"He says, She says"

1.Transitions In the Spirit





Only with a clear mind will you be able to find who is truly in your heart.



"Finally!" I cried as I entered the homely, diminutive Spanish classroom with a gigantic toothy grin on my face during one fine and humid late August afternoon. "School's back in session!"

My red headed, Irish pub promoting friend Anya shook her head as she pushed her glasses back on the ridge of her nose. "Ana, Ana. What am I gonna do with you? Unlike some curly haired person I know, most people cherish their summer holiday. So. How was your summer? Had any fun without 'the-weasel-who-wants-her coffee'?"

I sniggered a quiet little giggle that I had become notorious for through out the halls of the over populated Netherlands High School over the last semester.. "Actually, I had oodles of pleasurable experiences! About two weeks after school concluded for our freshman year, I traveled for about an hour with my forever loathed sister and her red-neck of a fiancé to the big anime convention at Grand Plateau State University. I cosplayed as one of those cute little sailor-suited school girls with the knee socks, short skirts and everything!"

"Aww!" squealed Anya as soon as I said cute little sailor-suited school girl. "Did you take a picture or anything? You were probably soooooo cute! Ah, then again you are always cute. Well go on. Did you win any awards or anything spectacular that you can rub in Myakka's face?"

I reddened with nervousness, embarrassment, and just plain perplexity as I continued to tell Anya about my summer break. "Stop it, Anya. No I didn't get anything cool, but I did get the pleasure of dressing up as the only Yukino Miyazawa."

"Jeez you and your Japanese animation smut. No wonder you don't have a boyfriend yet. You'd either bore or traumatize him with all your knowledge of Japanese customary life and shows. Heh, my little otaku ;crazy fan. You are quite the looker; with your voluptuous bod, cute kinky hair, wide 'n' zealous brown eyes, and disarming personality to go along with it all. It is a rather shame that some one as good as you is single." she commented with a devilish gleam in her eye and a smile that could give you the wrong deception depending on how you look at it.

I felt like strangling the fragile Anya ballerina with my indefinite strength I never thought I had, but everyone has a tendency to comment on when the situation arises, just about now. What was the deal with the mentality issues of modern day fifteen year old females, anyway. Sure I was the same age of these girls, but it was challenging to understand life and what it was through their mannerisms they wished I had, but lacked. I had always been a bit more mature than my peers, ever since elementary school, and often gawked on how idiotic and juvenile their behavior was. To most girls I met through school, their number one priority became the opposite sex since our entrance of adolescence. It perplexed me a great deal; to understand what was thrilling about having your boyfriends smelly, old, football jacket draped over your shoulders? Ridiculous and how degrading, the way these girls let society perceive the modern day woman.

Holding back my frustration and cantankerous emotions Anya stimulated, I put on a mask of fake contentment and smiled. "I'll find my seat now."

"Hi, Ana! Sit by me!" echoed through the room as I meandered through the jungle of desks, looking for a seat.

"Looking nice ta-day Miss Ana." whispered a soft easily recognizable male voice that had not yet begun it's metamorphosis.

I jerked my head, pondering where the boy with the slick tongue plopped down to prepare for his Sophomore learning experience. Then I saw him. It was Jaq! Right then and there I knew I was the envy of our class. Majority of the girls attending this high school and one time or another had a major crush on Jaq. He was handsome, smart, athletic funny. Really, what more could a girl want? Staying as far away from the flow as possible, I hardly saw Mr. Mop Topped Shorty-Pants as nothing more as a great companion who could play a great game of Dead or Alive. But Jaq yearned for a more than platonic friendship. I, shocked, due to the fact many of my friends confessed their love to me last year, was full of uncertainty, misunderstanding, and bewilderment. I just wasn't emotionally ready for a serious relationship yet. Outgoing as Jaq is, he does not lack perseverance and won't stop trying until he gets the results he wants. I plopped down in the empty seat next to Jaq and his overly good looking friend Drew, who I had a minute crush on last year.

"How was your summer Ana?" asked faltering Drew trying to spark a conversation.

"Very fun, and yours?" I replied politely as something, unexpectedly, caught my brown eyes .

Short shaggy black hair, in a crew cut like style that seemed cute, clean, and sophisticated at the same time. Dressed in a tight black shirt, the muscles he gained through strenuous exercise conspicuous, with Chinese styled sleeves and cuffs it was pretty much evident that he was mysterious and wealthy. His head was stuck in a humongous, thick magazine. All through out roll call the handsomely vibed boy, ignored the world as he engaged himself with this magazine. Sitting beside this boy, I couldn't help but be nosy and took a short peek above his shoulder. Big eyed, animated girls with gigantic world-saving robots stared back as I sneaked a quick look at this boy's magazine. Could it be.. No it couldn't. it was impossibly that such a handsome boy as this shared my love of anime!

