I See Emeralds

Chapter Three (Lovino's POV)

Ringgggggg!

It's about time! I don't think I can handle sitting next to Antonio for two more seconds. I'm too weirded out to interact with him properly right now. I snatch my bag off the floor and speed walk out of the room. When I'm just outside the door, I feel somebody grab my wrist. "Lovi, wait a second." And to no surprise, it's Antonio.

"Lemme go. Don't wanna be late to math." Truth be told, I'd be fine with being late, especially to math. It's one of my least favorite classes. I mainly just want to get away from Antonio until tomorrow.

"I'm not going to make you late. What teacher do you have?"

"Mrs. Harp."

"Haha, me too. I wonder if I'll have any more classes with you." He laughs a little and releases me. I grumble swears under my breath as I stomp down the hall. Just my luck.

When I arrive in the room of numbers, Antonio is of course placed next to me. I suddenly regret choosing a lonely desk in all my classes. I grab his binder and pull it onto my desk. "Where's your schedule?" I flip through it a little.

It's pretty empty, besides a few papers we got in science, our first period. He mostly has a lot of notebook paper. Some of it is blank, but most of it is covered with squiggles and little doodles. They must be written in a color I can't see. I point to one of the random smiley faces drawn in the corner of one. "What color is this?" I demand.

"Yellow. I've got lots of yellow highlighters I like to draw with. They're brighter than my yellow colored pencil," he says. He proceeds to take a highlighter out of his pencil pouch and show it to me. It appears gray to me. I wonder what yellow looks like?

"Hmm. I'm not going to lie about my excess of green writing utensils either," I reply, trying to sound casual. "So back to the previous topic, where's your schedule?" He pulls a crumpled paper out of his bag. It's a light green.

"I already sort of ruined it." I snatch it from him anyways and read it. My heart drops. I have nearly every class with him. I shove it in his face and look away.

"How'd that happen?!" I exclaim.

"How did what happen?" he asks.

"Our schedules are practically the same." I groan and he smiles.

"Isn't that a good thing? I mean, we're going to be seeing each other a lot whether we like it or not," he says. I have to admit, he's right. We're soulmates, and soulmates are always a perfect match even if they don't appear to be at first. "Besides, that must mean it's destiny." I grit my teeth and avoid eye contact.

It takes a whole lot of effort to resist my overwhelming urge to slap Antonio right in the face.

********

Of course I end up next to him in every class that we have together, except for P.E. We have assigned seats in the attendance rows for that class and our last names are far apart enough that he's nearly on the other side of the gym. I really, really regret choosing solo desks in everything.

But honestly, by the end of the day, I don't mind his companionship so much. Sure he's an overly happy giggly guy, but he's not too awful. I grow used to having someone around to talk to/yell at. And it definitely doesn't hurt that I get to see green every time I look at him.