She Can't See

chapter seven

After the settling down noises had dispersed, Mrs. Chapman began to speak up and project her slides of notes onto the whiteboard in the front of the classroom. Everyone in the class quieted down as soon once the lights turned off, knowing all too well that that was the signal to not speak unless spoken to. 

The second teacher, Ms. Dotty - who was more of a class aid to keep people on track - walked around the room, sliding in between the tables, to hand out the packets that the students would use to talk notes on for the lesson of this week. As this was done, the students quietly dug into their backpacks for their pencil cases to gather the materials that they would need. 

When Ms. Dotty came to their table, she flashed a warming smile in Asami's direction, as she always did, once her eyes met Asami's setting. Her small area was already cleared to make space for the packet. She had two different pencils, (one mechanical and one a regular number two) blue, green, red, and purple colored pencils, and a pen with the required black ink. They were all placed and aligned neatly. Her hands were folded and her posture against the back of the chair was straight as a ruler. She looked exceptionally ready for yet another lesson of chemistry. 

And this is how she always presented herself in any and every other class.

The packets were handed out to Asami and the rest of her peers that sat at her table, this including Meng, Lila, and none other than Korra. 

Speaking of Korra, she wasn't exactly known to be as prepared as Asami was. Minutes after the lesson had begun, she hadn't even gotten the chance to open her packet to the first page. Asami kept her eyes on the board, waiting in anticipation for the first words to fill in the blanks or a new diagram to draw out. She would not bring herself to miss a beat or fall behind.

However, her best friend's rummaging from beside her never failed to snap her attention away for a couple of seconds. Asami let herself eye Korra from the side. In Mrs. Chapman's class, of course it was highly unacceptable to cheat, and Asami never even thought twice about it. But this teacher was one of the most strict people that Asami had ever known. Even so much as helping another stupid was looked down upon. Chapman had said things like 'everyone should carry their own weight' and 'this and that would not pass in college' and so on.

But Asami couldn't help that she liked to help others. She looked back up to the board to make sure that both teachers were distracted by the slides projected, and in the next second, she reached over and turned Korra's packet to the first page. Just as she did so, Mrs. Chapman clicked a button that played the next slide which was heavily packed with notes. Of course that was how they started the day off. It would have been weird if it was only a few words. 

Asami copied everything down in under a minute, her being the first person in the class to finish writing, and Korra now having half of her upper body inside of her backpack. Asami turned to look at her again and raised a brow. 

"Korra." She leaned over slightly and whispered so lowly that even Meng and Lila on the other side of her couldn't hear. Korra turned her head and faced Asami, a tint of worry coating her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I can't find my pencil case." Korra explained just as lowly. "I must've left it in math last period." 

Though she was worried about her friend's missing items, her brows knitted at the still blank sheet that belonged to Korra. Other students were finishing up, which meant that Chapman would take the majority and move on to the next slide. Asami then took her own pencil case and placed it on Korra's lap from under the desk, all while keeping her eyes facing forward. 

And it's not like she couldn't feel those blue eyes and wide grin burning into her side. She chose not to look at them. 

"Thanks, Sato." Korra said hushly. Asami only nodded and rotated her paper a bit so Korra could copy down whatever she would miss.