At the sound of my best friend's voice–Criselle, telling me to wake up because our teacher is coming, I groggily woke up and checked my watch. We still have 5 minutes before the bell rings signifying the start of classes, so I was confused. Ma'am Fondino isn't the type to come early to our room. She is our adviser, and we like her because even though she is our first teacher after lunchtime ends, she often comes late to our class for a few minutes, giving us a bit more break time. So when she arrived early, looking angry and frustrated, I was worried. And I think some of my classmates felt the tension in the air too, as we became quiet after greeting her a good afternoon.
But of course, a few of them in the back were always rowdy, and the noise was enough to trigger Ma'am Fondino. She furiously stood up and reprimanded the lot of us for being noisy.
“Why can't you students quiet down?! You're all already in senior highschool! You’re all in Grade 12 already for God’s sake. All considered to be young adults at this point, and yet you still act like elementary students!” She huffed.
“Can't you see your teacher in front of you? Too busy to chit-chat with your seatmates huh? Well that changes now! Everybody stand up, and go arrange yourselves in alphabetical order. Now!”
We all immediately stood up and scrambled to go in front of the room to form a line alphabetically. The muttering in the room was growing louder by the minute, as it sank to each one of us that we were all going to officially change our seats. In alphabetical order. In the middle of the first semester. Well shit.
I formed eye contact with Criselle and mouthed the words “We're not gonna be seatmates anymore” with a sad puppy face. She replied by pouting and whispered back, “I'll miss being seatmates with you, but we're still gonna hang out after this right?” I smiled and whispered back to her, “Of course dumbass, I still owe you a snack you know. I didn't forget my promise.”
She mouthed the words 'thank you', and blew me many kisses like a child. Her cuteness earned a small chuckle out of me and I giddily laughed at her.
When it was my turn to go to my new seat, I was shocked when I looked to my left and saw... Maven. Wow, talk about the unexpected. But really, I should've known this was happening because his surname is Callejo, and mine is Cuevas. Sigh. This sucks.
To be fair, there's nothing really bad about him, it's just that I was hoping for my seatmate to be someone I'm close to among my classmates. And well obviously, Maven isn't one of them.
I took a peek at my new seatmate. Huh. I've gotta give it to him, because he truly is handsome. He has eyeglasses that frame his face perfectly, which I'm a bit jealous of cause I feel like my glasses aren't just made for me, even though I have been wearing them for what seemed like an eternity already. And beyond that, I noticed that he has hooded eyes that seem to pierce through anyone he lays his eyes on. Plus, he's also tall–probably 5'8 to 6' feet I think, and he's lean. With his physique, it's no wonder that half of our girls; and even some of the boys in our class have a crush on him. He's even well-known in other sections! But as always, every handsome man has a downside to them.
Because I learned while reading fictional books that half the time, good-looking men have trashy personalities. And I don't personally know Maven, but from the way he acts like a snob, or the way he doesn't talk to anybody unless they talk to him first, it's enough for me to conclude that he's the cold and intimidating type of guy who doesn't care about others.
Yet ironically, this is the reason why he's so popular with the ladies. I mean, what is with girls' obsession with men who are clearly not interested in them, or are clearly out of their league? I shook my head. But I can't blame them either. Guys like Maven are just hard to resist, I guess.
And speaking of Maven, he raised his eyebrows at me, clearly confused on why I've been staring at him–wait. Oh my god! I've actually been staring at him this whole time! Fuck. Kill me now please.
I cleared my throat and looked away when I felt a blush forming on my cheeks. Damn, he caught me ogling at him. How embarrassing.
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When the school bell rang, I instantly beelined straight to where Criselle was. Her surname is Valeria so she's seated far away from me at the back.
“Hey what's the rush? Forgot to eat breakfast again?”
I shook my head at her and took a glance at Maven. He is now wearing earphones while eating some wafers. I internally cringed, remembering my embarrassment earlier.
When I looked back at Criselle, she was smiling haughtily at me.
“Hmmmm... Karmina Rayne Cuevas. I just know you're hiding something from me and I'm gonna find out what it is.”
“Ugh, don't say my whole name like that, and what am I hiding? I literally have nothing to tell you.”
She said nothing and proceeded to poke my tummy–where I'm very ticklish, A.K.A. my one true weakness.
“Okay, stop! Geez, I swear nothing really happened! Stop tickling me or else I won't buy you your fries!”
“Then why were you looking at him huh?”
“Who?” I said, feigning ignorance.
“Maven, duh! The super hot guy who's seated beside y–”
I instantly covered her mouth 'cause I swear her voice was too loud. I whisper-shouted at her ear “Oh for crying out loud, shut up! you're embarrassing me!”
She just removed my hands from her mouth and laughed at me. So I dragged her out of our classroom and into the canteen, where I just decided to get on with it and tell her about what happened earlier, much to my chagrin.
“... Maven caught me staring at him earlier, and I was so unnerved by his reaction that I kept looking back at him ok? I mean, what a narcissist that guy is! It's not like I like him or anything, so why did he look at me like that? Argh so freaking annoying!”
Criselle shut me up with her girly giggle, and when her eyes twinkled, goosebumps started to form on my skin–especially when she asked me that question.
“You like him don't you?”
My eyes widened like saucers. “What the–no! I literally just said that I don't like him, what the hell are you talking about?!” I practically shrieked.
Her laugh can be heard across the canteen when I screamed my defensive answer.
“Hahaha, I was just kidding! You should've seen the look on your face!”
I just shook my head at her while smiling because I can't help it. Her laughter is too infectious.
Criselle is my best friend, and we met last school year when I transferred here during the start of senior high. Surprisingly, I was the only transferee here, and so I was alone for some time because it's hard to make friends when everyone else seemed to know each other already.
But then one day she approached me to ask for help with her homework. (I helped her, of course). She then asked if we could be friends. And who am I to say no to that? This sounds cheesy as hell, but it felt like I've been waiting for someone like her to come into my life for what seemed like a long time now.
After that we immediately hit it off. It was like a whirlwind type of friendship, and honestly? When she became my friend–my best friend even, I couldn't ask for anything better.
I bought some food for myself because Criselle was right–I had forgotten to eat breakfast. I also bought her some fries just like I promised.
I brought back our food and smiled contentedly to myself as I ate and watched her talk about (and mostly gush over) her favorite KPop boy groups.
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End of Chapter 1.
Thank you for reading! Your votes and comments are truly appreciated. ♡
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Short Story─❀̥˚─ a short story, written by jalaxiez ─❀̥˚─ Karmina Rayne Cuevas and Maven Callejo are both senior high students, trying their best to navigate their academic and social life as senior high students. They don't exactly see eye to eye at first, bu...
