Hi! Thanks for reading my first chapter! I promise they'll get to middle school in the next chapter! Just in case you haven't noticed, I'm doing this story without the divorce in T.K./Matt's family.
The bell had rung twice, signaling the end of recess. While everyone was still waiting to be let into the school to find their classes, Matt was returning to class from rock band in the music room. The club sounded decent already, although they had only started working on the song the week before. But the group was missing singers. They needed at least three singers and so far nobody had stepped up… Maybe I could? I've always enjoyed singing. But I still barely know anyone and they're going to judge my singing for sure. He turned past the corner to a group of green lockers, pale like shallow water on a hot day.
Matt held his guitar with one hand while using the other to find his lock. His fingers worked the dial, spinning it this way and that. Finally, it clicked and he swung it open all the way so he could slide his guitar in. He gave it a gentle push to make sure it would go as far back as possible so it wouldn't be damaged when he closed the door. Then he straightened his books and stray pieces of sheet music so they leaned against the base of the guitar.
It turned out there was a bag of crumbling cookies. Matt took and put the bag in his pocket, making a mental note to give them to T.K.
After closing and locking his locker, he strolled into his classroom, nearly walking into a certain fiery girl. With surprise, he took a step back and asked her, "What are you doing here?"
Sora gritted her teeth, trying to hold her cool. Just because he was obnoxious and nosy, it didn't mean she needed to blow up. Well, at least not yet. She clutched her black binder tighter to her chest but it served as a poor substitute for strangling him.
"I want you to mind your own business! Just because you'll think you're cool, doesn't mean anyone else likes you at all." She spat, venomously. "And you don't need to know why I'm here."
Matt's inquisitiveness was creeping up but he shrugged off her spiting comment, completely unfazed. What is with this girl? First she acts like a huge drama queen and now, she's like a pissed off cat. But why do I have to be the one that gets yelled at?
He yawned, tiredly. He hadn't slept very well last night and being yelled at was going to make him grumpy too. "Calm down. My teacher's on yard duty so she's going to be late. You might as well tell me why you're here."
"Ha! I wouldn't tell you anything, even if you were the last person on the planet." She huffed scathingly.
Matt shrugged indifferently. "Fine, I'll figure it out on my own." He suddenly grinned, and a mischievous spark glittered in his blue eyes. "I like challenges."
Startled, she took a step back and hoped her ears weren't burning too noticeably. What the hell is that supposed to mean? She could feel her pule quickening and closed her eyes for a short moment to calm down. She then looked back up to meet Matt's gaze. Perhaps it was simply sunnier today, but Sora thought his eyes were friendlier and a lighter shade of blue than when she had first seen him, as if he had been wearing shades to hide his true, gentler side. If this was how he really was... Maybe I misjudged him a little too quickly when we met...
Sora looked away quickly, and turned her glare to a fantasy book, neglected on one of the several shelves lined up together. She was hoping that she hadn't been staring into his eyes like a sick puppy and that he hadn't noticed at all. Get a hold of yourself Sora! This is the annoying idiot you met a week ago! It's not someone you know well, it's not someone nice, and it's definitely not Tai!
He tried to focus on the question on hand; what could Sora be hiding? There was a chance she was just here to bring my teacher a message... But why be so secretive about it?
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and then scanned over her to look for clues. She was wearing the same clothes as Matt had first seen her; a sleeveless yellow shirt with ragged blue jeans. But she wasn't wearing her gloves or her hat anymore, so now he could see how lustrous her orange hair was. It was cropped short and barely brushed her shoulders but Matt found it suited her well.
And yet, she still kept avoiding his gaze like she didn't want to have anything to do with him so he continued jollily on with his inspection. Matt appreciated the fact that she wasn't objecting. But when you were oblivious, you tended not to mind or people you hated either way.
This is one unusual girl. Matt thought. His interest for her only continued to spiral.
She continued to hold her binder instead of putting it into the dusk gray bag that was slung over her shoulder. Out of the binder, a stray piece of paper suddenly tipped out and began its fluttering journey towards the ground. Matt looked up towards Sora again. She was still looking away; clearly, she hadn't seen it fall out.
