Chapter 3: Weird
Alice felt weird because she didn't feel weird that she's hanging out with a boy—a complete stranger she only knew from the internet. Yet she's being herself completely and he's totally fine with it. Was this because she acted like herself on the Internet?
Ace was and odd guy; she could talk about nearly everything to him and wouldn't feel awkward at all. Beauty treatments, games, fictions, movies, actors, songs, even some random meme could turn into an argument.
They stopped in front of Gekko, the ramen shop in the mall.
Alice noticed the promotion poster and wondered if this Ace boy could stand more of her antics.
"Hey, let's get that Level Ten Super Bowl!" she exclaimed suddenly. Ace stared at the poster.
"If we can finish this it's free." He read the lines. "Don't you have money for your own bowl?" he stared at her with a frown.
"No, if we can't finish it, I'll pay for it. I just like to try weird stuff. Are you in? Or are you a pussy?" she smirked challengingly to him. Her glasses shining under the lights, giving her the crazy look.
Ace chuckled and shoved his hands into his pocket. "I'm in."
Alice found herself smiling when she shove another spoonful of ramen soup into her mouth, helping her to process the noodles in her mouth. They were eating together in the same bowl; he wasn't feeling awkward at all.
"Hey! Leave that egg alone!" Alice snapped, using her chopsticks to slap Ace's chopsticks away and snatched the egg in the bowl.
"Wha—I peeled that for myself! I'm taking that meat—oi!" Ace grimaced as Alice swiftly snatched the meat as well. "Argh, you food whore! How could you! And where's my fucking ice tea? This is so fucking hot!"
"Heh, you're such a pussy Ace." Alice panted with teary red face.
"Look who's crying from this level-ten ramen." Ace twitched.
The two then laughed while fanning their mouths. Blessing the waiter who came with their iced tea, they drank greedily.
"Hoh…I'm back to the war." Ace slammed his glass onto the table.
"Here we go again…" Alice glared at the remaining ramen noodle in their giant bowl.
The two exchanged serious stares and nodded.
"This…" Ace started.
"…Is…" Alice nodded.
"Sparta!" the two began to dig the bow again.
Alice inwardly smiled wider as they gorged the remaining ramen together. He didn't mind her inner-fat-kid acting up, being gluttonous despite she's a girl. He didn't feel…like, "Eww, pig." Not even flinch for once ever since they met in real life.
"I did it!" Alice cheered, throwing away her chopsticks. The ramen waiters clapped their hands.
"We did it!" Ace corrected, laughing as the older girl started to sing Queen's song.
"We are the champions…! We are the champions! No time for losers, 'cause we…are the champions…" Alice strike a pose as she finished the short lyrics; "…Of the world…!"
She heard him laugh louder, and he was clutching his stomach. Wasn't he feeling even weirded out at her antics? Doesn't he feel ashamed being seen with such a freak like her?
"You're weird." Alice commented after they paid for their iced tea.
Ace quirked his eyebrows, still grinning. "What? I wasn't the one singing Queen's song loudly in public, you know?"
The girl giggled. "You're weird because you don't mind me at all, dummy."
She didn't notice how his face faltered a little into a thoughtful look. "Yeah…That's pretty weird…" he mumbled.
Noticing a train of supermarket's trolleys coming their way, Alice swiftly too his hand and dragged him closer to her before the trolley train hit them apart.
"This way, idiot." Alice mumbled, and turned to look ahead with a smirk. "Hey you know what? I don't regret skipping school today. Despite I'm a senior."
Ace tilted his head. "You can always study today's lesson at home."
Alice deadpanned at him. "You have no idea how lazy I can be."
~.X.~
Brighton was a popular, great school in the middle of Wonderton City. Contrasted with Treffen; marginal and new. Most students in Brighton were Acceleration Students; the lessons were more complicated than what Treffen seniors' could have learned.
Ace knew and she admitted it that he was smarter than her. And taller. Despite she's pouting and complaining about this, she made him feel good about himself. Usually other kids at school respected him way too much on the front and mock him behind his back about "Oh, what a fucking smartass, why don't he just go to college right away?"
Alice made him feel—after a very long time—that being too smart was 'cool'.
He stared at their hands. She just pulled him from the trolley trains; she didn't let his hand go. Ace probably had forgotten or never knew that a girl's hand could be so small and smooth.
"And I fucking hate Physics. Like, fuck that subject. Once I graduate, I don't want to go anywhere near that shit." Alice chattered.
"I suck at English." Ace chuckled, still staring at their hands. "I never get more than a B plus on that. Why are your nails like this? Did you bite them?" he asked her, bold enough to stare at their hands straight.
"Yeah, I have that bad habits where I love to bite my nails when I'm nervous, confused, panicking and probably when I'm hungry I eat my nails." She bluntly explained, didn't mind him at all staring down at her hand.
"Phfft! They're getting longer again and you're going to bite them again." Ace shook his head and dragged her to stop their pace.
He wanted to give her another test as he stared at a manicure shop. "Go there and treat them; have them polished too."
Alice twitched as she glared at the shop. "I don't really like wasting my money on nail treatments…But I kinda wanted to do this for a while. You sure it's okay?"
