13 Shades of Grey
Snickers, Giggles, and Laughter Galore
--
Arista kicked the chair in front of her and waited for Johnny to hand her back her Game Boy. He made a sound of annoyance, grumbled and then handed the see-through purple electronic game back to it's owner.
Arista smiled giddily and started pushing buttons, raising her score ever higher. She was playing Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 3. She stuck out her tongue in such a way that gave her more concentration and almost jumped out of her seat when she beat her old hi-score record.
Before she was sitting beside Rei and Kane. But she'd switched seats because Rei kept talking, distracting her, and Kane kept wanting to make out with Aspin. Although he had left a while back, saying he needed to use the washroom. He'd disappeared since, and hadn't come back yet.
Tala jabbed her with his elbow lightly; Arista stashed the game into her shirt pocket and waited for Mr. Dickenson to pass. He knew that she was playing games, but he let her off. After all, listening to speeches from teachers was pretty boring. Giving one was worse. He smiled slightly and walked off.
As soon as he was gone Arista sighed, and took her Game Boy out again. Tala rolled his eyes amused, and pretended to pay attention but caught himself glancing back towards Ruin. More often than not his gaze would travel to the gothic female.
She was currently seated two rows, and six seats to the left in front of him. Sonia sat beside her, talking non-stop. Ruin looked thoughtfully at her friend, adding in her input every now and then. Aspin sat beside Rei and Shahero. The three had started to throw paper at the students in front of them.
Amber was probably with Bryan or one of her cousins. Ozuma was standing along with Hitoshi on the stage, they were playing Double-Oh-Seven while trying to look alert and interested. Tala grinned, he was so glad he'd refused the job of being a prefect. The boredom he'd have to endure would have been fathomless.
Arista squealed with delight as she made it one level higher. Tala smirked and surveyed the screen to read her score. It was in the millions as far as he could tell. Beside him, Ian nudged his arm. Tala turned to his left and raised an eyebrow to the midget Russian.
"What?"
"Just watch." Came the reply.
Ian took out his chewed gum and rolled it with his forefinger and thumb. When it was somewhat round, he leaned forwards and dropped it into Shahero's hair. She didn't even notice. For fear of it falling out, Ian decided to take his chances and applied pressure to the gum, tacking it onto the dark-haired girl's hair. Shahero was too busy flicking paper balls to even notice anything.
Tala smirked. When Shahero found out she would kill the living daylights out of Ian. That he would love to watch.
The lights in the gym dimmed to a low glow, a screen was lowered and an overhead was rolled into the gym.
"Oh great, just what we need. A boring film to go along with a boring assembly."
Now he would have to sit for another hour or so and watch a boring film that was probably made just especially for them to watch. He groaned and sunk deeper into his chair. Well, hell wouldn't this be fun?
Arista paused her game and looked up curiously to see what they were going to watch. The squeaking of the wheels on the cart of the overhead stopped. The lights on the stage flashed on. She waited idly to see what would happen now.
Usually assemblies were boring and never had any films or anything.
Was there a new student? She couldn't figure it out so she looked to Tala and only met his confused teal orbs. She turned back to her Game Boy and saved her progress then switched it off. She might as well get some sleep out of this. Arista sunk into her chair and leaned her head on Tala's shoulder, making herself comfortable. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
Her progress was cut short when she heard a screeching then opened one eye slowly to figure out that it was from the microphone held by none other than Principal Gerro. She groaned and closed her eye, this would not only be boring, this was going to be long, monotonous, and mind-numbing. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. Tala murmured a noise of agreement and closed his own eyes.
Gerro started talking and then eventually stopped letting Hitoshi figure out the film before it started to play.
Shahero's gaze lingered on the older Kinomiya, her eyes met his and held them. She frowned, things between them had cooled off since she'd embarrassed him. Looking away she brushed her bangs out of her face, and put him at the back of her mind. She turned to Aspin who was turned around talking to Robert. Actually, arguing made a better point.
"How uncouth. Throwing balls of paper at other students is so immature. Really." He tsk'ed a few times. Shahero rolled her eyes at the pretentious male. He could be seriously annoying sometimes, the way he thought he was better than everyone else.
She turned around slightly enough to face him. "Robert, your face is immature."
Robert narrowed his eyes and frowned. "I don't believe I asked for you opinion, Kaeto."
