I was still caught in a trance when the girl stood up.
"Sorry about that! I wasn't expecting anyone to be standing in my path."
"YOUR path? This is a school hall-"
I had looked up to speak my mind to her. In that moment, I had failed to realize a very important fact.
She was wearing a skirt.
"DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH?!"
Suddenly, something went flying towards my face, and then there was a sea of darkness.
.
I woke up in a closet that the school called the nurse's office. I had an icepack on the bridge of my nose.
"Oh good, you're awake. It looks like you had a hard fall in the hallway," said the nurse as she filled out paperwork.
Yeah, sure. A fall.
The door of the closet-office suddenly opened to a frantic Taiki.
"HIGEKI! Are you ok? Are you hurt? Am I gonna have to kick anyone's ass?"
She stared at me for a few seconds, and then in a sudden psychological reversal, began to have a laughter meltdown.
"How can you be so clumsy? YOU'RE SUCH A NERD!"
I was then discharged from the closet of healing. The sister-like bully was sent to check on me and escort me back to class, which was then second block. I wasn't even halfway through the day, and I had already managed to embarrass myself twice.
What a start to sophomore year.
After spending the rest of class getting relentlessly mocked by Taiki, I made my way to the cafeteria. Today's lunch was a school classic: chicken nuggets. There was at least something I could look forward to.
"Hey, it's the perverted guy with glasses!"
As I was sitting down with my small tray of food, the girl with brilliant blue eyes disrupted my world once again.
"Can I help you?" I asked as she sat down in the plastic seat next to me.
"You're not even gonna defend yourself? I called you a pervert with glasses."
"I feel like you're still going to call me a pervert anyways."
"With glasses!"
"What's your problem with my glasses?"
"There's a problem? I just thought they really stand out."
She has a point. My glasses are fairly large in size. If the lenses were more rounded, they might appear to be the glasses of a certain famous wizard.
I was about to respond to the girl's last comment when my chest suddenly got tight. I looked down and shifted my focus to the food, but hunger was replaced with the onset of fear. It felt like a bottomless pit formed in my stomach. A black hole was about to suck me in.
I had forgotten how to speak or think.
"Hey, are you ignoring me? What's going on?" asked the girl as I suffered in silence.
"I... I..." was all I could come up with. Thoughts were now flowing into my head. Thoughts about how useless I was. Thoughts about how lonely I was. Thoughts about how pathetic I was. I was a waste of space in this world. Maybe-
"Hey, let's finish our lunches outside."
I looked up at her. I wanted to respond to her, to tell her that only seniors were allowed to go outside during lunch. My speech was still frozen.
Before I could find a way to force words out, something completely unexpected happened.
The girl with brilliant blue eyes grabbed my hand, pulled me out of my seat, and took me with her outside.
We ran past the temperamental lunch monitor, who nearly blew a fuse when we didn't stop to show our IDs. We ran through the student parking lot, where several suspicious deals were going down, and couples expressed themselves openly. We ran past the football field, where our school team was preparing to create a new legacy.
We ran to the back fields of the school. The black hole that was in my stomach was beginning to fade away. It was being replaced by the need to breathe. I was a tall, slender guy who lacked in muscle. That was the farthest I had ever run in one go, and my body responded accordingly.
There was also another feeling that was beginning to form in me. I couldn't tell what it was.
Along with the disappearance of the hole came the return of my speech.
"I- What- Why- Why did you do that?!"
We both collapsed onto the fading grass under the refuge of a large tree. The bright summer sun had taken its toll on the grass, and now us too.
The girl turned to me, with sweat glistening around those blue eyes. She had the look of exhaustion in her eyes, but also something else. Was it joy?
"You looked like you needed a breath of fresh air," said the girl as she moved some of her long blonde hair our of her eyes.
Once my breath had mostly returned, I began to have a mini-panic attack.
"Why did you have to do this? We're gonna be burned alive by the moni- no, the principal! I'm gonna get a black mark on my record! How am I gonna go to college? MY MOM IS GONNA LOSE IT! WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO M-"
"Don't you feel free out here?"
On that day, when she asked that question, I started to realize some things.
I realized that I was completely screwed, college-wise.
I realized that we had both left our lunches inside the cafeteria.
I realized that the other feeling I had felt was freedom.
I was feeling free for the first time.
I also realized that I never asked the girl a very important question.
"I never asked, what's your name?"
The girl with the brilliant blue eyes was changing my world. The world I thought I could never change.
"I'm Nozomu. Nice to meet you, Glasses."
She smiled. Her smile once again reminded me of something bigger than our world. And now, I can name what that bigger thing is.
She had the smile of an angel.