A Sword And A Shield

Chapter 1

It was a cold November evening and my school had organised a Halloween party. I should probably point out that I'm not really into socializing, but my friend Nicole forced me to go there. I was kinda expecting her to do it, though. She has always been the pretty, popular girl who has boys all over her. A complete opposite of me, a shy, quiet girl who always sits at the back of the class with headphones in her ears, reading some book. Some people are quite surprised, that the two of us are friends, and, to be honest, sometimes, I am amazed as well. But back to the story.

Even though I already knew I was going to hate this, I stepped outside my front door and entered the cold, dark city. As usually, I put my headphones in my ears and turned on the music. I started walking on the pavement, slowly dragging my feet one after another, with the thoughts of not wanting to go to this party occupying my head.

When I arrived, approximately 20 minutes earlier, Nicole was already there. „Heey Emily, you made it, amazing!" I heard her cheerful voice. „Well, you gave me no choice anyway. You know, when you said, that you would haunt me for the rest of my life, if I didn't show up," I said, smiling. Even though I have been on this school for just half a year, I have become really close to her. We chatted for a while, about random things, such as music, weather, school, and so on. When it came to boys, I just said, I haven't found anyone for me yet, and proceeded to listen to her ramblings about some football player with these astonishing blue eyes, she met yesterday. I can't say I didn't care, but I just had enough of constantly hearing about these hot and cute boys she meets. And most of these boys make it to the level of dating her, too,  which means even more ramblings about them. Don't get me wrong, I love Nic, I really do, but sometimes I get sad, hearing all this. Because in my 15 years of existence, I haven't even had a first kiss. And she, being 16 has already had over 7 boyfriends. It can be a little depressing, you know.

After a while, she noticed some random cute guy and left me alone with my thoughts and my music. I sat quietly in a corridor, waiting for my other friend, Victoria, who is as unexperienced with boys and parties, as I am. I waited for about 5 minutes, when someone shook my shoulder. It was Vicky, with her always happy and smiling face and cute clothes on. She was really into anime and even made me watch a few episodes of it. Quite a lot actually, since it's the only thing she talks about and I've even found a liking to one of them. It's called Tokyo Ghoul and it has reeled me in pretty much instantly. After that I understood why she is always talking about anime, manga and  so on. But I love her anyway and she is the best classmate I have ever had. We chatted for a while and I found out that she is here just for the clothing, since it's a Halloween party and she is able to do some cosplay. She even told me the name of the character she was supposed to be cosplaying, but I have forgotten it in about 2 seconds. 

After half and hour, she got up and said she'd bring some drinks, so I was left alone with my thoughts again. I decided to look around and see if I can recognize anyone from the people here. And then I saw him. He was quietly sat in the opposite corner of the gym, with a red plastic cup and some girl dressed as a vampire. That's nothing special, since there are many introverts in our school. But the thing that made me interested in him, was his mask. It was the same mask Kaneki wore, when he was turned into a ghoul. I guess Vicky is not the only otaku in our school.

The sad part is, he didn't seem to notice me. I wasn't surprised, I wasn't wearing any particularly interesting clothing, nor a mask that would be standing out. I was supposed to be some kind of a cat girl, I had a headband with cat ears, a skirt with a tail sewed to it and gloves which looked like paws. At first glance, I just looked like I wasn't wearing any mask, I was just enjoying a party with casual clothes on. So I wasn't that surprised, when he didn't notice me at all.

Suddenly, I was awoken from my thoughts by Vicky, who brought me some water. I thanked her and continued looking at this boy, whose name I did not know. I asked her, if she knew him. It took a while for her to notice him, since he was pretty well hidden in this crowded place, but when she did, she gasped and ran towards him. Of course, the typical Vicky, not caring about anything and rushing to make friends with as many people as possible. I was a bit sad though, since Vicky basically stole a friend from me, but I didn't care that much, because I knew that I wouldn't ever gather up the courage to go and talk to him, so I just sat there and listened to the music blasting in the gym.

After a while, I saw the boy get up and leave, along with Vicky. It was late so I figured that she needed to go home and he was probably going to escort her, since they seemed to have a lot to talk about. When they walked past me, I waved at Vicky, but she either didn't notice me, or ignored me completely. But he saw me. He gave me this understanding look and followed her out of the gym door. I was determined I was going to get to know him, because no one has ever given me at least a similar look. This was going to be an interesting year. 

a/n: Thanks for reading the first chapter :)
This is my first story, I appreciate all advice and suggestions, and apologize for my bad writing in advance (English is not my native language).