His Favorite Ginger

FIVE

ALEJANDRO IS TIRED OF LOCKERS. They are too cliche and tedious in his own perspective. His legs have to move a quarter mile to that one cursed metal box every hour just to pick a single thing. He wishes he can just use a bag to transport his stuff so that he doesn't have to walk to that vile hallway all the time and suffer more weird looks; they have been constant lately. Except his shoulders are too lazy to support even a pin.

Alejandro jumps out of his skin at the sudden sound of the locker slamming beside him; guess that's what he deserves for hating it. "The f**k, Kara!" He glares spears at the culprit who raises her hands ringed heavily with bracelets in surrender.

"Sorry sorry. I'm just giddy, that's all." She whispers, rubbing her palms together to apologize, and leaving Alejandro confused.

"And why's that?" Kara beckons down the hallway with her thumb and Alejandro follows it till his eyes meets lackluster cerulean ones.

Alejandro's breath seizes like a lagging android phone but it is only momentary. He still keeps his gaze trained on the blonde though, the latter looks like he isn't going to give up soon.

"What the f**k is he doing here?" Alejandro asks. He's too much of a sour b***h to even guess he's currently coming off like weird or stalkerish to Mr. Lasso lips with the staring contest.

"He schools here, Einstein."

"Oh right. I knew that."

Grayson is conversing with his football buddies and a girl who supposedly is Layla - a curvy, square-faced redhead - clinging onto his arm like he is gonna vaporise any second. Alejandro is unable to figure out what is so special about him. To him, Grayson is like one of those relics in the museums. Beautiful but useless. He doesn't even know where the latter notion comes from. At least, he helped him to the sick bay last week.

"People just seem to adore him no matter how much of a playboy he is." Kara adds as they venture into the clamorous classroom. Words, curses and paper fly around the atmosphere like it is a battleground for the swifts against the sparrows.

"Tell me about it. Everyone in this f****d school seem to have this weird fetish for fuckers." Alejandro's lips curl into a smile on analyzing what he just said. "You get that non-Nolan-ish pun?"

"Ha ha. So funny I can barely laugh." Kara says flatly, imitating the blank Squidward face.

Biology class goes the way it has always been; trash.

"Class dismissed - wait!" Mrs. Callaghan yells and almost immediately does the whole class groan in unison like a opera concert. The bitter thing on their minds is that she is going to add to their homework. Alejandro doesn't beg to differ.

"I've decided the project might be a little too hectic to be a one-man's work. .."

A little? b***h is kidding, right?

". . .so I'm changing it to a partnership. Since the first periodic tests of all other subjects are also going to be like that. . ."

Like a rubbernecking tidal wave, a gentle uproar dives to swallow the classroom. Boys and girls are already pairing themselves, not even waiting for Mrs. Callaghan to complete her sentence.

"Al, you're mine!" Alejandro hears Kara and Nolan yell from behind. The rest of the story consists of the both of them getting detention; a major boost to Alejandro's ego.

"But!" Their teacher's voice suddenly bursts through the class, shattering any walls built by talkativeness, loud enough to shut us all up. "But, your partners for this project are going to be the ones I paired you with during your last activity."

And the groan chorus is continued.

⏩

Seconds, minutes, two hours pass by. Alejandro can feel his mental geysers rekindling as he drums Linkin Park on the table with his pointer fingers; this is the only way to keep him sane. The silence in this damned library is way too loud and it's driving him loco. There isn't even a clock ticking. A pin can be heard if dropped on the beige tiled floors. Everywhere smells like old books while the old Latina librarian is of scorn and stringency.

His dead Macbook and the books he retrieved from the shelves an hour ago lie on the chipped wooden table and seem to gaze at him; as if mocking him. Every inanimate object seem to mock him nowadays. There was the lizard, the B+ for the experiment and now it's his laptop and some ancient anatomy records. His patience is already threatening to barge out of its dam. The headphones on his head aren't solving s**t anymore though he's managed to get some work done. He checks his watch for the hundredth time today.

Alejandro's mom had him get sessions when he nearly strangled a playmate to death at the innocent age of seven just because the poor boy said he looked like Garfield. The psychologist once told him walking helps in times like this so he obeys, and it does help.

Soon, I finds myself lowkey bouncing around the gigantic bookshelves while whistling an unfamiliar tune. With Alejandro's bubblegum, he's a popcorn making machine. Filling the oh-so-familiar booky smell into his lungs like weed to ease his anger meter, he takes a stroll up the stairs to higher ground - where the big books are located. Alejandro Bale can't lie, he loves big books.

His fingers graze the spines of dusty, grey-haired books in the History section, not that he is planning to read them but there is undoubtedly something sexy in men wearing barely animal skin and spears in hand while riding horses. He has no idea but it arouses the hell out of him.

