Only the Heart Knows Why, Quax's Days

Only The Heart Knows Why, Quax's Days
One: Late to be On Time

Don't stop. Steady breaths, even pace, just one foot in front of the other. Breathe in, breathe out. Don't get distracted. It's your first day, man, don't be late. You know how your thoughts wander sometimes. Like that time with Tristan last week when you were playing catch. What happened? That's right, you got distracted, you let your mind wander, you took your eyes off the ball. Then you took that hit to the face and it was all over from there. Tristan thought it was funny, sure, but he laughs at damn near everything, especially after he's had a few beers and you've gone and hurt yourself in front of him. Always a riot, isn't it? You make a fool of yourself and everyone laughed Ah, who am I kidding, I laughed at it myself more than anyone. Still, that one time you got hit in the groin, that wasn't fun. Nope. And then there was that time you fell in the mud, everyone loved that time too. Oh, and the time you fell out of the tree at Atarun's house.

...

Damn it, focus; don't be late! Your new school's just up ahead and there's nobody outside. That's never a good sign. The short steps leading inside were short, so I took them three at a time and bounded inside, almost running into a teacher carrying a stack of books. With my luck, though, they still managed to drop them all over place. It was a tough call being so close, but I still bent down and helped him with the books.

He was quite a bit taller than me, with a cute, pudgy belly, and just a little stubble over his chin. He smiled at me when I put the last couple of books into his arms. "Thank you, miss," He said with a small smile.

I cocked my head to the slightly. I should be used to it by now, but getting mistaken for a girl always throws me off slightly. It makes sense though, I admit. I'm on the shorter height, slender, I have striking feminine features, and shoulder length, hot pink hair. And I wear somewhat feminine clothes too, I guess. Even got my favourite skirt on at the moment too, I thought with a smile.

Still, I know I'm quite late now, but hopefully they'll be nice since it's my first day. So I finally got to turn and head inside the school and went straight up to the desk there. The woman there was middle aged and seemed more interested in her nails when I spoke with her, and she handed over my timetable and showed me where to find my first class.

This school is a lot bigger than my last one. Say, there's as many rooms in one corridor here as there was in the whole old one. So I was further stalled again by finding the room, but eventually I found a nice guy who showed me where the room was, and warned me against the teacher in there. Not the most enthusiastic guy ever, apparently.

So, after knocking on the door and stepping inside, I got the impression right away that he loved giving his lectures. His monotonous voice barely broke a syllable when I came in, and he didn't even spare me a glance.

I took a second to look around the room and the few people who weren't asleep were staring at me. New students always got that kind of attention, I know, but some of the guys almost looked angry at me. I sighed internally and gave a nervous smile out to everyone. "Excuse me," I said, finally breaking the silence. The teacher broke in mid-sentence and turned to me. "Um, I'm new here."

"Ah yes, the new student," he said in his drawl, taking a glance down at his notes. I dared another look out at everyone and every single pair of eyes were locked onto me. I grinned nervously and scratched the back of my head, hoping the same thing wouldn't happen here as at my last school. The teacher looked over his glances at me and gave me the once-over with his eyes himself. He had a similar sense of dis-taste that most of the other students gave, but he was too civilised to stare. "How do you say your name?" he asked me.

"Quaxillion," I replied with a hasty smile, wanting to get to my seat and away from the spot light as soon as possible, "or Quax for short."

"Ah; alright, 'Quacks'. Well, go take a seat. I’ll be able to get you a text book tomorrow.”

"Thank you," I said and scanned the room again. It wasn't hard to pick where to sit, since there was only one free seat anyway. So I made my way over there and pulled the seat out, dropping my bag onto the floor. The guy sitting next to me had a book, and as I sat down he moved to book over so I could see it better. I muttered a thanks as I scooted my chair closer but I'm not sure he heard me since he went straight back to doodling in his notebook. All the commotion of my entering the class seemed to die down now as the teacher went back on droning, and most people went back to their naps. Only a few preppy
girls were still glancing back at me every now and then, and I just rolled my eyes. Girls are just weird.

Trust me, I tried to stay awake, but the next thing I remember, my face was on the table and everyone was getting ready to leave. I took my class schedule from my pocket and looked at what my next class was, when it struck me; I had no idea where my next class was!

I looked up as the boy I was sitting next to got to his feet and starting making for the exit. "Hey, wait up," I said, jumping to my feet and grabbing him by the shoulder. He turned his head slightly to me and I recoiled slightly. He had such intense, beautiful, deep blue coloured eyes I had ever seen. I just gaped at him for a second, then shook it off. No time to scare him off now, I needed his help. "Do you know where my next class is? No one had time to give me a tour earlier." He looks at me for a second and I smile, trying to look as sweet and innocent as I can as I hold my schedule out to him. He just sighed and pointed me down a couple of halls. I grabbed my bag and thanked him, before darting off in that general direction.

The halls were another task altogether. I was like a salmon swimming upstream before I stopped and noticed that maybe did learn something in my environmental studies classes after all. I just shrugged, though, and continued down the hall.

"Hey, fag!"

My ears were burning. I stood very still and looked back over my shoulder at a group of tall, muscular guys were making their way down the hall; everyone was parting in front of them. It was the jocks. I hung my head and got out of their way, backing up into a row of lockers. Maybe they were calling to someone else, I thought desperately as I closed my eyes tight. No such luck though, as there was a banging noise right next to my head and I looked up to see them grouped around me. One of them, he seemed to be the leader, was leaning right up to me with his hand resting against the locker, just inches from my head.

