entrancelogs | + Too Cool for School +

Entry tags:

+ Too Cool for School +

Who: Everyone!
Where: Yasogami High School
When: 6/28-7/1
Rating: Warn if you go higher than PG-13
Summary: Open log for the Persona 4 event! Everyone is spending some time as students and instructors at Yasogami High School in Inaba, Japan.
The Story:
For the weekend, everyone is either a teacher or a student at a Japanese high school. Enjoy Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and look forward to exams on Monday.

The full event description is located here and the plot post is here, with a Q&A thread where you can ask questions.

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Louis has been taking his damn sweet time getting to the exams. He doesn't see any reason to rush - sure, he's expected to get straight As, and he's sure he will. But running like a headless chicken isn't going to make his exam smarts any stronger.

As such, he's not paying that much attention when Juliet barrels towards him at a rate of knots. He stumbles backward into the locker with a surprised yelp. When he realises who's doing the stampeding, he laughs.

"Holy shit, Jules, take a breath. The world's not gonna end if you're a few seconds late to an exam."

Juliet comes to a screeching halt when she realizes she almost ran him over, but that at least gives her a moment to do as he says and gulp in a mouthful of air.

"A few seconds? I was supposed to be up two hours ago! I didn't study this morning at all!"

Not that she needs to. Juliet has never had an issue taking a test and she never met a test she didn't ace. And yet, she overwhelms herself every time.

"So?" he gives a half-assed shrug. "You shouldn't stress so much about it."

Because she's the goddamn exam queen and he's pretty certain if she flunked anything the would actually would end.

"Think about it this way, if you haven't got it in your noggin by now, no amount of studying will put it in there. You're better going into it relaxed than freaked out and trying to re-remember shit you already know."

"Yeah, that's probably true."

She sighs, clutching her books and trying to get her mind caught up with the rest of her body. She's pretty sure she's still half asleep.

"I wish I could be as calm as you. You get straight A's all the time like you don't even have to try."

"Of course I try," he scoffs, rolling his eyes. "But the thing is, I go into an exam not freaking out about it. Means my brain is all prime and ready to spew out what I've learned instead of running through the infinite possible exam questions and giving myself an anxiety attack."

Never in his life has Louis had an anxiety attack.

"What I mean is, you gotta take a breath, go in there ready. Let the dice fall wherever they're gonna fall. You've done your best, and that's what matters."

Juliet lives in a perpetual state of anxiety, but she does try to do her best to mask it by being as peppy as humanly possible. Her friendliness is her best coping mechanism, and at least it gets her in good graces with her teachers. But it doesn't help her freak out any less, either.

"Right. Sure. Dice. Falling. Whatever." She seems unconvinced, but she does try to take another deep breath. "I've worked way too hard here to screw it up by freaking out. Calm is good. I can do calm!"

She can't. She really can't.

Louis watches Juliet be the absolute opposite of calm, his eyebrow slowly rising skyward as she is definately freaking out more and more.

"Riiight, I'm not convinced, here."

He pushes off from the wall with a lopsided smile.

"C'mon, follow me. I'll show you how to chill out before you go into the exam. You can release some of that pent up-" he pauses, trying to think of an appropriate word and fails. "You-ness And feel a billion times better for it."

Juliet shoots him a narrow gaze but she does clutch her books closer to her, sigh, and follow him. She doubts very seriously whatever he is about to offer will work for her - this is just who she is, and while she'd like to change she, she's not sure she actually can.

"Where are we going?"

"Less questioning, more following," he replies raising a finger in the air and twirling it.

He leads her around to the back of the school- to that dark and foreboding place where the bad kids hang out to smoke and practise being nuisances to society. Louis heads over to a nearby tree, hanging from which is the head of the school mascot- thankfully sans anyone in it. He picks up a baseball bat resting against the trunk, looking exceptionally pleased with himself.