The way he said everyone's last names instead of their first names made her even more annoyed. She got confused when he said someone's last name and she didn't know whom he was talking about.
"I don't believe Aspin asked for your opinion either." She retorted to him.
He hmphed and then turned his nose at the two. Rei grinned and congratulated the two.
"Score one more for us."
Aspin smiled and then offered him a paper. She scrunched up one in her hand and aimed it for Daichi's head. It ricocheted off the lanky red-head and landed on Tyson's lap. He turned around boredly and looked questioningly at the purple haired female.
"What?" She asked innocently. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her disbelievingly, he pointed to the paper in his lap.
"Oh, that. Ian did it."
Tyson flung it at the Russian and then added, "Knock it off, dude. I wanna sleep."
"What the hell?" Ian asked confused.
He himself had been trying to catch a few zees. Only to have it snatched away from him by a paper ball. He growled and remained his former sleeping position.
In front of him, Shahero saw him trying to sleep. Well, wasn't this interesting?
"Hey, Arista!" She poked the Russian until she woke, eyes droopy.
Arista wiped sleep from her eyes and stared blankly at Shahero. She could practically sleep with her eyes open. Shahero remembered her telling her that she'd been practising.
She poked Arista again until she was sure the Russian was awake. "What?" Came the snappy reply.
"Do you have salt?"
If you asked anyone else this question they would have said no, but Arista kept spare salt packets. Just so she could remove the evil spirits and exorcise people. She nodded slowly and processed what she had just been asked.
"Oh, yeah. Hang on."
Shahero grinned. Her gaze ran over Ian's sleeping form. He would never see this coming.
"Here." Arista handed three salt packets to the Asian and resumed her position.
Shahero rolled her eyes. Her friends, Sleepy, and Already Sleeping. If Ian would have a nick name, it would have been Smelly, Nosey, or Shorty. Shorty and Nosey made much more of an impact than Smelly. Besides he didn't smell half bad, she noticed as she leaned back in her chair. She ripped open the small salt packet and poured it in Ian's shirt.
Her chair rocked dangerously back as her weight was leaned forwards. She took no notice, and instead leaned forwards even more. The lights in the gym all went out at once. Thunder crackled and whipped in the far distance. Shahero, caught off guard from the surprise, lost her balance and toppled over in her chair. She fell forwards, half on top of a shaken Tala, and half on top of a disgruntled Ian. Arista had been knocked down as well, a long with a couple of students around the four. Aspin held onto Rei's steadying hands to keep from falling.
Shahero's legs were splayed onto Arista's lap. Her head rested in Ian's hands, and her torso was on Tala. She struggled to get up, almost falling over again. She looked around at the cascading effect. The lights were back on, and everyone was staring at the pile of students on the floor. She immediately ducked down, as to avoid being targeted by any suspecting teachers.
She crawled under chairs, followed by Arista and Tala. Tala was struggling slightly seeing as he was almost a foot taller than Shahero, and a third of a foot taller than Arista. He bumped his head several times, and his body bumped into the legs of chairs and students.
Arista was still half-asleep, her brain was foggy and her senses were slightly dulled. Shahero was ahead of her, Tala behind her. She figured she should keep crawling under the chairs until she hit something solid, or until Shahero stopped.
She bumped into something and hissed. She rose only to bump her back onto the bottom of someone's chair. She cursed and lowered her body closer to the ground.
"What the flying fuck?" She rasped, finding her voice dry and hoarse.
"Hey, I see a flying fuck now. Other than that the door won't open. Help me."
Tala was still behind them, trying to catch up. Arista turned and made her way into the second row. She pushed at the door with her might, but it didn't budge.
"It's locked." Shahero stated.
"Way to be Ms. Obvious." Arista rolled her eyes. Behind them Tala panted, looking worse for wear. He crouched down and caught his breath.
"Or someone's holding it." Shahero ended her sentence. She flicked her dark hair out of her eyes and frowned. Tala squeezed in front of her and pushed at the door. Again, it remained stuck. Because of their cramped positions they weren't able to push properly at the door.
Arista turned back into the first row, just as she was about to turn, her feet caught with the fabric of someone's clothes. She was knocked off her knees. She cursed viscously and winced when her head banged on the linoleum.
She looked at the gap between the chairs, and met the smirking face of Brooklyn. She raised her arms and tugged at the sleeves of his arms. His grip on the handle of the door loosened. Shahero pushed at the door, along with Tala. It finally opened.
