Walk Without Rhythm

[some dude†]

From Nate's point of view, Frank Herbert's Dune was, quite literally, better than the Bible.

Nathaniel Schutz - Pregame Start

Nate walked casually into the library, turned to let some other kid pass by him. He clutched the object of his recent fascination, the classic sci-fi novel Dune, in his hand. Contrary to what outside observers might've thought, he wasnt here to turn the book back in. No, he wasn't finished with it quite yet. He'd checked it out last Friday and had spent the entire weekend reading it. Of course, he'd read it before, but it didn't matter. As aspiring actor-slash-filmmaker, it had always been a certain ambition of Nate's to adapt Dune to the silver screen. It'd been done before, sure, but not quite correctly, in Nate's opinion.

Not only was the setting of the novel extremely interesting, the intelligence of the characters, the questions posed by the book, and the complexity of the plot were fascinating as well. Frank Herbert was to be respected.

Sitting himself at one of the tables, he pulled his backpack up onto the seat next to him and withdrew from it a slightly battered notebook with a piece of red construction paper bookmarking a page. Nate flipped it open. The turning of the pages revealed the words, "Dune Movie Notes" scrawled at the top of the page and underlined three times. Written below it were, as the page title implied, notes: some about cinematography and certain shots he had planned out especially carefully, some about music, others about little tidbits that he had deemed necessary to include. Although the page itself was wrinkly and honestly sort of a mess, Nate felt a certain sense of accomplishment in his ideas.

He pushed the backpack off the table, leaving it to land with a "thoomp" on the floor, and cracked open Dune. Perhaps eventually one page would become many, many pages an entire book of notes, and maybe even one day those notes would turn into a cinematic masterpiece. Nate could only hope.

For now, though, he pulled his headphones out of his pocket, untangled them over the course of several minutes, stuck them in his hears, and drowned out the rest of the world as he leaned into the page, pencil in hand, and began to work.

[Jilly]

At the corridor behind Nathaniel an asian girl was walking back and forth with her cellphone on her ears.

"Mom, stop."

Desiree frowned.

"No, no. Do not ever call me in class again."

Her head was getting red

"N-no. No. Mom. Just-Just shut up."

A big moment of silence. Regret.

"What? No! Mom?"

She looked at her phone and grunted. Desiree was not in a good mood.

[Ruggahissy]

((Jonah Heartgrave continued from Have You Lost Me? ))

"Uh huh, I remember the essay," he said to Morgan as they walked inside the library, holding the door open for his companion. He wasn't really looking forward to it that much. Essays weren't really his forte. He'd much rather do a practical exam than have to write out an argument. "I'm not looking forward, to be frank."

Jonah walked up the desk and signed in, a system which allowed the school to see which hours were busiest and how many people were using the library.

Inside were two people.  A girl who had just finished shouting and a boy doing homework. Jonah didn't care for shouting in the library, but it seemed like that was over, so it could be overlooked.

[some dude†]

Nate nodded his head ever so slightly to beat of the song playing through his headphones, enjoying the sensation of being more or less in his own world. Hanging out with friends was great and all, but he liked having these small moments to himself every once in a while. It gave him time concentrate and reflect. Stuff like that.

Unfortunately, this relative euphoria wouldn't last, as the song on Spotify came to an end. The instant it was done, an extremely loud gum advertisement for some sort of "radical new banana flavor" blasted directly into his ears. Nate jumped a little, as one usually does at a loud noise. He yanked out the headphones as his finger slammed down on the reduce volume button.

"Jesus..." he muttered.

He picked up his phone and skipped to the next song, and was about to put his headphones in when he heard a shout of, "What? No! Mom?"

Nate's mouth turned into a small half-grin and he exhaled through his nose amusedly. Seemed to him like every student except him had some kind of issue with their parents. He returned to his work, headphone-less, perhaps hoping for just a little bit more time to himself before his mother expected him to be home.

Apparently the universe just didn't feel like granting him that wish today, as more people walked into the library.

