Everything (in) between us

10: Plans Collide

Although they both tried to ignore it, Aria and Andro could both hear the whispers around them.

She looked up tentatively at Andro. His expression was blank, but when she glanced down again, she saw that his hands had tightened into fists.

She gulped, and took another sip of her chocolate milk from the straw. Opposite her, her eyes swung up as the chair was pulled from under the table. Andro immediately stood up as Hero took a seat before them, almost as if he didn't know they were even there.

Aria put a hand gently on Andro's and gestured for him to sit again. She really, really didn't want to be between another one of the Eden's quarrels. She was more surprised they hadn't made up yet than anything.

Andro took a seat again. Hero smirked softly, opening up his book, and leaning over to take the Milk- with the straw- straight from under her lips.

She gasped and attempted to pull it back, but he simply held it up, and she was too tired to take it from him. He pulled out the straw and threw it back to her, and she tutted when the chocolate milk stained her white skirt, then swallowed the whole small bottle of chocolate milk in one go.

She gulped as Andro tensed all over again, staring at the floor as if it had killed someone he loved.

Hero cleared his throat. "It suits you," he said, eyes only on Aria. She blinked.

"Huh?"

His smirk was instant. "The coat." He confirmed, and Aria glanced down at it. She had to admit, it was a nice coat. "It suits you."

Andro stood quickly, mumbling something about getting lunch, and walked away. Aria watched him with a frown, feeling familiar confusion wash over her.

"What is happening?" she murmured to herself, looking down at the ring on her index and fiddling with it.

"Did you solve it yet?" he asked. She looked up at him through her eyelashes. "The equation for x, did you solve it?"

She pursed her lips and shook her head. "No," she replied, with a small huff. She didn't see the way his eyes zoned in on her lip bite. "It's too hard."

He stood up and came around the table, already pulling his calculator from his backpack.

"Here," He said, taking a seat beside her. "Use that tiny brain and figure it out. I'll help you."

She pursed her lips again then shrugged and took out the sheet of paper full of working out.

He raised an eyebrow. "You've been trying," He mused quietly, eyes flicking over each equation. "And failing. You forgot the most important methods." She looked at him expectedly, and he smirked. "Functions. Inverse functions. If g and f are both the same but have different functions, add them and you'll get 2gx squared. Work backwards from there."

She watched him with a sense of curiosity. When he was saying something intelligent rather than annoying, he was pretty nice to look at.

"Maybe, if you took time from staring at me and instead-" she reached over without hesitance and slapped his arm with an eye roll.

"You smell of goats cheese anyway," she mumbled. "It's rank."

He chuckled. "Do I really, Greeny?" He asked, amused. She nodded immediately.

"You do indeed." She said, and they both fell silent. She felt him watching her as she did the equation. She groaned when it was finished. "I still get Pi." She mumbled, huffing again.

He tutted and pulled the paper from her. He looked up at her, confused. "Aren't you meant to be really smart?" He asked. She blinked. "Inverse. Inverse proportion. Divide everything by 2gh then find fx."