02

The same routine with the yelling and the crying and the stomping and honestly... it's exhausting, but even with the different number of approaches, the end is always with her storming out of the house with no food in her system and nothing on her arms regardless of what the weather may be. She ignores the goosebumps forming on her arms by the cold and waits on her bus to get here. She pulls her Bluetooth headphones out of her pocket and turns them on, sticking them in her ears. She pulls her phone out and opens Spotify. She scrolls through her Spotify library and clicks on a playlist that better suits her mood. She listens to her music and shuts up throughout her whole ride to school.

~~~

Classes are the same. Just basic review and paperwork. The weight in her stomach is gone by lunchtime. Sitting with her friends and listening to them talk and joke around is honestly better than home. There's no need to put her two senses into what they say and there's certainly no need for any contributions to their friendship. It's all just vibes and for some days she really does appreciate it just being that way. The bell rings signaling for the next class. She throws her tray away and hurries up to her next class leaving her friends behind. She sits at her desk in the very front of the class. The desks are put into 6 groups of four and thankfully she only has three friends that are in this class. She sees three problems on the board. All of which her teacher never went over. This could mean two things:

She never paid attention in her last class

or

they're starting a new unit.

She can hear conversations and footsteps getting louder. In the corner of her eye, she can see bright colors flowing into the classroom. Then a few voices she hears all too often make their way into the class. It softens her heart and almost makes her forget why she was mad.

Almost.

The bell rings again.

She hears fast stomping and heavy breathing. Laughs going around at the presumably heaving kids. Usually, they would be considered late or rather should be, but telling from the red on the teacher's cheeks and her tight smile, they get a pass for that.

But a voice is missing. Or, in hopes, late. She can hear the squeak from a chair signaling that her teacher is getting up, then a slam of her door.

Late.

'Please be late.'

"Alright class," the teacher grabs everyone's attention, "you already know what you need to do, so get started on it," the teacher goes back to her desk.

The class results back to talking, but the teacher is fine with it, as long as they get their work done and not get too loud, she's okay with that. One of the things that make her class so endurable.

Katora pulls out her notebook as she listens in on her friends' conversations. Which is a continuation from lunch.

The teacher goes down the roll. Each student yelling here when their name is called. Katora starts doodling as she listens for her name. Her teacher yells out, "Invidia Mazoku." Then a simple reply of "here" follows right after. It was foreign, but yet rough. It wasn't normal and it wasn't her friend, but it was sure as hell awfully close. She averts her eyes to the side but keeps her head down on her paper, so he won't notice. Black covers her entire vision. She could tell this person was a lot taller and big. She averts her eyes to the ground and recognizes the black converse he has on. She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and hides it under her desk in between her lap. She goes to her messenger and taps on the name, "Gigi".

"What does he look like," she sends the text. When she looks up at her, she can already see that she had her phone out. You can easily tell that she is only using it to find the answers to the problems just by her aggressive tapping and writing even though the teacher has clearly stated in the first couple of weeks that there will only be calculators and no phones, but most rules usually die out around the end of the second semester. Gigi's phone vibrates on the desk and she picks it up to check the message that was just sent. She squints for a millisecond, then shakes it off and looks up with knitted brows at Katora. Katora's eyes shift to the person next to her, then back at Gigi. Gigi leans her head to the side to get a good look, then shakes her head and goes back to her phone. Katora sighs and goes back to looking at her phone. She opens up her Insta and scrolls through her feed. There were only two people that posted and they were just pics of food that she could care less about. She receives a text message from Gigi, so Katora goes to her messages to read.

"I can only see his black hair."

"He has his head down."

Katora nods her head as a reply.

She can hear a squeak from a chair and swivels her head to her teacher getting up to explain what to do on the board.

She just decides to ignore the boy and focus on copying down the notes the teacher goes over on the board.

"Hey, could you help me with something"