"Arima Williams? "rolled off of elderly Ms. Garcia's Spanish tongue. The boy sitting beside me rose from the desk that was way too small for a boy who looks about six feet. He shyly replied with a mumbled : "Here ma'am."

Jaq passed me a note, his hand touching my thigh as he slowly placed the folded note on my short skirted lap. I could imagine he was floating on cloud nine, as he took ten minutes to let go of the note. I swiped his hand off my lap, like leftover peanut butter sandwich crumbs.

Well, well, he's quite the lady killer :P

Shaking my head in disgust I replied back. Before anything comes politeness.

Why does it matter? U jealous, Jaq?

In a swift instant he wrote something back, but hesitated to return the note back to my possession as the teacher bestowed an eagle eye glare at us.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Arima looking intently at me. He whispered a subtle : " You like anime? I saw you gazing at my Newtype and couldn't help but wonder. Anyway you look familiar. Miss Miyazawa."

For a second it felt like my heart stopped. The world stopped turning as a gun was shot as twelve hundred hours causing the victim to stop breathing momentarily. Getting my self back together, I coughed. Except it came out as a foolish hack! The class room suddenly became silent, as it we were at a interrogation. My cheeks turned a nice shade of rosy pink when I noticed the whole class was watching my every move. Then the teacher went on telling us the wonders and the excitement we will get in Spanish 2.

Arima shrugged as I he shot me a toothy grin that I threw back to him with sarcastically rolling eyes. I sure had misconceptions about this Arima kid. Sophisticated he was not, as he tried tormenting moi with my weakness; embarrassment.

After roll call, that seemed to take the whole hour, Mrs. Garcia gave the class of impatient tenth graders a grade-heavy assignment. In monotone, the class produced a thunderous groan. Pick a person who is new to you and get to know them better through speech and leisure. You will write an essay or artistically portray what you learned about your partner through the week long dialogue. Eventually you will submit what you learned about the other person, your cohort.

I sat there shaking my head, still disgusted at Arima's attempt to start a discussion with yours truly. My head was in a blur, in the clouds, as my soul flew away from my tall stature. Love is such a joke. Like a little jack in the box. That's how I guess humanity has become accustomed to through the development of civilization. Love doesn't matter and I think I can live life to the fullest on my own. Though I yearn for the day I exchange vows with my beloved partner, I wouldn't mind being an old hag alone. Without marital support backing me up, I could still adopt the six children I dream of mothering. Wait a second. Right now isn't the time to think of romance! There are bigger issues I must overcome. (Like finding a partner for this Godzilla-proportioned assignment.) After all today is the first brick in my road to sophomore success. The student council president cannot get as low to be thinking about adoration above her schoolwork. I have the reputation as a model student to care for. (That and the fact I went around saying all guys have cooties last year doesn't help much either.)

"Well, Miss Miyazawa." Arima's voice broke my mentality bubble and solitude. "You never answered my question. Do you like anime?"

"Grr!" I snarled furiously as rage fervently built up in my soul. "How the heck. How did ya.? What's the deal with the 'Miss Miyazawa' bit? Yes I like anime! But.. Oh, jeez. What's the deal dude? I am soooooo baffled right now! Look what you did!"

I felt like stepping on him, even though my yelling probably already caused him to be mentally disturbed a decent amount. (Thank goodness the class acted overly obnoxious at that moment. My bawls became lost and muffled in all the unbridled pandemonium.) Realizing how rude I acted to the transfer student I began to feel remorseful.

"Oh." I mumbled looking down at my desk, with a sudden emotion of regretful ness. "I'm sorry I acted a bit uncouth with you. I was pretty rude yelling at you. It's the lack of sleep, I presume. Please except my regards."

Arima nervously laughed. "Well, I guess I invaded your privacy. Why don't we have a formal introduction? Hmm?"

"Hi, I am Tatiana Trandeau, but my peers, and just about everyone else who is acquainted with me, call me by the nickname Ana or An." I stated as I reached out and shook his large, gigantic man hands. "So. what's your name?"

Arima couldn't control it, as he exploded into rampant laughter. Finally, when he managed to restrain himself from chuckling like a little, immature preschooler we continued our silly introduction ceremony. "Um. hello, ma'am. My name is Arima, Arima Williamson. I am very flattered that such a beautiful young woman wishes to be au fait with I. I wish for you tell me more about your self, Miss Ana. My ears are yearning for the melody of life from a young maiden."

We couldn't help, but obnoxiously fall into uncontainable snickers due to the fact that this conversation was overly corny. (Funny, but corny none the less.)

