Near was sitting in the middle of the floor where he spent most of his time. Working on the same blank puzzle he had completed about six times since he had sat down that afternoon. He squinted at the window. It was so bright.
He got up and went over to shut the curtains, when a flash of purple caught his attention. He absentmindedly twirled his while lazily scanning the couple dozen kids out on the soccer field until Near could see what the flash of violet had been. He lifted an eyebrow.
It was a girl, but there was something odd about the girl, besides the fact she had purple hair. She was…
Well there weren't really words to describe it.
She just stood out, like a Violet in a bouquet of daisies.
Near frowned, he was sure she had never seen this girl before.
She was running the field, her hair blowing in the wind. She was very tan. Well, Near supposed she was about as tan as anyone who got a decent amount of sun in they're daily lives, and almost no one did any more.
She passed the ball to a teammate and kept running.
And then she stopped very suddenly and looked directly in Nears direction. Near would have been startled but he was to mesmerized, like a deer caught by the shine of someone's headlights.
They stared at each other for a long moment, Near's expression as serene as ever, although on the inside he was wild and frantic. He felt like yelling or screaming at himself to look away!
And then she gave a dazzling grin to reveal a set of white very healthy looking teeth. Near drew in a sharp breath.
Another teammate must have called her because her head snapped to her left and nodded. Still smiling but not the way she had grinned at Near, she half walked half ran towards the east side of the field to join whoever had called her.
Near stood there twirling a lock of hair, until the girl had walked off the field and out of his sight.
He tried to go back to his puzzle, but found that his hands were shaking. He furrowed hi eyebrows. It was really quite irritating. He sighed and started walking down the hall to his room, He had some reading he needed to get done. He opened the door to his room and flopped down on his bed, he eventually rolled over to get his books out of the drawer in his nightstand and started reading. A few hours later he realized he had fallen asleep. He looked at the clock on his wall and got up, it was just about dinnertime and he found himself wondering if she would be there, the girl with the bright purple hair.
Well, of course she would be there, she had to eat sometime. He smiled inwardly at his own stupid question. But it wasn't so much that he wondered if she would be there, that he wanted her to be there he realized with fascination. He wanted to know who the girl was; he wanted to know her name so he could stop calling her the girl.
He walked through the doors of the cafeteria. His eyes darting around the room, searching. But the girl wasn't there. Funny, she didn't seem like the type of girl who skipped meals, what did it matter to him anyways? He didn't know this girl, he'd never even heard of this girl.
It was only until he sat down –alone of course, no one ever shared a table with him even though they were over twelve feet long - with his food that he realized he wasn't at all hungry. So he got out a couple of his toys and started fiddling with them, thinking. But he spotted the door opening from the corner of his eye. And saw the girl walking through. He hadn't realized he had been waiting for her until she had come into the big dining room.
What now? He thought to himself. What was he waiting for? Her to come over, give him her life story and be off on her way?
Why did he even care? He asked himself again.
She stood there in the doorway for a moment looking around. She didn't have anyone with her. She was alone. She wore cargo pants and a long sleeved tight fitting black shirt that had a small picture of a pink skull over her heart. She had a very small screwdriver in her hand that she was clenching tightly. He thought that was odd. Well, in truth, anyone who went to whammy's bound to have something wrong with them Mostly disorders of some sort. He knew was staring at her, and at some point she would probably notice. But he just couldn't look away.
She ran a hand through her bright purple hair and looked over to where they were serving the food. She grimaced, and started to move towards the back of the cafeteria, towards Near. She wasn't actually looking at Near, but she was definitely heading in his direction. He felt a sudden lump in his throat, he knew that this wouldn't end well. He would probably just say something that offended her and she would move to another table, leaving him alone with his weird little toys again. She looked up at him and smiled that grin again. She sat right across from him her grin fading into a polite smile.
"Hi" she chirped. "I'm Reyna, but you can call me Ray."
Near's heart rate quickened. Why was he suddenly so nervous?
"N-Near." He said.
"Near… that's cute."
Near was sure he turned scarlet at the sound of her speaking his name.
Reyna glanced down at his toys.
"Hey, do have any of those you really don't care about?"
"What?"
"They toys." She said. "Do you have any you don't want?"
"Sure." He said, obviously confused. But he took out his mini "May I ask what for?"
She looked a little embarrassed, but still some how confident.
"Well, I have a bit of an obsession." She held up her screwdriver.
"I'll put it back together." She promised.
Near smiled the tiniest little bit. "I don't mind." He handed her a action figure at random.
Then he frowned, he had been dying to ask her so many questions. Now he was all but speechless.
"How long have you been here?" she asked.
He was startled by the abruptness of her question.
"Um… six years." He admitted. Then he realized this was a good time to start asking his questions. He really was very curious about her.
"How about you?" he asked. "You seem new here."
He cringed inwardly at his last comment. That was exactly the type of thing that would be considered rude and send her running.
But she just grinned again. "That's me." She chimed "Newbie."
She laughed. Near was mesmerized, her laugh was really quite pretty.
Then he remembered that she hadn't gotten any food and he wondered why. So he asked her; "Why didn't you get any food?"
It seemed like a simple enough question.
But she sighed like she was getting ready to read the entire dictionary word by word to a toddler, and she just wasn't up to it.
Near furrowed his brow trying to figure out was going on in her head.
"Well," She started. "I grew up vegan, and I don't think it would be very smart to just start stuffing my face with meat now. I would be sick for weeks." She sighed and then added. "Plus it doesn't change the fact it's still cruel."
He nodded. "They really don't have enough options here."
She started picking at the head of the figure he had given her with her screwdriver. Near just sat and watched, twirling his hair.
"How about you?" she asked after a short comfortable silence.
"Excuse me?"
"Why aren't you eating?"
"Oh." Near frowned, his excuse wasn't nearly as interesting. "Not hungry."
He said lamely.
"Hmm"
She looked up. Not at Near, but behind him. Her eyes widened. Near resisted looking behind him, in fear of what he would find.
"That blond kid is glaring at you." She whispered.
"Did you run over his cat?" She asked.
Near stiffened. He knew who she was talking about of course. But he didn't want to deal with Mello just now.
"That's Mello." He said simply. "He takes everything personally."
"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath and looked away from Mello. "Now he's glaring at me. Man he's scary!"
Near smiled, she didn't look intimidated.
Reyna yawned. She must have been tired from her day on the field.
He suggested that they get some sleep. Near wondered how close her room was to his…
Reyna giggled, not something she made a habit of. She was half disgusted at herself and the other half didn't care she started the walk to her room. Roger had told her room 46. She wondered where Near was staying.
He was really very cute. Not that that was the reason she had taken this bizarre interest she had in him. She knew they were going to be friends, when she met people, she sorted them into two categories; "potential friend" and "not a chance".
She also briefly thought of the angry blond boy who had stared at them for almost a full ten minutes. He was definitely in the "not a chance" category.
She wondered what was in store for her tomorrow. She hoped Near was still willing to talk to her. She also needed something to busy her hands, they were itching for a new project. Maybe they would have some wood working tools lying around…