Curriculum 00: A Chance Meeting

A young man was wandering around the halls, apathetically glancing at anything that moved. He had not said a word since he arrived, all he had been doing was giving peoples stares whenever they decided to look at him. Finding nothing at all that perked his interest, he moved on. He managed to wander into an empty hall and decided that he happened to like the seclusion and eased his back against one of the walls. Seemingly lost in thought, he gave a quiet sigh and then dozed off, not bothering to interact with any of the other candidates, or anyone else for that matter, that was on the transport.

The area was active, the air filled with various conversations concerning pilots, pilot candidates and of course, boys. A lone girl lay in the corner, leaning on the wall, arms crossed, eyes closed trying to think. She sighed and turned her head in frustration. Slowly, she stood back up normally and made her way to the door, sick of the ongoing conversive nonsense that she so thusly wished to avoid. As the door opened, she swiftly and casually made her way out of the room, the door closing behind. She turned her head back to look at the door as a thought ran through her head 'I have to be classmates with them all...'

Shrugging, she placed her hands in her pockets and made her way to the observation deck. Thoughts kept running through her head; 'Who will be the top? Will I pass? Who will my partner be?...' The speculations were getting to her, just as she feared. With her exceptional abilities, it wasn't surprising, worrying as she did. Looking up, she saw she had found her way to the one area in which no one else would venture to; or that anyone else knew about. She had learned the map of the ship inside and out by heart, including all of it's secrets. As the door opened she tilted her head in interest as before her stood another. A slight smirk formed on her face in amusement as she walked near to the area in which he was standing and leaned onto the railing, head gazing up into the stars. Without knowing it herself, she too was lost in it's vastness, forgetting all thoughts that she had previously had.

The young man who had been dozing off for quite the while, came back to reality once he noticed that the place he had chose wasn't so secluded anymore. He then turned to stare at the person, wondering if he should even try to strike up any sort of conversation with this new person, or if he should just walk away, like he had been doing for so long. But there was something about this person that intrigued him. 'Crap...should I even bother trying to talk? Ugh...maybe I should just go...what if...argh! Stupid thoughts...' he thought, trying to sort and piece together what he happened to be feeling in the first place. He didn't notice that while he was lost in his thoughts, he had begun to fiddle with one of the various chains that adorned his wrists; it was a little thing he did every time he became nervous or flustered, and it was habit that he wanted to be rid of. Noticing that he was stuck in this awkward moment, he finally decided to talk, thinking that it would be really strange if he had been staring at her for so long, just to strut out of the room.

"Uh...hi?" he muttered unsurely, hoping that the situation that he was stuck in wasn't going to get any worse. While she was staring out into space, she could faintly hear the noise of rattling chains. Unbeknownst to the girl, the person in front of her was becoming quite flustered by her presence there. As the noise began to accelerate she turned her gaze slightly, as to see what they were doing.

"Uh...hi?" came a mutter from beside her. She turned her head to look at him and smiled with delight to see that she had found someone who she could talk to without the first words out of their mouths being 'You're hot'. She got off of the railing and stood in front of him, trying to make eye contact.

"Hello." she answered quite vigorously to the youth. Though, she did not like to talk much, when it was a conversation towards someone similar to her own persona she was delighted to answer. An odd trait she had picked up, always trying to find a semi-intelligent conversation besides that of the other sex.

"You must be a pilot candidate here, huh?" she began, knowing he was surely too flustered to start the conversation up on a positive and intelligible level. "It must be hard, trying to fit in when you're so different..." her tone darkened somewhat, since she knew where he was coming from. She herself had nearly been able to qualify for a pilot, though she was not male and therefore was not allowed. EX, of course was another problem that she could not answer, since she had never heard of it till her entrance exam. She waited for an answer, as she dropped her head ever so slightly.

"Yeah...Hey, uh...I didn't get your name yet. My name's Rusai, Rusai Kazayumi." said Rusai, who was trying very hard not to stutter. Even though he was quite interested in the girl, he still had a hard time talking to people. Pausing for a minute to see if he had made any errors in his speech, he then looked intently at the girl, deciding that he liked this person much more than any of the people he had seen on the transport thus far. He had stopped fiddling with the chains on his wrist, but had moved onto fiddling with the ones on his neck.

She smiled once more, this time towards him. She never knew she would run into someone on the transporter so... so very different. She could not figure why, but for the strangest reason she was drawn to him.

"Rusai Kazayumi, huh?" she asked as she gave a small laugh. "Pleasure to meet you Rusai. My name is Arie, Arie Suin Kalctev." she finished, bowing her head. She had noticed the fact that he had stopped pulling at his wrist chains and thusly moved onto the ones at his neck. She smiled again, trying to hold back any sign of laughter, for she had never seen someone so nervous around her before. It wasn't pity, though, it was a good feeling, one she needed to feel.

Never before had she met someone who was just as nervous as she was going somewhere. For Arie was regularly a lonely person who expressed happiness and regret to no one but herself. Emotions that she was not too proud to hide amongst others who would have never felt them the way she had.

"Rusai?" she began looking at him squarely in the eyes. "Why do you want to become a pilot?"

"Well, you see-.." Rusai started. "...at first, I wanted to be a pilot because I wanted to make my mother proud of me. I'm her only son and she's never really thought highly of me... in fact, I really didn't think she liked me at all..." Rusai trailed off for a moment; a look of hurt flashed through his cobalt and emerald eyes. Rusai then realized what he was doing and got back on track, replacing that look of hurt in his eyes with a look of curiosity to see if she was still listening to his rambling. "Then, after awhile, I got obsessed with the skies and wondered what it would have been like to be up there. Then I decided that I wanted to experience space and what it was like, not to mention that I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't just crap. I guess it's basically all those factors combined that made me want to become a pilot!" Rusai finished, looking quite satisfied with himself that he had somehow managed to hold a normal conversation, for the last time he had a conversation with someone, his rage had gotten the better of him...

Arie looked at him, she stared into his being and felt every word from his story. It sounded so familiar, so pure. She never really took the time to glance deep into his eyes before, their colors were glistening all through his explanation.

"That's great." she began, leaning on the railing beside them and turning to look at the stars. "I never knew my family. You could say they never knew me as well. All I really know is the fact that I had one at some point in time." her voice rang with a purity of a song, true and heart-breaking.

"I did have a dream, though." she began to elaborate. "I dreamed of flying through the stars." She turned to face him again and then brought his attention to the space. "It's natural to feel that way, to wish you had wings. But my reason didn't quite feel like a natural urge, but more like a destiny. Though, as you can tell, my destiny doesn't seem to want me to fly." her happiness nearly vanished as she tried to finish, her words like daggers to her heartfelt soul. "That's why... That's why I am now a candidate."

Rusai's expression had gradually changed over time while listening to Arie's story. He felt a pang of sorrow, listening to Arie's gentle voice, it was like listening to an innocent lost child. At one point he started to tear up. Being embarrassed he quickly began to rub at his eyes with the back of his hand. He had never really like the way his eyes looked, it was strange to him to have eyes of different colors. When he looked straight at Arie, he found her staring right back, it was almost like a mutual feeling of understanding between the two.

"I see..." Rusai said, his voice filled with the tone that showed that he cared for Arie, although they had only met only a few moments earlier. Rusai felt, somehow, connected to Arie as they both stood there looking at each other in silence.