Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes
Romeo, Romeo and Juliet
It's hard to say exactly when I realized that I wasn't the only occupant of the front row of Professor Yamagi's English classroom. Oh sure, I'd noticed the guy next to me who had this tendency of stretching his chewing gum in and out of his mouth—then sticking it underneath his desk. Needless to say, he'd been permanently assigned to the front row on the first day of class.
And I did once in a while acknowledge the existence of the girl sitting on my right side because she stared at me an awful lot—to the point that it got a little stalker-ish. But that's a tale for another story.
Anyway, well into our reading of Pride and Prejudice something happened. Well, yes, Elizabeth Bennet did turn down poor, poor deserving Darcy, but something else happened, too. Gum Boy saw the light (and his abysmal grades) and dropped out of English Lit. This left his desk empty so that, for once, I could clearly see the profile of the student who had sat beside him.
And my world turned upside down.
What followed would involve elaborate conspiracies, manly tights, something like love…and a whole lot of Shakespeare.
~~~~(~~~((
Miyoki Kuro's silvery green eyes uneasily swung to his left-hand side. The only other passenger of his black Nissan was slumped moodily into the dark vinyl seat. Zane was silent this morning, his only movement being that of his nimble fingers toying with the strap of his school bag. Though many a morning ride had ended with Kuro praying Zane would develop a permanent case of bronchitis, the older man was strangely unnerved by the quiet. Weekday mornings should never be this...dull.
Kuro leaned forward and hesitantly touched the pad of his finger to the radio's power button. A grimace graced his face at the sound of the mind-numbing "J-pop" breezing from the speakers. At least this would wake the normally chirpy blonde out of his stupor, he comforted himself.
Wait for it…
Zane just sighed.
The gleaming, burnt red high school loomed into view, and Kuro was still no closer to discovering the reason for this moody behavior. The boy was obviously sick. Deathly ill, maybe. If the sound of this bubble-gum music still had not conjured up girly wails or orders to "Shut it off for the love of Guy Fawkes!", something was certainly wrong. Kuro wondered just how strange it would be if he leaned over and checked Zane's temperature. No, not even Zane's uncharacteristic glumness was not a good enough reason for him to endanger his own, hard-earned stony masculinity.
Still, the minutes—actually seconds—were ticking down and Kuro had to be at work in the next fifteen minutes. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
"Okay, Zane, what's wrong?" he asked in English. All right, he'd said it. His masculinity could not be in danger, right? He wondered if he'd displayed too much concern.
The seventeen-year-old tucked his classic European sunglasses into his bag and drew a hand through his coppery gold hair.
"Kuro, what do you know about getting a girl to fall for you?"
Always the direct one, Kuro mused. "I'm not really the best to ask about this kind of thing, Zane," was the automatic answer.
Zane's nod of unquestioning assent irked Kuro for some reason. "I know. But Nobu's a mocking bastard whenever I have girl issues and Jed's a mocking and perverted bastard so…"
"I was your only option."
"Exactly."
Kuro nodded to himself. "Who is she?"
"You don't know her. Or, actually…I think she's a friend of that girl Nobu's been seeing. Makoto?"
The man nodded. "Go on."
Zane clenched his fingers round the strap of his backpack in frustration. "She's just…she's perfect, you know? Her name's Ami and she's a genius in studies, she's nice and…oh my God."
"Hm?"
"That's her!" Zane hissed. He snaked and wriggled down lower in his seat so that he couldn't be seen.
Kuro's mouth twitched at the teenager's antics. "Which one?"
Zane's voice was muffled by the horn honks and the blazer he'd covered his head with to disguise himself. "The muffle muffle one muffle blue!"
"You're kidding, right?" Kuro deadpanned, as he stared into the sea of uniformed students, all clad in navy blue blazers.
"No, no, I mean the one with the short, blue-ish hair!" By this time, Zane's knees had knocked against the floor, and he looked to be in fervent prayer.
