Serene (Zhang Yixing)

2

"Constance Song!"

"Present!" Squeaked the pint-sized girl, her face already turning a bright shade of red from hearing her own nasally morning tone leaving her mouth.

Media Arts class. Constance's favourite period out of her entire school day, and maybe even out of both of her semesters. She loved photography and cinematography with all of her heart. There was two stacks of hard drives in her desk drawer, filled with pictures and video clips she had taken from absolutely everywhere to prove it.

She had always loved the tone of nostalgia that every photo or video brought, even if it did make her heart ache a little. Her parents encouraged her creative passion by surprising her with a new camera model every year for her birthday. Constance had treasured every single one of them, making sure that all of them at least had the chance to explore ten different destinations with her. Constance had taken the bus/train to many places before, most of the time with just a small knapsack filled with her wallet and camera. Those were the moments that she valued the most, the ones that made her feel infinite and blissful.

The only thing that Constance disliked about this class (and all of her other classes), were the copious amounts of group/partner projects that the teacher always assigned. There was absolutely nothing else that Constance hated more in the world than partner projects. It was already hard enough facing her classmates everyday, but having to be forced to work and actually socializing with them was a whole different case of difficult for her. Thankfully, her love of taking pictures always trumped her social nervousness around people, and they always ended up getting a spectacular mark on their project (mainly because of Constance). It would seem that the rest of the class also knew about her knack for taking pretty pictures, because every time partners were called, people would fight over the spot of being her partner; leaving Constance flustered and unsure of what to do. Constance was a easy push-over and would always hurriedly agree to the first person that asked her, not wanting to disappoint anyone or cause any small trifles. So, it was always a constant battle of who would be the lucky person to yell out her name first.

Constance patiently glanced around her unusually sunny-lit classroom, tapping her fingers against the hard wooden desk subconsciously, before deciding to bring out her sketchbook from her backpack. The corners of her mouth couldn't help but tug up at the sight of the tattered chestnut-coloured book. Every single blemish on the sketchbook held a memory. The left corner of the stained brown pages, reminded her of the night that she had spilled coffee from trying to stay up all night perfecting a sketch. The back slightly crumpled pages of the book reminded her of when someone had accidentally knocked the poor book out of her hands, straight into a rain puddle. Thankfully, she had quick reflexes and was able to snatch up the small sketchbook before the rain could seep through every single one of the pages. She had stayed up all night blow drying each page individually, then stacking three dictionaries on top of it.

As everyone dawdled around the classroom, conversing with their friends here and there; Constance was already trapped inside of her own thought bubble. What should my newest storyboard feature next? Will these shots go well with the collection that I have already taken?

Then a sudden commotion by the door snapped her out of her quiet pondering. The same commotion that always appeared at exactly eight a.m every morning. The arrival of a boy with tousled raven black hair and a wrinkled pale blue t-shirt. Zhang Yixing. Constance never really understood why people greeted him with the amount of vigorousity that they did. He was just another teenage boy, who was really nice, but that was about it. She always watched from the spot at her desk, as boys welcomingly slapped his back and girls cheerfully greeted him. What was so special about him, that caused them to always cause such a riot every time he appeared?

Constance squinted her eyes, still trying to decipher what was so special about this boy until he caught her eye, causing her to turn away almost immediately. That was real smooth of you, Constance, real smooth. She bit her lip in silent embarrassment, already feeling her face turning warm at the unpleasant eye contact.

Thankfully, she didn't have much time to muse over the awkward encounter as the teacher silenced the class for today's lesson.

"I'm assuming that all of you have handed in last week's assignment, I hope." Mrs.Barkley announced, while adjusting her colourful wrapped skirt around her slim waist. Constance adored Mrs.Barkley with all of her heart. She was so different from all of her other teachers, and she was the only teacher that never made her feel uneasy, and instead made her feel accepted and singular.

Murmurs arose at the mention of last week's assignment, Constance could tell that some people forgot to hand in their pages as their eyes grew wide and they started to hastily whisper to the person beside them to ask if they had handed theirs in.

"Well, if you didn't hand in last week's assignment, that is quite unfortunate as we will be starting a new partner project for the next two weeks!"

Constance felt her nerves tense up at the word 'partner', she already knew that she was going to dread the upcoming weeks.

Now was the moment where Constance had to try her to best to avoid eye contact with every possible person in the room. She glued her eyes to the whiteboard as her entire body turned solid.

Mrs.Barkley sauntered around the classroom, stopping at a student's desk before continuing. "Lucky for you guys, I will be picking the partners this time. Since a majority of you don't seem to be working to the best of your abilities when you pair up with your friends."

Groans and cries of protest erupted from the class, but Mrs.Barkley just held up a finger to silence the class. "Although this is a partner project, this is mostly considered to be an individual assignment. You will just be partnered up with another person to bounce ideas off of one another, and primarily help each other."

Constance nearly let out an audible sigh of relief, already feeling herself relaxing and falling back into her chair.

She let herself tune out as the teacher began explaining the basis of the project, letting her eyes wander like they usually do. Her eyes landed on the intricate portraits that the visual arts kids left in the room for arts night, then they drifted off towards some girl's lopsided pigtails, and then they finally landed on the boy who was sitting directly in front of her.

Constance felt her eyes, for some odd reason, glued to the back of Yixing's blue shirt. They travelled all the way up to his stark black hair, and noticed how it was extremely tangled, like he didn't even put in any effort to get ready in the morning. Now that she really thought about it, his hair always looked like a bird's nest.

I wonder what he would look like if he actually combed his hair for-- "Constance and Yixing!"

Constance snapped her eyes towards the teacher once she heard her name being called. What did she call me and Yixing for?"

Constance's questions were answered almost instantly as the boy with the nest hair scraped his chair back, turned around with a beaming grin with his left arm propped against the back of the plastic chair, and spoke out:

"Hi partner!"