Break Time

by Netherwood

I wrote this for my creative writing class last school year. It's a flash, which is basically a single self-contained scene. I can't believed I haven't posted this yet. Anyway, it's short, but enjoy anyway.

Rufus had to quickly duck as a textbook flew over his head. He straightened up and muttered scoldingly at Ron, who had just hurled his homework across the room.

"I don't get it!" shouted Ron. "I tried, I did! I stared at the stupid paper for hours! Math just doesn't make any sense!" He stomped over to his bed, sat down with a loud whump, crossed his arms, and glared at his math, challenging it to come any closer.

Rufus stopped mid-scold. Ron was in one of those moods, which usually means he just had to let Ron fume, even if it was a little unsettling to be around Ron when he was like this. Rufus knew Ron to be a very talented person–especially when it came to cooking, which the little naked mole rat was extremely grateful for–but he just didn't get some things, no matter how hard he tried to learn them, and his doomed efforts always wound him up, especially when Kim took interest and tried to help him and he still couldn't pull it off.

Kim–she could help Ron! Rufus quickly climbed up to the Ron's computer desk and began jumping from key to key. An email slowly appeared on the screen. Rufus sent it and relaxed a bit. Kim would be on her way soon.

Ron, meanwhile, had smothered his face in his pillow and was muttering incoherently. His fists kept clenching and unclenching. After a few minutes of this, he jumped up, went straight for his Gamemaster X, and put in Zombie Mayhem IV. He was soon siphoning all his anger and frustration into the zombies his character viciously incinerated, shredded, blasted, mangled, and otherwise obliterated.

When Kim arrived, she found him yelling at his game. "Uh huh, who's boss NOW, huh? Eat it, Zombie Lord! Let's see how you get along with my FLAMING SWORD OF SEARING PAIN +3! BOOYAH!"

One glance at Ron's room–textbook violently thrown onto the floor and laying open, homework abandoned on his desk with at least two dozen crumpled papers surrounding it, Rufus staying out of the way, and Ron throwing himself into one of his violent games–told her the story. She sat by Ron on the floor, grabbed a controller, and paused the game.

Ron blinked surprisedly and looked around. "Oh, Kim! Didn't see you come in!"

Kim couldn't help but grin a little. "I'm not surprised–you were in video game zombie mode again. So what's wrong?"

Ron's face fell a bit. "Nuthin'." Ron could not, however, keep the somewhat embarrassed and bitter tone out of his voice. "Just playin' ZM IV."

"Ron, you only yell at the game like that when you're mad, and judging from the math book you tried to murder, I'm guessing it's not the zombie king guy you're mad at."

Ron suddenly found his hands, the television, and the ceiling all very interesting–interesting enough that he wouldn't stop his examination to meet Kim's eye. "Just trouble with math, Kim, that's normal for me..." He trailed off into silence.

Kim stood up and made her way to the desk. She unrolled a few balls of crumpled paper and looked at the calculations, mostly wrong, that filled them. Ron had definitely spent a long time trying to figure this out. She frowned a bit. She was partially to blame for that–she doubted that Ron would be so persistent about trying if she hadn't made such a big deal over Ron's study habits, particularly with math. He did really need to pass algebra, but this wasn't really the time to say anything that might goad Ron further. She let the papers drop and turned back to face Ron again.

She smiled at Ron, who was still studying the ceiling. "Come on, Ron, you need a break. Let's hit Bueno Nacho and rent a movie or something."

Ron immediately snapped his attention from the ceiling to Kim. "Really, KP? You're not gonna try to explain the whole thing and lecture me on keeping my grad–I mean, let's go!" Ron flipped off the game, climbed to his feet, and headed for the stairs, Rufus scuttling into his pocket as he walked.

Kim caught up and put her arm around his shoulder. "No zombie movies this time, though. That last one was weird enough for a century or two."

"What was weird about it? Made perfect sense over here!"

"Let's see...the walking dead, for one thing. Oh, and there's the fact that a nuclear bomb turned people into zombies in the first place. How would that work?"

"It just does, KP."

"No zombie movies, Ron."

"Aww... Fine."

A bit of humor, a bit of fluff. I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading. Please leave a review!