Nate sighed, and turned his head to glance over his shoulder at the other three people. One was an asian girl who was looking at her phone, looking pretty frustrated. The remaining two were both guys, friends from the look of it. One of them held a high-quality red sweater in his hand. They were talking about some... science paper?

Goddamnit.

So that was due soon. He turned back towards his Dune Notes and put his forehead in his right hand. Nate hadn't even begun to do the research for the paper. He could probably bullshit his way through it when the time came, but he figured that maybe he could mooch off the two new arrivals. If not, he could at the very least get some help with this godforsaken paper.

He waited for them to get closer, then addressed the nearest.

"You guys workin' on the science thing too, huh?"

[Jilly]

The frustrated Desiree switched her language on her phone keyboard and typed something in chinese until her brain heard the voice of Nate.

Science?

What science thing was Nathan talking about?

Desiree had to recollect her mind as she had come to the library for different reasons.

Oh right.

The science thing.

She already did that at home.

Desiree silently just ignored Nate's question and continued to stare at her phone and typed.

[Cactus]

Morgan stepped through the doors to the library, hesitating a moment as he saw the familiar library assistant shooting daggers towards him as they approached. A large of him hoped that they found the person they were looking for in here. This wasn't exactly his scene.

"No, me neither. Especially with all of the other crap we have to do, right? So I had this idea..."

((Morgan Dragosavich continued from Have You Lost Me?))

Stepping up to the counter and signing his name after Jonah, he looked at the library assistant at the desk, and held his hands up in mock surrender, making a zipping motion at his mouth. He would keep quiet - besides, it looked as though someone else was already piping off, as her attention shot over to the other side of the room. There were two kids here, one guy doing his homework, and another shouting into a phone.

They walked through the library, and Morgan trailed off. He'd catch Jonah up on the idea once they left - he didn't want anyone else stealing the thunder of his little plan. As they got closer, he recognized the homework-doer, it was Nate Schutz, whom he'd occasionally crossed paths with in the drama room. Decent guy, a little lazy, all things considered. He nodded to him as they got closer. He didn't know the girl yelling into the phone, so he didn't acknowledge her.

"Hey Nate. Yeah, we're bemoaning yet another of Ms. Yan's hellish research papers. But..." He paused, looking at Jonah. "... that's actually not the reason we're here."

[some dude†]

"...that's actually not the reason we're here."

Nate stifled a groan. He'd actually have to do the work. If he focused on it, he could probably get some average-ass grade like a B-. But focusing on this dumb essay thing wasn't fun in the slightest, and it'd distract him from things he actually found enjoyable. He would much rather put together vaguely good-sounding strings of notes on the guitar with his friends. Or he could just go home, play a game of League, and sleep, pushing the science project to the back of his mind, leaving it to be done two nights before.

Whatever.

"Something to do with the sweater, I'm guessing. Doesn't really seem like something either of you'd wear." he said to the pair, "You heard that girl arguing on the phone earlier with her mom; maybe she lost her coat."

[Ruggahissy]

((Looks like our posting order got a little out of whack. I think it'll be me > RC > Dodd > some dude ))

So it looked like the sweater didn't belong to Nate. He looked back at Morgan and tilted his head to one side, taking in what he was saying.

"What kind of idea?"

Desiree was nearby and seemed to be ignoring them. It didn't bother him, though. Nate suggested maybe it was hers. Jonah cleared his throat and held up the sweater. If it was hers she'd recognize it. If not, she'd look up, see the sweater and then probably go back to whatever she was doing.

"Mmhmm. Morgan wanted to talk about something and we found it and I couldn't just leave it there. I'm not sure if the lost and found at the main office is still open or not."

[Jilly]

Huh?

Were they talking about her?

Desiree looked at the people talking to each other.

Doesn't seem like it.

She continues to focus on her messenger.

[Cactus]

Morgan furrowed his brow. This was starting to become a bit of a mystery. He supposed that meant that him and Jonah were playing the detective roles about as well as they could. Who would leave such an expensive piece of clothing behind? If it wasn't Nate, perhaps...