Ace smirked and nodded. He hoped she knew that he wasn't going to pay her manicure. If she'd run out of the shop and ask him to pay…he couldn't wait to troll and piss her off. At a point he felt a little bad for testing her too much.
He was insecure, okay? This girl, Alice, was too good to be true.
"I am never going back there, ever again." Alice deadpanned as she left the manicure shop. But then she smiled. "I'll probably make these last! Nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan!" she waved her newly decorated fingers; they had Nyan-Cat patterns on them.
Ace laughed. "Cute."
"Cute my fucking ass, they cost like twenty five dollars!" Alice deadpanned. "But I love them so it's okay." She kissed her nails.
He smirked while he held her other hand, staring at her newly treated nails. "You've paid for it?"
"Of course. Now are we going to do something else?" she took her hand from her and checked her wristwatch. "I have remaining six hours until my course."
Ace stared at her for a while. She seemed not to notice or probably didn't mind—too ignorant to care. He still couldn't judge her—probably she wasn't one that can be judged. Independant, probably. Girly, not too much; tomboy? She didn't mind manicure and stuff. Weird, but not all the time.
"Oh, can we check the bookstore?" Alice suddenly exclaimed. "I have enough money to take out some Little House Series!"
Ace woke up from his thoughts and raised his eyebrows. "You read Little House? Laura or Rose?"
The girl's eyes widened and her cheeks faintly redden. "Oh...Wow...You're not just the Internet Guy."
"As you are not." Ace shrugged with a smile. "Shakespeare's genre?"
"Tragedy." Alice smiled as they started to head for the second floor, where the bookstore was.
"Yeah, his comedies are boring." Ace agreed as they stood on an escalator. His heart almost jumped when she took his hand to stabilize herself on the moving stairs.
And she didn't let go.
"Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Events?" she asked.
"The Ersatz Elevator." Ace automatically answered, and stared at her questioningly.
"The End." Alice smiled. "I really love those kinds of books. I have to read it carefully to break some riddles hidden in some pages! Not all of them are mere writings. Sometimes it makes me feel that the Baudelaires and Count Olaf are real." She giggled, and suddenly, her smile faltered.
Ace blinked and tilted his head. "What's wrong?"
"Aren't you thinking that I'm weird?" she asked, not looking at him. "This is how I really am, just like how I act on the internet. I act differently, depending how the environment acts first. Sometimes I get too blunt and overly shameless; sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes I'm way too weird, too out-of-the-ordinary, but honestly, my achievements are that of a very ordinary teenager." She sighed as they stepped down the escalator and moved away, leaning to the rails as they stared down the lower floor.
"I can't determine what I really want or how I should really act. I guess I just response to how my environment goes. Because you're not acting different from what you have been on the Internet, this is how I response to your act." She shrugged and turned to stare at him. "I can't judge myself, but others judge me according to what they've seen me do. You probably got confused since I can talk this serious, huh?"
Ace stared at her face, and stare at their hands, still holding each other. He squeezed hers and shrugged.
"I guess you're my opposite, despite we share so many topics." He smirked. "You have no control of yourself, but you're calm and composed. You react to your environment. I have been on charge and I always can't find it easy to trust people. I'm like an everlasting stone in the middle of an environment; I won't react unless I need to."
"You're probably a free soul but with a body trapped in society's judgement. I can talk about anything to you and you'd listen despite it's boring or not. I don't know. If you can't judge yourself, I think others shouldn't have the right to judge you. Why? Have you been judged?" he asked in concern.
Alice hummed and hung her head on her hands. "The douchebags at my class called my a lesbian yesterday." She deadpanned.
Ace chuckled. "Not everyone understand Girl's Crushes."
"I don't even—Look, I talk to everyone, okay? But I sit with girls because most guys get awkward around me. I hang out with some, and just because I have a self-consciousness that I'm chubby and irritate boys' eyes, and that I'm a bit too smart and quirky, the guys avoided me like a plague. Like, what the fuck did I ever do to them?"
"Well, you're not pretty, but definitely not irritating my eyes."
"I'm fine since you're not that handsome. Anyways, that Blood Fucking Dupre just made school unbearable; now that girls think I'm a lesbian, and the boys got awkward around me because they're too stupid. I have no one to talk to at school...except some of my female friends in other classes. And the teachers." She huffed sadly.
Ace hummed, following her gestures on the railing. "I'm weirder and crazier than you. I guess they'll treat me the same as you when they get to know me a little. That's just how people are; they think they're so high, they know everything about you when you act a bit weird."
"It's not so weird to hate girls. Gay is popular trend right n—"
"I love girls." Ace laughed, knocking her head with his knuckle softly. He knew she was just joking. "That's not my weirdest quality. You'll probably avoid me once you know me better. That's why I never let anyone knows me better." He sighed.
The two sighed once more.
"Who knows, right?" Alice suddenly said with a determined smile. "For now I'll just think of you as an ugly junior whom I can talk about anything to."
Ace's eyes glimmered and he smiled. "Yeah. We can probably be best friends."
Alice nodded vigorously and pointed at the bookstore. "Now that's settled! Let's go!"
Nothing owned.