Seatmate*

"Why? Hot gossip?"

I passed by the hallway full of female students clustered together by the hallway and I couldn't help but overhear what they are talking about.

I slowed down as I strained my ear.

"Smokin' hot. " One of the females in the gossip group said with a smirk. "Not one but four heartthrobs just moved to this old boring town. They are going in our grade and they are all about the same age."

"It's a miracle!"

"Indeed. They are graduating with us!"

Graduating with us?

Why did the principal accept transferals in the middle of the second semester? Something shady is going on.

Their parents must have paid a lot of money just to be admitted to our prestigious school without following the rules.

"They fucking look like movie stars." Someone gushed.

"I pray to God I could sleep with one of them."

"True." Someone conceded. "Gabriel Acqua looks like a fallen angel with blue, blue eyes you'd drown in them, Lysander Ailes is a flirty motherfucker who looks like a gorgeous Greek God, Leif Lockwood is a deliciously tanned surfer babe and he's kinda cold-hearted by the way. Raven Ardere is so unreal and for the record, he's the most beautiful boy I've ever seen in my entire life."

I rolled my eyes at the over-dramatic way they were describing the new guys.

I'm not interested. Truly.

The rumor mill had revealed they were moving from Italy, one from France, the other one was from England and the last one was from Portugal.

The one thing I confidently gathered from all the chatter was the new students were rather unconventional.

They knew each other and are already close friends before they came to this school even though they came from different countries and cultural backgrounds.

When the gossip girls saw me, they suddenly changed the topic. They chatted about their class schedules, their clothes and make-up, and whether or not they should cut their bangs.

I had Mr. Adams for the first subject Mathematics. He was a fifty-something-year-old and he was the head of the Maths Faculty. He was so good at teaching a super difficult subject to students, too.

He breaks the information bit by bit to help the students understand the lesson better. I think he taught Math because he loved the subject and also loved teaching students to love Math.

Some students didn't get him and said he was just a weird and funny teacher who gives most of the students' horror vibes during periodic gradings.

I think he was one of the best teachers I could ever have.

But this teacher had a peculiar habit of bullying students he favored to avoid favoritism rumors, of course.

Especially, me.

We sort of had a love-hate student-teacher relationship like what is happening at the moment.

"Miss Reid." Mr. Adams said broadly as I stepped through the door, the bell ringing exactly at the same time. "Punctual, as usual. Answer all the items I have given on your Math assignment from items one to five on the blackboard and I shall exempt you from marking you absent. I warned all of you about the punishment for being late before, didn't I?"

Only Mr. Adams would be sadistic enough to do this to me when I always help him out answering all his given exercises on the board to show my classmates how it's done during his lectures when he's feeling lazy because nobody is interested in solving all his genius-level math problems except me.

"Okay, sir." I acquiesced just to get out of the absentee's zone. "But I'd like to put my bag on my seat first."

Mr. Adams rolled his eyes at that but I knew he was secretly pleased. I hurriedly closed the center isle then to the last row at the back.

I slid into the...wait, my seat has been occupied, damn it.

Why?

I fucking love the last seat near the window.

I groaned. I should have come to school earlier.

Some blond boy was sleeping on my desk.

He probably got here early and claimed my seat first.

Well, it's not like I could make him go away when in fact, his saliva has probably marked his territory on my poor, poor desk right now.

I dropped my bag on the second to the last seat just beside the blond boy and rummaged for my assignment notebook, went to the front, and listed down the given Math problems on the blackboard one by one.