Out of This World

Krel

It was morning, and Krel slid into his seat in his first period class. He looked over; Andy's seat was empty. However, he knew she should be arriving at any minute. It wasn't quite like her to be late.

She burst in through the door just as the bell rang and lunged for her seat. She sat, chest heaving at the effort. "I ran all the way here," she managed between breaths. "Overslept," was her explanation, when Krel raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

He chuckled. "We were up kind of late."

Andy looked as though she were mulling that over, and then looked at him with a silly expression. "It's true. Two in the morning is a bit late."

The night before, Krel had ended up staying at Andy's house until his transduction started to wear off. When she had asked him why his eyes were black and blue, he had stammered out some dumb excuse and literally jumped out the window.

"You left your guitar at my house," said Andy. "I wasn't sure how to safely transport it to school, so if you want to walk home with me today to retrieve it you can."

He slapped his forehead. "My guitar!" After a moment he nodded. "Yes, that would be nice."

She smiled and tucked a rogue strand of hair behind her ear. In the past he had noticed that she actually had quite a few piercings. The only other people he had seen with that many piercings were the kids that wore all black and listened to loud, angry music. She had a small silver hoop through the septum of her nose, two turquoise studs on each side, and a thin gold bar through the round part of her right ear that was fashioned to look like an arrow. They were quite tasteful, honestly.

She was a girl of not-quites, he had noticed. Not quite tall, but not quite short. Her hair was not quite brown, but not quite blonde. Her eyes were not quite blue, not quite green, and not quite grey. She was pale, but not with the pinkish undertone that a lot of pale people had, Aja included. There was a sort of olive undertone to it, which was interesting.

She looked up from her paper and caught him looking at her. He blushed and looked away sharply. Seklos and Gaylen, this was more difficult than he thought.

After school was over, the two of them walked back to Andy's house so Krel could retrieve his guitar. He was still kicking himself for leaving it there, he needed to be more careful with his things.

"So... what you did last night..." Andy began, and Krel suddenly noticed how close she was walking in proximity to him. Their shoulders were nearly touching, and it was killing Krel.

He began to stammer some excuse, thinking she was going to chew him out a little for what he did.

"It was really lovely," she said, smiling and making eye contact with him. He was turning red, he could feel it. His face was all hot. Gaylen's core, this was embarrassing!

"Thank you," he stammered, and she bumped him with her shoulder playfully.

"You have an incredible singing voice," she said. "Thoughts on trying out for the spring musical?"

"Musical? What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, you know, like a play but with singing and dancing?"

Krel mulled it over. "Hm. I am thinking... no."

"What!? Why not!? You would be absolutely amazing!" she said, waving her arms around for emphasis. She was so animated, especially when she was excited. It certainly was cute.

"I really am not as good as you say I am."

"Oh, but you really are!"

"Hm."