Chapter Text
You walk through the door into the Strider apartment at exactly 3pm like always, slinging your backpack down by the door and jumping onto the couch, and kicking your shoes off. You flip on the TV, flipping channels for any awesomely ironic content, and settle on an animal planet documentary about jumbo shrimp. Pure irony.
You try to tune out and watch the television, but you can't relax. You're totally on edge, both nervous and excited about the cool shit that happened at school today. Crossing your arms and fixing on your poker face, you let your mind wander back to your junior class…
~7:30 that morning~
You're cool, and everybody knows it. You sit at the back of the class, your grades are good but not too snooty, and you don't mean to brag, but you're a fucking ironic ninja. People know that, too. Yeah, you've got everything under control.
Your gaze wanders the classroom, eyeing everyone individually, but nobody in particular. It pauses- no, stops, however, on the kid at the end of your row. He's pale, and you think he's pretty tall, like taller than 6 feet at least, but he slouches. He wears a black, short-sleeved shirt, and grey jeans, and his legs are almost as skinny as your arm.
You turn your head toward the front of the room, but keep your eyes locked on the kid. Where you're really looking is masked by your shades. To anyone else, you could either be paying attention to the teacher or just tuning out. You're just too fucking ninja sometimes.
He's writing something in his notebook- oh yeah, notes, you're in history- except it doesn't look like he's writing at all. More like- yeah, he's like, drawing or some shit. Wait- why do you even care, anyways? He's just some random kid in your history class.
You look away, and try to pay attention to all this world war shit. You've never been too good at history- you like to live in the moment. You can't stop thinking about that kid, though. It's weird, and you can't find any irony to play up, so you disregard the issue entirely, and go back to totally un-coolly sucking at your notes.
~Now~
You flip off the television, trying to shake thoughts from your head that you figure have no fucking business there. Even though they're kind of welcome thoughts… quite nice, actually…
Fuck, what are you even thinking? You feel like shaking your head, but that would ruin your poker face. Instead, you abruptly decide not to think any more about today's developments- you were going to get Bro's advice, remember? He couldn't be too far from getting home.
You decide to do some homework- shit's got to be done, so why not now? Plus, you totally weren't paying attention today- you aren't even sure you paid attention in any class other than history, because of what happened, of course… shit got you confused…
~8:00 that morning~
The bell rings, and the teacher frowns. You swear, this teacher just loves to bore you half to death. He's physically disappointed when the bell lets you free of his torturous confines. The tall kid at the end of your row- he puts everything in his backpack, and one paper in his pocket. He slings his backpack on, effectively worsening his slouch. He looks like he's just 5 foot 10 now. Wait, why the hell are you still watching this guy? Talk about stalker.
You look away, biding your time before you get up. It's annoying how all the kids crowd through the door- you don't like all the nudging and pushing and squeezing. It's like you're in some space ship and the air lock is leaking out precious oxygen. Only this is a classroom and the oxygen is like a group of 30 typical, boring, stink-ass teens. You like to wait a minute or so when nobody's left in the room before getting up and going.
When you finally do get up, you notice that mystery kid seems to have the same idea. What was he still doing here? You get your answer when he gets up and walks over to you purposefully. Wait, what is going on here? He's reaching into his pocket, and takes out that little sheet of paper or whatever he was doodling on.
He looks into your eyes with no expression, and he's almost as good at the poker face as you. Except he's shaking, just a little bit, right before he throws the paper on the desk in front of you. You look up in confusion, but he's already looked away. He nearly bolted to the door.
You frown. What the fuck was this? You unfold the note, and your eyebrows unconsciously raise as you read the note. So, that's how it is, then. This is like one of those cheap love letters you get sometimes. Just in case there was any sort of mistake, the kid drew a picture of your face at the bottom. It was really accurate, which was nice, but it was also sort of creepy.
Anyways, you know you're good-looking, and you've gotten plenty of these love letters, but you don't think you've ever gotten one from a boy before. Plus, this one's different. Interesting. You put it back into your pocket- maybe you'll play this one out, see how it goes.
~Now, but even more now than before~
You sit back onto the couch, clutching your skull. Damn, your brain hurts. Stupid fucking Calculus. Why did you take this class, again? Oh yeah, because you're an idiot. Anyways, if you have to solve one more problem about planes flying over crop circles or whatever the fuck you're doing, you're going to explode. Poof. Just, like, spontaneously combust or something.
You throw your pencil back on the coffee table, and cross your arms as you sink back into the couch. This would be WAY easier if you had gotten some of it done in class. Or at least listened to what the fuck the teacher was saying. Or at least stopped sitting back and doing nothing like some douchebag delinquent.
No, wait, you weren't doing nothing- it was worse than that. You were daydreaming. You were daydreaming like a fucking freshman girl. And you were smiling like one, too. You're pretty sure your bros were kind of disgusted when you did that, because, seriously, that shit was embarrassing. Except for John- he was always smiling. Oh god, you were smiling just like John. Totally embarrassing.
Why didn't you notice before? Oh yeah, you were being a lovesick schoolgirl with a first crush. Except you're a dude. But that's the most pathetic part, you think, the dude-ness. Because that meant that you were a lovesick school-dude with a first crush. You haven't been able to stop thinking about that one person, and how it all started today at lunch…