Who is in Class?

8

It was rare for me but sometimes I did find myself in the library... limping around... doing absolutely nothing. Okay, so maybe I was skipping AP World History. Yoru... Ugh. Just no.

I didn't know if I was really skipping that class though. I mean is it really skipping if you're still on the school campus doing the class work for that class—or attempting to, ahem? It isn't, right? Because otherwise, I had been unintentionally skipping classes for years. Embarrassing.

I crossed another row of bookshelves; hell I was almost back where I started. I knew if I passed yet another bookshelf I would be back in the common area where all the tables were. But damn, I just couldn't find the history section. This school was advertised as having all their textbooks available in their library! Lies. I just wanted to finish the last four questions on that damned history review for god sakes.

Yoru was turning my life into one long chore.

Because I'm pretty sure I'm crushing on him.

Fuck.

"Fuck," I exclaimed at the sight I was met with when I passed that last bookshelf. There, of course, was Yoru occupying one of the tables, texts spread out haphazardly around him.

Speak of the fucking devil, I silently fumed before I made the decision to man up and go over to Yoru's table. He was the only one here. I was planning to open up with a taunt along the lines of, "Hehe, student body president skipping class? Hehe." You know? Something completely idiotic.

But everything I was thinking of saying evaporated as soon as I caught sight of the shit he was looking at. I felt strange looking at my own face.

"He has a laceration on his cheek and a few on his back—did he do this?"

"Did he do this?"

I jerked back into reality quite forcefully when Yoru's dark eyes caught mine, wide. The nurse's voice still lingered somewhere in the back of my head though, echoing. It sounded like it was right there. Like she was right there and I was... all over again.

"I..." and I practically ceased to live when I watched Yoru's cheeks redden. "I didn't mean to... I..."

I raised a hand to one, obscure my view of his flushed face and two, stop his panic attack while it was still premature. Now, we're even, I thought. An eye for an eye. He caught me in my lie about Sarah and here I was catching him.

"It's a-okay, student body president," I saluted. I watched his comatose face. "What? I'm just going to rip you a new one for being curious?"

"I... fuck."

His head lowered and I took that time—he was obviously going to need a moment to collect himself—to sit myself next to him. I balanced the crutches on the side of table. Then, I rested my cheek in my palm and looked at him.

"You know it's okay, right?" I assured him yet again. "It's not really that big of a deal."

He didn't respond. At all. No glance, no words, not even one muscle of his twitched. Hmm. I cast my gaze to the newspaper. Hell, and here I thought newspapers went extinct like twenty years ago.

"You know..." I spoke softly, "I never even read my own article."

I was in a trance, just staring at it. And then it moved and my eyes snapped to Yoru's. He held it out to me, "Here."

I rose both my brows, accepting it.

"Neither teen will comment on what happened."

Those were the first the words that caught my eye. It didn't matter if it was halfway through the article. I kept reading from that point onward.