Chapter Text
I woke up, and after getting ready in front of the mirror, I checked my phone. On it was a message from her, not even five minutes old.
I quickly unlocked my phone, mistyped on the Signal lock screen after my main lock, and when I finally had it open, I read, "I will be at the station at seven AM."
I arrived five minutes before our departure; so far, no sign of her.
When we only had about one minute left, I pulled out my phone and texted her, "Hey, you coming? U good?"
When the bus arrived and I still had no message, I decided to go alone, but right as I wanted to enter, my phone buzzed.
"I am in the café at the corner. I will come later."
And a second later,
"Sorry."
I thought for a moment, then turned around and walked towards the café.
In the back row on a bench she sat, her phone in hand, her hair messy and falling over her eyes.
I approached, and she looked up. Her green eyes seemed like she was looking right through me, at a spot in the air somewhere behind me.
"Hey, you good?" I asked, and she answered, "You came?"
"I was worried. I don't like being late, but at least I am not late alone," I said while sitting down next to her, trying to keep my distance on the bench.
"The station is loud and the people are scary," she said, eyes focused on the steaming cup of coffee in front of her.
I waited a moment, and when she didn't say anything more, I asked, "Should we take the next bus?"
"Yes, we have to, I guess. Let me just finish my coffee first," she said before emptying her cup and getting up with a sigh.
We made our way to the bus together and shared a double seat again.
After a while of sitting in silence and watching the landscape rush by, I finally asked, "Are you okay?"
"I hate being late too; I just sometimes can't bring myself to go." She took a moment, then added, "When I said I am not much of a friend person, I didn't mean by choice."
I myself took a while and didn't know what to say until I finally said, "I like you."
We spent the rest of the ride in silence together.
When we finally entered the classroom, almost twenty minutes late for history, I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
The teacher said, "Come in," and after entering, I quickly excused us both and made my way to the back row.
She sat down next to me and quietly said, "Thanks, I didn't want to knock."
"I know," I replied.
After following the lesson for a while, she slid a paper over to me, saying, "I like your nail polish, way more neat than mine lul."
I looked up to make sure Mr. Henderson wasn't looking and wrote my answer: "I like your black nail polish; that's why I searched for my old bottle ^^."
I looked at the paper and decided to take the opportunity, so I added: "I can make your nails in the big break if you want," and handed her the paper.
She looked over at me and nodded before returning her attention to the page in front of her.
I picked my pen back up and began writing again: "After this boring lesson, I am actually looking forward to the next lesson. All these other subjects are time-wasting side activities anyway."
This time the answer came quickly: "Omg yes, I hope it will be good. I am only here to learn game dev. I use Godot at home, currently working on a side-scroller. (Not ready to show yet!)"
I had to smile a bit while imagining what her game might look like, then I replied, "I am not that gifted when it comes to asset creation, but I am making a text-based open-world game in Assembly ^^."
After the history lesson finished, she swung her handbag over her shoulder and asked, "You want to go out to the parking lot? There is a bench, and if you still want, maybe you could make my nails."
I nodded and we left the building through the back.
The parking lot was not comfy in any normal sense, but it was quiet.
We made our way to the steel bench and plopped our things onto the ground before it. I opened my handbag and got the black nail polish out, and she turned towards me.
I moved my hand a bit in the direction of hers and asked, "You ready? Can I?"
She nodded and I took her hand; it was soft, her fingers long and full of silver rings. I could feel her body heat in the metal of the rings she had worn all day already, and for a moment my mind blanked. When my brain caught up with me again, she was looking directly at me. "I am ready," she said.
I opened the bottle and laid her hand onto my lap to steady it, pressing it down with my free hand while making sure not to push too hard. Then I focused on holding my own hand steady as I painted her first fingernail in one clean motion. "There we go."
On the second nail, I decided to ask her, "What do you do at home? Like, in your free time, I mean..."
Her eyes were fixed on me painting her nails when she spoke. "I like to read, work on my game, and do other things."
I took her hand and moved it a bit to better reach the next finger and asked, "What do you read?" While I said the words, I could feel her hand tense on my lap, just a bit, but I noticed.
She seemed even more focused on my painting when she spoke again. "Kinky stuff."
That made me almost mess up the next paint stroke. "What?" I said before my brain could stop me.
I could feel her hand tense on my leg and knew I said the wrong thing.
I blushed and quickly added, "I don't mind, just did not expect that right now," while also beginning to look down.
Then I finished the rest of her nails and her second hand in silence before announcing, "So, that's it. What do you think?"
She looked at her hands and then at me and smiled. "I don't know how you get the paint so perfect. I always mess it up."
I smiled and pulled my cigarettes out of my coat pocket.
"Do you mind if I smoke one?"
She shook her head, and I got up, walked a few meters away from her, and lit my cigarette. After the smoke, we headed inside, walking next to each other in the hallway. While walking, she asked, "Wanna sit next to each other for IT class?"
"Gladly," I said.
We made our way back to class and sat down in the last row.
The teacher talked us through some simple `while` loops, and when I turned to her screen, I saw she was currently busy installing Aseprite from Steam, which she apparently had already managed to download in the short while I was actually focused on the teacher.
"What are you doing?" I whispered, which made her seem a bit startled.
"I am sorry," I said, and she replied, "All good, sorry, thought you were Miss Johnson."
"Makes sense lul," I laughed, and she glanced up to make sure Miss Johnson didn't notice.
After about half an hour, I glanced over to her screen again and saw an almost finished piece of pixel art in a dark pastel palette depicting a girl sitting on a bench at night in the rain under a street lamp.
I leaned a bit closer. "What are you drawing?"
"Private," she said, and I left it at that.
After another fifteen or so minutes, we were finally instructed to open up Unity. After making us each design a top-down map for an RPG from an imaginary client, Miss Johnson told us to compare and explain our work in groups of two.
Quickly, the class grew into chattering as students searched for a partner, and I could see her eyes going wide and searching the room with the same panicked expression from the first day.
"You want to make a group?" I asked, and her frantic gaze stopped on me.
"You sure?" she asked, and I nodded.
"Mine is a giant spaceship divided into different zones, see here?" I said, and she leaned in closer.
"I made each zone a different biome controlled by its own faction and sorted these into different layers," I continued.
She stared at my screen for a moment, her face concentrated, then said, "I like yours. I should have used layers, but I had no time left."
"I am sure it will still be good, wanna show me?" I replied and leaned toward her screen.
"Sure, mine is a dead forest with one giant tree that is still blooming in the middle. I spent a lot of time on the leaves and all these pathways down in the forest; I wish I had time for more," she explained.
"I like it," I said, and she smiled.
After the lesson, we could leave for the day. While she was packing her things into her handbag, I asked her, "You wanna drive back together again?" She smiled and said, "Yes, I don't want a stranger to sit down next to me."