"Bonding Exercises" They Said

“Expected you to be shorter.”

These were the first words spoken to me at Tenth Marina High School. By a teacher. Now, obviously he didn’t mean any harm (and he was in front of a half-full classroom, so he kinda had to apologize), so he immediately corrected himself.

“Oh- sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, you just- are taller than I would expect anybody to be. I swear to God I am not racially prejudiced,” said the 20-something 5’ 10” Chinese-American man. No shit you aren’t. “My name is Coach Norman- I’ll be your homeroom teacher this year. You’re… Katsume, right? Seiro Katsume?”

“Uh, yes sir. That’s me.”

“You’ll be seated at desk 18. So, like, in the middle somewhere.” I made my way to the desk labeled 18 and sat myself down. The room looked like every elementary classroom in America, with numbers 1-20 on the wall around the room, and random inspirational Dr. Seuss quotes everywhere. I decided I would keep quiet for now and ask the teacher why his damn room looked like something from It’s a Small World After All after class.

I put my head down on my desk and snoozed for a few minutes, trying to recuperate the lost sleep of summer break. When I woke up, most of the students were seated and the school announcements had come on.

“Goooooood morning, Tenth Mar-” The projector hit us with the good old blue screen after about two seconds.

“Sorry! Forgot to get that checked. Ah, well, looks like I’ll do it myself,” Coach Norman said, standing up and awkwardly walking to the front of the class. “Good morning, students! Congrats- you made it to senior year. …and that’s all the announcements. I see some familiar faces and some fresh ones, so if I could get someone who’s been around to pass out these syllabuses, that'd be great.

“Don’t worry- no real work today. I’m not that cruel. This is the UC Berkeley AP Multivariable Calculus Course, or as I call it, hell. This program is meant to give you a strong head start to college, but it’s also going to suck the will to live out of you. Which is why, whenever possible, I will make this class easier for you. Trust me, I had to take it my senior year. Worst year of my life.”

“Now, if you could, once you’re done filing away those sheets, could you please all come stand in the front of the classroom without talking? We are going to be conducting ‘bonding exercises’ to increase camaraderie for this upcoming year of hell.” I, being an avid procrastinator, decided I would store my sheet away later, and went ahead and walked to the front of the class, along with several others who very clearly still had the syllabus on their desk. Hell yeah! My people!

Once everyone had either put away their sheet (like they were told to) or blatantly left it out (as they should have done), Coach Norman cleared his throat.

“Line up in birthday order.” That was easy enough- I started toward the front of the line, but quickly stopped as I realized the teacher wasn’t finished. “But! You can only tell people the date relative to holidays or historical events. No saying, ‘X days after Blank,’ either. That’d be too easy. Now go.” I slowly slid my way to the front, thinking I could maybe do this without having to talk to anyone. I got to a point where the person behind me was saying ‘just before the Leap Year Day’ and the person in front was saying ‘just after MLK Day’, and I assumed I was in the clear.

“We meet again, Mr. ‘Filing Complaints’.” Damn it, she’s in this class. I looked down to see a familiar face, though I was almost used to it being upside-down.

“That’s not even a clever insult, Ms. ‘Whitest Last Name on Earth’. Let’s get this over with- when is it?”

“The day Oregon was recognized as a state.” The hell?

“Uh… could you maybe do an easier one?”

“The day James Cook was killed.”

“Are you trying to make this hard?”

“What? Are you not up for the challenge?” Emilia let off her smug giggle, which I somehow already knew was a trademark of hers despite having seen her literally once before.

“Are you not up for common sense?! Just be real with me. Is it before or after Valentine’s Day?”

“Oh. Oh. We’ve got a problem.” Are you kidding me?

“You’re telling me your birthday is literally Valentine’s Day, but you couldn’t bother to say that?! What am I going to do with you…?”

“What hour?”

“What?”

“I said, what hour? Of the day?” For being so ruthlessly… something, it seemed Emilia had some shred of reasonability.

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask my mom.” I smirked, knowing full well that this move was a very 'Emilia' thing to do.

“Did you not ask your mom?”

“Well, what do you want me to do, ask her gravestone?”

“Oh. Sorry.” Her face went pale, and she stopped talking altogether. I got Emilia to shut up!

…that was probably not a good thing to do to her, was it? Plus, that was really petty.

“N-No, uh, don’t worry, I wasn’t around to see her. I would assume I was born in the later afternoon, judging by how my dad has told the story, so you’re probably before me. Go ahead.” Wordlessly Emilia stepped in front of me, but she seemed like she wasn’t as concerned, so I hoped I had corrected my wrongdoing. She was definitely going to annoy me later, but I had to at least be nice to her.

“Aaaand that’s time. I’m going to go down the line, so be ready with your birthday.” Well, great. Now I have to speak in front of people. I guess I didn’t make it that clear, but I wasn’t much of a talker. At all.

“January 7th.”

“January 24th.”

“January 22nd.”

“January 31st.”

“February 4th.”

“February 14th. The both of us,” Emilia said, winking and giving me a thumbs up as the teacher passed to the next person.

“Thanks, Emilia,” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth. “You saved my ass.” But am I that obviously antisocial? I didn’t get a response, but she smiled and her ears went red. I didn’t even know people's ears could turn red. From what I could tell, it was the smugness leaking out from behind her ‘genuine’ grin. I wasn’t sure, though.

“Your group only had two people in the wrong spot. Good job, considering I’ve had half the class be wrong before. You can go to your seats. Catch up on some rest or do whatever. I don’t really mind. But do let me know if you have a game idea for tomorrow. We might play it once we’ve covered the lesson.” I speedwalked to my seat and immediately fell asleep, trying to give myself enough energy to get through three more classes.

An arm shook me awake, and as I regained consciousness I heard the bell ringing. I shot up and grabbed all my stuff in a hurry, almost leaving my syllabus on the desk. I should have filed that away. Let’s just blame this one on not having enough time, and not blame it on poor life choices. As I walked out of the classroom, head hung in shame for sleeping so long, I noticed a pair of shoes by my side in step with me.

“Yo,” Emilia said, gently punching my shoulder. “I figure you have no idea where your next class is?”

“Yeah, I have no clue. I’ve got AP Euro next with Mrs. Brooks. Where’s that?”

“Conveniently, we’re both headed to the same place. Just follow me. And, uh… it’s- it’s Mia. Call me Mia. I know I told you Emilia, but that’s… weird, so…”

“I don’t get how it’s weird, but fine by me. Less syllables.”

“I guess that’s one way to see it, eh?"