DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN TEEN TITANS OR TWILIGHT.
School. What a perfect way to start the day. At least that's what some people say.
Earlier this morning I had stood in front of my mirror for what seemed like hours, examining myself. The auburn-haired girl with odd tan skin and unusual jade eyes was staring back at me as I smoothened out the simple Paris Blue jeans I had decided to wear along with the plain white tank top and a vintage belt with matching bohemian slippers. I hoped I was not overdressed.
As I walked through the crowded halls on my new campus, I knew I would not be welcomed right away. Students I had seen before and asked questions to were nice people, but not exactly the type of friends I had been looking forward to having in Jump City; I didn't really want to plan on spending my all my free time on the computer playing video games with rib-high plaid pants and huge glasses like…them. Their whole group seemed like the overly friendly type; way too eager to let me join their group.
I walked confusedly in the same direction, struggling to find their administrative office. After a few moments of looking like a total idiot, I reached the first desk I could find, which was being manned by a thin red-haired woman wearing glasses. She was wearing a pinstripe suit and a string of bohemian beads, which immediately gave me the hint that I was clearly underdressed for the debonair inhabitants of this school.
Don't get me wrong- I was rich, but just the way I inherited all my parents' fortune was already mysterious. Our family business was very well known in the bustling streets of New York City, K&K Industries. It wasn't until my parents were found murdered viciously when the allegations toward my remaining family members had begun. My clearest memory of it was being interrogated at the age of five. With my sister, Koma, and her well-known reputation for being a notorious rebel in the family tree starting at such a young age, the fortune had been passed to me for- who knows what reason? And after that phone call, my sister was never to be seen again; I was devastated to learn that she had run away.
The red-haired woman looked up at me as I shook myself out of my thoughts. "Can I help you?"
"I'm Kori Anders," I informed her, and saw the immediate awareness light in her eyes. I was expected; obviously a topic of gossip no doubt. Daughter of K&K's owners, who had just celebrated her seventeenth birthday, lonely as usual, on a private island off the coast of Europe, has decided to reside in the famous Jump City.
"Of course," she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk till she found the ones she was looking for. "I have your schedule and a map of the school right here for you, dear." She brought several sheets to the counter to show me.
She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best routes on the map; I never realized what a big school this was. She also handed me a slip that each teacher for each of my classes had to sign; did she think that I would ditch school on my first day? She smiled at me and hoped, like my guardian Galfore, that I would like it here in Jump. I tried to smile back as convincingly as I could.
The classroom was much bigger than I expected. I was so used to being squished in with the other wealthy New York kids in a tight and practically suffocating classroom, but the spacious room kept me marveling.
I took the slip up to the teacher, a tall balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Merlin Tad. I tried my hardest not to laugh at his name. He gawked at me when I said mine though- not an encouraging response- and of course I flushed tomato red. It was harder for my new classmates to stare at me where I was seated at the back of the classroom, but somehow they managed to keep me even more self-conscious than I already was with their piercing stares.
When the bell, an easily irritable buzzing sound, rang, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair as slick as oil came up to me.
"You're Kori Anders, aren't you?" Another chess club type.
I smiled friendlily as I could. "Yeah. Nice to meet you…"
"Tyler," he said to me, extending his hand out. I was almost afraid to touch the poor boy's sweaty palms. Trying my hardest not to cringe, I shook his hand quickly and let go.
"Where your next class?" he asked.
I had to check my bag. "Um, Advanced Calculus with Maynard, in building six."
There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes. I could have sworn people were walking behind me close enough to eavesdrop. I hoped I wasn't getting paranoid.
We walked to the large classroom in silence. "Um, thanks," I said; I just wanted him to go away…
Awkwardly, he looked at me and ran towards another direction, making his way in a large circle of- guess- nerds. I sighed. More rumors.
The rest of the next two periods passed in about the same fashion. Many of the people I had seen in my first period had the same classes with me, and I was lucky enough to make new friends with a dark Goth, which was pretty odd, I thought to myself, and a green-haired teen who looked young enough to be in the eighth grade instead of the eleventh. The Goth was tiny, several inches shorter than my five feet four inches, but her beautiful violet hair and eyes compensated with beauty for her lack of height.
