Digits and Numbers | Tag - Brent

[riley miller]

Damn you, Math!

He wanted to swear out loud. How was he ever going to graduate high school if he couldn’t even get these basic math problems figured out?

Riley brought one of his hands up to his temple as his eyes focussed on the math book lying in front of him. He thought that a change of environment would help, maybe, but he hadn’t taken into account that a café could be rather noise at this time of day. 3pm was apparently the right time for either a late lunch or a very early dinner; or something in between, perhaps.

“Focus, Riley,” the boy mumbled to himself, but he was distracted by practically every sound he heard and ever shape he saw moving around in this place. This definitely wasn’t one of his better ideas..

‘Solve -91 < 10x + 9 -71.’

It could’ve as well been Chinese, because Riley would’ve most likely understood that better than this. If only he knew how to get started a little, just a hint somewhere. His writing pad was penned full with notes and little doodles, but they all weren’t very helpful. And no matter how long he kept typing on his calculator, the answer didn’t come to him. An hour of effort, wasn’t that enough? With a sigh, the boy flipped another page from his book, but only found the problems on this next page were even more incomprehensible than the previous ones. Could he cry, here and now? No? Oh well, another sigh then.

Looking around the café slowly, Riley came to the conclusion that math probably wasn’t his only issue today. Was he even allowed to sit in this place, without ordering something? If not, he’d have a problem, but it’d teach him to leave the house without a little bit of cash.

[brent zachary mckinney]

[atrb=border, 0, true][atrb=style, background: #E1E1E1; border-left: #890101 2px dashed; border-right: #890101 2px dashed; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 3px] It's not a miracle we needed, no, I wouldn't let you think so   Brent was really rather 'busy' failing at his job again. He wasn't cleaning nor taking orders from anybody, he was just chatting to anybody he saw to procrastinate from doing all the dirty work. Maybe he should start pulling his weight around the cafe someday soon but... he had the feeling that day was somewhere in the very, very distant future. Actually, Brent couldn't even imagine that. Whenever he attempted to do something, he only did it wrong and made even more of an idiot of himself than he usually did. His eyes landed on some kid who appeared to be doing homework or something like that, anyway. He looked like he needed some cheering up. And that was what Brent was here for! So, before something or someone else caught his attention, Brent made his way over to the teenager. Gosh, he looked way too confused and adorable for his own good. And that... that was maths he had with him. Ew. Brent had never understood maths, possibly because he was too busy to pay attention in a class he had no interest in whatsoever but, hey, that kind of hadn't been entirely his own fault. "That looks... nasty." the sprite wrinkled his nose in disgust at the work down on the table but still took a seat opposite the boy. "So, I didn't know kids these days actually still did maths! It's ridiculous!" [/style]   TAG: riley NOTES: :3 OUTFIT: clicky! template by kaykay of sp

[riley miller]

Riley narrowed his eyes as he stared down at the math problem. He used his calculator, his notepad, even his fingers to try and come to a result, but no such luck. Had he been at home, surely, he’d taken the book and thrown it across the room. Not really, though, because he’d have to pay for a new book and Mom and he didn’t exactly have money for that. But he’d throw something else, that would do less damage. Or, he’d simply fall onto his bed and sleep till the end of days. Or daydream. Either of that sounded better than the current situation.

A voice coming from behind startled him so that Riley jolted slightly and cut himself on one of the pages of the book. Damn! Paper cuts hurt like hell. Swiftly, the boy clutched his hand closely and prevented any blood to fall on the white pages. His eyes, still wide from the surprise, were lifted to find another pair gazing back at him. Riley quickly hid his wounded hand under the table, so this guy wouldn’t notice and tried to bring a smile to his lips. He probably just looked beyond awkward, though.

The boy hadn’t noticed someone approaching him. For the first time since he’d sat down here, he’d managed to concentrate and it was rudely broken. Not that he minded much, honestly, since he wasn’t making progress anyway. As the young man took a seat across from him, Riley felt how his muscles tensed up slightly. What did he want?

