DISC: I don't own Claymore.

Chapter 2 – Written on her face

Claire, Miria, Helen and Deneve were seated at a table outside a sandwich shop, which was located near the university campus. The sun was at its highest, shining brightly on the earth as the university was as usual, filled with student crowds at this hour. People walked in groups, laughing and chatting loudly with joyful tones as Miria observed keenly with her chin propped on her palm. Listening to all these noises was quite different than their first lesson, its silence, and…

"So, what do you think about this morning's Latin lesson?" Deneve asked, disrupting Miria's deep thoughts.

"Well, that it was pretty hard to understand," Claire answered, folding her quarter of pizza so that it would be easier to eat.

"We should've already taken Latin lessons in high school," Miria remarked with a sigh. "It's gonna be tough and-"

"Oh please!" Helen cut in, "Let's stop talking about it. We'll never know why we study ancient Latin in our "modern literature" section anyway. Let's focus on other lessons that will be more interesting," she added, looking for something inside the wrapping of her sandwich.

"Oh my, has anyone seen the mayonnaise?"

The other girls looked at each other questioningly.

"I see," Helen sighed. "There's no way I can eat that thing without mayo." She stood up and made her way through the crowd towards the shop, grumbling.

"It's funny that she's not hung over after what she drank last night," Miria said.

"She can hold her drink now," Claire added, "It's frightening. She really drinks too much…"

"But hey, if she were smoking instead... or taking drugs, that would be far worse," Deneve said, trying to find something positive into this worrying situation.

She suddenly opened her eyes wide, noticing something behind Claire who was opposite her.

"Hey, Miri! Look there. Isn't that the girl from the tramway?"

Miria followed her friend's gaze. A girl was indeed coming out of another shop with a water bottle in her hand. She was striding towards the university with her eyes fixed on the main entrance ahead. She was not that far from where the girls were and they could notice an air of remoteness and mystery about her. She stopped on the sidewalk before crossing the road, and when she took a look at her left to check if any car was passing by, Miria saw her beautiful face. She noticed her delicate features, more accurately than she did the previous night, and noticed how haughty she could seem. The girl finally crossed the road and Miria kept her lengthy gaze fixed on her until she saw her endless blonde hair disappearing behind the university main gate.

She then absent-mindedly turned back to the table as her friends looked at her questioningly.

"You were watching her like a cat stalking a mouse," Deneve remarked.

"So what?" Miria answered, "I just…"

"You just...?"

"Ahem..." Miria cleared her throat, lacking words to speak.

"Anyway, she's pretty," said her short-haired friend. "Have you already forgotten all about Flora?"

"No, Flora's still in my head," Miria replied. "You're the one who's forgotten, when you think I can be attracted to someone else."

"Yeah, you can't move on that fast," Claire said quietly with a disapproving look towards Deneve. "But still, nothing does forbid you to find someone beautiful," she added.

"Who's beautiful?" Helen asked, just back from the shop with a huge portion of mayonnaise.

"Last night's girl," Deneve answered.

"What girl?" she lightly asked, flooding her food with sauce.

"The one you hit when you were drunk…"

"Oh, he-he, she's here? Where is she?" Helen asked, looking all around.

"She was," Claire answered, rolling the empty wrapping of her pizza into a ball – she was used to having light lunches, so this little portion was far enough for her. "And she just entered the university."

"Good news! I guess that means that I might get the chance to apologize!" Helen said before taking a huge bite of her sandwich.

"You fool," Deneve retorted, "There are minimal chances of you seeing her again. She wasn't with us in class this morning, so she's definitely not in our year…"

"So what? I could cross paths with her randomly and…"

"Ay! Stop it."

Miria hushed them with her characteristically calm yet serious tone; the girls wisely chose to change the subject.

2 hours later, it was almost 2:00 PM. Claire had insisted on arriving early for the next lesson, so the girls were waiting for their teacher in an old, dusty lecture hall. They had chosen to sit halfway-up so that they were both not too far from the board and not amongst the really-too-serious-students of the first row. Helen would've considered the line "you're a serious student!" as a personal insult indeed.

