For introvertednerd
The voices coming outside the hall continued to grow louder as Jinora opened up her book, The Mark of Athena, preparing herself for her weekly book club session. She had just finished a nice conversation with Opal about the last chapter when Mako and another young boy trudged in.
Mako shoved the kid into a chair and stared him in the eye, "Sit. Be quiet. Do as I say; and maybe, just maybe, I won't tell Principal Beifong what happened a few minutes ago."
"Whatever," the boy replied, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes.
Jinora and the rest of the group watched the endeavor quietly, not daring to interrupt Mako, even if he was being a bit harsh. Mako turned around to face the group, "Sorry 'bout that," he took his coat off and sat down in a desk next to the boy he just scolded. "Did everyone finish last week's reading?" He scanned the young high schoolers acknowledging every nodding head, "Good. So today,"he gestured to the boy still slumped in the chair, "we have a new member joining us. He will be just sitting in until our next book." Mako waved around and mumbled to the kid to introduce himself.
"Uh," the boy looked up, adjusting his hoodie, "my name is Kai. I'm a sophomore, and I am being forced to do this against my will."
Jinora giggled, soon the sound of constant laughter bounced around in the room. Mako let out a loud cough to silence everyone. He opened his book and waited for everyone else to follow.
Jinora focused on Kai more than the book. She scanned his features. Yes, she had seen him around the school a few times. Jinora spent the whole hour thinking about Kai. He was the troublemaker in her class, had to repeat fourth grade (so he was a year older), star of the lacrosse team, and the bad boy every girl seemed to know about. Yet Jinora was still a stranger to him.
All too soon the book club ended, "Okay everyone," Mako called out, "read to page 178 for next week's session. Have a good week!" he finished, shutting his book with care.
Jinora came up to him, afterall, he was her ride home. "Great session today Mako!"
"Thanks Jinora. how do you like the book so far?" Mako asked her.
"I love it! Percy and Annabeth are so cute together!" she replied sincerely. She dropped her voice a bit, "so why is Kai with you?"
"Oh," Mako sighed, "Mrs Beifong made me his mentor for the week. Not sure why, but I'm sure i will hate every second of it."
"Hey! I'm not that annoying!" Kai protested with some humor in his voice, "It was either this or suspension; and if I get another suspension I can't play lacrosse next season. So we will both suffer my dear Mako." Kai finished, adding over dramatic hand gestures.
"Whatever Kai," Mako replied, "I'll take you home after I drop Jinora off at her house."
"Cool." he said, looking at Jinora. "You're that government dude's daughter, right?"
Jinora blushed and bit and pushed a loose hair behind her ear, "Yeah, my dad is councilman Tenzin. And you're Kai, the lacrosse prodigy and trouble maker, right?"
"Wow, way to summarize sweetie," Kai grinned. he looked back to Mako, "I like this one Mako. She's pretty cool." Kai turned his head back to Jinora, "Well I'm Kai," he held out his hand.
Jinora took it graciously, "I'm Jinora," she shook his hand lightly.
Kai obliged to her shake and slowly release her hand, "This week may not be as bad as I thought."
Monday came around way too fast. Jinora swore it was Friday only a few hours ago; but time slipped away when all she could do was think about that boy. She spent hours daydreaming over open textbooks, staring at her ceiling, blanking out conversations with her father; she never stopped. Jinora knew what was happening, she went through the same thing with that terrible boy, Skoochy; but Kai was just so attractive.
She drove into school on Monday, wearing just a little makeup and a new outfit, she was so excited. Classes went by in a blur. As she walked into her English 10 class she froze. Since when was Kai in this class? she thought. She shook herself out of her stoop and quickly took her seat. The teacher, Mrs Kya, stood from behind her desk and motioned for the class to quiet down, "Okay class, for your semester projects I will be matching you all up with a partner of the opposite to write a love story in relation to Romeo and Juliet." Groans came from all corners of the room, as did some cheers, "Okay, quiet now class. Your story will be due on the day of the final, and it does not have to be like Romeo and Juliet, it just has to be a love story. I don't care who or what you make fall in love. If you want two blades of grass to be soulmates, then so be it. Just write a good love story," Mrs Kya explained, "when I call out the partners please go sit down next to them."
Mrs Kya rattled off names, there were loud claps from guys and giggles from the girls. Out, out, out… all the guys Jinora could hope to be paired with were partnered up. She snapped out of her phase when she heard her name, "Uh?" was all she said.
"Jinora. You're paired with Kai." Mrs Kya said again. "Okay, any stragglers? No? Good. You will have the next two weeks in class to work. Have fun with it!" Mrs Kya sat back down at her desk.
"Hey." Kai came over with his torn backpack and a pencil flipping in his fingers. "I guess we got to write a love story? What d'you think about this?" he asked.
"Um," she could feel her face heating up, "it's not the worst assignment ever. At least we get some freedom. Love stories can be made from just about anything."
"Yeah," Kai took a seat and waited for Jinora to sit too, "What do you think about love?"
"I don't love anybody," came out of Jinora's mouth faster than she could think, "I mean, it's a special thing. We all have a soulmate out there somewhere."
