The bell rang loudly, waking Peter up from his seventh-period nap.

“Wha—?”  He cast a dazed look around.  A string of drool connected his bottom lip to the surface of his desk.

“Jesus Christ, Lee!” Blake Turner jeered.  “Wipe your fucking face!”  Atherton’s alpha jock shouldered his backpack and walked out of the classroom.

Peter’s eyes narrowed with rage.  He reached in his hoodie and grasped the multi-function weapon (it looked like a pen, but could also morph into a knife, garrote, or high voltage taser) he called “The Buttfucker.”  His fingers danced along its ridges, pushing its triggers in a five-key sequence.  Seconds from now, Blake Turner would be shucking and jiving to the tune of sixty thousand volts, seizing up so goddamn hard that—

Peter sighed.  He clicked a failsafe, deactivating the taser.  Blake’s dad was a high-ranking member of ANOS’s Assault and Response Division.  He could order Eun Yin raped to death, or have Reptar eviscerated and liquefied.  If Peter fought Blake, it was going to have to be on mundane terms.  Otherwise, it could easily escalate into something ugly.

“Peter.”

“Huh?”  He looked over his shoulder.  Eun was staring down at him.

“You’re going to yoga, right?”

His face twitched with murderous rage; he’d slipped into a daydream where he was clipping electrodes onto Blake’s ballsack.

“Ugh!”  Eun exclaimed.  “Gross!”  She dug in her purse, took out a Kleenex, and reached for his nose.

Peter scowled.  “What’re you—”

“You’ve got a giant booger hanging from your—”

He twisted in his chair.  “No!  Don’t—”

“Peter, just—”

“LEAVE IT!” he thundered.

Mr. Holfin, their math teacher, glanced up from his laptop.  He gave them a dull, vacant stare, then resumed surfing the interwebs.  He, like most of the faculty, knew full well that the inmates ran the asylum.

Eun tried again, but Peter waved her off.  “It’s a mark of honor!  Leave it be!”

A strained sigh.  “Seriously?  You’re going to yoga with snot on your face?”

“The purpose of yoga is to propagate harmony, which means embracing the darkness.”  Peter threw her a rakish smile.

“And darkness includes boogers.”

 

 

Kaelee Simmons (junior, dance team co-captain, chess club president) ran the after-school yoga program.  Her class was incredibly popular and it was no surprise—most kids’ parents were involved in disgusting-ass weapons research.  Nearly every student got a second-hand dose of why am I dissecting live Insectoids, or Dear God, why did I create a miniature civilization and contain it in a bottle, only to oppress it with nano-vampirics? 

Peter unrolled his yoga mat (an amanita muscaria was emblazoned on its center) and flapped it open.  Eun Yin, standing to his right, recoiled in horror.

“Oh God.”  She cupped her nose and mouth with both her hands.  “Peter—how long has it been since you washed your mat?”

“What?  Why?”  He gave her an irritable look.

A boy behind him gagged and vomited, then fled from the gym.  Nearby students scuttled away, leaving him a ten-yard radius of empty space.  Peter lowered his face down to the mushroom, gave it a sniff, then straightened up and looked around.

“It’s not bad…smells kinda good, actually.”

“Peter!” Eun screeched.  “It smells like hobo bukkake!”

Peter shrugged.  “Whatever.  You just—”

Kaelee’s speaker-boosted voice echoed through the gym:  “Cross your legs and take a seat.  Deep breaths.  Deeeep breaths…take note of how you’re feeling…don’t judge, just observe…”

Soon, they were flowing through down-dog, sun salutations, and chaturanga pushups.  Peter followed dutifully along, pushing his lanky muscles as hard as he could.  The space around him was maintained throughout—no one could stand his olfactory evil.

Inhale, exhale, contract, extend…a soothing rhythm of focus and release, focus and release.  Everyone was chill; everyone was tranquil.

Everyone except for Peter fucking Lee.

I will show you bitches, he thought, straining to hold the best warrior III in the history of yoga.  I will crush your unenlightened, piece of shit bodies.

