

Levi looked at Jared curiously when he shouted out another name. It was familiar to him as well, unless Robbie was a more common name at Hammel than he thought. "Yeah, that's Sam." He had to grin though, because he knew exactly where Jared had been going, even if he did cover it up pretty well. There were a few things everyone knew about Sam, and those were both of them. "The pyrokinetic pot head." It wasn't spoiling anything for Levi to call him that.

He nodded to Eric as well, because that sounded like Van as much as what Jared had said sounded like Sam. "Yeah, sounds like Evan. That's kind of what he does." He was a super-hero after all. "And I know Robbie too..." Then something clicked in his head and his eyes went wide. "Wait a second...you're Jared. You're his roommate, right? He borrowed a shirt from you for me to wear to the dance! The Valentines Day one!"

[Jared Park]

Oh. So he was wrong again? Darn. “My bad,” muttered Jared at Levi’s explanation, meekly smiling as he scratched the back of his head out of embarrassment. He still doesn’t get the whole Chinese-Jewish-duality thing Levi was talking about (in his mind it was more like a dual citizenship kind of thing), but he nodded nonetheless, just so he won’t feel too much of a flop anymore. He could probably ask his brother about the whole Jewish issue he’s having anyway.

He did make quite a face (or a series of faces) when Eric teased him yet again. “And someone woke up on the mean side of the bed this morning.” It was rather weak, but coupled with a mature ‘NyahNyah’ face, it suddenly became rather potent (at least in Jared’s eyes). “You know, you’re scaring Levi off with all that meanness you’re showing,” he teased, putting his arms on his hips, “Don’t worry about him. He’s just hormonal lately. You know, that one time in the month and all that. It gets better. Ish.” He even added a ‘hihihihi’-laugh at the end to make his argument more valid. Amazing really.

“I don’t like soccer that much. The field’s too big and I tire much easily than with basketball.” Due to the number of players though, the ball doesn’t go to him as often, which is a big plus considering how much contact he has with the ball when playing basketball or volleyball. “I prefer badminton. The shuttlecock’s not as scary as those round blobs of doom.”

He was a bit shocked with the bluntness in Levi’s statement though. Guess that’s kind of a right you have when you’re really good friends with someone anyway. Much like him calling Robbie a blond whore from time to time. (Which means he has to think of one for Eric soon. Hmmm).

“You’re the Levi-who-has-the-phaser-Evan-friend-who-Robbie-knows? Awesome!” Finally he has a face to put on the name. “Can you tell Evan I really love his power? Going through walls is so dope.”[/jutisfy]