We sat at the end of a full table with several of her friends during lunch, which she introduced to me. I forgot all their names as she spoke about them to me. They all seemed rich, mainly all of them good-looking, far more than I could imagine myself being. The green one's sense of humor seemed to make me giggle out of my seat though, and I later learned his name, Garfield.
It was there, in the large lunchroom, which was big enough to be mistaken for a ballroom, where I saw them. They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away as I sat as possible in the large room. They were talking and laughing amongst themselves, and they weren't gawking at me like many of the other students I had met, so it was safe to stare at them with my curious eyes.
They didn't look anything alike. Of the three boys, one of them was big and muscled like a serious weight lifter, with chocolate brown skin. Another was taller and leaner, his face looking like it had been sculpted by Da Vinci himself, and the last, the one with jet black hair, was more boyish than the others, who looked like they should have been in college rather than eating lunch during junior lunch period.
The girls were opposites. The first one was a blonde, her long hair gently waving to the middle of her back, thin in the extreme. The tall one was statuesque. She had had a beautiful figure, the kind you would see on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and her red hair was almost the same tone as mine. The short girl was pixielike, her hair colored in the oddest shade of pink, yet she seemed naturally attractive in a shade so different. Her gray skin-tone made her stand out, aside from the Goth, Raven, and her pink catlike eyes were mystifying.
But this was not why I could not look away.
I stared because their faces, so different but yet so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful- maybe the perfect redheaded girl, or the striking black-haired boy.
"Who are they?" I asked Raven, as she was chatting away with- what was his name? - Oh yes, Garth.
As she looked away slowly to see who I meant- though she probably knew from my amazed tone- suddenly the black-haired boy looked at my neighbor for just a fraction of a second, and then his distinctable sea blue eyes flickered to me.
He looked away quickly though, and I dropped my gaze immediately as I started to blush, my auburn-colored hair getting in the way of my emerald green eyes. Raven rolled her eyes with a knowing smile.
"That's Richard Grayson and Xavier Red. The other one is Victor Stone, and the tall girl is Barbara Gordon, the blonde is Terra Markov, and the pink-haired one is Jinx." She managed to say this under her breath. I never knew Goths could be so talkative.
She shrugged nonchalantly as I continued to stare at the black-haired boy with my full attention. I tapped her shoulder; I could sense a sign of impatience from her.
"I'm sorry to bug you again, but which one is the black-haired boy? I'm, uh…just curious." I never was a good liar; sarcasm was always my best trait. I continued to peek at him through the corner of my eye, and he too was still staring at me- though with a slightly frustrated expression. I couldn't imagine why.
"That's Richard Grayson, he's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him," she sniffed. I wonder when he'd turned her down.
He left, and when he did, I found myself confused and disappointed- confused because I was disappointed.
First days are first days.
"Richard Grayson," I murmured softly under my breath. I heard giggles softly making its way in one ear and out the other.
When I entered my next class, almost all the tables were filled but one. Next to the center table I recognized Richard Grayson by his unique blue eyes, sitting next to that single open seat.
As I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the teacher to get my slip signed, I was watching him surreptitiously. Just as I passed, he went rigid in his seat. He stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on his face- it was furious and hostile. I looked away quickly, shocked and going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to catch myself on the edge of table. I noticed that his eyes darkened as he glared at me. What had I done wrong? I had been in this school for only a couple of hours and I'd already made a new enemy.
Mr. Barnes signed my slip and handed me a book with no nonsense about introductions. I could tell we were going to get along pretty well. Of course, he had no choice but to send me to the empty seat in the center of the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by him, still bewildered by the frightening antagonistic stare he had sent me just a few moments ago.
I didn't look up from my book as I sat down and began to read, but I saw the way he was sitting from a quick glance at him. He was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and avertingly avoiding my eyes. I made my red hair fall down on my shoulder, creating a wall between us.
