She who never cries – Chapter 1: Name

Author note: This was roughly inspired by akiakane's Rolling Girl PV. Also I'm sorry ahead for being so wordy, and for the grammar mistakes. This would be a bit dark, I suppose. I'm also thinking of abandoning the idea. Should I? Please review and tell me what you think.

"You stupid annoying dog!"

"Why don't you just die already, _?"

"Stupid question! If she dies, what would we do to distract, eh?"

They all laughed. The bullies. The nasty bullies that _ loathed to the core.

She was kneeling on the ground, hiding her [eye color] eyes and the flushed face behind a waterfall of tangled, messy [hair color] hair. Someone kicked her in the ribs, and again the surrounding crowd burst out in roaring laughter. Her whole body ached with pains. Trembling, she sat up on your elbows and attempted to stand up.

"Oh no you don't!"

_ could hardly feel the bully's hand before she found your self slamming against the wall and gliding down afterwards, with a sharp pain on her knee. Hoping that this wouldn't leave a bruise on her forehead – for she still had a whole day at school and she didn't want teachers to notice, she leaned on the wall and closed her eyes to prepare herself for the next blow.

She had transferred to this rich private school around two months ago, thanks to a scholarship, and since then she had been suffering this never ending cruel bullying. The students all looked down on her, just because _ _ wasn't from a noble, or rich, or both, family. They were unfair and treated her very badly.

Then the worst came when she outsmarted them all in every subjects at school. She rarely got any grades lower than an A. Her brilliance was not all; her friendly smile, her adorable face framed of her beautiful [hair color] hair added up and made her a perfect girl that should have been extremely popular if she was attending a different school. But instead the students all found a new objective for her torture: to chase _ the annoying genius away. As for the teachers, she being a good student did not mean anything; as a matter of fact they couldn't care less about how she was being treated.

The one and only victim of the whole school's bullying was no other than _ _.

New small wounds and scars appeared almost every day on her arms and legs, sometimes even on her face. They weren't big and serious enough for anyone to notice. Her parents would ask about them once in a while, but she would just answer that she tripped and fell. With her being the quiet, obedient, and a little clumsy child she had always been, they believed her without a single doubt in their minds. She, for her own sake, wore long clothes to prevent wounds and hide the embarrassing scars. Those scars were one of her darkest, deepest secrets that she would never tell anyone. Not even her best friend. If shes actually had one.

Sometimes she wondered if the added up cost for all her bandages was the price she had to pay to attend the school instead of the tuition.

Why did she choose to suffer all alone, then? Then the answer that she always had to remind yourself would follow immediately: She did not want to leave the school because it was a rare chance to have such good education for free. A chance that would never come back once missed. And why didn't she fight them back although she did have enough strength to do so? Obvious. It didn't mean anything if a brat like her got some light scratches from some harmless pranks, but wouldn't it be serious matters if one of those rich, spoiled kids got hurt because she intentionally hit them? Besides, she had no one on her side. To put it simple: if they hurt her, fine; but there were never a vice versa.

However, the most particular part of her school life misery was that she - _ the bullying target – never cried. Whether they teased her, beat or humiliated her, she just bit your lips and never said a word. She just never felt like insulting or cursing them – those were pointless. Of course there were nights where she stayed awake, asking herself many questions and struggling to find out why no one had ever helped her, supported her, why they hated her so much. Yet, she never shed a tear. Not even once.

The loud ringing sounds of the school bell cut through her flashbacks and brought her back to reality. The bullies and their spectators had all left for classes. Realizing that she was going to be late, she stood up quickly and winced a bit. The wound on her knee was bleeding; it was right over her curled down sock's cuff. Good, the blood did not stain the sock. She frowned, thinking about how careless she was, wearing a skirt that morning.

"Ugh," _ groaned as she rummaged through her backpack just to find out that she had forgotten her first aid kit – a must for her survival in this school – at home. Although none of her days attending this school could be considered "lucky", she grumpily classed this day as jinxed with bad luck. At that moment she did not know what was going to happen later on, or how those random happenings would affect her life.

