Chapter 8 - Puzzled

Slowly awakening, the world came back to me in bits and pieces. A constant drumming could be heard, vibrating my eardrums and making things dizzy. Everything seemed fragmented, and my head was hurting so much that I couldn't rise from the floor. Trying to focus my eyes against the haze that clung to my senses, I made a guess that my head really must have been messed up, because what I was seeing was weird and colorful words all over the walls.

I blinked. The entire hall was covered in graffiti, and to add to that the windows were smashed, glass littering the floor. The bins had been emptied all over the everywhere, trash splayed about in disarray.

Those boys did this, and knocked out Richard, along with myself...Richard! Where is he?

I slightly turned my head to try and focus without upsetting my headache. I winced against the feel of needles pressing into my skull, a sharp throb of pain made it difficult to focus on anything.

No time to feel sorry for your self, you've got to find Richard and see if he's okay.

"Oww..."

I heard a groan brake the silence, and looking to my left I saw Richard laying on the floor near me, clutching his stomach. I crawled over to him on hands and knees.

"You okay?" I asked, sitting next to him.

"Richard Grayson, son of a millionaire and five time winner of The Karate cup, was just knocked unconscious by a few simpletons. No I'm not okay."

A giggle escaped me before I could stop it, and suddenly Richards eyes snapped open in surprise. I don't know why he looked so dumbfounded, did he not think I was capable of laugher? Well I guess I couldn't complain, it wasn't exactly the ideal situation to laugh at, and I had assumed the same about him. But for a moment I merely stared back at him, looking into his deep blue eyes, it made me remember the comment made by Xavoiur.

'I didn't turn you into this, your parents deaths did.' I stopped and quickly looked away, sighing. It seemed like Richard and I had more in common than I thought.

"Are you all right?"

Did Richard just ask if I was okay?

Turning to face him once more I realised he was still looking right at me, the emerald eyes reflected in his gaze were mine. My cheeks heated of their own accord, I suddenly felt very dizzy and it wasn't because I had been hit over the head. This was a feeling that scared me, felings like that weren't supposed to come along while you were with your worst enemy...unless you had a crush on your worst enemy. My eyes widened and my heart gave a nervous stutter, no such a thing couldn't be true, I had more pride than to fall for some spoiled rich kid like him.

"Kori?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine...its just..." I trailed off, unable to look into Richard's curious eyes, I breathed deeply and sighed. What if I was wrong about him though? Just like I had been wrong that we were nothing alike...I suppose personality wise we had similar anger levels. It went deeper than that though, after what Xaviour had said, it was like a bond was there now. Something unspeakable and invisible, but there none the less.

"I didn't know you had lost your parents." I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting an explosion of 'It's none of your business!' But there was nothing, just silence. Opening my eyes, I watched as Richard stood up and walked away, his face pale and eyes shadowed.

"Richard wait!"

He stopped as I ran over to him, only halting my steps when I was standing opposite him. My head throbbed from the effort it took to move, and Richard didn't look any better. We needed to go to the nurses station, but there was more to say before then.

"I know how you feel... I lost my parents too." I said in a small voice, Richard faced me, his expression disbelieving.

"W- what?"

"They died in a plane crash when I was fourteen." Breathing in deeply to stop the tears from falling that were quickly welling up in my eyes, I was not expecting Richards reaction to be so blunt.

"Did you see it happen right in front of you? Are their faces imprinted in your mind? I'm sure you remember them to be smiling the last time you saw them. We're nothing alike."

"...How?" My voice was small, almost swallowed up by the size of the hall, but he seemed to hear me.

"You have no idea what I've been though. I don't remember my parents as the good people they were in life, all there is...is the look of death on their faces after it happened. " Richard looked up then, and his glare was by far the most intense and pain filled look I had ever seen. His shoulders went tense, and he began to walk away again.

"Richard?" I felt the tears in my eyes overflow, looking at Richard now I would replace the word mysterious with torcherd, something awful must have happened to him. From his words, his parents deaths were allot more complicated than mine had been.

He stopped and turned to look at me, his expression had softened, perhaps from the sight of my tears.

"Sorry, I just don't like to talk about it, and I'm sorry you lost your parents too..."

I raised my head and nodded, sniffing and rubbing my eyes quickly.

"We better go and tell the head what happened here."

I froze and grumbled in dismay at his words. Oh joy. He loves me, the girl who causes trouble throughout the school. I'm sure I'm in his good books.

Sighing, I followed his retreating form out of the sports hall, this was not going to be fun.

OOO

Just as I had predicted, Mr. Wilson was not a happy bunny. In fact he was so unhappy he simply didn't believe a single word that left my mouth, and even Richards words had little impact from the heads decision. The head master gave us a months detention, and we had to repair the sports hall!

I rolled my eyes, I knew Richard wouldn't get in too much trouble because of his father, but he had surprised me. Wilson had originally set the punishment for me alone, but Richard had stepped in and taken on the chores along side me. And what about the three boys? Why was Slade defending them?

Well as it turns out those boys were new to our school, and therefore Slade simply couldn't believe that they would cause so much destruction on their first day. I muttered to Richard that this was highly unfair, since I had been punished on my very first day for a prank he had pulled.

Richard had replied that the boys fathers knew Mr Slade Wilson quite well outside of school, so that was why they had escaped being punished.

It was fair to say I was liking this school less and less.

OOO

I waited outside of the school for my friends, along with Richard who was waiting for his own. We both remained in silence as the bell rang, no words needed to be said really, we were both going to do a months detention and there was nothing we could do about it. I did however still have one last thing to ask him.

"Richard?"

"What is it?" Richard's voice sounded annoyed so I kept my question short. I was still puzzled, after all I didn't know what X had meant about pic pocketing and spray painting, did Richard really do that? I knew it was presumptuousness of me to ask and expect and answer, but I felt like I needed to.

"Did you really do all those things which Xaviour said you did?"

Richard seemed taken aback by the question, but quickly shook it off "none of your business Anders."

I looked away. Of course I had expected that, but it still hurt that he could disregard me so easily after everything that had just happened. It seemed to me that he wanted to go back to when we had hated each other, judging by his lack of response up till then.

My heart ached from a certain longing to be friends... and a secret desire welled up inside me. However I covered it up by rage once more, hiding the hurt and the confusion over such emotions. I felt my blood boil but answered calmly.

"Looks like my first impression of you was right Grayson." Thankfully, my friends walked out of the school at that moment and saved me from elaborating. I walked away without a word, leaving a confused Richard Grayson behind me.

ooo

wow..heart ache ally huh? well don't worry things are still serious but not as sad after all we have the school active day coming up! I cant wait to do this next capture, its the ultimate Richard vs Kori!xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx review!