Partners

Acoustic Memory

Disclaimer : I neither own nor make money off of any of my content. All characters, brands, and or miscellaneous products are copyright of their rightful owners. I only write for your entertainment.

AN: So yes, I am currently reworking Partners (again) This time my plans include actually adding some extra content that wasn't there before, as well as fixing a lot of my types and grammar issues. For those fans of mine that have wanted to see more of my work, I'm sorry for taking so long getting to this point. For fans of Partners, this is for you! Also I'll be posting word counts, both the original and the reworked versions!

Prev. Chapter Word Count: 1,217

New Chapter Word Count: 2,466

Chapter 1 :: Monday Morning From Hell

I ran my hands through my spiky, silver hair as I entered my bathroom, not ready to even be awake this early in the morning. Well, it really wasn't my bathroom, considering I had a roommate. I considered it mine anyways because I paid most of the rent and had lived alone until just a few months ago. Eventually a time came when a guy just couldn't afford to keep living alone. It was either move my best friend in with me, which worked out perfect for him since his lease was up at his place, or move back in with my older sister… obviously that was the last thing I wanted to do after just getting out on my own.

I let out a groan when I splashed my face with ice cold water, trying to fully wake myself up. I hated early mornings, but unfortunately with my late sign up, I had gotten a 9am Psychology class instead of later in the afternoon like the rest of my classes. Even after a month and a half I was still surprised that I was a college student. It was weird to know that I survived through four years of high school and lived to tell the tale. Being a teenager was rough when your only parent was your older sister, and everyone tended to hit on her because she was supposedly hot. She was a babe, even I could admit that. Didn't make it easier hearing it from mots of my friends though. I grabbed my toothbrush. At least my hair wasn't too hard to take care of… it pretty much fell into place when I needed it to.

"Hey, Haru! Are you almost done in there?" my best friend and roommate pounded on the door. I rolled my eyes. It wasn't like I had been there for half and hour or anything… Musica was just impatient. Usually I made a habit of getting in the bathroom before him otherwise he would take forever doing his hair. His excuse was that a guy needed to look good if he wanted to impress the ladies. My excuse was that he was too damn picky about his own looks and needed to get a life.

"Yeah, give me another minute or two!" I called back, my words garbled by the toothbrush in my mouth. I wasn't expecting a reply from him, so I was surprised when he said:

"So, uh, how are things going between you and Elie? You didn't look to happy when you got home last night… Didn't you two have a date with her or something?" I could hear the concern in Musica's voice. That's what I liked most about the bossy brunette; he always cares about his friends, even if it's about trivial things. We had met through odd circumstances and had pretty much been best friends ever since then. He was a couple of years older than me, but that didn't seem to bother him a bit; we were both just big kids at heart anyways.

I put my toothbrush away and opened the door. He was leaning against the wall next to the door, already fully dressed and ready to head off to the motorcycle shop he worked at during the day. He had two jobs, which is something I would have loved to do if I had had the time for it. College took up most of my life, and the rest was taken up by the one part-time job I did have, plus trying to be a good brother and a good boyfriend. "Yeah, but she had to cancel out… She got called into work about an hour before I was supposed to pick her up, something about one of the girls getting the stomach flu and needing a replacement. It sucks because it's always Elie that gets called in. I mean it's good because that means they rely on her, and it's a good job… but I wish it didn't always happen when we have plans" I shrugged. I wasn't angry at her for it; she was making better money than all of us working at a nursing home as an assistant, and they helped pay for some of her nursing classes. It was a good deal for her, it just hurt when she constantly had to ditch me for work. We hadn't gone out on a real date in almost three months."We're doing pretty good now, but it's still a bit awkward, if you know what I mean."

Musica nodded, moving out of my way so I could move into the hallway with him. "But then why were you so pissed, then? You don't hold a grudge very often so I figured it was something bad."

"No. Not Elie-related at least… it's the damn wedding," I said with no lack of venom, glaring at the tan carpet. My sister was marrying her boyfriend of a few years in just five short weeks, and I was very frustrated with her. Not just because she was a bridezilla, though that was a huge part of it, but because I didn't think he was right for her. My future brother-in-law wasn't my favorite person in the world, and probably never would be. I was just forced to deal with him because Catt was apparently so in love with him. She always had horrible taste in men. "I think Catt's heading into this way too quickly. Even Shuda's starting to panic and is trying to get her to take it a little slower!"

Musica chuckled, looking at me with a hint of sympathy in his eyes. "She's been dating him for five years now. Just last year she was freaking out because she thought he was never going to ask," he rolled his eyes. "She's excited. You two need to let her just do her thing and be happy that she's happy. It could be a lot worse, trust me."

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair in frustration. He was right, I knew that, but if I had my choice she wouldn't be marrying Shuda at all. The red-headed asshole was the bane of my existence, next to waking up early in the morning. I had many reasons to not like him, a few being sort of pathetic. I guess part of me was a bit jealous because I felt like he was talking her away from me. I would never say that though, if I had a choice; I was supposed to be a grown man now, out on my own in the real world. Missing my sister just made me look weak and I couldn't do that. Besides, she had always put off her happiness for my sake, and I didn't want to be her roadblock anymore.