'Great. Now what? Wait for the sharks to come?', she thought bitterly. There weren't enough time to go see the nurse, so she hurried to the bathroom to at least wipe off the blood coming out. As fast as one with a wounded leg can, she ran.

"Miss _ _, you are late."

Mumbling a breathless excuse about being careless and having an accident on her way to school, _ turned your eyes away to avoid the teacher's questioning look and raised eyebrows. She glanced around the lab. A boy with spiky hair who had been one of the bullies' regular "spectators" was whispering something to his lab partner, and they both burst out in mischievous giggles, eyeing her. She looked down at the shiny marble floor.

"Alright, _, your excuses seem plausible. Now, your seat is over there, and your lab partner…"

"Excuse me, sir?", she couldn't help but exclaim out loud in utmost surprise. "A lab partner, sir?" _ was used to doing experiments all alone (while still managing to get the top results), and, to be honest, she had always preferred it that way. The teacher did to, apparently. Then why…?

"I know how good you are at chemic, _, but our experiment this time is quite difficult and rather dangerous to perform alone. It is necessary that two people or more should work on it. I put two classes together to get the even number of students, and I've divided all in pairs. Now, your lab partner this time is from the other class. There's nothing so extraordinary about this. Get to your seat now so that we could at least start before classes end!" The teacher seemed to be losing his patience. She obeyed, and walked on the small way between two lines of tables.

_ had only been able to walk past several tables before she found herself face to face with the floor, her bleeding knee throbbing with pain from hitting the hard marble. Her trembling fingers found their way to the edge of a nearby table, and she grabbed it weakly in attempt to stand up. Quickly glancing around, she found the damned culprit: The spiky haired boy had just pulled his leg back to its rightful place under the chair. Just one moment ago, it was in her way. It made her trip and turned herf into a clown in front of the whole two classes. More importantly, in front of the teacher.

She glared at him from under her [hair color] hair, feeling her cheeks reddened and burned with fierce anger. It wasn't like she had never been humiliated in this school before but, well, never in front of a teacher. Lucky for that boy she was used to controlling emotions, especially anger. So instead of springing up and punching straight into that hateful laughing face, she turned her attention to the wound on her knee, which was bleeding pretty badly.

At the time, all the laughter had died; nobody longer cared about _ – even the teacher had turned around to write on the board. _ stood up and limped difficultly towards her empty seat placed near the end of the class. But it was before she could walk several steps when she felt a firm, gentle grip on her lower arm, and another tender hand held hers.

"You are bleeding, _. Let me help you."

It was not a proposition, but a request. A deep, mature and elegant voice, wrapped in a thick British accent. But why would anybody in this entire school want to help _? All they wanted was to torment her and chase her away. She couldn't dare to believe anyone. Not one look at him to find out who he was and why was he distinctively generous, _ twisted your hands slightly, suggesting that she wanted him to let go.

"Come on _, let's go back to our seat. I will find you a bandage. We're going to miss the lesson!"

So… He was the one. Her new lab partner. Surprisingly he didn't sound teasing, mocking, sarcastic, or any of the sort. Actually, his tone was rather caring.

Which made _ suspected.

She threw a quick glance at him. He was several inches taller than her. His hair was a little bit messy, but the silvery color of straw seemed to sparkle in the glimmering sunlight. Under a pair of, erm, particularly thick eyebrows (she actually thought, for just a moment, that they made him look cuter), his bright apple green eyes focused on her with a worried look. She felt a blush on her already red cheeks, and even a slight, strange desire to… cry?

Oh no. No, not this, not ever! _ had perfected herself, she had sworn to never cry in front of any of these meanies. Was he one of them? She did not know, and she did not care either. All she wanted was to escape from this uneasy feeling that she had locked away deep in her soul for so long. _ would not cry. Not ever.

"No, thank you. I am fine on my own."

Jerking her hand out of his, she quickly walked past him, found her empty seat and sat down. The British boy stood with a somewhat broken look on his face, but just for a short moment. He just shrugged, sat down next to her, and smiled.

She felt guilty, also some fluff from seeing his sweet smile. As always, she chased your feelings away while assuring herself he was just one of them – the arrogant spoiled teenagers who made her school life miserable.

