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Sometimes, Diya says weird things. Not like, normal Diya weird. Like, weird weird. Noelle is mostly used to it, because being Diya’s best friend requires a little bit of getting used to things. But sometimes, the quiet girl truly catches her off guard.
“How annoying would I have to be for you to murder me and bury me in a swamp?” Diya says, without looking up from the lab report she’s currently filling in. She’s turned in her chair, so that both girls can do their labs on Noelle’s desk. It’s a little inefficient, but Diya has been quiet enough to allow Noelle to work, so she really doesn’t mind. However, when Noelle registers her words, the girl looks up, squinting at Diya incredulously. The quieter girl looks up when Noelle stays silent a moment too long.
“Why on earth would you ask me such a ridiculous question?” Noelle raises a brow, her voice coming out in its usual annoyed tone. “I’d never touch a dead body. That’s disgusting. So are swamps.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured you’d say.” Diya turns back to her science work.
“Besides, I would never kill someone. It’s illegal.” Noelle says, matter-of-factly. Then, disguising it as almost an afterthought, she adds, “And I don’t think you could ever annoy me that badly.”
Diya takes Noelle’s comment as a compliment, if her small, shy smile is any indication. However, Noelle’s satisfaction doesn’t erase the oddity of the comment. She wonders, for a moment, where the question could’ve come from. Diya doesn’t usually have those kinds of stupid questions.
“Why do you ask?” Noelle questions finally, accepting that she’ll just have to get her answer in a more straightforward way.
“Akarsha asked me this morning,” Diya says simply, and Noelle can’t keep the frown off of her lips at the mention of the girl’s name, “I wanted to know your opinion on it.”
“Of course she did,” Noelle sighs, exasperated. “Why does she always ask such stupid questions?”
“I dunno.” Diya says, casting a look towards Akarsha, where the girl is busy smirking at a boy who she seems to be tormenting. “I think they’re interesting. Fun to think about.”
“More like useless to think about.” Noelle murmurs, avoiding looking at Akarsha. The girl only seems to distract her from her studies. It’s best to avoid her at all costs. She has a lab to fill out. So Noelle turns to the lab again.
Unfortunately, she barely gets anything down, before a drawling, smirking voice pulls her out of her thoughts.
“Hey,” Akarsha draws out the ‘y’ sound insufferably, “Frenchman.”
Noelle bites back the instant ‘I’m not french!’, and instead, calmly turns to Akarsha, watching the girl fidget with her sleeves for a moment, before looking up at her face.
“I don’t have time for your antics, Akarsha.” Noelle replies calmly, gesturing at the packet in front of her rather importantly. “I have a lab to do.”
“To be honest?" Akarsha shrugs, raising her eyebrows lazily, "I don't really care. I wanna annoy you."
Of course you do, Noelle wants to snark back, but she finds an uncontrollable urge to smile, so she focuses on stomping down that feeling first.
"Fine. If you're not gonna talk, I'm gonna copy your answers." Akarsha says, her smirk on her lips. Her smirk, because no one else can quite muster up as much nerve and mischief. Her smirk, because it's Akarsha's.
Akarsha moves their desks closer together, and Noelle flinches at the painful scraping sound that the legs of the desk make against the floor. Sensing this, Akarsha picks up the desk with minimal struggle, carrying it the rest of the way over. It makes Noelle's ears burn.
How odd. Akarsha was usually nice to her, in her own Akarsha-ish way, so why was she having such an unfamiliar reaction to it? Was it the sound messing her up?
Akarsha grabs Noelle's paper, bringing it in between their two desks. This leaves Noelle with no lab to work on, so her eyes settle on Akarsha, as she jots down notes furiously.
Despite what people thought about the way she acted, Akarsha was smart. Noelle had experienced enough of her torment to know that. She wasn't stupid. She just acted stupid. There was a difference. Just like how extremely stupid people could pretend to be smart, even though they weren't.
