"I'm telling you, mate. What they try to sell to you, is all a lie. I have been shown the truth. I'm what people call woke. I think it is completely possible to artificially manufacture water through a chemical reaction."
A low, annoyed groan escapes him and I watch him as he begins to tiredly lower his head down, lightly banging it on the table several times.
Worriedly, I frown down at him and then quickly place my hand underneath his forehead to stop him from banging his head. He, fortunately, does halt his actions and turns his head to the side to peek up at me with a fierce stare. I remember reading somewhere that banging one's head could potentially result in one losing a few brain cells.
It seemed like we had made significant strides in our relationship, and I was under the impression that Dominic had finally started to appreciate my company. Unfortunately, I was mistaken in my assessment, as he continues to treat me with disdain and hostility as if I am an irritating piece of gum that he cannot seem to shake off the sole of his shoe.
"Do you ever shut up?" he grumbles, his stare now replaced by a somewhat defeated stare, watching me through his unkempt hair. "No, seriously. Where the fuck is your off-switch button?"
I gape at him in disbelief.
What an absolute prick!
Indignantly, I pull my hand away from him, causing him to bang his temple back on the wooden table.
He glares at me angrily.
I genuinely thought his eyes were agreeing with me as if he seemed interested in what I had to say. It's why I kept rambling on, evening going as far as dissecting the royal family and how the monarchy should have died with the Queen. He could have stopped me before I got too carried away. Here I was thinking that Dominic, for the first time, was interested in what I had to say. Guess I shouldn't have misinterpreted the void on his face.
I huff in petulance and avert my gaze away from him, looking over at the smart board which is still loading the work we have to do. Picking up a pen, I distractedly twirl it around my fingers. Through the corner of my eyes, I see some movement from Dominic.
He leans back in his chair with his fingers intertwined behind his head while facing the other side of the wall.
Smarmily muttering under my breath, I say, "All you had to say was that you don't wanna talk to me. I could've sat with someone else and kept them entertained instead."
"Yes, please," he exclaims pleadingly. "Please go and sit with someone—anyone else. I don't want you anywhere near me today. I'm not in the mood to entertain you."
I turn my gaze sharply towards him, my neck almost unable to keep up with the sudden movement. Did I hear him correctly? Did he just utter the word "please"? It's such a polite and humble way to ask for something but I have never witnessed such a vulnerable and helpless expression on his face before. His tone was pleading and almost desperate. Does he want me gone that badly? Does my presence annoy him that much?
"You're so flip-floppy, you know that? I mean, earlier today we had some actual banter going on over the phone and now that I want to have a conversation with you, you want to discard me like I'm a pair of used underwear?"
"Yes, Starr," he answers coarsely, not even needing time to consider his decision. "Leave."
"Wow," I mutter under my breath, "and here I was thinking we were making progress."
"You seem to forget that I'm the puppeteer and you're my puppet. We're not friends."
I smile painfully. "Yes, you never fail to make that abundantly clear. Thanks for clearing that up for the hundred millionth time."
I should have sat with Edward, but he's surrounded by a bunch of pricks. Riley is one of those pricks. I am not sitting anywhere near that guy after he kicked that football in my face on purpose. I still have the bruise to account for his actions.
Moments like these make me wish Taylor picked a subject other than Economics. Then again, maybe not. It would probably be just as bad as it is in Maths. She and Edward would have the privilege of sitting next to each other and they surely wouldn't refrain from being all sickly adorable with each other.
I turn my eyes into a deathly glare which is meant to make Dominic squeamish, but when it doesn't affect him, I prepare to pack my stuff to go and sit next to Christian. The first few weeks he and his boyfriend sat together but then our teacher moved them away from each other because her brightest student was falling prey to distraction.
I glance up when Jodie and some blonde-haired guy, clearly not the one from this morning on the stands, enter the class late into the lesson, walking past Mrs Kennedy who's talking to another teacher in her department outside the door.
