YooHoo! (A One Piece Fan-Fiction)

3. Gary

YooHoo!

- An arbitrary adventure of the nautical variety -

3. Gary

 

 "Actually, I wear the nail polish to hide how grubby my nails are." 

- Caroline Corr

 

The guy from the first lecture I attended at the start of the year, the one with the pink hair; its unnecessary to say he is flamboyantly camp. He's also giving himself a manicure.  

"Do you, like, understand any of this?" he leans over me, filing away at his talons, which are glossier, even shaped and protruding a good centimetre away from the tip of his finger. Consciously, I steal a peak at my own hands; dried and cracked from turning pages like a madwoman, calloused from where I handle my pen with my dominant hand, and the nails are bitten helplessly, because I can't fathom the energy to search for a pair of nail scissors in my belonging.  

The guy smacks the bubble-gum he's chewing against his lips expectantly; "Uh... S-s-sort of, I g-guess" I say half-heartedly, stutter ever present, twirling a biro between my fingers and expertly dropping it, then fumbling to snatch it back up and clumsily demolishing the books I'd gotten from the library- of which I'd removed from the holdall and stacked on the desk precariously. I'd rushed from the library to the lecture I was supposed to attend after my oh-so inconspicuous rendezvous in the library. With my heart still thumping I'd thrown myself in the nearest empty seat; which happened to be right next to the flamingo haired male I'd seen in earlier lectures.  

"W-w-what is it you d-d-don't g-get?" I ask him concerned, still reeling in the books that had spilt over the desk like shelf formation in front of me. They were made of flimsy wood and only about half a foot wide, so there's no reason people didn't take notes during these lectures: there was no space to actually do as such... 

"Oh, like, everything..." Sometimes, I seriously wonder why people attend university... Waste of an education... "I mean, the poetry looked so interesting, but this is like..." 

"B-boring?" I supplied as he placed his nail file down in a frustrated manner and scrunched his nose; making him look like and agitated flamingo. 

"Ya." He blows a bubble with the gum and snaps it, the sound making me jump a little. 

We sit in comfortable silence as the professor drones on about poetry and the seas. Before we started this module of the course, I knew of only one maritime poem ("The Rime of the Ancient Mariner") which had bored me to tears during my early high school years, and now we had a whole barrage presented to us. I had that many pieces of text floating round the twirling sea that was my consciousness that they began to sink desperately like ships in a storm.  

Now feeling a little dizzy from both the poetry and the nail polish fumes- the guy next to me after prepping his nail is now coating them in surprise surprise, hot pink. I then begin to panic profusely, wondering if this counted as a legal high, and felt heat rush into my head at the mortification of if I could still think coherently, then I obviously wasn't on another level. Yet.  

I raked my arm with my nails awkwardly, thinking that I had had such an idiotic thought in the first place. 

"Hey are you alright?" the guy asks in his soft effeminate timbre that most camp people possess (I don't want to be stereotypical, but there certainly is a trend...)  

"H-huh? Yeah w-w-why?" I ask, still scratching. 

"Well your arm, isn't that sore?" 

I remembered the scene from earlier, when Nut questioned me on this. This time though, when I inspect the imperfection on my left forearm, it seems more defined than before; instead of being blotchy, there's now the formation of smooth, but red-raw lines. 'T' like constructions extends from the circular shaping; about six in total. Surprisingly though, there's no pain, it just looks excruciatingly sore. 

"I-I-It's just a b-b-bad r-reaction I t-t-think." 

"Well it looks horrific" the guy shudders and extends a hand to peel my fingers off from where they curl around my lower arm, "If you keep scratching it so much it'll on get worse, hun- Jesus wept! Your nails too!" efficiently, I am attacked by a nail file and French manicure polishes for the remainder of the lecture. I absentmindedly take notes when I get my right hand back, as we chatted about trivial topics like how in the his section dorms he's discriminated for his 'preferences' but how nobody picks on the guy stationed across the hall from him who has an extensive leopard print fetish.  

We both sigh when an essay assignment is set for the next meeting. I'm getting sick of having to prattle about boats and starfish and whatnot, I really am, so much so, I may steal the guy next to me's nail file - I still don't know his name- and slit my throat with it. Or perhaps saw off my hands so I can't write anymore. 

The room along with my fellow students moods darken when the professor assigns us this work, and several groans and sighs can be heard. I pitch a look out of the closest window, and frown when deep black clouds and a crack of thunder roll towards us.  

"That escalated quickly..." the camp guys murmurs, and packs away his manicure kit in a floral case, putting it in his 'man bag' and then whipping out a professional looking umbrella.  

"Mmm... I t-think I'm g-g-g-going to stay h-here and get a s-s-s-s-start on that essay w-while I can" not to mention I haven't brought an umbrella with me. 

"Wow that's, like, dedicated."  

"N-not really, if I d-d-d-don't do it n-now, I w-won't e-e-end up d-doing it a-at all"

"That makes sense, I guess. At least you actually put the effort in. I seriously can't be bothered at all..." he mutters ominously, but then brightens his emotions significantly and gives me a strange little quirk of his lips that I presume is a smile, "I never got your name ya'know. I need to keep in touch with you too, because your nails were atrocious! I'm Gary by the way!" he offers a well looked after palm for me to shake, which I accept with my own.  

"... Aiko" I reply, smiling sweetly at my new acquaintance. Perhaps my mother was right after all; I did something completely unlike me today and look where it got me. Talking to someone I didn't know for a change, a manicure and a loyal beautician for the remainder of my university days, Gary and I even swapped mobile phone numbers. How quaint.