The three scrambled out and breathed in the clean, crisp air of the hallway.
Brooklyn emerged from behind the door, eyed the trio with raised brows. "Should I even bother to ask what happened?"
"No, so save you breath for something more important. Oh wait, I forgot how boring your life is."
Tala got up and dusted himself off. Arista followed suit as did Shahero.
Brooklyn rolled his moss eyes, his gaze lingered on Arista. Her cheeks were flushed prettily, and her eyes had melded to form a light navy blue, tinged with amber. He blinked and wondered how they turned like that. Her hair had been left open, displaying silver, red streaked hair. It was a dark red, like the shade of Tala's hair. He frowned, when had she done that?
"What are we gunna do now?" Shahero asked boredly. Not that she wasn't grateful to have escaped from the bowels of boredom. Assemblies were worse than her French class.
"I dunno." Came the reply from Arista.
"Let's decide on something."
"Other than staying here." Arista's eyes widened at the couple making out near the door. "Don't look now but here come the face-suckers!" She used the nickname she'd given to Miyami and Johnny.
"What about-"
"Detention with me for the whole week." Hitoshi's voice interrupted. He materialized from behind the doors of the gym. Stepping out, he came into view, he surveyed the students in the hallway. His eyes met Shahero's, and remained there.
"But, but, we're almost related!" Arista protested.
"Yeah, dude. Lay off." Shahero replied. "You're not even allowed to since your not a teacher."
"What if I did have authorization? Then I'd be allowed to." He stepped forward, closer to Shahero.
"Uh-uh." She almost faltered. Taking a step back she cleared her head. Hitoshi did not look good! Especially when he was smirking. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't! Shahero denied it, but she knew she was warming up to the older male. He was attractive, but she didn't want to like him. Damn it.
Hitoshi watched amused, it looked like Kaeto was having an inner struggle. And by the looks of things, it in some way involved him. He smirked and advanced on the unwary female. He backed her up against the wall, and slid his arms possessively around her waist. He was infatuated with her. Breathing in, he could make out her subtle scent.
Shahero realized who was holding her, and looked up to meet the amused orbs of Hitoshi Kinomiya. She started to wriggle but couldn't seem to break away from his grip. Hitoshi leaned down, and fanned his breath over her face, sending involuntary shudders down her spine. She shivered, goose bumps formed on her arms. Her t-shirt was doing nothing to shut out the cold.
"I don't wanna watch Hito suck face with Senny. Later skater."
Arista started her way down the hall, followed by Tala and Brooklyn.
Shahero watched her friends disappear. Her eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in annoyance. Fucking hell, wasn't this just peachy? Hitoshi caught the fearful look in her eyes, and loosened her grip. So, she was still getting over Brent. He would have to teach that asshole a lesson on how to treat people. Preferably with his fists. He let her go and watched her run down the hall, and turn the corner, disappearing from view.
--
Amber had fallen asleep on Bryan's shoulder. She wouldn't have woken up if a fire alarm went off. She could sleep through anything.
Bryan smiled down at his sleeping cousin and brushed the bangs out of her eyes. Amber awoke with a start. She wasn't really sleeping, she was awake, only pretending to sleep. She blinked, and rubbed sleep from her eyes. Stretching her arms in the air she yawned. Her arm stretched forward, bumping into Kai's head. He had also been sleeping, but was and extremely light sleeper. He awoke and opened his eyes still drowsy.
He turned around and came face to face with an apologetic Amber. She stretched again, exposing golden bronze skin. Kai's eyes wandered to her flat stomach, and slowly made their way to her eyes. He cursed himself and frowned.
Kai rubbed a hand on his eyes and yawned. "What?" He asked confused.
"Huh?" Amber replied unintelligently.
She pulled down her shirt and yawned. "Dija say something?"
"What?" Kai was awake now, and aware of Bryan's steely stare.
Amber frowned. How did Kai manage to look so cute? And why was she noticing? Oh yeah, because he was showing strong feelings towards her. Her cheeks flushed a light pink colour. Kai shrugged his shoulders and turned around. He grumbled something incoherent.
Amber shivered suddenly, why was it so cold all of a sudden? The lights flashed on, before flickering off. She growled as light flooded her eyes and left her feeling awkward.