Their conversation is inaudible as they lean in closer to each other, whispering and when he says something back to her, Jodie giggles softly and shoves him playfully.
Just as they're about to pass by our desk, I notice her glancing at Dominic sneakily. At the foot of our desk, she abruptly stops and tells her friend to go ahead without her. He first scowls at her in bemusement, but when her eyes widen pointedly he adheres to her command. Then she glances at the person beside me, completely disregarding my presence as if I'm completely invisible.
"Hi, Dominic," she murmurs, stretching a genuine smile at him.
It's not her usual smug smile. An actual, genuine one. One I've never gotten before.
What the actual fuck?
We were friends for so many years, dating back from primary school to the tenth year, and she never smiled at me like that. The only genuine smile I can remember coming from her is the sad one she gave me when she chose Savannah over me. I don't want to remember the only genuine smile she has ever given me as a depressed smile though; I want the one she's giving Dominic.
The very same Dominic who let her fall flat on her arse, stared deeply into her eyes for a few seconds and then said a few nice words to her. What, now she's already smitten with the guy simply because of that?
"Hello," Dominic replies plainly and through the corner of my eye I see how calm he looks.
I internally applaud him on his composure and intertwine my fingers to prevent myself from patting him on the back. It's good to show her that she does not affect you like she does the straight population of guys in this school. This will probably make her want him even more. But he still needs to keep her hooked enough. If he bruises her ego too much, she'll lose all interest in him as seen before when he ignored her after she sat next to him.
I know Jodie like the back of my hand, she can never let a challenge pass her by. It's why I sort of feel bad for Dominic for falling for such a person, but then I think about how he's blackmailing me with my letter to my best friend's boyfriend, and I don't feel so sympathetic anymore. They deserve each other. Perhaps Jodie needs someone like Dominic in her life, who knows?
"I just… well, I wanted to thank you for helping me up this morning when I bumped into you. I should've been watching where I was going."
"Yeah, you should've."
Her smile plunges.
I nudge him in the ribs.
He clears his throat awkwardly and quickly rephrases himself, "I mean, it was my fault too. It was only right that I helped you up."
Her smile widens as she pushes a suspiciously loose ginger lock back behind her ear, averting her gaze coyly. This has me narrowing my gaze at her. We all know that she's anything but coy.
Dominic gives me a questioning look, but I just raise a shoulder and purse my lips to prevent myself from chuckling out loud at his clueless behaviour.
Suddenly, she seems to sense my presence and turns around to face me. Her smile, which was bright a moment before, fades slightly as her eyes meet mine. With a quick tug, she pulls her shirt down nervously, her body language becoming stiff. After a moment, she manages to muster a small smile and lifts her hand in a hesitant wave.
I resist the urge to show my annoyance at how long it took her to notice me sitting there. Instead, I respond with a friendly peace sign.
She blinks in confusion but eventually walks past us to her desk.
My eyes follow her as my arm hangs over the back of my chair.
Once out of hearing radius, Dominic leans into me and whispers, "Did you see that? She talked to me," and his facial expression does not change throughout his statement. At all.
"And you're happy," I drawl out, arching an eyebrow up at him, "right?"
"Of course, Starr."
"Right, I knew that. I could see the clear sign of excitement all over your face," I reply, trying not to sound sarcastic and blatantly failing.
"Weren't you in the process of leaving?"
I watch him with a blank expression, pausing for a moment to process his question. As he continues to stare at me, waiting for an answer, I can't help but scoff. I grab my trusty pencil case and notebook, both adorned with adorable goat illustrations and stand up out of my chair, feeling a mix of frustration and amusement.
"Fine, I don't need you," I state stubbornly, taking my bag and hanging the strap over my shoulder.
"Wait," he suddenly exclaims and I immediately stop.
Glancing back at him, I wonder if he's gonna ask me to stay.
Then he continues by saying, "Underwear doesn't come in pairs by the way."
"What?"
"You said that I'm discarding you like a pair of underwear so… I thought I should correct you."