As he transitioned between poses, he threw mad-dog glares at random students.  He hoped—no, he dared—these slack-ass fucks to try and best him in cobra, headstand, or lotus.  Hell, he was glad his mat stunk; it was a valid form of psychological warfare.  Can’t bliss out while smelling bdussy?  Then get the fuck out, weaklings, because yoga was for the strong, yoga was for the worthy, yoga was for the—

“NYAAAAHHH!!!”

He dropped to the floor and started jacking out pushups.  When he switched to burpees, his face turned an alarming shade of red.  As he clapped his hands at the top of each rep, he yelled, “FUCK YOU!”

“FUCK YOU!”  Clap.

“FUCK YOU!”  Clap.

“FUCK YOU!”  Clap.

The entire class stopped to watch.  It was pretty impressive; he was churning through a set of advanced calisthenics—back tucks, jumping pistols, handstand pushups—that could have served as a bonafide soul-crusher in the Crossfit Games.  After two straight minutes of hate-sturbation, he snatched up his mat and sprinted for the doors.  As he busted through to the outside courtyard, his chant gave way to a full-throated roar:

“FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU AHHHHHHH!!!!!”

The door swung shut, booming loudly in the now-silent gym.  Peter’s shriek dimmed and faded.

Kaelee Simmons cleared her throat.

“Um…let’s keep going, shall we?”

 

 

After yoga, Eun Yin headed over to Peter’s.  She found him in his room, dressed in boxers and a t-shirt, shadowboxing the air.

“Eun.”  He threw a question mark kick, a double-leg shoot, then transitioned into a wrestler’s sit-out.  “What’s up?”

She took off her backpack, eyeing him cautiously.  “Um…where’s your mat?”

“Soaking in Axe Body spray.”  He took up a Keysi elbow-guard, aggressing forward with a series of short, chopping strikes.

“Peter can you just—”

“HYAAHH!”  He threw a spinning wheel-kick.

“Could you just—”

“ARRRGGHHH!!!”  A ten-punch straight blast.

“PETER!”

He put his hands on his hips.  Sweat dripped from his Han-filled gaze.  “Speak.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Okay, Palpatine.  You know that tonight is—”

He chuckled.  “Good pull.”  Eun knew a lot about Star Wars, but not by choice; Peter couldn’t stop babbling about the original trilogy.  Was Luke ashamed of being a nasty-ass sister-kisser?  And who was packing the bigger piece?  Flaccid Chewie or hard Lando?

“Holly’s party—you going?”

He dug in his nose with a sweaty finger, inspected the booger, then flicked it away.  “Yeah.  Why?”  He wiped his hand on his boxers.

She sighed, exasperated.  “Because it’s right now, Peter!”

“What time is—”  He clicked his phone on, and saw it was a quarter past seven.  “SHIT!”  He grabbed the nearest can of Axe (there were eight or nine of them scattered across the floor) and sprayed himself down.

Eun fanned the air, coughing from the fumes.  “Peter, it’s okay to be late.  It’s not like—”

“No!” Peter stretched his boxers open and doused his nuts.  “Not tonight!”  He met her gaze and became unnaturally still.

“Tonight will herald the birth of the Fuckrising,” he intoned gravely.

She gave him a dubious stare.  “I don’t know what that means.”

“You will.”  He blasted his pits with a cone of Axe.  “They all will.”

He clunked the can onto his desk, then slipped into a shirt and a pair of jeans.  “Let’s go.”  He strode through the door, snapping his lapels briskly down.

On the way out, he grabbed a green-glowing vial and stuck it in his pocket.  Eun noticed, but didn’t comment.  As long as black-ops ninjas weren’t holding her at gunpoint, she didn’t want to know.  Peter had apologized for letting that happen and promised nothing of the sort would happen again.  (She wasn’t sure if she actually believed him, but she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.)

Eun hopped on her bike, Peter on the Bite Mobile, and they made their way over to Atherton High.

 

Here’s the link to the book on Amazon:  Kor’Thank:  Barbarian Valley Girl