Chai

A Jock, A Live Wire, and a Nerd

Class started as usual that day. I tucked my wings into my chair and stared at the SMART board in frustration. I hated that class. OH, how I hated that class. Every fiber of me hated it. A few late students trotted in, vibrant, sugary Starbucks in hand. Before my English teacher could bore my brains out for the one hundredth time that semester, I gagged on cologne wafting over from beside me. A school jock had taken it upon himself to sit beside me. His pure white ears poked out from under a mop of sculpted electric blue hair. His heterochronic eyes snatched glances at me through the lesson. His brown eye was a wormhole, snatching my attention from the board several times throughout the lesson. His other eye, ice blue, was cold and seemed as if it belonged to a crackhead before it was his.

Those eyes followed me until lunch.

I sat down at my regular table, ignoring the rest of the college cafeteria. My friends had class, so I shoveled the mysterious "pot pie" into my mouth and tried to ignore the left-over meat from supper last night. The snow had piled up around the corners of the windows, and the sidewalks carved through three-foot banks of ice and snow. People shuffled across campus in massive coats, clasping campus-sold coffee and tea. They looked both ecstatic and befuddled.

A chair scraped against the poor, old tile floor. It didn't deserve the abuse it was dealt. People constantly dropped plates, cups, knives, drinks, and all manners of other contraband on that tile floor.

Five second rule did not exist here.

Dropped food was lost to the void.

Noonday sun nearly blinded me as it broke the thick cloud cover. "Excuse me, but you're being rather rude." I rip my eyes away from the window. How I never smelt him coming was beyond me. The jock from English is smiling down at me, smugly eating the mystery food. "Take a photo, they last longer." His face contorted into a grimace as he pulled the fork from his mouth. I supressed a chuckle. I guess pretty boy was just as sensitive to that awful food as I was. He snapped, heterochromic eyes staring into my brain, "What, never seen a guy eat food before?"

I snorted, focusing on the gel on my plate, "Not like that, no. Where did you learn that? I think my dragon could use the training." His jaw set in stone. He glared a million daggers into me, but all I could do was laugh in his face. His upper lip twitched in the right corner, and his eyes burnt with rage.

He growled, pearly, gleaming ears flat against his blue-raspberry hair, "Do you know who I am?" I glanced over his appearance. An athletics hoodie dangled off his frame. It was clearly not his, how else would the size be so wrong? His skin was the colour of paper, but red rage dusted his cheeks.

Did I know who he was?

Of course not.

How could I've known who he would become to me?

I chirped, in the ignorant bliss of my youth, "The President of a fantasy wonderland theme park?" Rage had now turned his porcelain face into a ripe tomato. His nostrils had flared to max capacity. He reminded me of an angry toddler. Maybe that's why I busted out laughing, drawing the attention of the whole cafeteria. His cheeks turned a different shade of red, and he deflated a bit.

He grumbled, slouching in his seat, "My name is..."

The coach burst through the doors, with his clip board tucked into his armpit, "SENIOR VOLLEYBALL BOYS, LET'S GO! DO YOU THINK I HAVE ALL BLOODY DAY?" The mysterious jock cringed. He stood up; ears hidden in his blue hair. He walked up beside me, brown eye staring me down.

He whispered, hand tight on my shoulder, "This isn't over." He continued walking, and time continued.

"HURRY UP, JOHNATHIN! I DON'T CARE IF YOU WANT MORE DESERT, WE HAVE TOURNAMENTS TO WIN." I whipped around and spotted a guy in an athletics jersey rushing to the door with a doughnut in his mouth and another in his hand. His ears were a dark red that matched his hair, and a bushy fox tail trailed after him. He was skinny, almost skeletal, and taller than the doorway. His skin was the colour of chestnut and covered in freckles of all sizes. The mystery boy patted him on the back as he took one of the doughnuts. His fluffy ears perked up and he turned around and locked eyes with me. His blue and brown eyes gleamed as he winked at me and disappeared out the door.

~

"HAKUNA MATATA... WHAT A WONDERFUL..." I pried open the door to my friend's dorm. She was spinning in her computer chair with "The Lion King" playing on her computer. Alice Matcha has always been a live wire. How could she not be? With feline blood in her veins, she could never hold still. She was on multiple sports teams, and still tended to out-perform everyone in her classes.

At least, that's what I thought at first. Alice always had her secrets...

"AIN'T NO PASSING CRAZE!!!! Oh, hey Chai!" She stopped spinning. Her long, black hair was a tangled mess, and her green eyes were brighter than streetlights. Her tail quirked in curiosity as her thin, tall ears perked up. My wings shuffled as her haunting eyes examined me. She trilled, gripping the arms of her chair, "Ready for the dorm par-tay??? I am!!!"

I chuckled and tipped my head, crossing my arms "If you finish your paper on the development of physics in Ancient Greece." She pouted and spun back around to write on her computer. That paper took her three weeks, but she got a full ride scholarship for her master's from it. I still can't believe she nearly dropped that class in the first week.

She mocked me quietly from her computer, "Not if you don't finish your paper 'cause I'm like... your mom or something... and I'm the only reason you're in this class cause I thought it would be good for me to challenge..." I grabbed a pillow from the bed and hit her in the back of the head. She yelped and whipped around to glare at me. A tussle broke out and our RD, Alexis Sky, eventually banged on the door to break it up. She's an alphas' daughter, so she's what people call a 'natural leader'. Personally, I never understood that. Growing up, she was always a hard-ass on everyone that wasn't her devoted "pack members", which was her term for groupies. Sure, it's great when you need to get teenage stoners to do calc, but it isn't so great when trying to have a good time at the park. However, it seems accidentally starting a family in senior year seemed to knock the horns off her. After that, she did a one-eighty and stopped acting like a high school student for once.

By the time we stopped laughing, Alice had about ten minutes to conclude her paper if she wanted Jackson to drive her to that stupid party. I stayed in dorm because I'd been having stomach aches and cramps all day. Damn I wish I hadn't stayed in that day...