Thunder crackled in the distance. The pitter-patter of raindrops falling could be heard. Electrical storm, she mused before resting her head on Bryan's shoulder. The overprotective male slipped his arm around her shoulder and warmed her up. He frowned in Hiwatari's direction, then kicked his chair.
Kai growled and moved his chair back purposely. He slammed the edge of it on Bryan's knees. The chair rammed its way up and over Bryan's knees, he hissed in pain. Then he writhed free.
Bryan looked hatefully at Kai who glared back. The two boys had violent tendencies, but kept them in check.
Amber pushed Kai's chair back, he looked at her poignantly, then turned away. Bryan met Amber's gaze, she was confused, he figured. Better leave it that way. A teacher came, tapped Bryan on the shoulder, then Kai.
"Follow me."
"With pleasure." Kai mumbled sarcastically. Bryan settled for glaring at Kai's back, and followed the teacher out into the hall, and to the front office.
In the distance they heard Gerro turn the mike back on. He started to talk about something or other.
Mr. Sanders, the teacher that had led them away, recognized them as senior students and let them go back into the gym albeit reluctantly.
"I don't want to see any more of this." He said severely, then gave an angry if not annoyed stare to the two retreating figures.
Kai walked around to the other side of the gym and entered through a different side, not wanting to go near Amber while her overprotective cousin was around. He frowned. Why did Amber have to complicate things without even trying?
--
In a previously unoccupied classroom sat five teens. Arista, dressed only in a t-shirt and her pants sat annoyed. Beside her Ruin sat smugly, her clothes still intact with her skin. Tala was down to only his boxer shorts, and Brooklyn was topless. Tyson was in the process of removing his vest before folding it and placing it on his lap.
They were playing strip poker out of sheer boredom, Tala was losing with Arista fast behind him.
She scratched her foot as something cold brushed against it. Brooklyn noticed her discomfort and smirked slowly. Oh what fun it was to annoy the silver-haired Russian. Her bare feet were warm and soft to the touch.
Another round went by before Arista hissed.
"I know you guys are cheating somehow!" She growled before removing her pants. She wore black boxer shorts with yellow sponges and pink starfish decorating them. She folded her legs, sitting cross-legged on her chair. Brooklyn watched with interest as she sunk lower in her chair.
"We can still see you." Tyson commented lightly before grinning sheepishly when said female gave him a glare.
Ruin, who was the only one who hadn't lost any articles of clothing so far grinned slightly.
"Too bad, so sad."
Tala's gaze flicked to the said female, he would really like to see what she was like under her clothes. He cursed her good luck before he played his hand.
"No way man!" Tyson shouted angrily.
He removed his shoes and socks before grumbling as his feet made contact with the cold tiled floor.
"Nyah nyah!" Arista stuck out her tongue before laughing.
"Don't stick that out unless you plan to use it."
Shocked, Arista whipped her head around before groaning as her hair lashed across her cheeks.
"That's disgusting!" The pitch in her voice had risen slightly.
"Not when you think about it."
"It's just common sense." Tala added before leaning into Ruin and running his lips over her petulant mouth.
She gave in to him before pulling away slowly.
"Ugh." Arista and Tyson looked on in disinterest and annoyance at the public display of affection. "Get a room."
"Funny, I thought this was a room." Tala stated in a drawling voice.
"He's right." Brooklyn added in a slight undertone.
"Don't agree with them!" Arista huffed sending wisps of hair flying away from her eyes. "Unless you're a… a…"
Her eyes widened in realization before she snickered. Tyson having gotten the joke laughed along loudly. Tala and Ruin were busy making, not noticing the other occupants.
"Are you implying I'm a voyeur?"
Arista gave a nod before continuing to laugh at the absurdity of the suggestion.
Tyson put a hand to his stomach before taking deep breaths.
Brooklyn, not wanting to be the centre of their ridiculous assumption, kicked Tyson under the table before turning his attention the chuckling female.
"Don't think you'll get away with this."
He leapt forwards in her direction, efficiently getting a firm grip around her waist while she continued laughing ignoring his futile attempts to distract her. He poked around her rib cage tentatively, trying to figure out if she was ticklish.
When he was rewarded with a soft giggle and a squirm he grinned. His hands released her waist to claim her midriff as he continued to ravish soft giggles and protests from her susceptible torso.
"Ge'ff!" She exclaimed indignantly.
She fell to the floor with Brooklyn landing on top of her. He being the stronger of the two pinned her, he held her hands above her head while he smirked gleefully.