In one casual motion, Matt swiftly bent over and silently snatched it up, a heartbeat before it touched the floor. The light crinkle of Matt crumpling the slip into his hand was lost over the noise of students coming into class. Once again, he checked to make sure Sora still wasn't looking his way. Then he opened it to read:
Dear Ms Normi,
Mrs. Takanouchi has spoken to me about her displeasure with the class her daughter Sora Takanouchi was assigned too so she is going to be transferred to your class. The rest of the day will serve as her trial period to see how she likes her class. If there are no problems, I'll have someone change her spot in the systems to make it official.
- Vice Principal, Loki Nakashi
"So your mom has some influence on the school, huh?" Matt murmured his curiosity for Sora and her family growing. He turned the paper with interest looking to see if there were any additional messages. "Can she convince them to start a soccer team?" He didn't realize that he had spoken out loud until Sora shrieked, "What are you doing! That's mine!"
Surprised, he let Sora rip the note out of his hands without protest and she crumpled it furiously, although they both knew he had already read it. But with her first priority accomplished, she turned to give him a glare full of the excess fury that she hadn't gotten to use earlier. "Do I need to tell you again?" Sora snarled, her eyes flashing. She couldn't believe it; only minutes ago there was a moment where she liked him. "Stay away and mind your own business!"
Perhaps it was the anger radiating from her or just her words, but something shocked Matt into motion. He backed up, raising his hands to show he was harmless and quickly said, "Sorry, sorry! It fell on the ground and I was curious. I really did want to know what you weren't telling me."
She looked away so Matt took it as a good sign and let his curiosity boldly stroll out of his mouth. "Does it mean that you're going to be in my class?"
Sora ignored him, praying she hadn't ripped it in half, or better, at all. For a moment, her throat caught as she quickly reopened it. If she had... That would give her teacher a great first impression.
Fortunately, it was fine and she silently breathed out her relief. There was a tiny tear in the top left corner, but she could easily hide it wither her thumb. More importantly, the creases were still all too noticeable. She needed something to run it over with…
"Here, take this book," Matt said, eagerly stepping up to make amends. "It's small and might work better than your binder."
She rolled her eyes and was about retort when she noticed the cover. Slowly, she reached out to take it. "Down at Dusk, Rise at Light? Is this your book? Have you ever read this?"
"Hey, you don't need to sound so surprised." He gave her a small smile. When she wasn't yelling at him, she sounded nice enough. "It's a good book."
She ran her fingers over the unkempt pages, checked it out, and then finally used it to iron out the wrinkles in her note. In a few moments, it was straightened out as much as it could be, although she still couldn't fix the creases. But this would have to do.
"True," She concluded. "But the plot was surprisingly complicated. I didn't think you'd understand it."
"Thanks." He said sarcastically. "You could've just said you didn't think I was smart enough."
Sora crossed her arms, hiding a small smile to herself. This was actually amusing. "Fine, I don't think you're smart enough. Earlier, I seem to remember someone saying 'I like challenges.' and 'I'll figure it out on my own.' Sound familiar?"
Matt grinned. He liked this playful side of Sora; she wasn't so bad this way. He shook his head several times as he said, "Nope, don't recall anything like that." He paused and then added quickly, "But if I- someone did say something like that, and they happened to find a note on the ground, then that would count as something they figured it out on their own."
Sora broke out into a small grin, and then squashed it as quickly as she could. Tripping him up was going to be fun. So she waited until she had a straight face before saying, "So you don't think you should be in trouble."
"That's right."
"Because you didn't do anything wrong."
"That's right."
"And you didn't say, I'll figure it out on my own."
This time he hesitated a little before shaking his head. "Nope, definitely not me."
"And you didn't find a note on the ground, at all?"
Matt paused to think for a second, and then protested, "That's not fair!"
She burst out laughing. "Sure it is!" But they both knew that Sora had trapped him.
"No, that's unfair! If I say I didn't find a note, you'll say I didn't figure anything out. But if I say I did find a note, you'll say I didn't figure out anything, unless I admitted I was the one who said, 'I'll figure it out.' "
Sora began laughing again. "That was confusing but right. Nobody messes with me! Now confess to your crimes!"
Matt was laughing but he shook his head, refusing to give in. "Never! I deny everything!"
Sora's eyes glinted and he knew she was going to try to trip him up again.
He shouted, "Nope, I'm not doing that again!" and then got a good, safe five meters from her. He was surprisingly enjoying their game.
After a few more minutes of Sora picking on Matt, followed by their laughter, they both calmed down. He sat down at his desk and pulled out the chair from the table beside him so Sora could sit.
