Appeals and Courtship

Those damn doors the principal thought to himself as yet another troublemaker strode into his humble office and sat upon the chair across from his desk. As the door to his office reached the apex of its shrieking swivel, the pressurized hinge retaliated, forcing it backward. The door jumped, and then slowed to a steady hiss; Soon the handle made a jarring screech as if it was at war with itself. At last it came to rest. Several seconds after the troubling teen had made himself at home, the principal finally lost track of his squeaky hinged distraction.

"So..." The principal asked with a threatening scowl. "Do you know why you are here?" The teen looked up at his superior, not quite at eye-line but enough to get a full glimpse of the principal's false cheer. Zac could feel the contempt radiating off of the principal, as if he himself would wither in its oppressive rays. Fall shouldn't feel like this, Zac thought. It was the first week of school, and yet he had already earned a one way ticket to principal HellMutt's office, one paid for by the douche nozzles who wrecked his locker. He had so many papers, syllabus notes and friendly welcomes back. Even a few love letters, he joked, would not have survived the baptism by piss that the fuck-wads had given them. At least he liked to think it was piss. Even if it wasn't, it surely smelled just as cantankerous.

"I know." Zac replied to HellMutt. HellMutt paused, aware that he was due an explanation. Hoping that Zac would supply him one, he soon found he was only met by a discourteous downward glance. He looked over at his damnable doorway. At least that was an annoyance with which his grit could steer him through. These kids, the ones that pull your hairs out and leave behind only withered grays, would be the end of him.

"Well then. Just to make things simple." HellMutt began chiding Zac as he stood from his desk, his rotund figure blocking out a great deal of the sun. He felt that if he was going to intimidate an innocent student into giving up the goat, as it were, he would at least stretch as he did so. "You aren't in trouble. We can't do anything about your papers, but your teachers will give you an extension on..." He sneered to think about it, "Your most pressing work. All I need from you is a confession. I know you saw who did this. Stop playing dumb and tell me."

Zac was fed up. He really was. He was also stuck, and he damn well knew that even if he did know, he wasn't going to snitch. That wouldn't have gotten him anywhere but two steps forward and three feet deep inside a toilet seat. He liked his hair, he liked how it didn't smell like his syllabi.

"I didn't see them. Sir." Zac replied, with a very emphatic sir, so much so that both he and the principal could feel the hairs on their respective knuckles curl upward. To say that the air was charged with electricity would only have been a half truth; The AC had been on the fritz since the school's opening day and to be inside the campus walls was to be a mess of sweat that could drive one to tears.

The door then dared to disrupt them; A girl crept from behind it, a bubbly yet somber purple-headed Lolita who seemed to have something of an appeal for Zac.

"I know the guilty party Sir, and they've already written a confession." The girl said willingly to the principal. She came up to the mans chest just barely, it was odd to seem someone so small demonstrate a poised curtsey, and especially when one seemed so odd. The principal was delighted, and would have remained as such had the small envelope in her hands been immediately placed in his. After several moments of a less than graciously held pose, the principals throbbing vein pressed him to question further.

"Well then, Sabrina, is it?" The principal asked, his wry chortle proving to be an omen of castrations soon to come. Zac took the principal's winded pause as a moment to collect his mind. So this is Noah's sister...Zac thought to himself. The principal and his pained forehead vein continued. "Out with it. Pronto!"

"I'm sorry Principal Helms. I'm afraid this letter was to be delivered straight to Zac, I can't give it to you."

The principal sneered down his nose to long enough to look down at the purple ray-of-sunshine's hand. He saw that the confession note meekly held between her thumb and forefinger was not the one he wanted; It was purple and pink and full of glittery-gold cursive writing. He turned back to his desk and bid the two students farewell.

"And don't get up to any trouble this year, Zac." He said while rubbing his temples. Zac simply exited the door and let the hinge give a nice, long, odious squeak.

"Ka-Chunk!" Went the soda machine as it ungraciously delivered a chilled glass into Sabrina's open and outstretched palm. Her fingers quickly wrapped around the drink, though with her dexterity the sweat on the glass hardly crept an inch as she brought it up to her face. Zac watched as her dainty lips enveloped the thick rim of the bottle, her cute cheeks barely dimpled as she took in each tiny gulp of liquid refreshment. Her lips parted with the soft-cut head of the bottle and a small puff of particle vapor passed from her mouth. Zac was enthralled by her poise, especially as she retracted her petite arms to her neck to caress the smooth curve of the cola to her own graceful neck. The way she nuzzled that coke, stealing its perspiration to cool and wet her skin, letting each bead roll down to the cusp of her short necked sweater; She was so purple and prudent, and chilled and curvacious.

It was no question in Zac's mind. The second she passed her cute and coy letter to his own hands, Zac would have this vixen. He just had to wait for her to finish her drink. Sabrina turned her gaze to Zac, and looked the slightest bit offended. That was usual, though. Even the younger ones that thought they were wild still fell for his charm, they bottled up their lust once they realized their game of chicken would land them squarely in his roost. He loved the game, if anything he was a zealot for prying virgin eyes.

"Can I help you?" Sabrina asked. Her voice was so cold Zac felt like he had been struck with the butt of her soda glass.