She did not succeed whatsoever.

All lesson long she couldn't help but let her mind fly back to the moment his firm, tender hand held hers. He was so gentle and his voice was so kind. She couldn't help but regret a bit for not accepting his help, for not letting him escort her to her seat. She could have smiled; she might have even charmed him…

No! Stop fantasizing!

"_, hand me the test tube labeled "One", please."

His deep voice pulled her back to reality. _ carefully picked up the fragile tube and gave it to him. And then, as if a light bulb just lit over her head, she suddenly realized that he was nearly done with the whole experiment. He had gone through most of the difficult parts, anyway. What had she been doing?

"Are you feeling uneasy? I'm almost finished with our report, I will hand it over to the teacher so that you may go to the infirmary. You should really do so."

Slightly blushing, he shot another worried glance at her knee. Wondering why he was so concerned about it – and also because she felt more pain – _ looked at the wound too. She almost yelped in horror. It was much larger and deeper than the last time she checked. Thick, dark red blood dripped over the ragged edges, while the skin around it was badly scratched and bruised.

"Do you want to…"

"No, I, uh… I mean…"

No fool would have believed _ if she said she was fine from the horrified look she just gave. He just sighed, his thick eyebrows furrowed together, as if tired of her stubbornness. Swiftly, he walked to the teacher's desk to hand over the report and hurried even more quickly back to _.

"If you don't want to go to the infirmary, then I have no other choice. I will treat your wound."

_ stared at him in disbelief and searched his eyes for the slightest hint of prank of mischief. There were none. He took a first-aid kit out of his backpack.

"Now, I'll do it even if you don't want to," he warned. "Or do you want it to get infected?"

She shook her head, her locks of [hair color] hair flapped on her cheeks. He chuckled. There was no point to refuse, anyway. But _ still kept herself in a defensive position, ready to back away if there were any sign of pranking.

Very carefully, he wiped the blood, cleaned the wound, and bandaged it. From his focused eyes, his skilled hands, and the kind tone in his voice when he spoke to her, she guessed that he wasn't a spoiled kid after all. Despite that, she could be sure that he was rich and belong to the upper class, judging by his clothes and manners.

He looked at _ and smiled again. Guilt clutched her heart when she saw his smile faded as she looked down to avoid eyes contact. She did not know why she did that. Quietly, _ said, as if to excuse her attitude:

"Th-thank you, I…"

The school bell abruptly rang, and at once the atmosphere was filled with loud chaotic noises. The teacher's voice was lost in a sea of chatters and laughter from every direction. Before she could gather her breath to finish your sentence out loud, he rose, mouthed a soundless good bye towards her, and turned away without even another look at _. A sudden feeling of emptiness and regret curled in her stomach, made her felt like suffocating.

Throughout the day, _ had to continuously tell herself that he did not matter, that the British boy just pitied her for a second; that was all. But still, it was hard to forget the thought that she might have hurt him.

'Forget it! Who are you to hurt his feelings? He'd probably already forgotten your name by now, and planning another prank with his spoilt friends…'

_ couldn't believe she did not notice it sooner. She had never met him before, but he…

He called her _. He knew her name.

She sighed heavily. 'He overheard me talking to the teacher. Nothing big.' Chasing the Britain boy with thick eyebrows off her mind, she tried to focus on memorizing the geometrical characteristics of a parallelogram.

'…I didn't even ask his name, or which class he was in…'

'For God's sake stop thinking about him!', she sat and opened a book to calm down. _ wouldn't want anyone to see her slapping and yelling at herself. Already she knew that she wouldn't be able to focus on any other lessons for the rest of the day, and, may be, even longer.

…

Classes were over.

Exhausted from the crazy mind struggling, _ felt dizzy and wanted to go home as fast as she could. Then she could enjoy a soothing hot bath.

Unfortunately, as she was jinxed with bad luck for the day, she encountered the last thing she'd ever want in this entire world for a day like this.

A painful, panicked shriek escaped from her mouth, when she was on her way to the bus stop. She was tugged from behind, by her hair. At first _ did not understand what happened. But very quickly she remembered that she was in a school where everyone considers her as their sandbag.