"Well.. I don't really know what to say. I am fifteen years old, born on January 16. I am the middle child, of three children, to auto enthusiast Frank and spatial Lydia Trandeau. . I have resided all over the United States and have lived in California, Iowa, Missouri, Pennsylvania (twice, but in different locations), New York, and recently relocated to mitten shaped Michigan last year in eighth grade. Some of my hobbies are reading, writing, cooking, sewing, karaoke, drawing, listening to Oldie's Motown Soul Music, working on my webbie page, playing on the my PS2, going on the internet, playing Sims, reading manga, watching anime, researching historical information, singing, hanging with my posse, running, tennis, going shopping, and lots of other stuff. What about you?"

"Wow. You are quite the talker! Your name should be Gabby or something among the lines of that. Well for the sake of the readers, I feel it would be very repetitive if I said what my hobbies were."

"Why's that?"

"Call this irony, but we share some of the same pastimes and interests. Except that I hate tennis. I'm more of a soccer fiend. I prick myself to the extent of suicide when I sew and when the opportunity for singing comes up; most people hide and tape their windows. I shatter windows as soon as I open my mouth and pretend to go alto."

"Are you new here this year?"

"I dunno, if you call relocating to Michigan in the beginning of ninth grade, being home schooled by your phobic and over protective mother, I guess so."

"Cool! Not to be nosy or anything, but where do you live? We could walk home with each other!"

"Fairhope Court. In a spacious brick house with gigantically broad windows and a lamp post at the end of the drive way which has an SUV and a BMW."

"That's sooo shibby! Believe it or not I live on Fairhope Court too! We are in the house with the white minivan and the flowers in the front yard."

"Oh. Interesting. So you must be the makeup girl with the fro who walks out every morning in short little pink workout hot pants and a Hello Kitty shirt to retrieve the morning paper! Now I know your deep darkest secret."

"That I have a fro when I get out of bed? Everyone knows that! Buh- duh! Hey are you a stalker or something?"

"No. I just know a hot, pretty chick when I see one."

The rest of the day, a smile dominated my face. Clueless how or why, but I felt a sense of stability and happiness as I spent the remainder of first day to my successful future with Mr. Arima. Happiness hasn't felt this good in a long time. Curiosity ran threw my veins when we walked to the seven main courses we miraculously had the opportunity to share. (The chances you had more than one class with the same person was rare, considering if you went to a school that held a tenth grade class of roughly three hundred.) What was so great about this Arima boy that listened to my rambling, helped me with those mind-numbing geometry problems, and followed a narcissistic popular cheeky class president around like a baby duck? As if schoolwork wasn't as confusing and mind boggling as you could get, but I felt a strange intuition that my tenth grade year was going to be overloaded with change.

As the first day of second year high school education finally came to a close, I anticipated a sudden tactic that would lead into Arima and I to spending more time with each other. I could already tell, through his actions and dialogue that he was a very prospectable chum and I couldn't let that go to waste.

Hey, if I wanted to hold my student council position a year longer and be the tenth grade homecoming representative, I needed as much support as my ego could handle. And that meant I needed to have lots of friends. Even though I am already overflowing with acquaintances, I couldn't let my friend snatching personality just crumble. I had always been good at making friends; ever since I could learn to talk. But even though I had tons of people worshipping the ground my three-inch platforms strolled on, I craved for greater friendship. Some one to really have reliance in me and truly except me for the anime loving self conscious individual I am. Like Liam.

"Umm. Arima?" I asked faltering as we walked down the long barren hallways of a deserted high school at four o' clock, two weeks later. " I don't have tennis practice today. Are you busy after school?"

He looked down into my brown eyes. Until that moment as he warmly gazed at me, I never realized how tall he was compared to my five foot seven inches. "No. Why?"

Wavering, I managed to let out some sort of communication from my anxious soul. " Well.some of my posse and I were going to the coffee shop after school today and I was wondering if you'd like to tag along. That way you could meet more friends! And while we are talking, what's the deal with the Miss Miyazawa thing. I didn't forget."

"Sure! If it means I get to spend more time with you!" Arima answered eagerly as soon as I gave him the invitation to get overly caffeinated.

"Your are getting off subject a bit." I said a bit pissed off. "You didn't answer my question."

"Yeah I did." Arima overdramatically replied in a fake offensive voice, with a grin on his flawless face.

"No. About the Miyazawa thing." I corrected him. " I want to know why you keep referring me to a cartoon character."

Silence devoured the noise as he opened his locker, which paradoxically was also near mine.

"Well... You see."he said as the words slowly fell off his plump bottom lip. "It started. Oh never mind it doesn't matter."

"Ok!" I responded with false satisfactory and disappointment due to the fact that I learned absolutely nothing. "So come to my house at four thirty. I have to change into some after school wear."

"Why? I like how you look in that green satin body suit."



He says She says Part Two