The less vague description considerably narrowed down the options. Kuro instantly picked out the girl in question. Her hair wasn't blue, exactly, but in the sunlight, the night-black hair gleamed blue. Unfortunately, his view was limited to her becomingly short hair and the back of her pale neck.
"Ah."
"Ah? That's…it?" Zane demanded. "Don't you mean to say that she's adorable, stunning, untouchable, ravishing, gor—"
"I can only see the back of her head."
"But isn't it—"
"Yes, the most ravishing back-of-a-head I've ever seen. Clearly, you don't need any advice since you can just bombard her with adjectives until she agrees to go out with you just to shut you—"
"Shut up."
"I thought you wanted my pearls of wisdom," Kuro said innocently.
"I'll see you later." Zane muttered something that sounded very similar to "mocking bastards" as he opened the car door.
"Four'o'clock?"
"Sure. Thanks for the advice."
Kuro was starting to feel guilty. "Hey, maybe you should talk to Jed."
"And have him cackle at me?"
Kuro shrugged. "Cackle he may, but he could know more about this girl than you do, social butterfly that he is. Maybe he'd even agree to help you get her to...fall for you.'"
The blonde's eyes lit up. "Genius. I love you."
"Save it for the girl."
Zane blew him a kiss as he walked through the obsidian school gates. Kuro rolled his eyes, but felt oddly pleased that Zane was back to his old self.
~~~~(~~~((
"You really should give up this drama queen act."
"…"
Jed boy raised the eyebrows that hung over wicked blue eyes, concerned by the absence of a reply that went along the lines of "Are you calling me a queen?" He watched Zane concernedly, then returned to devouring of his lunch.
"Mmff, so what were you babbling about in Phys Ed class?" Jed enquired, his mouth full of rice.
Zane clacked a pair of chopsticks against his bowl of untouched food, his back leaning comfortably against an aged tree. English Lit followed their lunch period, and he still was at a loss. He'd had Physics with Ami the period before, but that class was enormous and not the most ideal place for an intimate conversation. But God, she'd definitely looked great, and when she passed him on her way out, had smelled like fresh orange blossoms and honey.
Jed, instead of being put off by his friend's dreamy silence took to entertaining himself. "Well Jed," Jed said to himself airily, "I actually was just talking to myself like I always do when I feel like the world is an empty, empty place and am feeling really out of sorts. But that doesn't mean I'm insane, does it?"
"I need help," Zane interrupted with a sigh.
"Shoot."
"It's about Ami."
Jed immediately perked his ears up. "She's friends with that Shinto priestess, right? The hot one?"
"What? Yeah, okay, whatever." Zane released an annoyed grunt as Jed's focus swayed to another spot on the lawn. "Will you please stop winking at those girls and give me a second of your attention?"
The other boy straightened up, trying to plaster on a serious face. "Okay, okay. As you were saying?" he invited in his British accent, one similar to Zane's.
"I don't know what to do about this whole Ami thing."
"You like her?"
"Yeah."
"You find her attractive?"
"Very."
"You're sure she doesn't have some sort of terminal disease that would cause you to have nothing more than a short-lived romance and then be doomed to mourning forever?"
"…I'll have to check on that," Zane said, a nervous expression crossing his face.
"Do, because if she does, we should make it into a movie. And call it A Love Story. Yeah…Anyway, I have the perfect solution. It's genius, actually."
"Yes?" Zane urged eagerly.
"Now, it might sound a little crazy but…maybe you should…possibly…ask her out."
Zane stared at Jed. "That's the most idiotic idea I've heard."
"What? Why?"
"Because," Zane tapped his chopsticks even more furiously, "I don't know if she's even into guys," he admitted.
"You mean she's...into girls?" Jed breathed, intrigued.
"NO!" Zane answered with a slight jump and harassed expression. "At least…God, I hope not." Jed signaled for his friend to continue. "It's just that she's so dedicated to studying, and I don't know anyone who's dated her and I haven't even heard rumors about her fancying anyone and she never daydreams or stares at anyone in class…"
"You need help."
