'This is the life!' he thought. 'Rich AND powerful. How am I supposed to not be happy about this?' He hadn't awakened yet, but given his father's background, the sky was the limit!
Just then in the middle of his excitement, his phone screamed at him as a violent alarm, the kind that attacked rather than simply woke, erupted from somewhere near the television. Leon crossed the room quickly and silenced it.
-Reminder: Pack your things for school tomorrow!-
-12:00 am-
He stared at the notification for a moment.
"That's right," he muttered. "The academy. I have to leave tomorrow and the bus would be coming to pick me." He remembered.
Sleep was out of the question now, at least for the moment. He was too awake, and there was too much to process, and the floor still needed dealing with. He got to work with putting together his things for the trip later in the morning and cleaning the blood from the floor, and it took a while longer than the packing did.
There wasn't much to take, though. Apparently, Leon, well, the previous Leon had not had a great deal of clothes to speak of, which, given everything else, wasn't particularly surprising.
By the time he was done, it was late enough that going to bed was more of a practical decision than anything else. He lay down, stared at the ceiling for a moment, and let the day, or whatever this stretch of hours counted as, go.
It was already late, and he would need energy for the antics that would follow later.
. . .
Once morning came properly, Leon woke up past nine, and that was already borderline late, goon thing he packed ahead of time. He moved quickly and with urgency, grooming himself quickly and pulling everything close to the door so he'd be ready to move the moment he needed to be.
One last look around the studio apartment before he turned away from it. He was glad, genuinely glad, that this was not going to be a permanent fixture of his life going forward.
A few minutes into his wait, the sound of the bus reached him before the bus itself did. When it pulled into view, it was a large double-decker, broad and unhurried, with enough storage space at the back that Leon's quiet concern about where all the luggage of so many students would fit disappeared on sight. He picked up his single box, which was modest enough to be slightly embarrassing, and started toward the door as it swung open.
A burly man stepped out, he had short brown beard, the kind that seemed to grant its wearer an extra layer of authority simply by existing on his face. His eyes found Leon before Leon had finished reading the name tag above his chest.
Sergeant Suge Benjamins.
"Student Leon Carter, correct?" he asked. His voice matched his build.
"Good morning, sir," Leon replied.
Sgt. Suge looked him over once, brief and efficient. "Good lad. Since you're already set, head in and place your luggage at the back and find a place to sit."
Leon made his way onto the bus with his entire luggage, all of it fitting into the one single box that wasn't even particularly large. He didn't let himself feel anything about that. It was just a box.
Inside, there were already far more students than he expected. The bus was fuller than it looked from outside, and the quiet inside it had the particular quality of a silence that had been enforced rather than arrived at naturally.
He found a seat and settled in. A moment later, the door closed behind Sgt. Suge, and the bus resumed moving.
'Seems like I was the last one to be picked up.' He didn't find that surprising either.
He noticed that there were soldiers positioned at the rear, two more stationed above, and Sgt. Suge standing at the front with the kind of stillness that told everyone present he didn't need to raise his voice to be heard.
He proved that quickly enough.
"Alright. Settle down and eliminate the noise. We are on our way to Grand-Phoenix Academy." He let that land, then moved to take his seat.
As though not enough, the silence deepened.
The girl beside Leon had shifted toward the window the moment he sat down, angling her shoulder away from him in a manner that suggested she had made a decision about him before he'd even opened his mouth. He hadn't even tried to speak to her. He found the whole thing quiet confusing. Even with his current face, which was objectively a good one, she carried herself as though he had already asked her out and been firmly rejected, and she was now enduring his proximity out of obligation.
He turned his attention elsewhere.
He couldn't recognise any of the students around him, which made sense. They must not have been classmates from before. Just strangers on their way to the same place.
Then, not long after the bus had found its rhythm on the road, he heard something that just could not be ignored.
Trash…
The word arrived without much ceremony.
He could hear clearly two boys talking behind him. It was something about what the Carter family had been and what it had apparently become. His father, it seemed, had been something of a war hero, a man who had contributed significantly to halting one of the only major monster tides to breach their country's defenses. A name worth something, and yet, here sat his son, apparently, with one box of clothes and a reputation that travelled ahead of him like bad weather.
'Why 'trash' exactly, though?' The memories hadn't filled that part in cleanly yet. He turned it over once, found no immediate answer, and let it go. He'd figure it out eventually.
The mockery continued for a little while longer and the voices got quieter so he couldn't hear them well to listen in. After a minute or so, they quieted on their own. The road smoothed out. Sgt. Suge's soldiers had a particular talent for making noise feel like a poor idea, and even casual conversation between students dried up quickly under those steady, patient glares.
Leon, who wasn't feeling fully rested even after oversleeping, looked at the window, then at the long stretch of road ahead, then quietly decided that this was as good an opportunity as any. He hoped they wouldn't reach the academy for several hours yet.
Slowly, he shifted in his seat, found a reasonable position, and closed his eyes.
...
A/N: Thank you for reading. Support by adding to your library to keep up or for later, helps a lot. Thank you.