Partners

Partners
Viva la Viveca

Disclaimer : I don’t own any of the characters in this story… or Coke… I don’t own Coke… I own a bottle of it, but not the brand or anything

Chapter I :: Monday Morning From Hell

I ran my hands through my spiky, silver hair as I entered my bathroom. Well, it really isn’t mine, per se, considering I have an apartment-mate, but I consider it mine because I’m the one who really pays the rent, not to mention I had lived alone in it until just a few months ago.

I let out a groan when I splashed my face with ice cold water, trying to fully wake myself up. I hated early mornings, but on Monday my earliest college class was at 9 a.m. Even after a month and a half I was still surprised that I was a college student. It was weird to know that I survived through four years of high school. I grabbed my toothbrush. At least my hair wasn’t too hard to take care of… it pretty much fell into place when I needed it to.

“Hey, Haru! Are you almost done in there?” my best friend and roommate pounded on the door. I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t like I had been there for half and hour or anything… Musica was just impatient.

“Yeah, give me another minute or two!” I called back, my words garbled by the toothbrush in my mouth. I wasn’t expecting a reply from him, so I was surprised when he said:

“So, uh, how are things going between you and Elie? You didn’t look to happy when you got home last night… Didn’t you two have a date with her or something?” I could hear the concern in Musica’s voice. That’s what I liked most about the bossy brunette; he always cares about his friends, even if it’s about trivial things.

I put my toothbrush away and opened the door. He was leaning against the wall next to the door, already fully dressed and ready to head off to the motorcycle shop he worked at during the day. “Yeah, but she had to cancel out… She got called into work about an hour before I was supposed to pick her up, something about one of the girls getting the stomach flu and needing a replacement,” I shrugged. “We’re doing pretty good now, but it’s still a bit awkward, if you know what I mean.”

Musica nodded. “But then why were you so pissed, then?”

“The Wedding,” I said with no lack of venom, glaring at the tan carpet. “I think Catt’s heading into this way too quickly. Even Shuda’s starting to panic and is trying to get her to take it a little slower!”

Musica chuckled, looking at me with a hint of sympathy in his eyes. “She’s been dating him for five years now. Just last year she was freaking out because she thought he was never going to ask,” he rolled his eyes. “She’s excited. You two need to let her just do her thing and be happy that she’s happy.”

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair in frustration. He was right, I knew that, but if I had my choice she wouldn’t be marrying Shuda at all. My red-haired future brother-in-law was the bane of my existence, next to waking up early in the morning. I had many reasons to not like him, a few being sort of pathetic. I guess part of me was a bit jealous because I felt like he was talking her away from me. I would never say that though, if I had a choice.

I waved to him dismissively as I headed back to my room to finish preparing for the day. As I searched for a shirt that was actually clean (or at least clean-smelling as I had forgotten to do laundry over the weekend), I glanced at the picture of Elie and I that my sister had taken of us during last year’s prom.

I had never been into the whole dating thing during high school. It wasn’t that I wasn’t attracted to girls, it’s more like I didn’t have the time or energy for them. By senior year there were rumors going around that I was gay, so I started dating Elie. She had always been a good friend of mine, and I couldn’t deny that she was one of the hottest girls in school. We never were truly attracted to each other emotionally, but things were slowly getting better between us, or so I thought.

I grabbed a can of soda out of the refrigerator, calling out a quick goodbye to Musica as I left. Morning ritual required guzzling a can of Coke before the Sociology class that I wish I wasn’t required to take. It was convenient, living only three blocks away from Symphonia University, which was the college I had chosen to attend. Somehow I still managed to be late every morning.

“How nice of you to join us today, Mr. Glory. It would be even better if you would do it on time next time,” Instructor Sieg Hart said coolly, though the gleam in his eyes told me that he was extremely annoyed. I was positive that he, a good friend of Shuda and Catt’s, would be more than happy to inform my sister of my seventh offense of being late to his class. Did I mention that these tardies were in the past three weeks? Catteleya was going to kill me…

I took my seat in the back, right behind Elie. She was the only reason I really even bothered to tolerate the class. Sieg was answering questions about some project he had been talking about assigning to us. I ignored everyone, staring at the white brick of the wall. Elie would end up being my partner anyways; she always volunteered because she knew I was hopeless without her. My mind kept wandering to Catt’s wedding; it was only three weeks away. Somehow I ended up as a groomsman alongside Let and Sieg was the best man. Elie had managed to get the title of maid of honor. I had begged Catt for weeks to find someone else so I could walk with Elie instead of Catt’s friend Reina. Let got to walk with his girlfriend, Julia, so I felt it only fair that I could walk with mine.

“Okay, everyone, get together with the partner that I just called out and discuss what you might want to do for the project,” the blue-haired teacher’s voice broke through my reverie. I looked at Elie and she gave me a horrified look.

“Assigned partners?” I gasped, a bit shocked. Sieg never took the time or energy to give us partners! He was too damn lazy to ever do something like that, and he was too impatient to listen to us complain. “Who am I with? I wasn’t listening earlier.”

Elie sort of motioned her head behind me. “Do you ever listen to anybody?” a deep familiar voice made every bone in my body freeze. I turned to look at my worst enemy and greatest object of lust.

Standing with all five-foot-eight-inches of hard muscle and a head of beautiful blond hair, was Lucia Raregroove, son of my father’s worst enemy, and now my Sociology partner. This was going to be one bitch of a Monday morning.