1Notes: After three years of doing jack all, hi. I've been kicking this idea around for quite some time, and this result is very, very, very different from what it was originally. And much better.
Summary: The fate of a small, haunted French college town rests in the hands of a guy who chews on everything and fails at life – and a guy afraid of water.
Genre: Um. Supernatural. Humor. Romance, angst, drama, horror, whateverelse.
Rating: T. I doubt it will make it past T.
Disclaimer: I don't own France.
The Hanging Game
Prologue
…
I had to write a paper for psyche class, so I decided to write it about this boy I saw in a coffee shop one time. And everything that happened afterwards.
That day, I had realized that I was going to be late on an English paper if I didn't at least start it, so I'd gone to a close by coffee house that I frequented when I needed caffeine, food, caffeine, study time, and caffeine. I was half dead, hyped on espresso, and my mind was in knots and trying to commit self-adultery in effort to keep up with my paper. The paper really wasn't making any sense and I wondered if it was worth my time to be even writing it when I would probably get an F on it. I always do, and it continually amazed everyone I knew how I was still in college, or how I even got in. The fact that I was roughly three thousand miles from home, overseas and in college left people absolutely astounded; dumbfounded; flabbergasted – and very, very suspicious. My mother thanked God profusely.
There was movement out of the corner of my eye and I looked up, although movement in a coffee house wasn't a rare thing at all, what with all the sugar junkies lurking about. But I looked up, anyway, and saw a boy sitting at a window table, face turned towards the cold glass, though it was much to dark to see much outside, even given the street lights and shop signs still brightly lit. He didn't have anything in front of him or in his hands, so I had no idea what he was doing here. Well, I could guess. Waiting for a friend, a girlfriend, something. He didn't really look like he was one to drink coffee. I don't know how I could tell; practically everyone on the face of earth drank coffee, except for the ones that didn't.
I watched him for a bit, oddly curious, then went back down to my paper. Wait. What about air fresheners? I sighed and scratched it out, wishing I'd thought to use a pencil. Pens are messy and sometimes they explode. Then your hands are stained with ink for days. But that's not me; I don't think things out like that. I don't think before chewing on my only eraser, or a brand new pen waiting to explode, or really anything else that I might possibly chew on without breaking my teeth. I don't think and that leads to me with a mouthful of something unsavory every time, and covered in that something as well.
A few more minutes passed by, and I looked up again. He was still there, looking out the window. Still waiting? Well, I hope whomever he was waiting for didn't stand him up. Again, I focused on my paper. Ugh. Cheeze-its. Cheeze-its have nothing to do with the prompt, scratch that out, too. Damn caffeine. Damn paper. Damn oral fixation. Damnit, my pen ran out of ink. I shook it once, twice, nothing. Sighed, popped the end between my restless teeth then doubled over to the side and rummaged through the faded muck green messenger bag stashed at my feet under the table, returning to my paper with lagging vigor - but a new, working pen.
I think half an hour went by before I felt a light touch on my arm, and a pale hand as the cause. I looked up and the boy from the window smiled back at me. I blinked.
"Excuse me, do you happen to know what time it is?" He asked. His voice seemed to lack inflections and was kind of dull. I nodded dumbly and glanced down to my watch. I cursed belatedly as I realized it was upside down.
"A-shi... uh, hold on a moment." I mumbled around my impromptu chew toy, reaching down to unfasten and then flip my battered watch around the right way. He waited patiently until I finally looked back up at him, gripping my pen on the side of my mouth between my teeth in order to speak a bit clearer. "It's about eight-thirty."
He nodded, then smiled again. "It's my birthday, today."
I blinked, surprised. That wasn't really something a person would just randomly share with a stranger. "Oh? Ah, Happy Birthday, then." I glanced back at the table he'd vacated and rolled the pen around in my mouth. Hoped I wasn't drooling. "Were you waiting for someone?"
He followed my gaze. Shook his head. "No." When I looked back up at him, he was still smiling, but his eyes seemed flat and cold. "Thank you."
He turned and exited the coffee house. I was about to shake off the encounter and try working on my paper when I heard a screech of tires and a faint thud, followed immediately by crushed metal and shattered glass. The sound of a body impacting with a car and a car impacting with something more formidable than itself. I stood so fast I knocked over my chair. I ignored it and ran awkwardly to the exit, losing my pen somewhere along the way, bursting through the door in panic.
But when I got out there, there was nothing. Traffic was sparse, pedestrians calmly walking every which way. And when I looked around, there was no strange boy.
Shaken, I went back inside, and, ignoring the stares of the other customers, righted my chair and seated myself once more. I played with my replacement pen, which was actually had the audacity to starting leaking. Bastard pen. I slowly rolled it to and fro across the table, watching it mark up my paper, making it unreadable. Not that it was any good in the first place. I was wondering if that boy had even been real. I was wondering if I had imagined the squealing tires. I was wondering why pens always malfunction five minutes after I came into contact with them, why I wasted so much money on them knowing this – but mostly I was wondering what the hell.
I caught the eyes of a girl sitting in the table a little behind mine and leaned over. "Um... did you see the boy sitting in the table by the window?"
She blinked and shook her head and I got the feeling she maybe thought I'd had too much caffeine.
My gut dropped and I thanked her, quietly. I righted myself, and stared at my leaking pen again. My mind was unperturbedly blank. Then I decided that I wouldn't dwell on it. I didn't think I could deal with it at the moment. I had a lot of work to catch up with. Papers to write, classes to attend, pens to chew on. Instilling this idea in my head, I got up, collected my ruined papers and ruined pen and stuffed them in my bag, ordered one last coffee to go, and left. I refused to look up from the ground as I hooked my hand on the strap of my messenger bag to make sure it didn't slip off and focused on the warmth of the coffee in my other hand.
I really didn't want to think I was going crazy.
It took me a while to get back to the dorms for the international students. I was a little dazed, so I took a few wrong turns, and got on the wrong bus once. Well, I took a few more wrong turns than usual, anyway.
When I finally did get to the dorms, it was passing into late, late evening. I just trudged up to my room, ignoring the random greetings in both a language I knew and a language I was slowly getting used to and throwing away my now empty cup along the way, and, upon entering my room, dropped my bag and flung myself on my bed.
I wasn't going crazy; I wasn't going to think of it again.
…
: Yeah, so, yeah. Hm. I sort of know where I'm going with this? In the beginning, anyway. It's not going to be in first person after this. The name of the story actually comes from… heh. Can't tell you. It would ruin the plot, and those things hate me as it is.