"Exactly," Zane agreed affably. "Your help."
Jed scratched his head, feeling baffled. "I'm still not understanding what you want me to do."
"Find out everything you can about her."
"Wait, what? Like spy on her?"
"No...yes."
Jed shook his head, disappointed. Surely Zane had had enough experience with girls to know that the best way to learn about them (and not be creepy) was to talk to them.
He told him so.
"Of course I want to talk to her. But I'm not going to resort to tying her to a chair and interrogating her about her love life."
"I don't know, that's always worked for me."
Pause. "I hope you're kidding. Anyway, I just want you to find out about her romantic history. And what it is that she finds romantic, you know?"
A glint came into Jed's eyes. "Could that include getting information from her hot, Shinto priestess friend?"
Zane shrugged helplessly. If you couldn't beat 'em… "Sure."
His childhood friend punched the air triumphantly. "Done and done. You might even want to ask Nobu for his help."
"No."
"Why not?"
"He'll just poke fun at me."
"Yeah, but I'm both mocking and perverted. If you could deal with that…"
"I dunno…" Zane responded skeptically.
"Well, Makoto is pretty good friends with this Ami girl, isn't she?"
Zane was struck by his friend's sudden intelligent suggestion. "That's true. Alright, I'll do it. That was actually a good idea, Jed."
"Don't act so surprised," Jed sniffed.
His green-eyed friend looked at his watch. "Oops, time for my English Lit class. See you later and thanks!" He packed away his untouched package of food and sprinted off before Jed could feel too insulted.
~~~~(~~~((
When Zane entered the classroom his gaze immediately focused in on the petite girl seated in the front row. Her head was intently bent over her pristine copy of Romeo and Juliet, highlighter carefully sliding across the page. Zane grinned to himself. He and the other students were still dragging their feet into Twelfth Night, being that Romeo and Juliet was two plays ahead in the syllabus.
Without thinking too much about it and the possibility of embarrassing himself, he slid into the desk next to Ami's.
"Hi."
She looked up at him with her lilting blue eyes and his breath caught for a second. "Zane...um, hi," she said after a few moments, clearly in complete control of her own breathing. Bitterly, Zane came to the conclusion that she only vaguely knew him as the boy who sat in the same row as her. But for now, that was enough, since he was close enough to smell her scent again and look at her sugar pink lips and think of how they reminded him of a rosebud. He wondered if they tasted the way roses smelt…was that thought poetic or just weird?
"…would you, Mr. Ewer?"
"Huh?" Zane spouted intelligently, broken out of his thoughts. Three epiphanies hit him at once. One: Stalker Girl was staring openly at him even though he was one desk farther away than usual. Two: Mr. Yamagi was staring stonily at him, awaiting a response to the unheard question. And three: He had been staring dreamily at Ami, causing her cheeks to color.
"I asked you if you would be so kind as to begin reading Sebastian's part. But since you are otherwise occupied—"
"No, no, no, I'd be happy to read it, Mr. Yamagi," Zane countered, rushing to pull his reading glasses and script out of his bag. Geeky as he knew it was (and had constantly been reminded of by Jed and Nobu), Zane adored reading Shakespeare. And if he adored reading Shakespeare he was absolutely passionate about acting out Shakespeare. He had, in fact, starred in a couple of Shakesperean plays in the past. Now was the time for him to shine (and show off in front of Ami). Except…
"Damnit!" he whispered to himself. He still couldn't find the script.
"Excuse me, Mr. Ewer?" Mr. Yamagi asked sternly.
"Umm—"
An open copy of Twelfth Nightn magically appeared in front of him, held in the clasp of a small, petal-white hand. "Here. Scene 3," came the blessed, quiet voice.
Zane shot Ami a grateful look, reveling in her quiet smile. He then began to read in an engaging, confident voice, one that immediately captivated the attention of every person in the room.
"I would not by my will have troubled you;
But, since you make your pleasure of your pains,
I will no further chide you."