Guardian Ghost

Chapter 1: The boy stuck to the tree

"Bye!"

"See ya!" I chirped happily and waved before turning to go in the opposite direction and striding away, all too aware that I was grinning from ear to ear. Again. Sigh. This isn't the first time and it definitely won't be the last time... I spent the next millisecond berating myself for actually saying the word "sigh" in my head. It was a weird habit I had picked up from reading too much manga, where they always typed out sighing as a sound effect. Next thing I know, I'll be saying "sigh" aloud...

Well, at least that dopey smile is off of my face!

"Hey." I reshaped another grin onto my face as I approached my locker, directing it at a student bearing a slight scowl. "Did your presentation go okay?"

"Depends." The teen turned his serious gaze towards me as his hands continued rummaging through the locker beside mine. "Like, it wasn't great, but it seemed to go better than the other groups' did. In my honest opinion, I spoke like shit."

"Lay," I chided, cutting him off before his self-deprecation could go any further, "we both know it's pretty hard for you to speak badly." I also started exchanging things from my bag to my locker, and vice versa.

He rolled his eyes. "You're kidding, right? You of all people know how badly I can speak."

"True." I knelt down to finish stuffing a binder into my bag before zipping it up. "But I'm sure you did fine." I wasn't lying. My friend, Laertes "Lay" Zhang had made a name for himself as a debater on the national level. Standing at nearly 190 centimeters in all his lanky glory – and with an ever-present expression of judgement – he was plenty intimidating without opening his mouth. But once he did, words could flow so fast and so logically that other debaters had trouble keeping up with his stream of quality argumentation. Though hopefully he didn't speak too fast for his presentation... He and I had been debate partners for nearly two whole years of high school, but our partnership had abruptly ended when—

"Lay, how'd it go?"

"Right on time," I said, flashing a smile at another tall boy approaching my locker space.

"Well, what can I say? I've got impeccable timing!" Jem gave me a wink as he flashed his signature confident smile.

"Sure you do." Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. James "Jem" Johnson had all but stolen my debate partner from me with gloating triumph. But, luckily for him, it had all been on fair terms and the three of us were now good friends (in fact, I would even go as far as to say that Lay and I were better friends now that we weren't in a professional, competition-orientated relationship). Besides, Jem and Lay were without a doubt the strongest debaters at our school, and I wasn't going to hold either of them back from achieving their true potential.

"Lay says it went okay." Lay shrugged to support my words.

"Like, dude, I'm sure you did fine." Jem's green-grey eyes scanned his friend's unhappy face. "And, like, if you didn't, there's always next time."

"Great, just like with our tournaments." A lopsided smile spread across the tall Chinese boy's features as he answered with much sarcasm.

"Yuelian, how did your test go?" Jem turned to me, deciding that Lay was okay if he had the heart to use sarcasm. Despite having known me for almost a year, Jem still had trouble pronouncing my name correctly. If it hadn't been for my insistence against nicknames, the quirky Canadian surely would have found me an anglicized one by now.

"Like always."

"So a hundred percent?"

"Not telling!"