He didn't seem happy to see me. He took off his sunglasses and hooked them into the collar of his tank top and grinned wickedly. "You're new in town, aren't you?" he asked me quietly so only me and the rest of the jocks could hear, "from that dinky little place South of the city, right?"

I looked around them slowly and nodded my head. I smiled nervously and nodded softly. "That's right, from South Central High School," I told him, now resting my gaze with his.

The guy nodded thoughtfully and leans a bit closer to me, now speaking just above a whisper. "I hear you're the best cocksucker this side of the Pacific ocean," he said, the group grinned and laughed lightly. I closed my eyes lightly and flinched at his words. He knew about why I had to leave my old school, then. I looked away from him, but he slapped my cheek lightly and made me look at him. "Well? Is that you, or do I have to beat it out of you?"

"I-it's not me," I stammered to him, trying to avoid making eye contact.

His features spread in a wicked grin and he put his free hand on my shoulder. "Well then," he said, emphasising his words by shaking me back and forth lightly, "sorry to have confused you for someone else." He shook me by my shoulder one last time and slammed me back into the lockers.

The group all laugh and head off down the hall. I, on the other hand, let out a shaky breath and slide down the lockers until I'm sitting on the floor. I thought I'd finally put the past behind me, but some things always like to linger about. I held my head in my hands and tried to think about something else. They'd taken me out of my happy place, and as I fought to get back, and hand appeared in front of me. I followed the hand with my eyes; going up the wrist, forearm, shoulder, and the looked at a girl who looked a lot like me. She had hot pink hair, only it was longer than mine, and dresses very femininely. "You okay?" she asked me with a perky smile, and I just nodded. "What's your name?" She asked this time, waving her hand lightly.

I looked at her, then took her hand and she helped pull me to my feet. "Quax," I told her, brushing some dust off the back of my skirt. Turning to her fully, I cocked my head. "What's yours, then?

"Hikari," she said, not letting go of my hand, "but people just call me Hika."

* * *

Ah, lunch, the highlight of any school day; with the possible exception being the end of the day, anyway. But no, this is lunch time and after such a busy, eventful morning, I was looking forward to just relaxing and eating the cafeteria food. It looked alright, but once again I was more interested in the people. I mean, there were just so many! Colours, heights, girths, genders, nerds. They were all here. Of course, I didn't know a single one of them. There were one or two of them I recognised from my classes, but I don't even know any names yet. There was even the odd teacher around, too. But now a new predicament was rising itself for me. Just where, oh where, shall I sit?

Don't get me wring though, I love standing. But multi-tasking isn't really one of my strong suits; outside of the bedroom anyway, wink-wink. I don't think I could handle standing, holding a tray and operating a fork all at the same time. Sometimes you just have to know your limitations. I looked out over the people, and just in time, too. The girl I met earlier, Hika, was waving to me. There was a spare seat beside her and I ran over, only spilling a little of my food, to sit down with her.

Smiles were thrown about the place, and Hika introduced me around the table to everyone. There was quite an assortment, too. One guy was the student representative on the school board. He was nice and polite, but he seemed to look down his nose at me. I just laughed at his name (Zien), and it brought him down a peg or two. There was another girl there, and she literally just looked like Hika but with black hair. Her name was Bianca, but every just called her "Black-Hika". I made a mental note to call her Blackie whenever the time was right. The last two seemed kind of odd, but they were a good couple. Aleniya and Hiro, they were, the preppy, really pretty girl and laid back, straight-A without even trying, motorcycle owning guy. He was pretty hot, I admit, but whenever I thought about that I would just remember those dreamy, deep blue eyes I looked into back in Social Studies class.

Everyone here was really nice. Well, except for Hiro, he only really talked to Aleniya. Everyone else were telling me all about themselves, and It was great fun. I smiled at them all, and said a little about myself. I lied when they asked me why I was changing schools so late in the semester, and I made up some kind of lie for them. I wasn't quite ready for that little pearl to be released yet.

Something caught my ear. I heard a laugh that cut through all the other noise like a knife, and when I turned to see what it was, I caught sight of those deep blue eyes. I almost gasped in surprise, but I held my breath and watched him as he was talking with the people at his table. One of the guys he's with has an arm around his shoulders, so they must be together. My heart sinks at that thought as I tick yet another off the list of people I would want to ask out, but can't.

I let out a sigh and Hika turns to me. “What are you looking at?” she asks me, trying to see what I'm staring at.

“Who's that guy there with the black hair and blue eyes?” I ask without turning her. She seems to shirt to see who I'm talking about, so I point him out. “The one there; that blonde guy has an arm around his shoulders.”

Her head drops to the table and I glance down to see an expression of warning. “He's Kanau, but you don't want anything to do with him.”

“Why's that?” I ask her, cocking my head slightly to the side.

“He smokes and skips school a lot,” she says, her face looking as though that's the worst thing in the world, “he's bad news and if you want to do well here, then Hika says 'stay away'!”

“Maybe,” I said thoughtfully, rubbing my hand over my chin and looking at him again, “but he's so hot.”

She sighed and turned to Zien for another conversation and I was just watching him for a moment. He looked around the room slowly, then looked directly at me. I could feel my cheeks burn as I quickly looked away. I grinned nervously and tried to join in the conversation with Hika, but I couldn't get him out of my mind. This was nuts; I'd only been there for one day and I already had a crush on someone.