"So you believe in the whole 'soulmates' thing? Well I'm more of a love at first sight guy myself." And that is how the entire class went. They never wrote a single word, no ideas, no prompts or characters. They just talked about love.
Thursday came by slowly.
It was like it was crawling down Jinora's spine. The knowing that she was going to spend another 2 hours in class with Kai and then work together after school again. She wrote little notes during all her classes, stayed out of the way, and tried to escape into her little world away from reality.
But when English class came around she was practically running to class. She turned into the classroom, "Ow!"
"Ow!" Kai rubbed his head and felt the blood run over his tongue. He looked up in a daze. "Oh, uh, sorry Jinora." He got up quickly and held his hand out to Jinora.
"Kai! Sorry, I was going to fast and wasn't looking. This is all my fault I'm…"
He cut her off, "Can you please stop talking and let me help you up?" she let him grab his hand as he lifted her up. "Here," he said, handing her the book she dropped, "I've been working on catching up with the book club reading."
"You mean the Percy Jackson Series?" she asked him, taking back her book.
Kai scratched the back of his head, "Yeah, I read the whole PJO series over the weekend. I still need to finish Son of Neptune and catch up to the book club on Mark of Athena."
"Wow. That's alot to read in a week," She swept a loose hair behind her ear, "Do you even sleep?" she asked him with a giggle.
"No, not really. Not since I meet you." Kai's eyes went wide for a moment and his cheeks flared red.
Jinora looked down at her shoes. "Well the bell's about to ring. Uh, we better sit down." She scurried past him and took a seat. Kai followed her and sat in the desk next to Jinora as the bell rang through the halls.
After school Jinora and Kai both walked back to Jinora's house together, discussing their English Project, "So, do you have any ideas what you want to write about yet?" Kai asked her.
Jinora "Just a few character ideas. I'm not sure about any of them though. I'm pretty sure I just made carbon copies of characters from other books I read."
"Yeah. Me too. It feels like all I think about is the Percy Jackson books. My favorite character is Jason. Controlling the air seems pretty cool. What about you?"
"I'm not sure. If I had to choose I would say Piper."
"Wow. I pegged you for more of an Annabeth girl myself," Kai said.
"Don't get me wrong. I love all of the seven. But Piper is so underrated, she doesn't get all the love she deserves."
"Well then I guess I'm Jason and you're Piper."
"You know that they're dating in the books, right?" Jinora asked him.
"Yeah", he said, looking at her, "I know."
They came through the door to be welcomed by Jinora's mother, Pema. "How was school Jino… who's your friends sweetie?" she changed her question mid sentence at the sight of Kai.
Jinora coughed, gathering her mother's attention away from Kai, "Mom," she hissed, "this is Kai. We have an english assignment to work on so we'll be in my room." She grabbed Kai's arm and dragged him up the stairs.
Pema waved at them, "It was nice to meet you Kai!"
Kai answered back before he disappeared behind the stairs, "You too Ma'am!"
Jinora pushed Kai into her room and slammed the door shut with her body, "Okay. At least my Dad isn't home." She hung her bag on the desk chair and sat down. So what part of the story do you want to work on first?"
Kai looked up from his bag. He let himself sit on the bed, taking out his books and pencils, "Uh, I don't really care. I'm not that good at this stuff. What do you want to do?"
Jinora rolled her pencil between her fingers, "Well, I've been making some character ideas and a few prompts. But we need to decide on what kind of love first. Like is it sibling love or love love?" She looked at Kai for his response.
"Well, I like to classic falling for the first time thing. What 'bout you?" Kai answered.
"Yeah. I like that one too. The butterflies, flushing, awkward conversations," Jinora stopped short, realizing the blush spreading in her cheeks and the irony in her words. She got up and walked over to sit next to Kai on the bed. "Well, I made these traits and character designs. Here," Jinora handed her notebook to Kai, watching his eyes scan over her work.
"Hand me a pen?" Kai asked. Jinora clicked the pen and handed it to him. He took it slowly, freezing as their skin made contact. "I was just thinking," he said, "we should make them have some bad traits too. Like real life people."
Jinora and Kai nearly finished their character charts and and story arch for the first half of their story. They talked about their past crushes, what love was like to them, Kai even held onto Jinora's hand for a minute when she was talking about her failed relationship with her ex.
"It's almost 7. We should call it a day," Jinora said.
Kai stacked his papers and slid them into his bag, "Yeah," he got up, "and today was fun Jinora."
They walked down the stairs together and out to the porch, strategically avoiding Jinora's family, "I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" Jinora asked.
"Yeah, I'll be in class waiting for you." He kissed her cheek and turned away fast, riding down the street on his skateboard. Jinora walked back inside in a stupor, distracted for the rest of the night by the faint tickle on her cheek.
Merry Christmas Everyone! I decided to make this its own story instead of adding it to the Kainora quick propmts one because I do have plans on adding more chapters to this in the future. Not sure when an update will happen but it probably wont be for awhile due to holidays and sports :P
Feel free to add your LOK Finale feels and Kainora sobs in the comments. Please R&R/ FAV & FOLLOW!
Happy Holidays 3
~NADOGIRL18