Star Light, Star Bright

The tall teen watches as his slightly older friend marks another day off the calendar. His caramel eyes seem to shine with happiness. It makes the younger smile. Alex turns to look at Jack, who can now clearly see his eyes. They almost take his breath away. They may just be brown eyes, but they seem to be so much more in Jack’s opinion.
Wait.
Why is he thinking like this? It doesn’t make any sense at all. The strange thing is that he’s been getting more like this in the past week. Jack has no idea why he’s been thinking like this, but hopefully, he’ll figure it out soon.
“I can’t believe I’m no longer going to be a teenager in a week,” Alex says. “Oh, you never told me if you remember when you’re birthday is.”
“It’s June 18th,” Jack tells him before his grin goes away.
Remembering hasn’t been going great for Jack. Yes, he’s been getting a lot of flashbacks lately, but he still has no idea why he’s here now. Plus, the flashbacks have been giving him headaches. He hates being a jerk to his only friend, but sometimes when they get back enough, he snaps at him. It’s not like he means to. In fact, he always hates himself afterward. It’s just that they come and go at different times, and sometimes it bothers him so much that he can’t even remember that Alex showed him where the painkillers are. When it gets like this, the slightly shorter nineteen-year-old is the one that grabs them for him along with a glass of water. Jack wishes that he could do something more for Alex since Alex does so much for him, but he can’t think of anything at all.
“Have you been remembering anything else?”
“Um, not really. The bigs things that could probably help me figure this out don’t seem to be coming back. I don’t know why I’m here, what time I’m from, and what was the thing that my father and I didn’t agree on.”
Alex hesitantly pulls Jack into a hug. “Don’t worry. I know that they’ll come to you. You just have to be patient. Do you want to go out today? We could hang out at the mall. Rian and Zack might be working.”
“No, I’m not in the mood..”
“You know what I’m wondering about the most?.”
“What?”
“I really want to know why you’re scared of being cold. I mean, being cold fucking sucks, but I’ve never met someone that’s actually afraid of being cold. That’s probably the biggest thing that I want to know about you. I have the patience though. I’m sure the story behind that is a great one.”
“I’ll tell you as soon as I find out. The main thing that I want to know is why I was mad at my father. I’ve seen him in a couple of flashbacks, but in them, we’re like the best of friends. I have no idea what could turn that so sour.”
“I’m sure that you’ll find out.”
“You’re right, and Alex?”
“Yes?”
“You’re still hugging me.”
Alex pulls away with his cheeks slightly redder. “Oh, I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s fine. I like knowing that someone cares.”
“I definitely do. I care more than you probably think. Now, why don’t we watch some Netflix? I’m sure that we can find something on there that you’ll like.”
The duo sit down on the couch, and Alex grabs the remote. He starts looking through all the movies but can’t seem to find one that looks interesting. Jack isn’t paying attention because his head starts hurting again. A dizzy spell hits him, and he can feel himself traveling back.
A fourteen-year-old, almost fifteen-year-old, Jack makes his way into the kitchen where he finds his mother making stew. He smiles at her and looks down at dinner. He can’t wait to eat. He’s a growing boy, who needs to eat a lot and often. His siblings find joy in watching him scarf down everything that he grabs as if it was his last meal. Jack doesn’t mind though. He’s hungry, and they’re his family, so he’ll eat however he wants.
“How much longer?” he asks.
“Not that much longer, Jack,” his mother laughs. “You and your appetite. May and Joe never ate as much as you do when they were your age and growing.”
“Well, I guess that just makes me special. Is Father going to be home soon?”
“Yes, he’s at a meeting, so he’ll be a little late. He’ll probably get here when the food is being put on the table.”
He did come when the food was being put on the table. It is a good thing too because Jack was about to start eating without saying grace with his family! That’s something that they don’t do in their family. In fact, everyone in the community says grace before they eat. Everyone goes to church on Sundays as well. They’re religious. Jack takes ahold of his brothers hand in his right hand and his sister’s hand in his left. They all bow their heads as the head of the household starts to prayer off.
“Thank you, God, for the food on our table. We ask you to bless it and bless us in this time of your need. We’re going to be needing you more than ever. Amen.”
They start to eat. Jack, of course, is trying to take the most. May and Joe chuckle under their breath from the sight of their brother yet again. Joe stops though when he remembers what his father had actually said in the prayer.
“Father,” Joe says, “why will we be needing God more than ever? Did something happen at the meeting?”
“Well you see...”
Jack feels himself coming back into reality. His vision is blurry, so he blinks of couple of times. That was a different flashback. It’s the first one that has had bad news in it. Plus, he had forgotten how religious everyone was. Not only that, but that was also the first time that he saw his siblings in a flashback. Jack has no idea why he has only heard their names until now and why they are being shown when bad news was being brought to the table. However, he does have a feeling that the bad news has to do with them. It affects the them the most along with himself. Again, he has gotten closer, but he is left with more questions than answers.
“Are you OK?” Ales questions now that Jack is finally back. “Is your head still hurting? I can get the painkillers for you.”
“I’m fine. It’s gone now.”
