Yay, another story from Aasha-chan! (Soon, penname will be changed to suicidalxmuffin or something of the sort, so keep an eye out for me, ne?)
Allergy information: This chapter contains a little bit of OOC-ness, swearing, and Cloud musing about strange things (evil alien overlords, Columbine references, and such).
"Cloud, get your lazy ass out of bed! We're going to be late!" My younger brother yelled at me through my bedroom door. I groaned in protest, pulling the covers over my head. How much sleep did I get last night? Three hours? Or two?
I'm not sure how, but a few minutes later, Roxas had rolled me out of bed and persuaded me to get ready for school.
As I stepped outside of my cozy home, I was hit suddenly with the chilly autumn wind and shivered involuntarily. I forced myself to get in my car, with Roxas soon after slipping into the passenger seat.
"Hey, did you hear about the transfer student?"
"Yeah, they say he's HOT."
Two girls next to me fussed about the new student that we were getting. It was rather unusual for us to get them at this time of the year, but from what the teachers had said, he seemed to be a rather special case. Apparently, he lived with his older cousin or something of the sort, his parents having died when he was much younger. He had a younger brother, too-- I think he was in Roxas's year-- but no one had said very much about him; they were much too busy discussing the other. Leon Loire (1). He seemed to be an interesting person. Vaguely, I wondered if he'd be anything like any of our other transfers. I hoped not; they were all ignorant and dumb. I didn't think I could stomach yet another bastard going to our school. Morbidly, I wondered if it would be anything like Columbine should he happen to act like them.
At the slam of our homeroom door, I curiously looked up. Soon after I wished I hadn't, because this one simple gesture led to my obsession. Or perhaps it was what happened next, when the seemingly uninterested brunette met my gaze with his stormy gray eyes and suddenly seemed to hold a vast range of emotions, that triggered everything. Then again, it could have been how he quickly looked away, seating himself at the desk next to my own. Whatever it was that caused my infatuation, I wished it hadn't happened.
"I'm Leon." The brunette casually held out his hand, which I stared at incredulously.
"Cloud." I said after realizing that he didn't plan on backing down from my critical gaze, and shook his hand roughly. I wasn't quite sure what to make of him. Normally, people tended to veer away from me, and yet, it almost seemed as if he intended to befriend me.
A couple of giggling girls made their way over to us, one of them stopping in front of Leon with a bright red blush. Leon only raised an eyebrow, appearing as bored as he had when he entered our classroom.
"Could you at least make this quick? I'm sort of in a conversation right now." He commented icily. I stared at him curiously, trying to figure him out. He was one of the very few people I had difficulty reading. I could tell he hid behind a cold-hearted mask, but I wasn't sure when he was being himself or when he was pulling his façade. I couldn't tell what emotions swam in his steel eyes-- I was close to praising myself for even noticing the slight ones that were there-- and it frustrated me to no end. Leon certainly seemed to be an enigma.
One of the girls, whom I recognized as Rinoa Heartilly, scoffed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. She said something to which I paid no attention; I was too busy trying to figure out how she could manage to keep herself looking that ugly and fake. By the time she had walked away I had determined that she was an alien overlord and she was attempting to destroy the earth with her unfathomable ugliness, which I supposed was actually considered pretty on her native planet.
"Uh, Cloud?"
"Huh, what?" Leon was giving me a strange look. Maybe I should zone out less.
"You sort of zoned out and had this weird smirk on your face." Ah, so that's what I looked like when I wasn't paying any mind to what was going on around me. Roxas always said I looked funny when I thought about strange things, like evil alien overlords or something; I guess he was right, after all.
"Oh, sorry. That happens sometimes." I explained with a shrug.
"Okay then…" He said, giving me a look that plainly said he felt I was insane.
After a small moment of silence, he continued.
"What were you thinking about anyways?"
"… Just that Heartilly's an evil alien overlord attempting to overtake Earth with her inexplicable hideous looks."
"…"
"…"
"Have you ever been told you're crazy?"
"Aww, I knew you loved me."
Despite the fact that I had been deemed crazy, Leon managed to put up with me for the entire day. He was also the only person, other than my brother, that I could withstand for more than a couple hours. In fact, I was almost upset when school was over-- not quite, but almost-- because a part of me believed that the brunette wouldn't be there for very long. I prayed to the heavens that my intuition was, for once, wrong, and the enigmatic person with whom I was enamored wouldn't leave the school without warning. I wasn't sure how or why, but I felt that the school year was going to take a very bad turn.
I hope you enjoyed!!!
(1) I kept his father's last name, because I like it infinitely better.