Katora drops her pencil on the desk as soon as she finished writing down the words and problems on the last slide. She turns to an empty page in her notebook and waits for the teacher to hand out practice worksheets. The writing catches the corner of her eye and she instantly wonders how long it's been there. What if it was written when the teacher was going over a problem on one of her slides? What if he wrote it at the beginning of class? She erases it and writes down in pencil:

"I'm so so sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Do you still need help?"

She goes back to copying down the problems from the worksheet. She can already smell the scent of the marker as it skids across the desk.

"It's fine. I just wanted to know how you find the cosine of x when we don't have side b"

Katora mouths an "oh" before writing down the problem that was on the slide on her notebook paper, then solving it using the cosine equation. She moves her notebook closer to the desk sitting next to her. She doesn't pay any mind to the other girls sitting in the group. It's not like they pay attention to what's going. They're too busy arguing over what the answer is for one of the word problems on the back of the page in which they decided to go over first. She takes the marker away from Invidia's desk while he's still focused on the equation she wrote down.

"You can use either cosine or sine for any equation. It's really only based on what side or angle you're looking for and knowing where to plug in your numbers"

She scrunches up the last two words and sets the marker down on his desk in defeat and hopes he understands what she's written. He looks up from her notebook and reads the words written on her desk in marker. She forces a grin at him. He looks at her and grins back nodding his head. His almond brown eyes staring through his wavy black bangs. She returns to her notebook.

She finishes up the problems that are on the worksheet and rips the papers out of her notebook to turn them into the box that had her period name on it. She walks back to her seat and pulls her phone out of her back pocket to check the time. Only five minutes before they can leave. She sets her elbow on the desk and lays her head on her hand. She looks around the room and the people sitting at their desks. She recognizes her friends getting up from their desks and going to sit at other people's tables. She hears squeaking and turns her head to Invidia writing on the side of her desk with the same marker. She leans over to see what he's writing.

"Do you know where we sign up for clubs?"

She reads over it, then grabs the marker from his hand and writes down:

"You can go to the school website, then click on the organizations' bar at the top of the screen, and then scroll down and there should be a link at the very bottom of the page that will take you to the signup page."

She leans back in her seat so he could read.

He grabs the marker from her, so he could replace her writing with a thank you.

She bobs her head with a smile in response and he mirrors the gesture. She quickly thinks up of a conversation starter, but her mind goes completely blank.

"So do you know anyone here?"

Katora is caught off guard by his sudden outburst, but quickly responds, "Oh, I do and they're cool and all, but," she turns around and scratches the back of her ear, "they can be annoying some times."

"Oh," Invidia nods his head.

Katora turns around to meet his gaze, "So, do you know what class you're going to next?"

"Yeah, to culinary."

"I know a lot of people that are going there next and I hear the teacher is really nice, so I'm sure it will be pretty fun," she smiles.

"Good," he replies.

The bell rings and they get up to leave for the next class.

~~~

Katora waits in the cafeteria for her ride to show up. She has received a text message from her mom saying that she has a doctor's appointment and to not ride the bus today. Usually, she would let her know ahead of time, but this week hasn't been the best when it came to communication in her family. She looks through the glass double doors at the car line. Some kids are already getting in their cars while others talk with their friends outside and wait for their rides to get here even though they are supposed to be waiting inside, but then again, people stop giving a fuck when the semester ends. She spots a black minivan pulling up and quickly grabs her bookbag and walks outside. As she approaches closer, she can recognize her mom's wavy black hair and the blank white paper still sitting on the dashboard from last week. She speeds up feeling more confident that it is her ride. She pops open the trunk and throws her bookbag inside. She slams it close, then walks over to the passenger side to get in. She buckles in her seatbelt and looks out the window hoping that her expression would show that she is not interested in anything that she has to say. She rests her head on the window keeping her focus on the passing trees and cars. She takes a glance at the road ahead. In the corner of her eye are long slender fingers wrapped tightly on the top of the wheel. Knuckles white and pale like silk. Wait.

"What the fuck?"