*:･ﾟYou Bet I Stare ･ﾟ:*

CHAPTER 2 - then i met her

SOUSUKE
—❁—

I stood on the rooftop of the Kamome Academy building and held my camera up towards the sky, photographing the birds that flew in bunches through the slight breeze in the air. It was a fairly decent day outside, and was perfect enough for me to eat lunch without having to worry about my things blowing away. I've been coming up here during my lunch periods ever since first year, so it has been like my own little oasis for quite a while now. I then let out a soft sigh and looked down at my camera, cycling through all the pictures I just took. I was suddenly stopped as I heard the voice of a boy behind me, and I turned to look for where it was coming from "What does he mean donuts on the roof.." The boy muttered to himself as he kept looking around. Donuts? Why the hell is this guy looking for donuts.. "Hey you!" I narrow my eyebrows as he calls out to me. "Um.. are you looking for something?" I call back to him as he runs over, his weird umbrella looking thing jingling as he comes over. I recognize this guy.. he sits behind me in home period- he's the one with the weird traffic earring. He pants before standing up straight and smiling. "This might sound weird, but have you by any chance seen a bag of donuts somewhere around here?" His smile turns into a nervous looking smirk, he must've known that what he just said sounded really weird to me. I'm the only one that has been up here today as far as I remembered.

I squinted at him, "Excuse me? Uh—no, sorry." I turn back around and hold my camera back up to my eye. "Oh! Okay then- um.. well if you see them don't eat them, okay? There's no telling how mad he'd be if he found out someone ate his donuts.." he mumbled the last bit to himself before perking back up again, "Hey wait a minute! You're the boy who sits in front of me! In home period!" I turn back to him to see him smiling, holding a hand out for me to shake- but I just stand there and look at him. "Oh- not a hand shaker? That's okay!" I silently watch him make an absolute fool of himself. "I'm Kou Minamoto!" He puts a thumb to himself and smiles, not aware that I'm confused as to what's going on right now. Don't people usually just say hi? Why does he have a whole intro for himself.. "And you must be.." He squints at me as he thinks of my name for a second, "Mitsuba Sousuke, right?" His squinted face turns into a smile as my eyebrows raise in surprise. "It's flipped around, but other than that—yeah.. that's right." I softly smile, it felt nice to know somebody could remember my name without having to refer to the teacher or my paper assignments.

"Ah right! So what are you doing up here? This is a weird place to have lunch all by yourself.." He looks at me then quickly raises his hands, nervously smiling. "Not that that's a bad thing! You know.. I mean- yeah it's.. it's a nice day out so-" I just look at him. Why is he being so talkative with me.. he never even looks at me when we're in class, so what's different? "Don't you have somewhere else to be? Like with your friends in the cafeteria?" I look up at the blond boy, never noticing how blue his eyes were before. "Oh—yeah.. I do but—I had to come look for something. I can leave if you want me to!" He picks up his weird umbrella thing and prepares to leave, but I can't help but feel bad for turning him away like the way I did. "No, it's okay—you don't have to leave if you don't want to." I shrug, my comment making him smile wider—his upper lip revealing two sharp canines. My eyebrows raise a bit at the fact that his teeth look like that, but I admit; they do look pretty awesome.

"Cool, Thanks!" He smiles before sitting on the ground, making himself at home fairly quickly. "So.. why exactly are you up here all by yourself?" He looks up at me as I continue to take photos of things I see in the sky and things I see off into the distance. "Because it's hard to take pictures of nature when you're stuck inside a stupid stuffy cafeteria that's full of obnoxious people." I respond, not breaking focus on the photos I'm taking. "Ohhh—so you're into that photography stuff then?" I turn and look at him, "Was my camera not obvious or are you just blind?" His eyebrows raise. "Hey—no need to get all weird about it.. I was just asking." His mutters as he gets up and walks up beside me, his hands on his hips. "Can I see what you're taking pictures of?" I lower my camera. What is this guy playing at right now? No one ever asks to see my pictures after I mention the fact that I'm into photography and crap. "Um.. sure, I guess—they're in my backpack in the folder with the random stickers all over it. It's hard to miss." I hold my camera back up to my eye and continue to snap pictures as the blond boy walks over to my backpack. Hopefully this wasn't some big ploy to steal all my belongings and make a run for the doors.. I might as well just keep a close eye on him just in case. I exhale and lower my camera from my face before walking over to where the boy is digging in my backpack and stand there beside him as I look watch him dig through almost every single one of my belongings. "Uh—" I quickly crouch down beside him and lightly hit his hand away. "Not this one—you're all the way in the back of my backpack and it's right here in the front." I grab the folder that I was talking about and hand it to the blond boy before looking up at him. "It's this one.." His eyebrow raise as his face turns into some contorted expression. It looked to me like I just made him feel like a complete idiot, but the weird coloring in his face told me otherwise. "—Oh, right! I knew that!" He sits down in the spot that he's squatting in and turns his back to the ledge of the rooftop. "Why did you insist on digging through all my crap.. that's pretty perverted of you if you ask me." "It's not perverted! I was just a little curious.." He goes quiet for a second before opening his mouth again. "Mitsuba, I think your camera is broken. These are all blank." He holds up the stack of photos he dug out of the folder as he looks over at me. "They aren't blank, they just need to be developed." "Ohhh.. you dip them in that weird liquid stuff right?" I nod before lowering my camera. "Why do you ask so many questions?" "Y'know, there's no need for you to be so rude." My eyes divert themselves towards the boy as he sits there and puts the photos back in my folder. He had a point, but I was only being rude because I didn't want to let my guard down before knowing his intention for staying here to talk to me. I put my camera down with a sigh and walk over to him, squatting down beside him as he puts my folder back in my backpack.