"Um..." Zac spoke, unsure of himself. "You had something for me, princess?" He loved that word. Princess...so many Disney movies and after school specials had made that a no fail pick up line. They were all stuck up, they all wanted to be one but they didn't know anyone who knew well enough to lie. Zac was, as they say, a smooth enough operator to know better, though.

"Yeah, its for you." Sabrina said as she shoved the letter into Zac's unsteady hands. He had not been prepared to have the letter shoved forcefully into his chest. This cat had claws, and it had been awhile since Zac even had to fret over a scratch. He was strangely, no, uncomfortably aroused.

This will be fun.

"Just open it already." Sabrina spoke forth between another callous swig of her drink. Much like her patience, the liquid in her bottle was running dry. A few quick chugs letter it emptied completely, and she bellowed a loud and raucous burp. It was enough to shake the certainty right off of Zac, who up til now had thought him self quite clever and smitten. Now he wasn't sure that he knew the meaning of either. "Look, dimwit. My brother doesn't have the nerve to tell you himself, so I'm going to spell it out for you. Its thirty minutes past lunch, and your own personal stash of SnArby's sandwiches is worse off than it would have on the way out."

Zac was appalled. "You- you can't talk to me like that! You're a cute little girl, and I'm on the football team!"

"You're a square, I can smell it like the smell of piss on your socks." Sabrina replied. Zac knew she was after his goat, but it still got to him all the same. "My brother made you a meal, and he's on the roof. If you want to eat just take the damn letter and scram already."

Zac would have protested further but Sabrina did not give him the option. She turned around and walked off, attempting a back handed three point shot that resulted in a loud shattering of glass across the breezeway concrete. Zac avoided the glass as he took off, preferring to be setup by Sabrina's no doubt strange as sin friend than take the blame for her shitty aim. At least he would get to eat.

Zac's first week back had been full of surprises. So much so that as he passed the hall monitor he wasn't even given so much as a disdainful nod. One dead glare from Zac's eyes said to leave well enough alone, and the hall monitor took this warning appreciatively. He valued his hair, after all, and walked off in the opposite direction of Zac, with some gusto.

Zac was not surprised to find Noah waiting for him, though he was surprised to find Noah by his locker, and with his back turned, and not waiting for him at all.

"Shit shit shit, this is not what I told those fuck-wad freshmen to do!" Noah swore under his breath.

"Well, well," Zac uttered, causing Noah to jump slightly, beads of sweat already sliding down his neck," A man after my own heart."

Noah turned around. He was a skilled master of the art of playing dumb, but he'd rather save his playful and coy frivolities for the roof, where he dreamed of having...well...things happen. He supposed. Noah dusted off his legs and shook off his spare dirty thoughts on Zac and his beautiful rugged face as he got up and spoke his piece. "I owe you a lunch, don't I?"

"Hmm...yeah, I guess you do. So whose the chick?" Zac said, expecting Noah to let him in on whatever hoax of a setup he was being placed into?

"Chick? My sister?"

"No..." Zac said with a dull glare, quite lifeless and helplessly turned on from a previous glass-shattering encounter,"The one who wrote this!". Zac held up the letter. Noah turned a bit red, but found himself desperately without words. Or a throat. It was a very weird sensation, he was not used to being taken off guard, especially by rugged football-jock types. Was he swooning?

"Look," Zac said with a great deal of frustration behind his tooth-gritting smile. "I know you hardly have two brain-cells to rub together, but that tease of a sister of yours seemed to be implying that some chick had the balls to want a piece of this, and I am all out of fucks to give, so if you'd just-"

Zac paused. Noah was kneeling on one leg, and in his hands was the most...was kawaii the word...yeah, kawaii lunch box he had ever seen. Rice with meat and veggies forming a panda with a space captains helmet...he didn't know anyone else even remembered the vintage 80's space patrollers' suit...this one was perfect to the dot.

"Just take it..." Noah said, his usual cool bravado not the least bit shaken. "Or do I not have enough balls for you?"

Zac took the lunch box and for the slightest moment their fingers grazed each others. It didn't bother Zac, not as if he was sickened. He couldn't explain the sensation though, like sucking a 9-volt, or getting your fingers caught in a live socket. Like something had jolted his nerves into awakening. They shared the lunch outside of one of the remedial classes (Noah didn't give a fuck about missing class, nor did he seem to mind sharing silverware...).

"So, what do you think of me?" Noah asked Zac.

"What are you, Gay?" Zac replied.

"Well, if you're just going to ignore the question..."

"Fine, you know what I think? I think for a dumb ass who can't even get the balls to piss on my homework himself, your not someone I would mind having my back...you're alright for a punk, I suppose."

Noah got to his feet and ran a comb through his hair a few times. His hair was a bit slick, Zac wondered when he had the time to apply hair gel...

"Look, I left some syllabi in your locker, the ones I could track down at least. As for the locker, it only smells as much like piss as before my punks messed with it. They each tagged their names inside, I saw to that, so you have all the proof you need should HellMutt darken your day again. As for the letter." Noah trailed off and slowly walked away.

Zac wondered what the fuck Noah's malfunction was.

"Hey, don't just walk off! You left your fucking silverware and..." He looked down at the letter. It was addressed in large, gold lettering.

To Zac...From Noah

Zac took a long drawn out breath, only to realize his cheeks were turning red.