"Hey, Deneve!" Helen suddenly called, "Refresh my memory…" She pointed out someone who just sat at the second row: "Isn't that the girl I hit yesterday?"

Deneve took a look at who she was pointing at and answered, "Yeah, it's her. I'm surprised you can remember her face…"

But even before Deneve's words could reach Helen's ears, the latter had already run down the stairs. She stopped beside the girl and said with a smile, "Hi, you might not remember me because of the helmet I was wearing last night but I'm the one who hit you, so I wanted to apologize!"

The other girl was looking at her with her eyes nonchalantly saying "So...?", and both suddenly and surprisingly, Helen felt awkward.

"So, err, is there any way I could make it up to you?"

The seated girl, returning her attention to the book she was reading, didn't spare Helen another glance. It wasn't a big deal to her and she thought she was taking it a little too seriously. She couldn't care much about what had happened in the tramway even though her shoulder was still hurting a bit. However, since Helen wanted to so badly to make up for the incident, the long-haired girl with cobalt-blue eyes considered messing with her a little bit.

She closed her book, turned to face her again and ran her eyes from head to toe in a kind of ambiguous manner before saying, "Well, I don't know... hmm, how about a date?"

"A da-… what?" Helen blushed in surprise and started scratching the back of her head. "Oh, err, dates are not my kinda thing, but…" she stated, leaving her sentence hanging as she vaguely pointed to her friends before adding, "We're all gonna go have some drinks after class, would you like to join us?"

After listening to Helen, she looked up a few rows higher. She saw a girl with very short hair and another one with chin-length hair as they talked in low tones, but then is when she met the eyes of a third one, a strawberry blonde girl. She instantly recognized her beautiful face which was embellished by the distinctly thick, spiky locks that Miria was known for. Afterward, she turned around to face Helen and said with a mischievous smile, "Okay, let's do that. We just have to wait for each other at the end of this lesson. Though I've gotta say... I won't have all the time in the world."

"Perfect!" Helen exclaimed with a big grin. "See you later then!"

As she left to return to her seat, she suddenly stopped and turned back: "By the way, I forgot to ask your name…?"

"Oh. It's Galatea..."

"You took forever to apologize," Miria grumbled the moment Helen returned. Her voice was slightly muffled since she had put her helmet on the table, crossed her arms on it and rested her chin on top.

They were each seated at opposite ends with their friends seated in between. So as Helen was going to answer Miria, she leaned over the desk to face her.

"Well, I asked what I could do and then she asked for a date but hell, I love guys, so I told her she could come have a drink with us later and she said yes."

"You should've accepted a date. It's your problem after all," Miria sighed.

Of course the strawberry blonde didn't want to know this girl better. Of course this girl was beautiful. Of course she may have been attracted to her. And she already was, indeed. Miria had the strong feeling that because of this new goddess-looking girl, she would forget Flora faster than she thought. It was hard to admit. In her opinion, you can't forget someone you deeply loved for three years so quickly… Even if in her case, it could be a good thing.

She definitely was attracted. And she would probably be more and more if she got to know this girl. And she didn't want to suffer anymore.

"Please, girls, shut up," Claire whispered. "She's here…"

Deneve and Helen, who were arguing about silly things, zipped their mouths. Miria stopped mulling over her feelings and slowly put her helmet at her feet. The four girls focused on the teacher's desk especially Claire, who suddenly had a dreamy look and a light smile.

The teacher, who just walked in, put a pile of papers and two thick books on the desk then looked all around the place. She faintly smiled as her eyes briefly sparkled with love when they met Claire's. The latter thought other students had noticed this but she couldn't care less. When Teresa looked at her the way she just did, even in front of a hundred of students, Claire invariably melted. She then heard some guys behind her talk about how hot and sexy Teresa was and other nasty vulgarities. This instantly made Claire sick, making her feel like turning around and punching them in the face.

The other three girls had also heard the slang comments. Miria wrote "Ignore those assholes" on Claire's notepad as Teresa was introducing her lesson with much seriousness – "This lesson's title is 'Character creation process within Balzac's novels' and…"

Helen, on the other side, was thinking about a way to save Teresa's and Claire's honour. As soon as an idea popped in her head, she whispered into Deneve's ear,

"What if I told those guys that she's a lesbo?"