"I'm not good at this whole socializing thing so I'm sorry if I come off as rude." I zip my backpack up before looking at him. "You've never looked at me or spoken to me in class before so this whole thing is really confusing to me." "Oh.. I can understand that." I nod and change my squatted position into a crisscrossed position on the ground as Kou looks up at the sky. "I came here cuz somebody lost something and I was put in charge of coming up here to find it, and I recognized you from home period so I figured it wouldn't hurt to say hi.." My eyebrows raise as he looks right into my eyes—his blue pupils piercing the back of my head. "Right.." I look down at my camera as I place it in my lap, puffing air into my cheeks as I try and think of something to say. "Is that piercing on your ear real or is it just a fake?" "Hm?" I look back up at Kou to find him pointing at the teal helix piercing in my right ear. "Real as in an actual hole in my ear or.." "Yeah—it looks really cool so I was just wondering." I nod as I touch the teal piercing. "I hope it's real, I went through almost 2 weeks of pain for it so I'd be pretty pissed if it wasn't." A big cheesy smile comes to the Kous face as he listens to my comment. "Well I think it's pretty neato!" I softly smile as I hear the compliment leave his lips. I loved getting compliments, especially over the tiny little things that not many people cared to mention or point out on a regular basis. "I was too much of a wuss to get 2 piercings on my lobes like most people usually do, so I stuck with a helix on one ear since I figured they looked cooler than the usual beginner piercings people get." "So you wanted to be extra?" "Not extra, just cooler." I smile widely before pulling my backpack over to myself. "Ahh.. yeah you seem like the type of person to be all cool and awesome and nonchalant and based like that. I noticed you have a bunch of penguin stickers on your photography folder—are they your favorite animal?" I shake my head as I secure my camera in my backpack. "I own a giant penguin reserve in Antarctica and one time when I was on a trip there the penguins told me that if I didn't put penguin stickers all over my stuff they'd break into my home and steal all my socks.." Kous eyebrows raise as I look at him. "Woahhh really? That's insane! Wait.. so you can speak penguin?" I just sit there and stare at him, blinking my eyes before narrowing my eyebrows. It was hard to tell if this guy was going along with my joke or if he actually believed me on account of his overly amazed expression. "—I was joking by the way." I watch as his expression turns into a look of disappointment. "So you don't actually speak to penguins..?" I feel myself try to hold the serious expression on my face, but I couldn't help but burst out into laughter.

"Heyyy.. what's so funny!?" Kou just sits there and watches me laugh, eventually breaking out into his own laughing fit. I was surprised at how idiotic this guy actually was, but I kind of liked it. It gave me a confidence boost in a way to know that my odd sense of humor could be fetched at such a wide range, and that it was easy for my sarcasm to be turned into something much larger than intended. Whether this Kou dude was joking about being so stupid or not, it sat pretty nicely with me—and I genuinely felt as though our personalities clashed perfectly. He didn't get all pissed at me when I was showing signs of bitchiness towards him, and he was patient enough to keep his chill and not get all weird towards me about how closed off I was when he first got here. It was almost as if he sort of understood where I was coming and was faking it just so I would let him stay here.

I still think him digging through my bag was a sign of pervertedness though.. so my guard isn't completely let down yet.