Rouge finally arrived at school, 5 minutes before the bell. That was the cost of working at Taka's. She was always in such a rush in the morning. She had once even gone the whole day with her necklace on backwards, not even noticing till she got back home and glanced in the mirror. She ran to her locker at the end of the east wing, exactly in the opposite direction of most her classes. It was a pain to go back and forth all the time, but administration wouldn't allow any complaints. Not that shy, timid, Rouger would ever be taken seriously anyways. She fumbled with her rusty lock, the one she had had sine freshman year. Late in 11th grade, the lock had jammed and was never the same since. She would constantly have to tug on it multiple times before it opened. But this time, even as her fingers spun through the combo over and over again, it didn't open. She groaned in frustration as the bell rung, indicating that she was now late for class. She decided to store her things in the gym locker room for the time being as she rushed to French.
oooooooooo
She arrived, breathless, and walked to her seat all while feeling 's judging eyes on her. Rouge loved this teacher, and hated disappointing her. Sure she was strict, but she had a sweet side too. Little did anyone else know, but fostered kittens and had sent love notes to her military husband until he was home. How Rouge knew this? She had spent many an hour with the teacher, discussing her background. Rouge was French, and had many stories to tell about old France. The war, the love, and the history was all so fascinating. Well, to Rouge anyways. Anyone else would find it pathetic and bizarre. Her classmates already thought she was weird, and she didn't want them to have anymore reason to then they already had. She dipped her head low and hovered her pencil above her black and white notepad. She was constantly trying to think of new coffee flavours to serve at the shop. Of course, Roger was pretty much their only customer, and since he only liked his coffee black, so she had to do it subtly. Not that she got any feedback from him anyways. Still, it was fun to brainstorm some new ideas. Often her flavours were based on people. Although she wasn't really social, she found the personalities of people to be so interesting. For example, today, as on every Tuesday, she served Roger . The sweet undertones lay beneath the bitter darkness of the coffee, and surfaced suddenly before sinking back into the dark. Just as was tough until she opened up to you, but then hid back under her hard exterior. She looked up from her note pad and saw that had written the answers to the homework on the blackboard. She got her binder out and quickly jotted down some checkmarks before returning to her pad. As the other students took notes, she started thinking about Roger's flavour. Would he be sweet? Bitter? Spicy? She chewed on the thought for a while, thinking of his double personality, until finally deciding she didn't know him well enough to really decide. She was jolted out of her musings by calling her to the board for a demonstration. She deposited her note book in her bag and manoeuvred her way to the front of the room, hearing the snickers and taunts of her classmates behind her.
"Rouge," began , "Conjuger la verbe."
'Rouge,' she translated in her head, "Conjugate the verb."
"On y va.", said her teacher. "Je?"
"Suis." Rouge responded.
"Elle?"
"Est."
OOOOO
This went on for several minutes until her teacher stopped her and said to the class. "Thank you, Rouge. I wish all my students studied as hard as you." she glared pointedly to a pale faced boy with wavy light pink hair and a light grey sweatshirt. The boy rolled his eyes and slumped in his chair, embarrassed. The bell rung, and dismissed the class. As Rouge got up, she heard a girl whisper "Teacher's pet…" to her as she walked by. She reddened, and exited the classroom in a hurry.
She had just got to the end of the hall when she was stopped by the boy from French class. She was eye level with the strings of his sweatshirt, and had to crane her neck to look up at his towering form. "You little freak.", he sneered. "You think you're so special, huh? You think you're all that? You're just a little freak!" She tried to push past him, but she tripped and her bag went flying as she sprawled onto the ground. She picked herself up, and started to gather her things when she noticed him through the corner of her eye flipping through her notebook. "I bet you have to cheat to get through all your classes." he said, nonchalantly turning the pages, studying it's contents. "Is this your cheat sheet?" he asked, tearing one of the pages out of her notes. "Stop that!" yelled Rouge, lunging for the notepad. He side-stepped, and started reading out loud. "1 tsp of.. what the hell is this?" He asked, pointing at her illustration of a pile of sugar. "You making drugs or something? You a pothead?" he taunted her. Rouge was now crying out of frustration, jumping for the notebook the boy held raised over his head. Suddenly, someone grabbed the boy and threw him aside. "Enough, Squard." said the stranger "Give her the book." "But Roger—" "Enough!" yelled Roger, glaring at him. "Give her back her freaking notebook!". Shiki gave Rouge one last sneer before throwing the book at her. She caught it, and stood up, brushing herself off.
The boy she now knew as Squard strolled down the hall, trying to mend his wounded pride. Roger glanced at her, and she realized he was staring at her now messy hair. She self-consciously raised her fingers to her head to try and fix it, but couldn't find her barrette. She saw Roger take a step towards her, and she tensed. He touched the hair at the back of her neck, before grasping something and using both hands to untangle it from her long blonde locks. Still a bit weirded out, Rouge took one step back as he brought his hands back into her view, his right hand cupping her barrette. He used his left hand to brush her hair behind her ear, and clipped her hair back. The gesture was so tender and familiar, that instantly she felt at ease. "We need to get you to the nurse's office." He said. "You're hurt." he pointed to her swelling calf. "It's fine…" she muttered, still a little embarrassed by the whole incident. "Don't look like it." he replied, inspecting the darkening area. He took her hand and dragged her behind him, and she had no choice but to follow. "Wh-Why are you doing all this?" she asked, stumbling along behind him. He looked at her, an unreadable expression on his face, and said "Because I don't want to go to class.". She felt a little disheartened at his words, but she didn't know why. "By the way," he began, "Bourbon?". She skid to a halt, not believing her ears. "What did you say?" she asked tentatively, almost positive he meant something else. "Today you made right? You make her almost every Tuesday."