"Don't do it." She huffed blowing stray bangs out of her face.
"Hn."
It was the only response before his hand ran up and down her sides making her laugh, she struggled under his weight.
Her lips curved into a felenic smile as she clamped her teeth together. She tried to breathe through her nose but that was no use when Brooklyn prodded her torso with both hands. He was pleased when she wiggled under him trying to catch her breath.
Tears spilled from her liquidated eyes. The amber flecks stood apart from the navy blue catching his interest.
Granted with an opening to escape, she lunged upwards pushing him off of her. He moaned softly when his head hit the hard floor head on. Arista reveled in her success before she flipped him over onto his stomach catching his arm and twisting it behind his back.
"Now who's laughing."
Tyson looked over to the two after having finally settled from his fit of laughter. "I'm not, my stomach hurts."
"No Ty-pai, you're just hungry."
"You know, you're right." His stomach gave a clear rumble, he patted it absently.
"Mind getting off?"
"Hmmn?" Arista looked down at a red-faced Brooklyn. He'd turned over on to his side with her planted firmly on his hips. His eyes had taken on a faint sea green hue, watching her intensely.
"Oh, well yes, I do mind."
"Just get off."
"No Dick-ass." She turned back to Tyson talking animatedly.
He wormed his arm free from her slackened grasp. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Ruin and Tala slink away. Probably to go somewhere less theatricall and more private.
He rolled his eyes before easily pushing Arista off of him. She fell back dreading she'd land on the hard, tiled floor.
Brooklyn sighed before grabbing her wrists to steady her. She was more trouble than she was worth.
"Ow!" She yelped with pain when his fingers snared around her bandaged arm. She jumped back before toppling over on to the floor from her imbalance. She let out a muffled groan of discomfort trying to sit up without causing further harm to her already damaged wrist.
Brooklyn leant closer to get a view of her arm before she pushed him back, uncomfortable from the proximity of his body.
She scratched at her arm lightly not noticing when she peeled the bandages off. She gave a satisfactory glance before scratching at the stitches in the process pulling them apart.
Brooklyn rolled his eyes before separating her short nails from her lily-white skin. "Stop it, you'll rip out the stitches." He gave a closer inspection then added, "or what's left of them."
Arista drew in a breath when a sting of pain rushed to her fingers sidling in her hand and crawling up her arm. She mewed softly at the onslaught of pain.
Brooklyn growled before taking a tender hold of her hand. He faced her palm upwards and noted with displeasure that the punctures were bleeding. A mucus-like pus oozed out slowly.
Arista looked on in half-horror, half-fascination. "Oooh, I wonder what it is."
"It's seepage." He replied crossly.
"Why are you so mad at me? What did I do?"
Her eyes darkened when he remained silent. She poked his arm, he shrugged in response causing her to growl in exasperation.
He wiped away at the discharge with her discarded sweater from earlier. Then before she could protest he pulled out her sock from beside him and banded it around her wrist.
"Why'd you do that? That was the sock I knitted. It took me a whole week and two boxes of bandages."
He looked at her in mock interest before fixing his gaze back down. She huffed angrily trying desperately to get her hand away from his.
He held tighter, his mouth set in a firm line. "Quit moving around. You'll make it worse."
"It hurts too much for it to be any worse."
Her hand was burning while her wrist singed with fiery pricks of pain.
Brooklyn absently ran his thumb around the sock pausing gingerly to rest the pad of his thumb against the bloodied part of it before he rubbed small circles on her flesh.
Her breath hitched at his movements. It felt good against the burning sensations but it was unnerving.
"Quit that."
She slapped away at his hand but he caught it with his free hand still not looking up. He continued to soothe her arm, numbing the ache to a dull throb. He continued to work his way up her arm. Brooklyn sustained the action before going to the nape of her neck and working his way to her back. The thin material of her top kept him from directly touching her skin. He eased out the tension and fight from her absently taking in the detail of her hair and the slope of her neck.
Her eyes looked to his bent face hazily before her muscles went lax.
He continued his assistance working his way back up to the gentle curve of her neck. His cool fingers ran along her jaw line in butterfly movements. She closed her eyes and smiled faintly when his hand dipped to her collarbone and along her décolletage.
She sighed dreamily when his other hand released hers and worked the knots out of her hair. Her scalp tingled at his touch.
Brooklyn looked her over before confirming the fact that she did indeed have a fever.
