Assassin

School

I came home with one of those big brownie slices that the diner I work at sells. I would have given Brandon half of it either way, but I wanted to give him a little incentive. I found Brandon on the couch watching some stand-up comedian. He looked at me when I opened the door. The atmosphere felt tense.
     
"Wow! You cleaned up in here really well! How's the closet and dresser?" I dashed into my closet to find it color/pattern coded. "Nice job Brandon! You have done plenty to deserve half of my brownie."
    
"Awesome! Thanks."
    
"I'm gonna change into pj's before I start making dinner, okay?"
    
"Okay." I made dinner, we ate it (and dessert) while watching some stand-up comedy, we took turns taking a shower, Brandon slept on the couch while I slept in my bed, I made pancakes, Brandon chose some clothes for me, we stuffed our bags for school (I had some extra school supplies he could use for the first two days), and before we knew it, we were just about to leave for school.

~

I stuffed the last bite of my pancake in my mouth and shoved my lunch into my backpack. I was so not ready to be going back to school, alas, it was the law...
    
"Brandon, are you ready?" I swallowed my bite and teared up a little. It still wasn't fully chewed... 
    
"As ready as I'll ever be."
    
"Alright! Let's go!" Ariella held the door open for me, locked the door behind her, and I saw a blur of color and smelled fresh soil and tall, thick, evergreen trees as she dashed past me down the stairs. I stopped just for a second and saw her at the bottom of the stairs, waving up at me. "Come on, ya slow poke! We're gonna be late!"
    
"I- you just--" I sighed and shrugged before trotting down the stairs. "I'm coming, I'm coming." I looked down at my watch. There was plenty of time to get to school, what was she worried about? I followed her into the garage and got on the bike behind her. Luckily, she uses a book bag instead of a backpack, so I could still hold onto her without having to curve around a backpack and make both of us extremely uncomfortable. Her hair smelled of lavender. And was her skin always this soft? She sped off to school and this time I was less terrified because one, I was expecting it, and two, it was a lot earlier than last time. And a Monday. In fact, I almost dozed off.
    
When we got to school, she hurried me to her- our -first class. I couldn't really tell what it was. Some sort of science class maybe? She set her bag down in a seat in the back and I sat my bag down next to her.
    
"You our new student?" I looked in the direction of the voice and found the teacher. Male, gray hair, he didn't look too old. I opened my mouth to speak, but Ariella beat me to it.
    
"Yes, this is Brandon. Brandon, this is Mr. Havish. Mr. Havish, Brandon. Brandon, Mr. Havish."
    
"Well, Brandon, I see you've made a friend already." I (fake) smiled and opened my mouth to speak, but was, again, cut off. This time by Mr. Havish, however. "And Ariella, good for you on finally making a friend. I knew you could one of these days."
    
"Heheh, I wouldn't say 'friend' exactly. I'd say he's just an anime buddy. But, I guess, depending on your definition of 'friend', he could be considered that, yeah."
    
"Hey, anime buddy is a good place to start."
    
"Yeah."
    
"And he'll be sitting next to you?"
    
"Yep."
    
"Alright. I'll just add that to the seating chart."
    
"Okay." Mr. Havish looked back down at the stack of papers in front of him and Ariella and I sat down.
    
"So, what classes do we have today?" I asked her, almost whispering.
    
"Health, Chinese, Chemistry, and History. Tomorrow is DIM, PE, Algebra two, and English."
    
"Cool. Health first. Because that's what I want to see first thing in the morning."
    
"Yeah, and English and History at the end of the day when our brains are already fried." Ariella pulled out her things for the class and I did the same.
    
Throughout the day, all I could think about was telling her that I am her soul mate. I know there is a reason as to why I shouldn't, but I can't remember what it was... Maybe because I only know she's my soul mate because I snooped? Well, yeah, that's a good reason not to tell her, but I don't think that's the real reason... Eh, whatever it is, I'm sure it's not too important. I'm positive she'll get over the snooping thing anyways. She seems pretty chill. I decided to tell her during lunch.

~

For lunch, we went to my usual hidden spot under a tree, away from everyone else. We were peacefully enjoying the break from the day when Brandon decided to harshly break the perfect silence.
     
"So, yesterday, I finished cleaning pretty early and I decided to go ahead and clean up your outside storage area."

"Yeah, I don't really put much in there. I don't keep anything I don't need or want. What about it?"

"Well, I found your secret storage..." I froze. I was confused and scared. How in the hell did he find it?! What am I going to do now? Do I have to kill him? I don't want to do that! "Ariella?"

"So...?"

"So... My old nickname was shadow." Shit.

"Baka!"

"Huh?"

"Don't you listen during school?!"

"What?" I sighed, seething. Great. Now I'll have to miss the rest of the day and make up for it. I took the arm that had his soulmate's nickname on it and yanked the sleeve up so we could see the fancy letters. They were turning red. His eyes widened and realization dawned on him. "Oh shit. I'm sorry. I forgot."

"You better be fuckin sorry. We're going into heat."

"I feel so dumb..." I smiled at him and held his cheek.

"It's okay. I don't blame you." I sighed again and frowned. "Come on. Let's go to the nurse. I don't want any unexcused absences."

When we got to the nurse, neither of us said anything, Brandon simply held up his arm so the nurse could see the now deep red letters. She sighed.

"Don't you listen during school, boy? You can both go. Just make sure you make it to a private place before doing anything."

"Thank you."

"Sorry." With that, we rushed to my motorcycle and sped to my apartment. I could feel him the entire ride home.