And maybe torment, as well, required a certain amount of intelligence. Akarsha never seemed to take her pranks too far. They went far, obviously, but Noelle had never felt truly hurt by anything. On Noelle’s bad days, Akarsha was unusually calm, oddly nice. On a normal day, she would just continue like normal.
Was Noelle really that predictable? Or, an even worse thought, did Akarsha just know her that well? That she could pick up on Noelle's little tells, her own feelings, which she tried to keep perfectly concealed.
The thought brings a strange tightness to her chest, and she forces herself to look down at Akarsha's hands, before they inevitably drift back up to her face.
Akarsha has nice eyes. Noelle has never really looked at them before, at least not like this. She props her head up with her hand, gazing at the other girl. Brown looks best in the sunlight, and Akarsha's eyes are living proof of it, small golden flecks getting highlighted by the sun. She also looks unusually focused. Noelle sometimes forgets that Akarsha can focus at all. She's always so smug, so lazy, that it feels a little like she doesn't care about anything.
But of course, Noelle knows better than to say that. Akarsha cared plenty, she was just afraid to admit it.
"Whatcha starin' at, Frenchman?" Akarsha suddenly turns, a smirk on her lips. "I know I'm hot, but don't go burning a hole in my jacket. I like it."
Noelle rolls her eyes, her face heating up at the crass comment. "I can tell you love that jacket. Everyone can."
Akarsha looks rather proud about this. "They're all jealous of my swag."
"Why do you wear it every day anyways?" Noelle asks, squinting at the sleeve of the windbreaker, where Akarsha is still fiddling with the seam.
“A- Ah. It’s like- Haha- You know cartoon characters, how they wear the same thing every day? It’s my signature look!” Akarsha throws up a peace sign in a ridiculous pose, and Noelle rolls her eyes, pretending not to notice the other girl's previous stammering.
“You’re ridiculous.” Noelle mumbles, trying to force the fondness back into her chest where it belongs. It’s always a losing battle with Akarsha. Noelle always tries to focus, tries to keep her emotions away from herself, and Akarsha lives to distract, and force them back into her throat.
“You love it.” Akarsha teases, and Noelle rolls her eyes again, but feels something stir in her chest.
“Do you even wash it? It must smell horrible.” Noelle wrinkles her nose, and Akarsha grins.
“Of course I wash it. Unlike you, stinky.”
Noelle bristles with anger, shooting a glare at Akarsha. Diya, sensing a possible conflict, looks up.
“Akarsha,” Diya says, almost desperately, “I was just asking Noelle about that question we were talking about earlier.”
“Oh, the swamp one?” At Diya’s nod, Akarsha turns to Noelle. “Well?”
“I said I would gladly throw you in a swamp.” Noelle deadpans, a rare smile on her face. Akarsha’s own grin grows a little wider as a result.
“She said I couldn’t annoy her that much.” Diya says, her bashful expression returning.
“Oh, so you do have a heart, huh Frenchman?” Akarsha snarks, “What about little ol’ me?”
“I already told you. You’d be in the swamp.”
Noelle wouldn’t actually ever throw Akarsha in a swamp, of course. She might pretend to, threaten to as much as she wanted, but she wouldn’t ever do it.
“Well shit,” Akarsha places an offended hand on her chest, wearing a ridiculous pout. “That kinda stings.”
Akarsha’s eyes are unreadable, so Noelle can’t tell if she’s joking. She squints for a moment before speaking. “You do know I don’t mean it, right?”
Akarsha’s eyes light up, and her smirk returns. “Aww, you really love me!”
Noelle feels her ears go hot again, and she shakes her head. “Nope. This is the first step in my plan.”
“Sure.” Akarsha smirks, but there's a satisfying undertone of fear in her voice, so Noelle lets it go.
“Since you’re so chatty, I guess you don't need the lab anymore?” Noelle moves the paper towards herself, and Akarsha gives her a desperate look. She makes a frantic grab for the lab, and Noelle holds the paper just out of her reach, a confident smile tugging her lips upwards. Akarsha fights a smile, because of course she does, and Noelle, somewhere in the back of her head, finds the twitch of her lips pretty.
