Chapter 4

THE CLOCK JUST ticks away. It’s only been about 10 minutes into the classtime and I already felt like passing out!! Well, you would too if the person you’re crushing on was sitting right next to you, and will always sit there, let alone your rival (Mason) sitting right behind him, then you went to sleep late the night before because your friend had to go on and on about her problems which frankly, you didn’t really care about. Yeah exactly!

            No one else talked when the teacher asked a question, and I think it’s because we were all freshman and it was just our first day. We didn’t feel like talking, or we were scared to say anything! Constantly I glance over at Justin.. But only for a while, I don’t want him to accidently look at me too, then it seems like I was watching him (which I was) and I don’t want to creep him out.

“Alright, I’m going to pass out the syllabus for this school year.” The teacher annouces. His name is Mr. Bartley by the way.

“Whoa it’s already been half the class period!” Nick exclaims, which I should thank him for doing because I had no clue what time It was.

“Class gets out at 9:25 right?” Mason asks Nick.

“Yeah it does.”

            Only 45 more minutes, then next I have P.E. Not exactly my favorite subject, but at least I get to move around in that class. Plus, I was really looking forward to playing some tennis.

            Soon, another 30 minutes had past, Mr. Bartley explained the syllabus and other things about the class. He’s such a nice teacher, giving us the last 15 minutes for free-talk time. But he told us that only because it’s the first day of school and we shouldn’t get used to it. That’s ok with me though, I wanted to talk to Justin. It took me a whole 10 minutes just to think of what to talk about though!

“Hey, Justin?” I tap his shoulder.. again.

“Oh, yeah?”

“I don’t think I got to tell you my name.” I smile a fake smile, because inside I was so shy and scared.

“Oh that’s right, so what is it?”

“My name’s Aika.”

Then there was a pause. He just stared at me. Did I say something weird?? I hoped not..

“Hm, well that name suits you perfectly.” He grinned.

“Why do you say that?”

Then another pause, except this time he just smiled at me. For a whole 7 seconds. What was I doing to make him pause all the time?!

“Because.. It’s short and cute, just like you.” He winked, and right then the bell had rang. He grabbed his binder and whispered into my ear, “see you next period”. That’s when I got all warm, and I bet I was blushing so hard it couldn’t get any harder! While Justin and everyone else began to leave the room, Mason, Nick, and I just remained at our seats. The two boys had witnessed everything that just happened, and I lived it.

“Holy cow!!” Mason exclaimed as the 3 of us trotted to the gym. “You’re so lucky Aika, I almost feel jealous!!”

            We all laugh, but I still feel kind of uneasy inside.

“See  you next period.”

            The sound of his gentle voice still rang in my head. The look of his cute face and beautiful eyes took over my thoughts. And how could he have known we had second period together? Maybe he took a look at my schedule when I wasn’t looking, or maybe he can read minds.. can he be an esper?? Noo (I chuckle to myself). He’s not like Kida Masaomi. Kida doesn’t exist, but oh I so wish he did. But wait, Justin is cute just like Kida. They both have the floppy hairstyle, charm in their voice, and those same eyes. Maybe Justin can be my real-life Kida. Yes, that would be perfect! But I still didn’t know if he liked me the way I liked him. I hope he does though. But before I can even think of anything else, I’m already standing in front of the gymnasium entrance. In we go..

“NICK!!!” That was NOT the voice I wanted to hear.

“Bea baby!!” Nick ran over to her and they embraced, as if they hadn’t seen each other in months. Then just like they would usually do, they have a little romance fest in front of the class.

“Hey you two, kiss eachother on your own time.” Coach Carter told them. “Now go and stand by the bleachers, and wait til other students arrive.”

            Coach Carter has a voice that could lay down the law. You just have to obey him, or at least that’s what his voice tells you.

So Bea, Nick, Mason, and I huddle into our small little group and just stand. Stand and wait for the bell to ring and we talk about things that aren’t really that interesting. But while that’s happening I keep looking around, I didn’t see Justin anywhere. Maybe he was just kidding, maybe it was just a joke. But he had such a serious face.

“Hey Aika,” Bea said, interfearing with my look-out for Justin. “I had my last class with Issac, and he was telling me about how you two plan on finding the one.” She chuckled.

“Yes, and..?” I rolled my eyes, I knew this conversation was going to take turn for the worst.

“Well, I just don’t understand why,” she started. “I mean Issac is one thing, but you? Your parents wont even allow you to date, and you expect to find your perfect match in high school!”

The bell rings and I’m getting kind of angry.

“You don’t even have any experience in the dating field. You have no idea what clothes to wear and how to style your hair or put on makeup. That’s why you only attract the ugly guys!”

I clench my fist, but I cant hit her. I don’t want to hit her. I’m just angry. Actually, I kind of feel like crying. But she just crossed the line.

“Well.. you know,” I start. “One of those so-called ugly guys was your boyfriend.”

Bea’s face lit up like a fire cracker.

“Oh, ho ho, YOU KNOW WHAT?? I’m the one with him, not you, you’re not with anyone! You can never have anyone! Because actually, you’re not all that pretty!”

Nick’s face becomes a little droopy, he places his hand on Bea’s shoulder.

“Bea that’s enough,” he says.”You’re being quite rude today. Stop it.”

Bea rolls her eyes. “NO, you don’t tell me to stop it! I--!”

She got caught off. Someone, not Nick or Mason, placed his hand on Bea’s other shoulder. She turns around surprised to see such a cute cute boy! Even cuter than Nick. It was Justin.

“If he can’t tell you to stop, then I will.” He says with a serious, yet somewhat-calm, tone and face. Then he looks to Nick.

“Hey, is this your girlfriend?”

“Y-Yeah.” Nick replied hesitantly.

“Hmpf, you can do much better.” Justin shakes his head then walks over to me, then faces Bea.

 “Listen, whoever you are, you have no right to say this to Aika. What a rude lady, kind of unclassy too. No, you are unclassy. Nick deserves much better, someone like Aika.”

Oh Justin, what are you saying?! You’re making things worse, worse for me!!

“Aika’s nice and sweet and cute. How dare you call her all those things. And personally, to me, she’s waay more attractive than you.”

Bea stands there, her face is just blank, emotionless. Her eye kind of twitches, which looks really creepy because I’ve never seen it twitch before at all. But Justin, he said all those nice things to defend me, and we don’t even know each other that much! Now I understand what kind of boy he is… He’s just like Kida.

            The coach comes into the room, he had been gone looking for some equipment. He looked pretty surprised to see all the other students just staring at us (Nick, Bea, Justin and I) in the middle of the gym.

“I’m not sure what’s going on but let’s just, uh, circle up. Circle up around center court students!” Coach says.

Nick takes Bea’s hand. “Come on, let’s go.” He pulls her toward center court, but she keeps looking over to me. Me and Justin.

            He swings his arm around my shoulder. “Whew, what a brawl eh?” He glances at me, he’s smiling again. At that moment I realized how affective a glance to the side can be. I couldn’t speak. “Ah, well that’s alright. You’re just in shock huh? Well, lets go.” He winks again and the two of us walk to center court.

            I took a quick look at Mason while we were walking, he was walking very slowly behind us, and he looked… A little jealous.