"So, how'd you do?"
A sluggish shrug was all that Riggles could offer.
Sluggish. Was that from how he felt physically, or mentally? The boy really couldn't tell, himself. Or rather, was that even the proper definition? It seemed that there was more... passivity than anything else.
Passivity. A distinct unwillingness to be proactive; but that seed of exhaustion had been burrowing and festering for many moons now, and it now seemed like it was breaching his carefully curated shell.
But then, he realised that he needed to put his mask back on. "Eh! I think it was okie... cooould've done better, but, like, ehmn. I tried, right?"
It wasn't that he didn't know there were cracks showing - it was more that, like...he didn't care as much now anymore? Furrowed brows looked down at the piece of thick-stock paper in front of him, and he could feel his attention slipping away once again into the comforting embrace of hyperfixation.
Pawsteps. A distant car-door slamming. The occasional squeaking sneaker. The groans of disappointment from his peers mixed in with exaggerated and exasperated sighs of could've-would've mixed in with the humid swampiness of the classroom. All of it swirled together into a chorus of thoughts and emotions and feelings and sounds and sensations and whatnot that he had to stop thinking about, that he had to keep on thinking about, that he needed to ignore, that he couldn't push down, otherwise----!
"Heeeeeeeey. Hey. Heey! Hey."
"Yeeaah?" A half-second's worth of waking up, into a split-second switch into the most casual response ever. It was well-rehearsed, well-practised, and proven to be highly effective. All of the time.
"Just like, thinking about, yunno, which ones I could've got wrong, like, I'm sure Mrs. Rondelle would've given me those participation marks if I asked... proooobably." A good save! Did his friend even notice?
"Riight. Frick, you're right, I could've bumped my Social Studies mark up if I just...eugh, whatever."
Crisis averted. The disembodied voice outside of his brain had been sufficiently distracted to have whatever grams of concern dispelled into their own anxieties about their grades. Why was Riggles kinda disappointed, then? Well. Hmn.
It was most likely the yearning to talk, to ramble, to vent, to scream, to burst out with all that passion in his chest - it was constantly at war with the trained inhibition and need to appear cheery and calm to any bystanders that shone a less-than-discerning light onto his antics.
It was the unbridled fatigue of needing to balance selfish needs and altruistic performances, the cognitive dissonance between what he knew he was and what he tried to present himself as, the hypocrisy of knowing that he was very much not practising what he preached to his dear friends; it ground at him, slowly smothering down all that flame and fire down to embers that ensured none of that could even reach past his exhaustion, let alone that bulletproof casing.
"So, whatcha gonna take next year?"
Riight. What WAS he going to take? He clicked his mechanical pencil a few times, and then pushed the tip of that pencil against the sheets on his desk, and then repeated the gestures once more. A couple dozen dots had spilled onto the page at this point, and the registration sheet was but a few more eraser strokes from tearing.
"I'unno, gotta be on Science track, so like, uhm..." His eyes were drawn to the Mandarin class checkbox. If this were but a year ago, he probably would've ticked it without a second thought, but now the hesitation was almost oozing out of his hovering wrist.
"Right, what, we'll take Mando together, sounds good - " And more words were babbled out from his friend's muzzle, but the corgi was clearly in much deeper thought.
Why didn't this feel right? He WAS Chinese, by and large. Something he used to be fiercely proud of, something that was part of his identity, something that he used to explain away why he didn't celebrate Christmas and NYE as much: 'Yeah yeah, so I'm more used to doing the Lunar New Year, right? And the fireworks, gosh, those people go craaazy with all that, and, and...' and so he could distract people away from the fact that he just... didn't really celebrate anything at all. Holidays to him were just times to be alone, as that's what he was used to, and how it always was from the day he could properly remember.
But yes. A coruscating exterior that was all energetic and feisty veiled how much in limbo he felt: the feeling of not fitting in shrouded most of his judgements, whether it be the cultural clashes of him just existing here, or the fact that he was slowly drifting away from his Chinese friends simply due to distance and timezones. Hmn. Was he Westernised yet? Not being able to keep up with the CN net's slang and lingo and memes and expressions were one thing, but why couldn't he fit in with this new school and group as well?
Was all this trying for naught? What was all this effort for? His glassy eyes were slightly hidden by, well, his glasses, and the heat certainly made it easier for him to seem more tired than usual. "Heeeh. No, but like we also gotta be lucky to be put in the same period, right? I mean, we can definitely trrryyy, but even then. Oh, what else youuu takin'?"
Checkmarks scribbled on, and sheets were left sprawling across the homeroom teacher's desk. "Mnh, yeah, I'll have to wait a bit, you go ahead and I'll call you when I get home!"
At least he had his phone as company now, the corgi watching the golden sky turn a much deeper hue of orange, then crimson. Well, even that was a lie. His phone was taken out, but...he ended up just looking at the street instead. Cars vroomed across the road and intersection, and he could feel the creeping numbness in his chest spread, spread, spread, and spread...
A ladybug landed on the back of his paw. A curious sight; he remembered reading somewhere that it was supposed to be a pest. 'Hmm.' He thought. 'We can both be numb together.'