Speaking of hot guys, the hottest his eyes have possibly ever laid themselves upon is waving at him at the moment from across the bookshelf. He can't completely, visually digest his physique but can still swoon at his face that looks like a seraph's. He has hair colored with a bunch of pixels extracted from an old, sepia photograph; it is messy to a delicious extent. the hue of the blue in his irises are so damn concentrated, it seems impossible. Adorable dark freckles adorn his button nose and the nape of his neck is so heavily defined, Alejandro may mistake it for a pizza blade because he so wants to eat the both at the same time, pressed together like a sandwich. Same goes for his jaw. Guys like this never cease to make Alejandro wish he's a cannibal.

Neither has he imagined someone so beautiful - well actually yes especially when he saw Teen Wolf's Peter Hale for the first time - nor has ever imagined himself dropping schoolwork for a random Apollo. He gives a small wave and turns deaf ears to his calls.

"Hey."

"Al, what's up?" Kara asks through the phone. Judging from her groggy voice and a yawn that accompanies it, she must have been sleeping before the call.

"It's Grayson." He knows she will wake up fully on hearing that name. Alejandro can almost picture her sitting up on her bed with twinkling eyes like Madonna's gold teeth.

"What happened? Don't tell me don't tell me. You guys kissed? Oh my fuckin gosh I knew it. I knew it! I felt the sparks between you two. I knew..."

"What Kara hell no we didn't kiss!" Alejandro sneers, his voice laced in irritation. The thought enough i so disturbing, it's more than enough to send Alejandro into a puking frenzy.

"I'm listening."

"We agreed to meet in the library for the project by 3pm but still he hasn't showed up since. I don't know what to feel right now but anger has gone beyond being an option."

"Awwn he stood you up on your first date. So cute." Alejandro bitterly regrets ever calling this deranged chick.

"I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear you to call this a date nor being stood up cute."

"What about an academic date?"

"Kara." Alejandro whines in frustration. Academic date? Okay that is probably the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard this year since Demi Lovato became a lesbian.

"Okay okay. Call him."

"I don't have his digits."

"Maybe you should just wait a little longer..."

"Easy for you to say. I've been here for the past two hours. You have Casper as your partner meaning your hopeless admirer will have to do all the work while you die in your bed ten hours a day. . ." His ranting comes to a screeching halt when he sights the devil himself from a distance.

Upon all other things, Grayson stands in a khaki sweatsuit, appraising his reflection on the glass window. Alejandro unconsciously snaps the pencil he holds in his hands. Grayson's previous countenance evolves when he sees the bloody aura seeping out of the ginger's sweat pores to the extent where his hair almost burst in flames.

"Hey."

"Don't hey me asshole. We unanimously agreed on 3pm and you are cockwalking majestically in here like Beyonce on a dinosaur at the Super bowl while the time is sixteen minutes after five. . ."

Grayson sinks into the chair with a pout on his face. He looks down to his shoes, keeping himself busy by estimating the angles in which his shoelaces are inclined to each other while Alejandro blasts his head off with a chiliad of jeremiads from Prophet Jeremiah himself.

"I got caught in some errands, pardon me." Grayson pulls out the only trick on his elastic sleeve; the puppy dog eyes that unfortunately doesn't work on Alejandro, yet. Especially because he feel like spraying the blonde's ass with AK47 bullets.

"And the worst part of it is that you still had all the time in the world to check your white ass in the mirror while I've been sitting and working my ass off all day. It hurts like hell. . ." Pouting, Alejandro's hands travels to his throbbing buttocks subconsciously. Alejandro will never understand why he had to give himself a once over. Grayson Jackson will always look perfect any day, anytime, anyhow; it's the fact and Alejandro hates vanity.

"Maybe I can help. You know." Grayson winks, causing Alejandro to grind his teeth to dust.

I made a mistake. If I didn't stifle my deep-fried anger, then he won't have the guts to flirt with me.

"Aw so cute. You're blushing. Now you properly look like a real orange." The quarter-witted blonde doesn't realize it's the handiwork of anger; turning the ginger's face to a canvas for a drawing of World War X. He winks again. His pink thin lips form a heart shape and shoots kissy sounds at Alejandro.

"Ew. And whatever, let's just get this over with." The ginger surrenders with exasperation clear as spring water in his tone.

"How can I make it up to you?"

"You can't just make it up to me, nobody makes it up to me except he or she desires a death wish."

"C'mon, Alejandro."

"Books first. Then we'll discuss later." The ginger peeks at Grayson from the corner of his eyes. He's gleefully flipping the pages of the encyclopedia like a toddler checking his favorite Amelia Bedelia. Alejandro smirks and shakes his head.

⏯

This particular chapter received MAJOR editing *sigh* I'm so sore...