And then, he started to talk too.

Nasty? Did he mean Riley? The boy swiftly looked away, his brain rushed through a bunch of things that he could give as a reaction to the insult, but even though his mouth was open, no sound came out. He forced himself to clench his jaw, so he wouldn’t be gaping at the other fellow, but as soon as the man mentioned math, his face relaxed a little bit. “Uhm..” Well, at least sound came out of his mouth this time. “Yeah, it.. It sucks,” Riley admitted. It more than sucked, actually. But since this guy had the same opinion as Riley did, he guessed the raven-haired man wouldn’t be much of a help. Nervously, Riley tapped his pen against his writing pad. If only he dared to ask for a bit of help, or distraction..

[brent zachary mckinney]

[atrb=border, 0, true][atrb=style, background: #E1E1E1; border-left: #890101 2px dashed; border-right: #890101 2px dashed; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 3px] It's not a miracle we needed, no, I wouldn't let you think so   Aw, this kid was so awkwardly adorable. Brent was good with awkward people, at least he thought he was (ahem, he tried, that was the point). The guy looked more than just a little startled, in the sprite's opinion. Oops, he was hoping that wasn't his fault even if he was guessing that it probably was. Brent wasn't going to be all embarrassing and point it out though, because he was dealing with an awkward person, and he surprisingly had the brain power to realise that wasn't going to be the wisest of ideas. He got the weird feeling that he'd done something wrong as the kid looked away from him, seeming a little... offended? What? Brent was now utterly confused. But, then, the kid didn't seem quite so uptight with him. Wow, conversations with awkward people were certainly a challenge. Brent ought to strike up more random conversations with awkward-looking people. He could make them all much happier! "Pfft, well, duh." Brent rolled his eyes but kept smiling warmly, "You shouldn't force yourself to do it. Go and copy off someone, that's what I always did and the teacher never even noticed. Apart from that one time... but then I gave him some excuse about me burning it accidentally so I had to redo it really quickly which meant copying and then he told me to shut up so... I guess I got away with it." Brent shrugged, fondly remembering the many times he'd wound up his old maths teacher, Mr Tagart. "I think he secretly loved me, not in a paedophilic way or anything but he let me get away with way too much." Brent stopped with his rambling on about his days as a student. They'd been... interesting. He didn't regret not ever paying attention in any class that wasn't music. Nothing else had never appealed to him, and this was Brent, he couldn't even force himself to let in any unwanted information like pi and weird formulas and algebra. It made no sense! [/style]   TAG: riley NOTES: :3 OUTFIT: clicky! template by kaykay of sp

[riley miller]

Oh damn, how his hand was thumping under the table. Riley’s teeth sunk into his bottom lip to try and distract his own mind from the cut in his hand. Paper cuts were so nasty; cause one of the worst pains a person could experience. Well, that was a thought for a drama queen, but it did really hurt, though. Swiftly, the boy released his lip and hoped that the person now sitting across from him wouldn’t have noticed his weird behavior. Yeah, right. As if his awkwardness could go unnoticed.

Shouldn’t force himself to do it? That wasn’t very good advice, actually. Mr. Wilson already had it out for Riley, no matter how hard he tried during his classes. It was as if ‘A for effort’ no longer existed, nor tutoring. Copying off of someone was probably something the boy wouldn’t get away with either; once, he’d allowed someone to copy from him in history, but since Mrs. Collins, the teacher of that class, also didn’t like Riley much, he was labelled as the fake and put in detention for a week. God, people in detention were.. scary. Riley still slightly shivered as the images of the people who he met there flashed before his eyes.

Carefully, Riley’s eyes met with those of the man in front of him. Did he realise how lucky he was for having a teacher that liked him? He probably was one of those popular people in class, the person everyone liked. That would explain his confidence and how easily he came to talk to random strangers. And the guts he had for wearing an apron so.. pink. “You need to have someone to copy from, in order to copy from someone,” the boy mumbled softly. Oh, dear God, hopefully that didn’t sound as terrible as Riley thought it did. Awkward.