I couldn't stop myself from taking a couple of peeks at him through the screen of my hair. He never really relaxed from his stiff position. I could see the hand on his desk was scrunched into a tight fist, his knuckles turning white practically. He had the long sleeves of his white shirt pushed up to his elbows, and his forearm was surprisingly hard and muscular beneath his fair skin.
This particular class seemed to be longer than my others. Was it because I was waiting for him to unclench his fist, or for him to stop looking like that at me? He never did loosen up; his handsomely chiseled features remained grim throughout the whole class period. I began to question Raven's bitterness towards him. Maybe she was right…
Peeking up at him, promising myself that this would be my last, I instantly regretted it, because there he was, glaring back at me. I nearly jumped out of my seat from the intensity of his glare. I flinched away from, sinking as low as I could in my chair.
The bell rang soon after that, and he was out of his seat and walking away from the classroom before anyone else was. He was a lot taller than I thought him to be.
I sat still in my chair, not daring to move even though he was gone already. This wasn't fair. I didn't remember even speaking to him. And this was my first day. So why he acting so…mean to me?
I stood up and out of my chair to find myself facing a red-haired teen smiling at me warmly.
"Aren't you Korina Anders?"
"Kori," I corrected, returning his smile with a grin of my own.
"I'm Roy."
"Hi, Roy."
"Do you need any help finding your next class?"
"Um, I'm headed for Gym; I think I can find it."
He suddenly looked thrilled. "That's my next class, too."
We walked to class together; he seemed like a better person to have a conversation with than the other people I had met today.
But as we entered the gym, he asked, "So…what'd you do to Richard Grayson? I've never seen him act like that before."
I cringed at the thought, his piercing glare towards me replaying over and over again in my head. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed his…odd behavior. I pretended to act dumb.
"Was that the boy I was sitting by in Biology?" I asked warily, trying to sound convincing.
"Yeah; he looked like he was in pain or something."
"I don't know, really. I've never spoken to him." I smiled and then exchanged goodbyes as I parted with Roy.
By the end of gym, practically my whole body was sore. I walked into the office to return the signed slip to the secretary, only to find him again; he didn't seem to notice my arrival. He was arguing with the receptionist in a fierce voice. Straining my ears beyond their hearing capacity to listen to his argument, my eyes widened as soon as I heard him argue. He wanted to trade from sixth period biology to another time- any other time but that.
This whole thing was about me. It had to be something else, something that happened before I entered the room, anything else. But to my dismay, the entrance opened again and this time he noticed the sound of the wind coming through the open door. His back stiffened as he slowly turned to glare at me- though I found his face absurdly attractive as he did this- with his gorgeous blue eyes filling up with hate and a stony cold aura darkening around his pupils.
"Uh, never mind then. Thanks for trying," he called out hastily as he ran out the door.
I made my way slowly to the desk, my face now meek as it turned as white as a sheet of paper instead of red for once. Handing the slip to the woman, I got lost in my thoughts, not even noticing later that she been asking me how I liked my first day at the school. I tried to smile back with all the sincerity I had left in me, but she didn't look the least bit convinced.
Storming out of the school, I passed Richard Grayson, not even caring as he stared after me as he leaned on a black Mercedes. The sleek and silver Volvo truck Galfore had gotten me as a welcoming present was only about two cars away from the one Richard was leaning against.
Roughly forcing the key into the engine, I tried to fight back the tears that had begun to well up in the corners of my eyes- just as long as he was out of sight before I cried. My foot stomped on the pedal furiously, but as I was driving away, it was either I was hallucinating or what I saw was real, because it seemed to me that Richard Grayson was sighing of relief. And then the first tear fell.
I officially hated Jump City.
A/N: Yes, another story. Sorry if this chapter went by a little bit slow, I wasn't really counting on putting in a lot of excitement for the first chapter.
So…Richard Grayson seems to dislike Kori Anders. Don't worry, there's a reason; don't think that he just looked at her and decided he had something against her. Review please!
Also, a preview of the second chapter:
"Is Richard Grayson staring at…you?"
"Huh?"
Tucking my hair behind my ear to give myself a good look at him, I felt my long lashes brush against my skin nervously. At that precise moment, his blue eyes flashed over to meet mine.