in your reflection || rini au

11. write it down

first period on monday morning, ricky's friends were quite surprised to have seen him at his locker - he usually skips his english lessons for the reason they assumed to be the brunette ballerina.

"the hell are you doing?" ej questioned baffled, wide eyes as he watched his friend open his locker

"getting my books?" ricky answered evidently, waving his chemistry textbook that he needed for the next period after english.

"but i thought you skip english?" ashlyn said confused

"and bio." kourtney added

"oh and—"

"i know what lessons i skip." ricky sighed, rolling his eyes "but the school snitched and told my parents that i needed my attendance record to get better in order to graduate. so, here i am."

"...and how are you going to...you know—" ej brought his hands up and did a weird twirl, ashlyn and kourtney raising their eyebrows while ricky grimaced

"what was that?" ricky questioned, holding back a laugh while the girls let theirs go

ej rolled his eyes "how are you going to get through every class you have with a certain...person?"

ricky exhaled "i've explained this to her, now i have to do it again with you guys?" he groaned, running his hand through his curls before he shut his locker "i don't care about her. i didn't stop my life because of her."

"we know that dude but you can't expect us to believe that she didn't hurt you." kourtney said factually "and she's a walking, living, breathing reminder of the thing you stopped doing that made you happy."

ricky bit his teeth together as he swallowed back his feelings and just shook his head "she means nothing to me. i'm over it. her and dance."

his friends sighed as they watched him walk away, knowing he didn't mean any of the words he'd said but they also knew better than to push him.

while ricky made his way down the halls to his english class, he took his time — the bell having rung as he was still making his way towards it — and trying to have to process being in the same room as her again.

he saw the halls becoming less and less crowded and finally arrived at the classroom where the lesson had begun.

the door made an abrupt sound and the english teacher turned around, her eyebrows raised as the entire class of students moved their attention to him — including the brunette girl seated at the front next to her friend

"mr bowen. class started five minutes ago."

ricky fought back an eye roll, shrugging his shoulders as he kept a straight face "got lost."

"well let's hope you don't get lost finding your seat?" the teacher replied, pointing to the desk that had been free at the very back in the corner.

he didn't reply, turning to make his way towards it as his eyes met nini's, her soon briskly looking away to pay attention to the front once again.

she was confused as to why he was back in class, knowing for sure that he always skipped. and coincidentally, it was always the classes he had with her.

but nini shook her head at the thought, reminding herself that it wasn't about her. he told her that himself.

but now throughout the entire lesson, nini's thoughts were scrambled with leo and ricky.

her and leo's argument still hadn't been resolved and it had been four days. she'd texted him many times, but he never replied. it really worried her. she didn't mean to hurt him. but apparently that's all she's able to do with everyone and anyone she comes across — anyone that comes close to her.

"-alright then, now we're going to be working on a new sort of project this year." the teacher announced as she gathered up her files and turned around to write on the board "now the book we've been studying had been in the first person, we all know that helps us connect to the characters thoughts and emotions. so i want you all to write on your life experiences. it'll just be in the timespan of three weeks, and once we reach the end i'll assign someone to you and you'll have to give each other the journals for them to read."

"you want us to keep a diary?" a random boy asked at the back of the class

"i want you all to understand how to get into the thoughts and perspectives of different people. how we interpret things differently than one another." she told him

"and what if we don't want other people knowing our business?"

all heads but the brunette's turned to ricky, who had sunken into his seat comfortably with his arms folded and his books in front of him closed.

"of course you'll have to write something that you are comfortable with everyone reading." she assured

ricky rolled his eyes, his gaze shifting to the girl at the front who now had her hand up

"yes nini?"

"how many pages do we need to write each day?" she asked

"up to you." the teacher replied "but this will be additional to your homework assignments and we'll have to be moving on today to poetry."

multiple groans of boredom and protested whispers erupted around the class while ricky's gaze lingered on the brunette girl a few seats in front, seeing her open up her books and take out her pen to quickly write down the work that was on the board.