The teacher calls on you while you're busy taking your self-assigned test. You stand up from your seat, walk up to the board, grab the piece of chalk and solve the problem quickly. It's not particularly hard now, you've drilled yourself on hundreds of these kinds of questions till you can solve them flawlessly.
You walk back to your seat and continue with your test, lamenting the time you wasted.
Rantaro has his gaze on your form, his eyes full of fondness, full of a kind of happiness you've never seen before. You look at him and raise an eyebrow.
He shakes his head, motioning for you to continue with your work. You roll your eyes and comply. You sigh, if Rantaro is as disinterested in class as you are, you'd think he'd skip. You certainly would, if you could. But if you wanted to achieve your dream, you'd have to abide by the education system.
"Hey," Rantaro says. "Wanna go get coffee after school?"
You answer without skipping a beat. "Don't you have a confession to reply to?"
"Dang it!" He exclaims, loud enough for the teacher to look at him.
"Mr Rantaro," she says. "Are you feeling quite alright?"
"Sorry," he says, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.
The class giggles and even you have to admit, he's pretty cute. He's rather adorable when he's childish, in a way that captures the hearts of most. It's a comforting sort of aura.
You like it.
"So," Rantaro whispers, a cheery smile on his face. "After it goes down?"
You roll your eyes. "Sure."
Rantaro looks particularly happy with this turn of events and beams at you. You smile back and turn back to your paper. You finish it rather quickly after that and leave immediately when class is over. You don't have to look behind you to know that Rantaro's following you.
"Don't you want to eat lunch with someone else?" You ask.
"I don't want to do anything if it's not with you!" Rantaro says, pouting.
You shrug, shaking your head at him. Truth is, you don't really mind his company. He's sweet and funny, but you also think he's being particularly clingy.
"Rantaro," you say. "You really should mingle with other people, you know?"
"Yeah," he says, sighing deeply. "But I don't want to."
"Sure you don't." You say, sarcasm rolling off your tongue like second nature.
Rantaro smiles and jumps at you, hugging you tightly. Startled, you barely manage to hold on to your lunchbox and give him a whack on the head. He doesn't relent, continuing to hold you close, hugging on to you like you were life itself. It was kind of annoying that he wouldn't let you go, though.
"Let go," you said, trying to push him off of you.
"I don't wanna," Rantaro mumbles into your school blazer. "m' gonna stay here for five more minutes."
"Oh, shut up." You say, and shove him off.
"Ouch!" He lets out an audible grunt as he hits the ground and turns back to look at you, mock betrayal in his eyes.
"You've wounded me!" He exclaims, dramatically wiping away a non-existent tear. "I don't think my heart can withstand such betrayal."
"You're such a drama queen," you say, yanking a lock of Rantaro's silky hair. "If you wanted to join the drama club's production of Romeo and Juliet, you should have gone for auditions."
"Aren't they tomorrow?"
"They're right now."
Rantaro freezes in place, his head whipping around at break-neck speed. "What."
He shoots to his feet, grabbing your hand and you're dragged along.
"We have to go, pronto!" He yells, and sprints across the field, rushing to get to the main campus.
Despite not playing any sports, Rantaro is insanely athletic in nature. He sprints like a man possessed, running like the wind. Even someone like you, who's been training for years, it takes some effort. You'd hate to admit it out loud, so you don't even consider it the truth and just blame it on the stiff school uniform.
While Rantaro is dragging you around, you see a humanoid figure ahead of you, but Rantaro speedily turns just before impact which means you crash into the person. All three of you go crashing into the ground.
You blink rapidly, trying to clear your head. You see Rantaro wince, gently touching a tiny bump on his forehead. The stranger you crashed into has already gotten up and is dusting his clothes.
His school 'uniform' just consists of a lazily pinned school crest on a stylish ensemble. You roll your eyes at his outfit, he was one of those wannabes. The boy extends a gloved hand to the both of you, the other one resting sheepishly on the nape of his neck.
"Oh, gosh!" He says, his voice sugary-sweet. "I'm so, so, sorry! Are you two okay?"
"We're fine," you say.
"We're late!" Rantaro exclaims. "We're going to miss auditions!"
"Ah! I'm heading there myself," the boy said, tugging at a curl of his hair. "Would you like to come with?"
"Wait," Rantaro says, scrunching his face in confusion. "Doesn't that mean you're late too?"
"No, not really!" The boy smiles, poking a finger in his cheek. "I'm the judge, so the auditions don't exactly start without me! Everyone's just warming up or practising right about now!"
"A student judge?" You ask, a singular eyebrow raised.
"The main judge, actually!" He says, beaming bright.
"Oh," Rantaro says, eyes wide. "Well, then, let's go!"
As the three of you make your way to the main campus, you find yourself noticing just how starkly different the two boys are from each other.
Rantaro is tall and rather well-built with broad shoulders and slight muscle. His eyes are large, with short but plentiful lashes. You can almost make out a splash of eyeliner highlighting his baby-blue eyes. A sea of freckles pepper his face and large, strong hands. Some of his wavy sky-blue hair that washes over his shoulders is pulled into a messy bun. He wears the school-issued sweater of his uniform over a low-cut tee, the sleeves of one side of his sweater rolled up higher than the other with none of the buttons done up. A few hair ties dangle on his wrist like makeshift bracelets, and he wears black earrings. He smiles at you, and you can see dimples dent his creamy tan skin.
The new boy, in comparison, is a whole lot shorter and leaner. In fact, he may just about be your height. His fluffy pastel pink hair is cut asymmetrically, a lopsided fringe and bang obscuring a side of his face. The sunlight filtering in from the trees catches his face in beautiful picturesque ways, highlighting his pretty plump lips, which also seemed to be tinted pink. Above his lips is a cute button nose, and two doe eyes. His eyes are large and gorgeous, long voluminous lashes and pink irises with pupils that almost look like hearts. The boy's eyebrows look neatly groomed, and he wears a pair of asymmetrical pink dangling heart earrings. He seems to have a matching ring and bracelet to complement the design.
You start to notice just how much attention these two pretty boys seem to be attracting and sigh. You hope you reach the auditorium fast.
The boy turns to you while you're walking, an inquisitive look on his face.
"Pardon me," he says. "But are you auditioning for the role of Juliet?"
"No, I don't think I will." You say.
"What a shame!" He says, pouting. "You look so, so pretty! I think you'd look just incredible on stage!"
"Flattery will get you nowhere."
"Flattery was not my intention, I swear!" The boy says, nearly in tears. "You're just...really pretty."
Rantaro looks at the boy for a minute and scrunches his face as if trying to recall something. After a few seconds, his eyes widen imperceptibly but go back to normal just as fast.
"Ah, well," the boy says, fixing you in place with his striking pink eyes. "My name's Alice, so feel free to call me that instead of putting a title to it, okay?"
You nod, and he smiles brightly at you. Rantaro doesn't seem to like this situation, however.