30 AM
And now, for a brief intermission…
=/=
For once in its existence, the Sunnydale High School Library was actually quiet.
It almost never happened on a normal day. Strangely enough, the building was usually at its noisiest whenever Saturday detention was in session.
Today the library had seen its share of arguments, fights, and even jokes, but today it felt… different.
Even so, nobody spoke a word. The only sound being the monotonous ticking of the clock and the sound of pencils and erasers scratching and rubbing against the paper.
“What was it like?” Luna spoke up suddenly.
Everyone gave pause to that, staring at her in confusion.
“Uh,” Aria frowned. “What?”
“What was it like?” She repeated. “Moving back to America?”
“Oh,” Aria said in realization. “Uh… well, the time zones were weird. Took about a week or so to readjust...”
“And the weather.” Alice cut in. “Southern California is very different from England. Here it’s all sun and the ocean, but across the pond,”
“Rain all day.” Luna finished.
“I didn’t really have a problem with it.” Aria said. “Assimilating, I actually liked it. Iceland. It was Mike who hated the move. He got used to it after a couple of weeks, but he didn’t bother hiding his relief when we came back to America.”
“I’d like to see home again.” Luna mused. “Ireland. The green, the smell of the sea, the sun peeking through the clouds.”
“How are you like this?” Gary cut in.
Luna blinked and turned towards him. “Like what?”
“Like how you are?” He said. “I mean-You are not the kind of girl I usually see around here. You read books upside down, you make jewelry out of corks and shards of stained glass, you know every word of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by heart and you just,” He sputtered and shook his head in disbelief. “You go about your day like it’s nothing.”
“And that bothers you?” Yuffie asks him.
“It confuses me!” He stressed. “When I started high school, I had to reinvent myself completely. From how I acted, to the way I dressed, to what I did and didn’t eat just so people would talk to me and treat me like a decent human being. My first day of high school was hell. I’m not sugar coating, I wish I was sugar coating this. I spent the first week of my freshman year eating my lunch in a bathroom stall because I made the mistake of sitting at an upperclassmen’s table.”
“Yeah, I remember that.” Mercury commented, smiling in recollection. “I saw those assholes throw you face first into a trash can the second day of school for that.”
“Never again.” Gary says with a finality. “I had to change every damn thing about myself. I… I had to cut off friends, people I had known since diapers, just to fit in and be normal.”
“Normal is overrated.” Jack scoffs.
“You get the gist, Spicer.” Gary sighs.
“But, why would you want to blend in?” Luna asks him.
“Because it’s better than being shoved inside of a locker,” He replies with a snort. “or getting tripped and shoved in the hallway. Or, being made fun of and bullied every damn day for doing literally nothing other than existing? Do you want me to go on?”
“I just don’t see the appeal of it.” Luna says. “Fitting in. It’s not fun.”
“This is high school,” Flash states. “what part of this is supposed to be fun?”
“I just don’t understand why you would want to go along with the in-crowd.” Luna explains. “We’re all people, and we’re all different. So, why give up the parts we love about ourselves just to fit in?”
“So,” Momo pipes up. “what? You don’t care what people think about you?”
“Not really.”
“Why?” Gary asks her. Not confusedly, or even frustratedly. He sounded like he genuinely wanted to know. And the same applied to the others, even if they didn’t voice it out outright.
=/=
<Now playing ‘What Can You Lose?’ by Madonna>
Luna: What can you lose?
Only the blues
Luna Lovegood knew she was different.
Luna had known this, basically from birth.
But she didn’t care.
Luna: Why keep concealing everything you're feeling?
Say it to her, what can you lose?
She had her parents, eccentric magazine editor Xenophilius Lovegood (Harry Potter Series) and sweet-natured mad scientist in the making Pandora Lovegood (Harry Potter Series), and she was happy.
Luna: Maybe it shows – she'd had clues,
Which she chose to ignore.
Then, one day, when Luna was nine years old, she went into the basement to watch her mom work on another experiment. It was always the highlight of her day whenever she came home from school, plus it looked like fun.
Then, things went south.
Luna: Maybe, though she knows,
And just wants to go on as before
As a friend, nothing more,
So she closes the door.
While Luna didn't remember most of what had happened that day, she does remember seeing her mother fretting over a mistake. Then, the room began to fill with a strange smell. Luna stood up, and then she was flung backwards...
Luna: Well, if she does
Those are the dues
The last thing she remembered before colliding with the wall was hearing her mother let out a cry of shock before everything was enveloped in a flash of white light and her lungs filled up with smoke.
Luna woke up in a hospital bed three days later with a mild headache and hooked up to several machines.
Luna: Once the words are spoken,
Something may be broken.
After she was discharged from the hospital, Luna and her Dad moved out of that little house by the sea in Munster a few weeks after they cremated her mother.
There were too many memories, many good ones along with the bad.
So, they relocated to Cornwall, and while Luna couldn’t say for sure that they were happy, the move did help her and her father begin to heal.
Luna: Still, you love her
What can you lose?
One day, about a year and a half ago, Luna’s father got a job offer at an office in Ventura which he decided to take. And, so, they packed up and relocated again.
Luna: But what if she goes?
Adjusting to life in a new country wasn’t something Luna had problems with, it was the whispers and the stares she had trouble coming to terms with.
Luna: At least now, you have part of her.
At first, Luna thought it was because she was the foreign kid.
But, then she gradually began to realize it was her.
Luna: What if she had to choose?
Most people didn’t think she noticed, but she did.
Luna noticed when they’d subtly mock her accent or soft tone of voice.
Luna would notice whenever they’d laugh or snicker at her whenever she said something odd (or anything at all).
Luna noticed people openly staring or gawking at her whenever she reread her favorite books upside down just to see how people would react.
And, Luna definitely noticed whenever the quote-unquote “popular girls” would make nasty or snide comments at her upcycled clothing, or poke fun of her homemade/second-hand jewelry because she didn’t want to spend her allowance money on big stuff outside of groceries or rent so she could lift some of the financial burden off of her Dad’s shoulders.
Luna: Leave it alone
Hold it all in.
Luna wasn’t gonna lie, there were times when the teasing would begin to grate on her. And, at times, Luna would consider what life would be like if she just tried to fit in – but, what fun would that be?
She was fine being “Loony Lovegood”. She wore that label with pride.
Luna: Better a bone, don't even begin
With so much to win
It was like her Dad’s cooky best friend and next-door neighbor Hange (Attack on Titan) always told her, “Once you embrace your inner weirdo, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to!”
Luna: There's too much to lose.
And, if there was one thing Luna had learned in her relatively short life, it was this: she knew that there were people in her life who loved her for who she was. And in the end, they were the ones who truly mattered.