Vanilla & Smoke || A.I.

Melanite.

Melanite
/mel-uh-nayht/
noun
a deep black variety of andradite garnet.

~~~

  "Calum, weed, now." 

  Thora was storming out of the building, ignoring the looks she got as she burst through one of the side doors, her backpack swinging and hitting against her side. 

  Calum struggled to keep up, but like the good friend he was, he dug through his bag to the hidden pocket where he kept his drugs. The teachers were great at turning blind eyes to hot boys. 

  "What'd he say?" 

  Opening the car door, Thora swung in, closing and buckling her seat belt in frustration, her black nails pressed against the skin of her arms. She waited impatiently for her best friend to get in on the other side. "He grabbed me," she explained, feeling goosebumps on her arms from where he'd made contact. "He'd grabbed he and held me against his desk and held my hands behind my back, and, and said..." 

  Calum's brown eyes were wide as he swerved out of the parking lot, the only car leaving. After all, they'd only gone to third period. "What'd he say?"

  "That I smelled like weed!" She exclaimed, still not quite sure what the hell had happened. "You should've seen his face, he was completely horrified. Like he'd just found out I killed someone or something!" 

  For those who don't know, Thora had in fact not killed anyone- she'd simply smelled of weed. 

  Thora remembered one of her first days in class with the teacher, when he'd been using all five senses to describe Thora. "Vanilla," he had said. "She absolutely reeks of vanilla." 

  Why was he smelling her in the first place? It made sense that first time, because it was relevant, but just a few minutes ago he had suggested a hug. Why do you smell someone when you hug them?

  Maybe he didn't purposly do it, the smell was just more noticeable. Or maybe he had an excuse, seeing as he was blind. 

  Calum shook his head. "I hate him. He won't stay out of our business, it's not right." 

  "I hate him too," Thora agreed, though it was more for the sake of agreeing than because she thought it was true. "I don't know why we came to class today. We should just skip tomorrow, all of it."

  Calum shook his head. "Tomorrow we have a test in English. We can't miss it."

  "Ugh, no." she whined. "I'm going to fail it."

  "Should we buy the answers?"

  "I doubt anyone will have them."

  "Might as well ask."

***********************************

  Mikey was their jack of all trades, who they went to whenever they needed anything. He went to their school, even though neither of them really recalled ever seeing him there. Sure he was sometimes hard to track down, but he usually had what they needed. Plus, Calum got to flirt a little. 

  Tonight however, the boy with the ever changing hair didn't seem to want to be found. They were to the lamp where he usually sold in the shadows, but someone else was there instead, claiming that Mikey was gone for the night. That meant they had to scour the city looking for him. "Gone for the night" usually ment he was running a personal errand, getting supplies like test answers or drugs off of whoever his suppliers were, or hunting someone down. He was like a streetcat, knowing all the ins and outs of the city, and he could be hiding in any shadow, under any trash can, chasing after any mouse.