I See Emeralds

Chapter Seventeen (Tino's POV)

"Who are you?" I manage to spit out. The stranger blinks his blue eyes rapidly behind his glasses.

"My family just moved across the street. Name's Berwald," he says. He has a very low voice compared to my higher pitched one. Now I feel immature.

"Tino."

"Your eyes are purple." That's not what I expected. Nobody I know has eyes that color, as far as I can tell.

"Yours are blue."

"This is weird," he says and I nod.

"What are we supposed to do?" I ask, embarrassed. I've longed for this for so long, but I never thought of how to go about it. I've been waiting for this, so I've never dated anyone before or anything. I've never even had a crush. But gosh, this guy is actually my soulmate, which is pretty lucky, and he's looking at me funny, oh gosh did he just say something, I sure hope not...

He waves a hand in front of my face. "You okay?"

"Oh, yeah! Just thinking!" I say hastily. I sigh in relief when my mom opens the door.

"Tino, sweetie, did you make a new friend? I saw the moving truck. They had a kid with them?" she asks and smiles at us. Berwald smirks ever so slightly and I shrug.

"Something like that." I blink quickly to try and give her a sign that Berwald might not notice. I'm surprised that Mom actually catches my drift. She smiles widely, gives me two thumbs up and nods, then goes back inside. I'm glad that she knows when I need to do my own thing.

"You told her," Berwald says. I force a smile and shake my head.

"No I didn't. Tell her what? What is there to tell? Nothing, that's what. Um, who even are you? My sou-neighbor, that's who! Yes that's it. I thought you were that traitor Mathias, but no, you're some random person who's really-no, never mind that thought." I can't stop my rambling. Berwald keeps a straight face the whole time.

"You're tenth, right?" He finally interrupts me.

"Huh?"

"Tenth grade."

"Yes I am."

"Good. I'm new and I've never been in a public school before."

"Really? You already have your schedule, right? You should have gotten it when you enrolled."

"Yeah. It's at home I think."

"Go get it please." I tell him. He nods and heads back home.

While I have the temporary alone time, I tug at the grass that I'm now sitting on.

Oh, Tino, what have you gotten yourself into this time?