Close Behind || Aaron Minyard

23

Thursday was hell. The excitement people had been feeling on Monday was doubled, and Naomi decided she did, in fact, fucking hate people.

Until it was Friday and the campus managed to amp it up again. Naomi was seconds away from hitting people for being so cheerful.

The game that night was against Breckenridge, which was of fucking course the schools long time rivals for Exy. Which made no sense to her since the two teams had very different records. Naomi would be having words with the ERC someday for how much they messed with her very short life, or she'd haunt them someday. No one expected to win but the campus was excited anyway.

Everywhere you looked there was banners and ribbons strewn up in hideous neon orange, honestly it was giving Naomi a headache. Why couldn't the school colors be like green or something?

She was walking to their psyche class with Aaron when she'd gotten her first look at campus police. The flash of the blue uniform made her freeze in her spot and Aaron had to grab her tightly by the shoulder to get her to keep moving. It was mildly embarrassing.

Walking into class early was great because they were the first people there and no one would have time to ask about the two Exy players sitting up front together.

Except, of course, for Katelyn who showed up equally as early. She was decked on in her vixens outfit and smiled has she walked in the room.

"Hey, Kate," Aaron called to her.

"Happy game day," she said to both of them.

Naomi groaned and plummeted face first into the table. She shook her head slowly. "I hate Exy."

"You weren't saying that at practice last night." Aaron poked her arm that was closest to him and she looked up with a glare, he just chuckled. "Wait til you see the quad in a few hours."

"Don't scare the poor thing," Katelyn admonished him. Naomi was thankful for her.

They'd talked once in the week when they'd ran into each other after Naomi's first tutoring session. Katelyn had explained that Aaron said where she'd be and she came looking for Naomi to give her a copy of her notes. She offered to make it a weekly thing.

Naomi had regretted mentally mocking her notes because they were so much better than her own, she'd agreed to making it a weekly thing pretty quickly.

"I've never hated the color orange more," Naomi said as she leaned her face against her arms.

"Have a long standing hatred for it?" Aaron teased her.

"Yes," she said, entirely truthfully.

"Of course you do," He laughed.

Katelyn smiled at her and sat in the desk right behind her, Naomi raised a brow. "Naomi, can I braid some ribbon into your hair? Your hair is nearly white, it would look perfect."

She looked at her hair that had fallen into her face for a few seconds. The Naomi looked over at Aaron, who didn't help at all, before nodding. "You'll be quick?"

"You know it," Katelyn said. She pulled ribbons out of her bag and easily got to work on Naomi's hair. "I am a master at this. They'll probably still be fresh for the game tonight."

They chatted idly from there, Naomi only really watched Aaron because she couldn't see Katelyn, but he didn't look at her much. He was watching Katelyn in her braiding processes.

By the time class had started, Katelyn was finished the last few plats of her hair. She tapped Naomi on the shoulder to let her know she was finished and then they went back to focusing on class.