I waved to him dismissively as I headed back to my room to finish preparing for the day. As I searched for a shirt that was actually clean (or at least clean-smelling as I had forgotten to do laundry over the weekend), I glanced at the picture of Elie and I that my sister had taken of us during last year's prom. I had never been into the whole dating thing during high school. It wasn't that I wasn't attracted to girls, it's more like I didn't have the time or energy for them. By senior year there were rumors going around that I was gay, so I started dating Elie. She had always been a good friend of mine, and I couldn't deny that she was one of the hottest girls in school. We never were truly attracted to each other emotionally, but things were slowly getting better between us, or so I thought. I wanted to believe I would have my fairytale ending with her, if such a thing existed. I didn't want to give up on something that most guys would kill for, just because I wasn't really feeling into her. She had been so good to me over the past year, it was hard to let go, especially since I had nothing going for me in the dating department. I was good-looking, according to everyone around me, but I wasn't really dating material to many of the girls for whatever reason. Guess I just wasn't buff enough for them. I was strong in my own way, but I didn't have muscles like Shuda, or a smooth tongue like Musica. I was socially awkward some times.

As I changed into my clothes for the day I realized just how late in the morning it was; it was almost 8:30. That meant I was already running late for class. I grabbed a can of soda out of the refrigerator, calling out a quick goodbye to Musica as I left. Morning ritual required guzzling a can of Coke before the Psychology class that I wish I wasn't required to take. It was convenient, living only three blocks away from Symphonia University, which was the college I had chosen to attend. It was still a ten or fifteen minute walk anyways, and that was on a slow traffic day, both in the streets and on the sidewalks. Living in a college town meant it was constantly busy and a lot of people were out at this time in the morning, heading to work and class. Somehow I still managed to be late every morning, though this morning more so than usual.

"How nice of you to join us today, Mr. Glory. It would be even better if you would do it on time next time," Instructor Sieg Hart said coolly, though the gleam in his eyes told me that he was extremely annoyed. I was positive that he, a good friend of Shuda and Catt's, would be more than happy to inform my sister of my seventh offense of being late to his class. Did I mention that these tardies were in the past three weeks? Catteleya was going to kill me… She hated when I was late to anything, whether or not it affected her. She always told me in her bossiest voice, "Dammit Haru Glory I did NOT raise you to be late everywhere! Always leave early enough to get there ten minutes earlier than needed!" Even now I could hear her nagging me at the back of my head, much to my displeasure. She was a good sister, but sometimes she could be a bit… annoying.

I took my seat in the back, right behind Elie. She was the only reason I really even bothered to tolerate the class, and even then she wasn't always a good reason. She was doing perfectly fine in the class; psychology had been one of her best subjects in school; we always joked that it was because she was so crazy herself. I hated the class personally, and it wasn't just because of the teacher. I didn't care how the human brain worked, just that it worked at all. I mean some things were interesting to learn about, like dreams, and subconscious signals and such. That was just one chapter though, and we didn't go too in depth about it.

Sieg was answering questions about some project he had been talking about assigning to us. It was something that had been discussed before in class, and I tuned everyone out, staring at the white brick of the wall. I hated projects, but it wasn't a huge deal; Elie would end up being my partner anyways. She always volunteered to work with me because she knew I was hopeless without her. I had other things I was worried about at the moment, and Elie always explained this shit better to me than he did. My mind kept wandering to Catt's wedding; it was only five weeks away. Somehow I ended up as a groomsman alongside Let with Sieg as best man. Elie had managed to get the title of maid of honor. I had begged Catt for weeks to find someone else so I could walk with Elie instead of Catt's friend Reina. Let got to walk with his girlfriend, Julia, so I felt it only fair that I could walk with mine. Reina was okay but she was a bit of a bitch some times, and she tended to tease and pick on me.

"Okay, everyone, get together with the partner that I just called out and discuss what you might want to do for the project," the blue-haired teacher's voice broke through my reverie. I looked at Elie and she gave me a horrified look that told me something had gone horribly wrong. Then I slowly realized what he was saying… instead of letting us pair up, he had assigned us partners. That never turned out in my favor before, and Sieg was a cruel bastard some times.

"Assigned partners?" I gasped, a bit shocked. Why would he do that to us? Usually he didn't want to bother with doing something like that. It was too much effort only for everyone to bitch about it until he changed who their partner was in the end. "Who am I with? I wasn't listening earlier."

Elie sort of motioned her head behind me before scooting off to meet with her partner. "Do you ever listen to anybody?" a deep familiar voice made every bone in my body freeze., and not in an entirely unpleasant way. This was a person I had had actual feelings for since middle school, but never acted on them because of the connotations of liking another boy in any affectionate way. I turned to look at my worst enemy and greatest object of lust.

Standing with all five-foot-eight-inches of hard muscle and a head of beautiful blond hair, was Lucia Raregroove, son of my father's worst enemy, and now my Psychology partner. This was going to be one bitch of a Monday morning.