"Ta-daaaa!" he offers the baseball bat to her. "This is the perfect stress relief. Beat the shit out of the fuzzy head and you'll feel a hundred times better. Promise."

Juliet, of course, fidgets nervously as she treads into these unfamiliar waters, and a look of complete horror washes across her face at the grisly scene that lay before her.

"Louis! Is that the mascot head that went missing last month? If anyone finds out about that you are so suspended! Or expelled! Or dead!"

"That is absolutely the mascot head that went missing last month. In fact, it went missing right to this tree, where it's been living ever since. Maybe don't smell it, it's kinda funky at this point."

He laughs, picking it with the end of his baseball bat, watching it swing idly in the tree.

"So dramatic," he winks. "Before they suspend, expel or... murder? me they have to catch me. And I have no intentions of being caught. Now. Are you gonna wack Captain Tiger into next week or are you gonna chicken out?"

"I dunno."

She shifts her weight from foot to foot, staring up at the tiger head hanging in the tree and worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

"What if someone catches us? If I get expelled, I might not get into college. And then that will mess up my plans to go to the police academy. And what if they find out I was complicit in a crime! Even just knowing about this could get me in trouble!"

"Again, they have to catch you first," he rolls his eyes, honestly.

But then she really is pretty hyper-focused on a future, on making herself a good life for her adult self. Louis struggles with the concept of the future. He doesn't know why, but he's never been good at looking that far up the road. He'd rather focus on the here and now. What will be will be.

"But if someone shows up, you can scarper and I can take the heat for it. It won't be the first time I've spent half my week in detention and it sure as shit won't be the last."

Juliet looks at him, her eyes flicking briefly to the bat. She'd feel awful about him taking the blame and chances are, if it did end up that way, she wouldn't pin it on him. She cares about her future but not enough to let someone else take the fall for her impulsive decisions which are, as it happens, few and far between.

But God, is this tempting. And maybe, if she pretends like she'll let him take the fall, it could help a little.

"You'd do that for me?"

Louis is the king of impulsive decisions. He's of a mind more people ought to make them. People stress out far too much over things beyond their control. They need to learn to live a little. He grins, offering the bat again.

"You bet. Anything to keep your brain from imploding from stress.."

Juliet takes a deep breath and takes the bat. She turns around and stares up at the swinging head, holding the bat in her hands for a long moment until she finally gives it a little swing. The wood hits the head with an unimpressive whap and it swings back and forth a little, but... Well, that did feel kind of good.

So she hits it again, this time a little harder. Then again.

And within about thirty seconds, she's beating the ever-living shit out of it, concentrating so hard on her aim that it's almost like she's forgotten Louis is even there.

Louis lets out a low whistle as Juilet beats the shit out of the mascot head. Wow, she really needed to get that stress out. He keeps his promise, ocassionally looking around to see if they're getting any unwanted attention, but thankfully, so far, Juliet's marginally disturbing rage hasn't brought anyone running.

"Shit. You really need this, huh?" He offers. "Feeling any better?"

Juliet finally takes a break, letting her head fall back and letting out a huge sigh.

"So much. I can't believe that actually helped." It's like she was able to throw all her anxiety out and beat it up like it was something real. Who would have thought?

"Does this always work for you?"

"It sure does, and if it doesn't, I head off to the music room and play the piano a while. One or the other always works."

He grins, pleased this worked. Fuck yeah, he's a genius.

"You just need to let it all out once in a while, instead of keeping it bottled up."

She probably would have appreciated the suggestion of playing piano before beating the crap out of the mascot hear but... It worked, and that's all that matters, she guesses. That and not getting caught.

"Thanks, Louis. It was really cool of you to show me all this." And trust her not to narc on him, too.

But this is the most fun option, he promises!

"Don't mention it. I'd rather you know have some kind of emotional breakdown in the middle of exams."

Because friends don't let friends have emotional breakdowns.

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+ Too Cool for School +

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