Then, Akarsha suddenly crumbles to the desk dramatically, and tugs on Diya’s sleeve. The jock looks up, having tuned out the usual argument, is focusing back to her own assignment.
“Diya…” Akarsha fakes innocence as she drags out the girl's name. “Noelle is hatecriming me again…”
“I am not!” Noelle protests, “A hate crime is a criminal violation motivated by hate, based on race, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. I hate you because you’re Akarsha.”
Akarsha ignores Noelle promptly, still talking to Diya, who is now staring at them with quiet amusement. “She hates me because I’m gay.”
Diya looks at Noelle, her eyes emotionless, and her tone deadpan. “That’s homophobic.”
“I do not hate her because she’s gay!” Noelle says, exasperated.
“Why else would you hate me?” Akarsha says innocently. “I’m a national treasure.”
Because she’s annoying? No, Akarsha’s antics were actually endearing, in their own way.
Because of the way she dresses? Akarsha was easy to spot in a crowd, which was helpful, actually, because Noelle was horrible at navigating those.
Because of her generally smug demeanor? Couldn’t be, because if it annoyed Noelle so much, she would’ve just stopped being her friend.
No, Noelle is speechless as she tries to come up with an answer, growing more mortified by the minute.
"Wow Noelle. Wow." Akarsha says, after Noelle's silence has stretched out an embarrassing amount. "There you have it, Diya. Her true nature is revealed!"
Despite Akarsha's stupid flourish at her last sentence, Noelle's usual scowl (Or suppressed laughter), gets caught in her throat. As she freezes in place, her hand drops, and Akarsha triumphantly snatches the paper from Noelle's hand without much of a reaction from the taller girl at all. Was Akarsha actually right? If there was no concrete reason for it, was Noelle actually homophobic?
Was she that ignorant? She thought she had vanquished her bias through her research, she was fine with Diya and Min…
So why was Akarsha different? Was she Biphobic, specifically? Noelle really can't believe it. She likes Akarsha! Akarsha is one of the funniest people she knows!
Is she really so stupid?
"Uh… Frenchman?" Akarsha says, after the silence lasts almost a minute, without Noelle retorting back once. "You still in there?"
"Yes." Noelle says, shame thick in her throat. "I think I will continue with my lab now."
Yes, Noelle has always felt a little different about Akarsha, but that really had never crossed her mind. What kind of sick, stupid idiot was she? Homophobes were uneducated, and notoriously stupid. For Noelle not to even realize it?
She definitely needs to do more research.
And so she does. Noelle looks up the term Bisexual on wikipedia more times than she can count. But no matter how many sources she reads, no matter how much she cements it in her head that it's not a bad thing at all, she still finds herself perplexed at her feelings towards Akarsha.
"Hey," The girl in question draws her greeting out, as per usual. "Noelle."
"Yes?" Noelle turns her attention towards Akarsha. The girl has her hair down today, a surprising change of appearance. Noelle assumes it's because of the weather. Akarsha had stumbled into first period today, exclaiming that the weather caught her by surprise. Noelle had retorted that she should've checked the weather.
They're sitting at lunch, waiting for Diya and Min to get back from the 'bathroom'. (They were most definitely kissing, from the flushed look that Diya had when they were leaving.)
"Um," Akarsha looks really awkward and uncomfortable. Noelle listens more keenly. "Be honest. Does my hair look like- really bad?"
Noelle is taken aback by the question. Why would Akarsha be worried about that?
"Why are you asking me?" Noelle narrows her eyes, convinced it's another trick on Akarsha's part. The other girl's cheeks flush a little at the question.
"Because I know you'll be honest with me." Akarsha mumbles, and then louder, she says, "And, because you're the object of my affections, Noelle."
Akarsha says it with her usual teasing smirk, but Noelle feels her ears heat up anyways, and she gives Akarsha a once over.