"I started thinking a little outside of the box, right? What would Ms. Yan be okay with getting instead of a boring old essay." He stopped himself from elaborating as he took Nate's suggestion in.

It was a good one. If one was going to misplace a sweater, it would stand to reason that maybe they were forgetful and lost other items too. She seemed to be ignoring them, so Morgan cleared his throat as he got a good look at the girl. Another Asian girl, but this one he wasn't familiar with - the library seemed to be the place to run in to the Asian population, he mused silently.

Wait, was that racist?

He furrowed his brow once more. That was the last thing he wanted to be. But it was true! First Yuki, now this girl? This girl was a bit plainer than Yuki though, and not as pretty. He wondered if she had a boyfriend. Hmm. He shook the thoughts out of his head. He could deal with his raging hormones later. Right now they had a job to do.

"Uhh, excuse me? Did you happen to lose a sweater?"

[some dude†]

Nate briefly rested his head on his left hand, his palm pushing his cheek up slightly. Well. . . now or never, he supposed. He was about to take his laptop out of his backpack, intending to start working on the essay, when something Morgan said to Jonah caught Nate's attention. Morgan'd speculated about thinking outside the box, perhaps intending to ask to do a project of some sort. Damn. That was a good idea. Nate couldn't believe that  he hadn't thought of that.

He didn't exactly know these guys, so he'd probably separately ask Ms. Yan if he could do some sort of project. Maybe he'd get some of his friends to help him with it. A couple of 'em were much more motivated towards schoolwork than he was.

With that idea in his mind, Nate decided to turn back to what he had previously been working on. Before popping his headphones back into his ears, he turned slightly towards Morgan and Jonah and said, "Well, hope you find the owner of that sweater 'n shit."

[Ruggahissy]

Jonah was shocked back out of his thoughts at Morgan's question to the girl. He held up the article high and wide. It didn't seem to help much. It didn't seem that either of them recognized it. Jonah half-frowned in mild frustration.

"Thanks anyway," he said in a general sort of sense to the room. "Good luck on your paper, Nate. I'm sure you'll crush it," he smiled and offered a thumbs up.

((Jonah and Morgan headed elsewhere...))

[Cactus]

So that was a bit of a strikeout. The girl barely acknowledged their presence, and Nate just continued to work away on his homework. Sensing Jonah's frustration at their lack of progress, he shrugged, and followed the boy out of the room as he turned and headed back the way they came.

"Easy, Nate," he threw over his shoulder with a wave, bidding his classmate adieu.

((Morgan Dragosavich continued in Sisyphean Self-Maintenance))

[Jilly]

((OOC: TwelveFourtyFive has given me the rights for adopting Desiree, so from this post onward I will be her handler))

What did they say? Something about a feather? Desiree ignored the temptation to look up and tapped away at her phone screen, trying her best to focus on damage control. It wasn't really working; for each message she sent, she received three more.

She was a dead girl walking and she knew it.

Those guys stopped talking. Desiree pried her eyes away from the screen and looked around; it seemed like it was just her and Nate and some other randoms left in the library. Hopefully they got whatever they came for and would just leave her be.

Desiree's phone started buzzing again. She flinched and dropped it, fumbling around a bit before catching it right before it struck the ground. She groaned when she saw the caller ID and answered the call, gathering her things up and making her way out of the library for somewhere more private. So much for studying today.

"I-I'm sorry, Mom... Yes, I know-"

((Desiree Beck continued in Bargain Basket Baller))

[some dude†]

"Yeah man, you too." Nate replied to Morgan as the other two boys headed out. With the headphones rested firmly in his ears, he cracked his index finger with his thumb, and picked up his pencil. Turned out the phrase, "Time flies when you're having fun" applied pretty well. Nate barely noticed the time passing, 'till he looked at the clock. "Huh..." he murmured. Welp, time to leave, he supposed.

((Nate Schutz continued elsewhere))