"That'd be worse, you fool…"

"How so? It's a good idea!"

"No way! They'll fantasize and drool."

"But –"

"Isn't it your ex-boyfriend who asked you to have sex with him and another girl? … But hey, I may be wrong."

"Not funny," Helen grumbled, turning red. She then focused back on Teresa and after that, nothing else interrupted the lesson.

After the course, Claire chose to go back home with Teresa, indifferent to the curious looks of the other students. She left the other three with Galatea and reminded Miria to join her later as she suggested the previous night. Miria had to take back her motorbike anyway.

Twenty minutes later, the other girls were sitting at a table outside a café, at the centre of the town.

Galatea looked closely at each of them. The day before, she had been immediately taken by the strawberry blonde. It was quite interesting that they were in the same class, and now, at the same table. She figured it was the work of fate.

The waiter arrived quickly. Deneve and Miria asked for ordinary alcohol-free drinks while Helen ordered a pint of lager. Galatea followed her with a brown ale beer.

"Ha! Finally! Someone knows how to drink!" Helen proudly exclaimed.

"Oh, I usually drink champagne," Galatea answered in a slightly pretentious tone that no one seemed to notice except Miria. "Though right now, it's too early in the afternoon to do that."

"I never have any occasion to drink champagne…" Helen sighed. "Boys only pay beers, and they think that they can have me with that! Pssh!" she lied.

"So I gather I can have you with champagne?" Galatea wittily asked.

"Err... I already told you that I'm not into this," Helen answered, blushing again.

"Anyway, there are lots of places where you can meet girls," Deneve added while the waiter put their drinks on the table.

"Yeah, and Miria could take you there!" Helen chimed in.

"Sure, why not…?" Miria agreed reluctantly after a short while. "I indeed know some of these places."

"So, let's drink to the end of my single status!" Galatea said, raising her pint. She now understood why nobody had seemed surprised when she somewhat openly flirted with Helen with the champagne remark: Miria shared her tastes… which was of the higher interest…

There was a clink and each girl drank a bit. As they put their glasses down again, Deneve felt that Miria was not at ease, though she couldn't figure out why she had this feeling. Thus, she chose to end the "relationship topic".

"Out of the subject," she concluded. "I was wondering why I didn't see you this morning…" she added, addressing Galatea.

"This morning?" Galatea spoke with surprise in her voice. "And where should I have been this morning, in your opinion?"

"In the Latin lesson. I mean, you're obviously a first year student, so why weren't you there?"

"Who do you think I am, to be taking the "beginner level" lesson?" Galatea answered, standing on her dignity, and suddenly, Miria felt inexplicably both irritated and pleased by this haughtiness. "My Latin course is tomorrow. Of course I chose the "expert mode"…"

"I've heard that the "expert mode" was only for the crazy people of the "ancient languages" section, and not for people of our level," Miria remarked. "So you pretend to be that good at the subject?"

"You have no idea of how many languages I can speak with my tongue," Galatea retorted with a teasing look towards the strawberry blonde. She drank a bit and delicately ran the tip of her tongue over her lips to remove the beer's foam.

Deneve and Helen exchanged a silent glance. Something would definitely happen between the other two, they thought.

Miria briefly looked at Galatea's lips and felt something unknown growing up inside her heart.

Galatea took a look at her watch – it was time to go. She said she had Japanese lessons to take and that she didn't want to be late, which was true. She emptied her pint at a speed that left Helen speechless before saying goodbye. She deliberately didn't look at Miria since she had just won her over and they both knew it. The trick of "the tongue on the lips" was a deathblow on many girls, including Miria, obviously.

As she walked away, Galatea was pretty sure that Miria was still watching her. She had the deep feeling that their meeting would be decisive in their lives, though only time would tell what fate had in store for them. And she perfectly knew that this "something unknown" was "growing up inside Miria's heart", as if it had been written on her face.

081011 1436 Kurea1802/Ninefifteen

A/N: Sorry it took me so long ^^; I hope you'll enjoy it! Feel free to comment :)

Thank you very much to my dear beta. You did an amazingly-awesome-wonderful work with this one ! 3