As I give him a dry look, my mind is struggling to comprehend what he just said. Did he seriously just tell me that underwear doesn't come in pairs? I stare into his earnest, chocolate brown eyes and realise that he did, indeed, say that. My mind races to make sense of what I just heard.
So I don't have to muster a response, I dismissively wave him away, spin around on my heels and quickly stomp away, leaving him with a flat stare at my retreating form.
As I approach Christian's desk, I feel the weight of my frustration and confusion. I dump my entire weight on the seat beside him, causing him to visibly tense up and stop scribbling in his notebook. I see a gulp travelling down his pharynx as he glances up at me painstakingly slowly, unsure of what to expect.
"Hi," I greet with a polite grin.
I gently place my bag down at the foot, trying not to make any noise. I reach for my notebook and pencil case, carefully setting them on the table. When I look up, I catch his gaze—his eyes resemble the rich shade of hazelwood.
Suddenly, a deep crimson flushes his cheeks, spreading like wildfire. He opens his mouth, but no words come out. He tries again, his stuttering problem making it difficult for him to speak. I watch him patiently, waiting for him to gather his thoughts. After several attempts, he finally manages to spit out a greeting, relieved that his words have finally found their way out of his mouth.
Opening my book and grabbing a blue pen from the many I have; I copy some notes from him. Distracted, I ask, "Do you believe me when I say that water can be formed using a chemical reaction and they're all just lying to us to scare us?"
"If you want to d-die in a huge explosion, t-then yeah, sure," he stutters with his response, drawing my gaze back to him. "That sort of experiment is too dangerous. Theoretically though, y-yes, it is possible."
"I like a guy who asserts himself in an experiment. I'm Seong Jin," I introduce, sticking my hand out for him to shake. When he stares down at said outstretched hand for a little too long, I worry that he won't shake my hand, but eventually he does.
"Christian," he responds with his lips tilting up slightly.
"Yeah, I know."
"You do?" he stutters, retracting his hand from our handshake. Nervously, he runs a hand through his cleanly cut chestnut brown hair and licks his suddenly dry lips. The shiny red in his hair blends into the glossy brown and you can hardly see it unless you look at him closely.
"Mm-hmm. You're dating one of the most popular guys in our school and you also happen to be the smartest guy in Mossbourne. Most of my educators are always talking about how we should all be more like you."
He pauses and inhales a deep breath, glancing down at his fingers nervously and again, I give him time to relax. It's worse when he's doing public speaking, but I heard that he's going to speech therapy to fix the stammers. "Well, I m-mean you're sma-you're smart too."
I wave a dismissive hand and lean back into my chair in a laidback manner. "Pfft, what? No."
"You are. You were once number o-one on the t-top ten."
I chuckle under my breath and shake my head. "Mate, that was back in the eighth year. Do you have any idea how easy shit was back then? Not to wank myself off or anything but I could have gotten a passing grade with my eyes closed."
"You say that but you s-still managed to retain a high GCSE. How many s-subjects do you think you will receive A-levels for after exams?"
"Hopefully all of them," I say, smiling at him in amusement.
He blinks timidly and seems to want to envelope himself inside his large jacket for even asking me. When he looks away, I can't help but grin softly at his bashful behaviour. Then his eyes flicker over to someone in the front and following his line of sight, I realise that he's looking at his boyfriend who is glaring at me curiously, as if to ask me why I'm sitting with Christian.
Guilelessly, my smile widens.
Irritably, he turns back to face Christian and openly winks at him.
Christian obviously blushes.
That's when Mrs Kennedy finally enters the class, saying her last words to the other educator who I recognise as the head of the department for Science. This causes the whole class to quiet down a bit and a lot of people's conversations come to an end, those who still want to talk whispering.
"Sorry for wasting almost ten minutes of your lesson. I was just talking to Mr Harris about your project. It's a major one which will contribute to almost a fifth of your year mark. So, if you don't put in the effort and work this project needs then you can kiss a fifth of your mark goodbye. Believe me, with most of you barely making it in my class with the tests, you don't want to take that chance."