"Well, well, what do we have here?"

That voice. The voice of the worst bully she had ever known. The red haired bully was a girl about 4 years older than _, but even bulkier and taller than most of the guys. The bully was really strong; however picking on _ wasn't her regular hobby; that meant she would normally leave _ alone. But if she ever laid her hands on _, she'd be more terrifying than any other bully. From her tone _ could guess that she weren't the only one having a bad day.

"A bit too pretty for a genius, isn't she?" Chill ran down _'s spine from hearing that disgustingly sweet voice. "I heard rumors about you, little genius. You are a tough little thing aren't you? They said you never cry!"

Her hoarse laugh made _ shivered, and she started to desperately struggle in order to escape from that grip. But the more she struggled the more pain she felt, for the bully was yanking her hair.

"You know, I've always wanted to check if it's true. And I thought you'd cooperate too! I mean, come on," she turned _ around to look at her in the face. "What kind of genius, of scientist you are, if you don't want to do an interesting experiment?"

_ couldn't keep herself from screaming out loud from seeing the terrifying tiny pupils on a face distorted with a cruel grin.

'She a bully, there's nothing to be terrified of. She's just another bully. Let her do whatever she wants and it will all be over.'

Yet, _ could not stop your own body from struggling with all her strength left. The red haired was half dragging _ while the poor girl panted and let out small breathless shrieks. She could hardly breathe. That nasty bully was having a bad day. What would she do to _? _ shivered, and continued to struggle. All of a sudden…

"Hey, what do you think you're doing, Redhead?"

The next thing _ knew was that she was dropped on the ground, and the red haired girl was running away with a stream of curses coming from her thin mouth. _ was already pathetically frightened to notice that the voice was deep and had a British accent. Her eyes squeezing shut, she was much certain that it was another bully claiming his part of the fun. Until a light pat on her shoulder made her startled and opened her eyes.

"_, are you hurt?"

In the soft light of the setting sun, he was there, squinting his eyes, offering _ a hand. She couldn't think of anything else to say other than…

"What have you done!"

Even _ was no less surprised at her reaction than him. Then he looked sad, so sad it made her heart ached more than any physical pain she was feeling at the time. His shoulders dropped; he slowly retreated his hand without saying a word.

'What was I thinking?' She was ungrateful, not to mention impolite, to the extent of being thankless! Not knowing what to do, she stood up and held his retreating hand. He lifted his head, his eyes twinkled a bit.

"I mean… I want to say thank. For… all. All your help today. I…" _ gulped; her throat suddenly became so dry. "And… and I'm sorry for being ungrateful. I just… I'm just scared… that the redhead will bully me again and again… every day from today on. I… uh…"

She cleared her throat and looked down. She didn't dare to look into his eyes, because she was afraid. He must surely be mad at her. She saw his brows furrowed more and more after every of her words as he listened with a pained expression on his face. Sneaking a peek, she also noticed that he secretly took a deep breath as if he was preparing for a long speech. But all he said was:

"It's alright, I understand."

And then, in a swift movement, he pulled _ to his chest and hugged her tight. It took her several seconds to realize what he just did. She was on the brink of trusting him, of accepting his offered hand, but this sudden act ruined it all. The defensive instincts built from being bullied were very strong in her.

_ pushed him and broke away from his firmly closed arms.

Again she doubted his sincerity. She wasn't sure if he was hurt, because what if he was the one who wanted to play with your feelings? Her heart was throbbing. 'What if this was a new kind of torment invented by the bullies?'

"Sorry, I have to go" was _'s last words to him as she ran to the bus stop. She did not look back until she reached the small station. There, she turned around to find him still standing there, frozen, like a statue. Closing her eyes, _ stepped on the bus and put her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

Her slightly trembling fingertips came in contact with something that seemed like a crumpled little piece of paper. How come? There was never anything in her pockets. The British boy must have slipped it there. _ took it out and straightened it.

Scrawled across the little piece of paper probably tear from a notebook was a single line.

"Arthur Kirkland – class A1"