“Ok. Um, what did you remember this time?”
For some reason, he doesn’t really want to tell the elder about his encounter with his brother and sister. He doesn’t want Alex to worry about him too much. The fact that they have to do with whatever happened might drag Alex into it, and Jack doesn’t really want to do that right now. He really just wants to sit here and watch a movie with the cute boy.
Cute? Where’d that come from? Oh well. It’s not like it really matters. He shouldn’t think right now. He just needs to relax, so Jack decides to lie to Alex. It’s only one time. It’s not like it could hurt anything, right? Besides, this isn’t going to be the last time that he sees them. He can just say that it’s the first time the next time they come up along with the bad news. One little lie isn’t going to hurt anything.
“It wasn’t much. It was just me waiting for dinner to be ready and asking my mother how much longer it’s going to take.”
“Oh, well, if it’s something important, just tell me. I really want to help you piece this together. This is all like a great story.”
“I will.”
Lying makes Jack feel really bad. He wants to take it back, but it’s already been done. He was always taught that lying is a terrible thing. Jack wonders what his mom would think if she was here. Jack sighs in his mind. He doesn’t even really remember her, but he misses her along with the rest of his family. It’s like there is a bond connecting them that never broke even though his memories did.
“I think I found a movie,” Alex finally says as he clicks on it. “One of my classmates was telling me about how she hates The Hunger Games because it’s a lot like a movie that she likes called Battle Royale which also was a book, a manga series, and had a sequel that is also on here. She told me that it’s about an alternate universe where the economy in Japan was terrible and juvenile crime was high. They created the BR Act which makes a random junior high class be put on an island and kill each other until one remains, and if they don’t do it in three days, their necklaces with blow up and they will all die. She told me that it’s a lot more realistic and just better in general. I’ve been thinking of watching it, but it’s in subtitles, so I didn’t know if I really wanted to. I can’t find anything else, so I think I’m going to put that on. Is that OK?”
“Yeah, it sounds action packed.”
“She told me that it’s pretty dark and has some great action scenes in it. Well, let’s start it.”
Alex presses play. The movie starts off explaining the background of the movie and also showing a picture of students. Jack figures that the ones being shown are the main characters. So far, it’s not that bad. He feels Alex getting a little bit closer to him which makes him smile. Although it’s probably weird, he does what he has been doing, and that is snuggling a little bit with his friend. Friends do that right? Besides, this is a different time anyway.
About half-way into the movie, Jack feels himself getting dizzy again. He knows that the action and set up of the movie must be the trigger. His eyes start to close, and he feels himself going back for the second time today.
“They can’t do that?!” Joe exclaims after hearing the news from his father.
“The act has just been put into place. Of course, something like this just happens to happen right before my youngest birthday.”
“Maybe it won’t be all that bad,” Jack tries to say. He knows that it won’t, but they should all try to stay positive.
“It will only be bad,” Joe tells him. “I can’t believe this!”
The flashback isn’t long like last time, and Jack is thankful for it. Alex is so into the movie that he didn’t notice that Jack slipped out of it for a second. Jack would have hated to lie to him again. He’s still hating himself for doing it the first time.
When the movie is finally over, Jack still has an uneasy feeling, but he puts on a smile for Alex who is clapping. Wow. Jack didn’t think that the nineteen-year-old could like a movie this much. He’s never done that with any of the other ones that they have watched on Netflix. Jack thought it was great, but the flashback and feeling prevented him from feeling the movie fully.
“I think I’m going to go over to that girl on Monday and give her a huge hug. I can see where she thinks that this is better. I mean, in this you see that two couples don’t want to play and kill themselves. You can see the fear in their eyes. They aren’t tough killers that have been trained. They are just kids that are being forced to kill their friends. This is just... Wow. What did you think?”
“I thought it was pretty good. Of course, I can’t make a comparison, but I still thought it was great.”
“You don’t really have to watch the other if you don’t want to. I don’t want to taint the image of this.”
The rest of the day, they watched movies. Alex watched them all with Jack in his arms except for one of them when he figured that he should get his homework out of the way before he forgot about it. The other movies that the elder puts on don’t give Jack that feeling. He gets nothing from all of them. Well, now he knows that something in Battle Royale made him feel this way that is only in Battle Royale. He doesn’t know what, but he knows that he will eventually.

Notes

I'm so sorry that this took forever to get up. January was kind of stressful for me, and then I couldn't think of anymore fillers. I asked my friend today if I should just skip some. She told me to go ahead, and I came up with this idea. I'm trying not to let a lot go because I know when the big memories come.
To say that I'm sorry, I made this chapter longer and actually had stuff happen in it. I'm thinking about putting something in the next chapter as well.
Oh, and look at this. Jack is starting to think that Alex is... Is that cute?
Anyway, sorry about that. I'm going to start updating all of my stories on time now. (Damn. This is going to be a lot of work.) Hope you enjoyed this chapter!