The only was to save himself from this situation was to swiftly avert the topic, away from Riley and to this new guy. “Do you work here?” Seriously? That was the best question he could come up with? Not a good safe, Riley. Not good at all. “I mean.. How are.. Who..” Think! “..nice apron.”

[brent zachary mckinney]

[atrb=border, 0, true][atrb=style, background: #FAFAFA; border-left: #fbb90f 2px dashed; border-right: #fbb90f 2px dashed; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px] Maybe I was naughty once but now I'm 'nice'   The kid sort of looked like he was in pain... was that Brent's fault? Had he accidentally kicked him or something? He had to hope that wasn't the case. Brent didn't know whether or not to say anything about it, it was actually a bit of a surprise that he hadn't already blurted something out. Y'know, because maybe there was an embarrassing reason for the pain that Brent would be better off not knowing about. Waitwaitwait. Was little awkward dude just implying was Brent thought he was? Because if he had nobody to copy off... then he was either friends with a load of those uptight, annoying people who were adamant that copying was the worst thing anybody could ever do or... he had no friends or, hopefully, just no friends in his maths class. And Brent was pretty sure everybody had friends, so, yeah. "Well, you should just somehow accidentally copy. Or, wait this is better, force someone into letting you. Like, by blackmailing them. I doubt that'd do too much good though." Brent shrugged. Gah, but this guy didn't look like he was the type of person who would be any good at forcing anybody into doing anything... "I could help!" Brent started to chuckle at the sheer awkward-failishness of the rather clear attempt to change the topic of conversation by the kid. He wasn't laughing at him, no, Brent would never do that, he was just amused by redhead. "Thanks, dude." he beamed, hoping that he was making things slightly less awkward now, "My name's Brent, by the way. And yours is?..." [/style]   TAG: Riley NOTES: :3 OUTFIT: clicky! template by kaykay of sp

[riley miller]

Riley had to bite his lip a little when the man across from him told him to force people into letting him copy. Actually, the boy had to somewhat laugh, but he held it in. Hadn’t the guy noticed by now that Riley was about as intimidating as a newborn duckling? Surely, if he’d even try to ‘threaten’ someone, they’d laugh at him, straight in his face; they wouldn’t even wait until he’d turned his back on them. No. No, thank you. Riley much rather pretended he didn’t know what was being said behind his back, and avoided most people, so they couldn’t say those nasty things to his face.

“I’m not really good at.. forcing people,” he said, his eyes still aimed at the table, because for some reason, he didn’t dare look at the other guy. Typical. What was he afraid of? That the pink apron guy would eat him? But the sudden exclamation from the other side of the table made Riles flinch slightly, his eyes wide as he now stared straight at the other man, in shock. Well, at least he was looking at him now, right? Yeah..

A bit unsure again, the boy started to flick through the pages of his math book. “I-I don’t know. I mean..” What did he mean? “Even if I do that, I’d still have to face my exams on my own.” Wow, that was actual wisdom, right there! It was a good, solid argument and way better than ‘I just don’t really wanna do it, cause I’m scared of people’. But of course, this little new gained confidence only lasted for a few seconds, because when Riley turned another page of his book, a big drop of blood, beautifully dark red, fell right on the white paper. Wonderful. The boy sighed softly. “Do you have a tissue, maybe?” Stupid cut. Stupid paper. Stupid math. Stupid life!

But luckily, Brent – because that was the waiter’s name – didn’t seem all that bothered by the awkwardness. He even laughed a little. Of course, that could’ve easily been because of the awkwardness, but like before, Riley liked to stay oblivious to those sort of things, even if his head was filled with doubt. “I’m Riley,” the boy said and without stuttering this time. Just that brought a little smile to his lips. And somehow, in a twisted way, it was nice to have someone talking to him, without trying to throw insults at his head. Especially the latter was really nice. “I’m new here.” Well, it was really nice, before the confession of the noob, also known as Captain Obvious. As if he really had to say that for it to be noticed..