A few moans ring in the class.
"You can complain all you want, but the project is still going to happen in the end."
Next to me, Christian seems to perk up a little from this information.
Is it humanely possible for someone to be so excited about receiving more schoolwork? I wish I had that sort of passion and enthusiasm for learning and working. Then maybe I would still be the valedictorian like I was in year eight. It's just that over the years I have gotten lazier and lazier and, in the end, being the valedictorian didn't matter to me. Salutatorian was enough, I convinced myself. That didn't stop me from keeping my GCSE high. I might be lazy, but I'm still scared shitless of my mum.
In my head, I'm already planning the all-nighter I'm going to pull to finish the project the day before the due date. Procrastination loves attaching itself to me like the parasite it is.
When my gaze flickers around the class, I doubletake when I notice too late that the empty seat beside Dominic has now been filled by none other than Jodie who has been softly talking to him this entire time. He responds to her and doesn't seem annoyed by her presence like he is with me. My nose wrinkles in distaste and after averting my gaze, I kiss my teeth irritably.
After the class's mumbles die down, Mrs Kennedy mutters dismissively, "Your head of department for Science and I were just discussing the logistics. We were going to let you do the project all by yourself, but that's going to put too much pressure on you what with the syllabus having to be completed in a couple of months so it has been decided by the both of us that it would be better if it were a group project. Which it is."
As I observe Christian, I notice a visible change in his demeanour. The excitement and enthusiasm to work on the project has evaporated, leaving behind a sense of exhaustion and disappointment.
I can completely relate to his feelings as I have experienced the same emotions myself while working in a group. It's hard to deny that group work can be challenging and depends entirely on the people in the group.
Unfortunately, most of the time, luck is not on my side and I tend to end up with individuals who are not willing to put in the effort required to succeed in the project. This is when the real struggle begins and I find myself doing all the work alone. It's frustrating and demotivating, and it makes me question the purpose of having a group in the first place.
"I'm going to put you into groups of eight which means there are going to be four groups in total. The odd person out," she glances over at Yuri Zimmerman pointedly, "you're just going to have to do the project alone."
My face drops. That's so unfair. I want to do the project alone. Can I volunteer?
Before I can even raise my hand to be the lucky fellow who gets to do the project by themselves, she bursts out laughing and I frown in disappointment when I realise that she was just joking. She tells the aghast Yuri that she was just pulling his leg. He's not going to do the project all by himself after all. He's instead going to join group four.
When Christian rubs my shoulder sympathetically, I look at him through my peripheral and the side of his lip tugs up humorously.
"She's cold l-like that," he states.
"Okay so when I call your name, you're going to record the number I give you which is going to be a number between one and four and I'll also write it down here so don't even think about swapping to be with your friends," she warns.
She begins to give us our numbers and I wait to get my number. Christian is the first person on the class list, and he records his number, one. This almost feels like role call in a way. Right after Robin Lee is me. She calls my name and tells me my number.
"Okay, all the number fours and Yuri come to these two tables," she instructs. They head over to their table. She gestures to another group of tables. "Number threes here."
She continues doing that until I look around and realise that the only seven people left are Christian, Jodie, Riley, Mia, Dominic and two other people whose names I don't know.
"And the last eight, get yourself in a group."
I grimace at the fact that I'm going to have to now unwillingly talk to Jodie and Riley, because of this project.
Realising this too, Edward turns around to watch me amusingly, clearly laughing at my expense. I flip him the bird with a blank look on my face which only makes him chortle even harder. I roll my eyes at the unfairness of the situation until it finally hits me. That I'm at a slight advantage here, being in a group with the smartest kid in school. Maybe this will encourage me to put in the necessary effort to get a higher grade.
Glancing over at Christian, I end up shrugging as if to silently tell myself to look on the bright side. "Well, at least I have the smartest person in Mossbourne in my group."
He stretches a tiny grin at me, scratching the back of his neck anxiously. "Likewise."