"Yeah, it looks fine." Noelle bites back that she sort of prefers Akarsha's hair down to its usual look. Akarsha's hair is pretty when it's down. Noelle wishes her hair were as pin-straight as Akarsha's. Unfortunately, when freed from her usual braid, Noelle's hair is wildly wavy, and looks rather unkempt sometimes.
"Awesome." Akarsha breathes out a sigh of relief, and then seemingly realizes that the gesture is a bit too vulnerable, so she looks up again and jokes, "Wanted to make sure my signature look wasn't ruined."
The mention of her 'signature look' brings Noelle back to their previous conversation. It had been almost a week since then, and she had become no closer to curing herself of her own homophobia.
"Are you good, Frenchman?" Akarsha reaches her hand out, as if to place it on Noelle's arm comfortingly, but freezes halfway through and places it back on her lap. "You've been off."
It's Noelle's turn to freeze. Akarsha wasn't supposed to find out. Noelle was supposed to fix it before anyone noticed. How stupid would Akarsha think she was?
"Y- Yes." Noelle stammers, which definitely immediately tips Akarsha off that maybe she's not good. "I am fine."
Akarsha raises a brow, and studies Noelle silently, before shrugging lazily. “‘Don’t worry, be happy’ - Bobby McFerrin.”
“Did you just quote Don’t Worry Be Happy to me?” Noelle says incredulously, and Akarsha’s grin makes a reappearance.
“There she is.” Akarsha says proudly, as if Noelle’s annoyance is something to be prideful about. “Frenchman returns!”
“I’m not french!”
Just then, Min and Diya return, Diya’s hair slightly messed up, and her face flushed. Min looks rather proud of themselves.
“‘Sup bitches.” Min says as they sit back down. Them and Akarsha exchange a ridiculous handshake, and Diya stares at them quietly. Noelle raises a brow. Sometimes, the two of them together acted so stupid that it was almost impossible to bear.
“Whaddup!” Akarsha drawls, smiling lazily. “How was the piss?”
Diya looks rather uncomfortable at the crude question, but Min proudly says, “Amazing. Awesome. Best fucking piss I’ve had in like, eight years.”
“What are you even talking about…” Diya says, her face flushed.
“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” Noelle says matter-of-factly, “Min has always been like this.”
Diya looks tortured, as Akarsha and Min continue their disgusting conversation. Noelle stares at Akarsha’s hair for only a few minutes before she seizes the opportunity to ask Diya the question that’s been weighing on her mind.
“Diya, do you think I’m homophobic?” Diya looks confused.
“No?”
“Good to know.” Noelle says, consoling herself with the fact that at the very least, no one has noticed.
“Why do you ask?” Diya furrows her brow, as if trying to peel back Noelle’s skin to reveal her intentions, “Are you?”
“No!” Noelle says, horrified, and then, quieter, “I mean, that’s what I thought. But- I’ve been thinking recently that maybe that’s not true?”
Diya looks awfully exasperated. “But… You’re fine with me and Min.”
“Of course I am! You guys are the… Most… acceptable couple I know.” Noelle mumbles the dejected compliment. Diya brightens at the compliment.
“Well then why would you think you’re homophobic?” Diya’s confused expression returns, and Noelle can practically see the question marks in her best friend’s eyes.
“It’s…” Noelle leans in, and murmurs, “It’s Akarsha.”
Diya raises a brow. “Are you sure she doesn’t just annoy you?”
“No…” Noelle says begrudgingly, drawing out the denial. “I enjoy her presence, in general. But I feel… differently towards her than I do with you and Min.”
“Different how?” Diya says, as if she’s searching for a certain answer.
“I- I don’t know. Just- different.” Noelle feels her palms start to sweat, out of that differentness.
“Well, if you can’t describe it, I can’t help you.” Diya says dryly, and Noelle realizes that she’s unfortunately correct.