"That was fun," Matt said honestly. "So now are you going to tell me about your note?" She looked uncertain so he added, "Come on, we're friends now. Aren't we?" Matt felt all the fun that had just gone by leave him for a moment. He knew he would regret it if they weren't friends.
The last five minutes had been fun, she felt as if she had known him for a lot longer than a week. It was unnecessary to say, she was losing some of her hate for him. She nodded slowly, "I guess we are. Okay."
His heart lightened. Saying they were friends? Tai would really be happy about that. He had been encouraging Matt and Sora to fix their problems.
"So spill." Matt prompted. "Everything okay?"
"Well you already know mom's getting me to move to this class." Sora said dryly, pointedly looking at Matt. He gave her a sheepish smile. "Okay, okay, I get it!"
Now, she looked down at the ground like she was embarrassed. "Well, anyways, she basically thinks that your class has smarter people, a better teacher and you guys learn faster, so she wants me to go to this class."
Matt was slightly surprised. Was that really so? He looked over her appraisingly. He had gotten the feeling that she knew her stuff; today's incident only helped prove that fact. But she was changing classes just because this class was smarter? Was it really such a big deal?
Matt decided that cheering up Sora was more important than just treating T.K. (plus he was getting hungry) and pulled out the bag of cookies he had been saving. He opened the bag and offered Sora one.
She took one and gave him a warm, grateful smile.
"So what's the problem?" He popped one into his mouth and chewed slowly, enjoyed the crumbly chocolate taste.
She rolled her eyes but this time, her voice had no spite. "There is no problem. I never had a problem." She gave him a wry grin. "If you'd listened when I said to leave me alone, maybe you would remember."
"Ohh." Matt flushed, his cheeks reddening. He'd assumed there was something wrong when she wouldn't tell him and pestering her seemed to be the only way to get her to talk. "Oops."
She smiled mischievously, like she enjoyed him flustered. "By the way, you should know you're losing. I always win."
"Ha." Matt drew out his words patiently. "Right. If you were winning, I'd-" He paused. "Actually, I wouldn't do anything because there's no way you could win."
"What? What about five minutes ago?" She protested, leaning back into her chair, crossing her legs. "I was totally crushing you!"
Matt didn't plan on losing, especially not to a girl. "Well what happened to not telling me anything?" He rested his chin on his folded hands and smirked teasingly. "I'm pretty sure I remember you talking to me again."
Now it was Sora's turn to flush. Geez! This guy was so easy going and relaxed; nothing she said got to his brain. "Shut up! I wasn't hiding anything! And that doesn't count, because I didn't tell you anything, you took the note of the floor!"
Matt shrugged and then said, "Hey, you can believe what you want." He grinned, blue eyes sparkling mischievously. "But we all know I'm right."
"In your dreams!" Sora shook her head as she laughed. She hated to admit it, but she might of been enjoying their banter.
"Well we can argue about this anytime."
Suddenly, Tai stumbled over, panting. "Water. Need water." The center of his shirt was soaked with his sweat and his hair carried several bits of dirt and a small clump of uprooted grass.
Matt handed him a plastic water bottle from his desk and Tai took it urgently. Sliding into the chair besides Sora, the soccer player began chugging down the water while Matt nodded with approval. "You look like you played hard. Good for you."
After several swallows, Tai took a gasping breath and then managed to smile and choke out, "I did. That's the only way I play." He screwed the lid back onto his bottle and then moved it back onto Matt's desk, watching as the remaining quarter of water sloshed around the inside of the bottle.
His thirst satisfied, Tai sighed and then leaned back in his chair. "So," He looked up, with newly refreshed eyes. "what did I miss? How's it going?"
Sora glanced over at Matt. What am I supposed to call him? Enemy? Friend? Nah, we're more like something in between... But he just gave her a careless shrug and then reached for Tai's drink.
Sora wrinkled her nose. Guys share their water? Gross! "Sure. I mean at least we stopped fighting. And we talked about stuff." She said, distractedly watching Matt with disgust as he drained the rest of the water.
"That's good," Tai cocked his head, impressed. "For a week's that's decent progress." With the back of his hand, he swiped some of the sweat off his forehead. "So when do you think we can change that status to friends?"
Matt grinned. "How about never?" Before they could object, he raised his hands and laughed, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! But I think we're good right now, whatever we are."
Sora rolled her eyes but smiled. "That's the only thing you've been right about so far."