“Well, Homophobia is the fear, hatred, discomfort, or mistrust of people who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual.” Noelle recites the definition, from her desperate research.
“And you don’t hate Akarsha.”
“Yes, but I mistrust her.” Noelle points out, “And I get- sort of scared sometimes…?”
“Well, Akarsha does prank you every morning, and enjoys lying to you. I don’t trust her either. I’m not homophobic.” Diya shrugs, and Noelle guesses she has a point.
“You’re… right, I guess.” Noelle says, murmuring the words. As much as she hates being wrong, Diya is right. “But it doesn’t explain other- other… symptoms I have.”
“Which are?” Diya looks vaguely amused by Noelle’s consideration of her reactions as ‘symptoms’.
“Sweaty palms, my heart pounds, I get a rush of adrenaline.” Noelle lists off, “All textbook signs of fear.”
Diya makes a thoughtful noise in the back of her throat, and slightly raises a brow.
“What?” Noelle asks incredulously at her best friend’s silence.
“I…” Diya chooses her words carefully. “I… Don’t think you’re… Homophobic.”
What? “What?”
If Noelle isn’t homophobic, what’s going on? What’s wrong with her? Is there something wrong with her???
“...I think something else is going on.” Diya says cryptically, and Noelle sighs exasperatedly.
“Well, don’t just sit there, tell me what’s going on!”
“Hey, Frenchman, what’re you talkin’ about?” Akarsha jumps into the conversation at the exact worst time. Noelle’s breath catches, and for some reason, she’s nervous that Diya might just tell Akarsha, but the jock shrugs.
“Nothing.”
Akarsha squints at them for a moment, before she melts into her lazy shrug. “Fine. Keep your secrets. Gaslight, Girlkeep, Gateboss.”
“Even I know that’s not right.” Noelle raises a brow. If she notices Diya staring at her inquisitively, almost searchingly, she ignores it.
“Hell your up shut, bitch!” Min-seo says, flipping Noelle off. “It can be whatever we want it to be!”
Noelle raises a brow at them, as Akarsha says, in awe, “Hell your up shut…”
“Min-seo, you consistently surprise me at how stupid you are.” Noelle says, stifling a small smile at their antics. If she catches Akarsha’s stare at her lips twitching, she pretends not to.
Just then, the bell rings. Noelle startles, not having even noticed that lunch hour was drawing to a close. As she packs her lunch, she continues to think about what Diya had said to her.
If she wasn’t homophobic, what were the feelings she was having? Did she just have an irrational fear of Akarsha? That was the only explanation! And why? Akarsha isn’t scary! A little unpredictable, but not scary.
“Noelle?” Akarsha lags behind Diya and Min as they start walking to their class. (Min doesn’t have the same class, but Noelle doubts they go to most of their classes anyways.)
“Yes, Akarsha?” Noelle says, trying to act annoyed. The lack of the nickname ‘frenchman’ catches her attention. Akarsha is being serious.
“You good? You seemed pretty psyched out from what you and Diya were talking about.”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Noelle lies through her teeth, Akarsha’s tone of care making the previous symptoms return. “Just some issues I’m having.”
“Well, if you need to talk to a certified brain genius, I’m here.” Akarsha says proudly, a smirk on her face. Then, her voice drops into a quieter tone. “Or, if you just need someone to cheer you up.”
Noelle feels her breath catch, and she forces herself to roll her eyes so as to not clue Akarsha in on her internal struggles. “Of course, since you’re just my favourite jester.”
Akarsha falters, “I- I- Um- Yup, I sure am Frenchman! I’m sure you’re honoured to have me.”
The hesitation in Akarsha’s voice doesn’t go unnoticed by Noelle, but the girl promptly ignores it. The flush to Akarsha’s cheeks is vivid enough to notice as well, but Noelle does the exact same thing with that information. If Noelle’s palms are sweaty, if that itching feeling in her palm continues to drive her crazy, she ignores that too.
Fear is weakness, and Noelle is not weak.
Not for Akarsha.