Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Mystic Wings ❯ The New Girl ( Chapter 8 )

Chapter Eight

The New Girl

 

Lord Grava Asturia High was built not on a hill, but in the snootiest area of the city, which explains why it was stuck up. When Hitomi's father dropped her and Marlene off on the first day, Hitomi couldn't believe it. Her last school had been an ugly building finished in ancient white stucco. This school looked like a castle, or a museum. She didn't know how much her father was paying for tuition, but it was probably way too much. She and Marlene looked like the only students who were not driving their own vehicles to school.

 

Apparently, there wasn't much changeover at their new school. Lord Grava Asturia High (the title could not be shortened or abbreviated - all four words had to be said all together each time) had small classes and only two new students joined the grade twelve students for their final year. One was Hitomi, the only girl to come onto campus wearing the long sleeved uniform on the first day and the second was a boy named Dryden Fassa. Both of them made a sensation in their own ways.

 

Dryden didn't need to do anything special to catch anyone's attention. His personality was strong enough. When Hitomi introduced herself to her homeroom class, he had taken the seat behind her, and introduced himself after her. He had long curly dark hair that he tied back in a ponytail, wore glasses, and had a five o'clock shadow at eight in the morning. Hitomi examined him and wondered if he was really a teenager, but whether he was or wasn't there was one thing about him that no one could ignore. He was good with women - really good with women. Hitomi had never seen anything like it, not even Allen could compare. He sweet talked the female teacher into letting him sit where he wanted, even though it was against her original seating plan, and although they had only been there for ten minutes; he was already receiving offers from the girls in the class to show him around campus.

 

Hitomi turned around and looked at him once, since such a fuss was being made over him, and as they locked eyes, he gave her - a look. It was profoundly sexual; the sort of look that said, “I want you and I know you want me too.” Hitomi found she was red around the gills as she turned back around. “Looks like we've got a man-whore on the loose,” she thought to herself as she picked up her pen. She then dismissed him as the worst kind of skank, and decided never to turn around again or even to speak to him, if she could avoid it.

 

However, soon it was clear that she wasn't going to be able to stay clear of him. When she came out the front doors of the school after class he was leaning against the archway that spanned the sidewalk of the main entrance. The top buttons of his uniform were undone and he was giving her that look again.

 

Hitomi tried to walk past him without acknowledging him, but he came out and cornered her.

 

“You sit in front of me in homeroom, don't you, Kanzaki?” he drawled lazily.

 

“Yeah,” she said, trying to walk past him.

 

“Hey, what are you doing this afternoon? Do you wanna come over?”

 

“Come over?” she repeated, getting irritated. She was a married woman and she was obviously being hit on by this perverted teenager. It didn't occur to her that she was also a teenager, while she stood there judging him. She ground her teeth together. He was probably the kind of guy who tried with everyone. Doubtless, he knew what women were like well enough to tell she wasn't a virgin just by looking at her, and he thought she'd be easy action. Plus, she was new, so he probably thought she would be a straightforward score since she might be feeling lonely. “Not likely,” she answered him and turned away.

 

“Come on,” he said, blocking her way with one smooth hand. “You'd have fun.”

 

“Don't touch me!” Hitomi warned, getting quite testy. Her father was coming to pick her and Marlene up and the last thing she wanted was to have her father see her being manhandled by some loser. “Look,” she said, trying to avoid a scene. “My Dad is coming to get me and I don't have permission to go anywhere today, so just leave me alone, okay?”

 

“Keeps you on a tight leash, eh?” Dryden observed blandly. “Doesn't he trust you?”

 

Hitomi looked at him carefully. He might have made the insinuation much dirtier than he did. He could have implied that she behaved much worse than that. Maybe he wasn't a total sleaze ball, but he couldn't be far off. As long as he didn't touch her butt, she resolved that she'd get through this without slapping him.

 

“Something like that,” Hitomi said at last.

 

“Then maybe some other time. Try to behave Kanzaki, so your papa will let you out, ne?” he said, waving and walking away with his hands in his pockets.

 

Hitomi watched him walk. Three different girls approached him, but he blew all of them off sweetly as he made his way towards the parking lot unfettered by a female. He had managed quick escapes from all of them, but Hitomi noticed some interesting things about him. If he was only interested in skirt chasing, he could have gone with any one of those girls. None of them were bad looking, and it probably wouldn't have been hard to get with any of them, since he was so magnetic. The other thing was how kind he had been when he refused their offers. He had been so generous while speaking to them, that as Hitomi watched the girls go away, she realized that none of them felt like they had been rejected. From where Hitomi was standing, that was exactly what happened. He'd rejected them, but been so tender about it, that they didn't even know it.

 

Hmm … interesting man-whore.

 

***

 

At first, Hitomi didn't strike anyone's fancy. She looked positively boring sitting beside Dryden. Everyone had eyes for him … until her third day at school. It was gym class, and her gym uniform wouldn't cover her tattoo. The shirt only had the tiniest of sleeves to cover the curve downward of a person's shoulder and that was it. Her whole tattoo showed perfectly. The uniform came with a track jacket in case they were exercising outside, but Hitomi didn't care who saw it. These girls did seem pretty proper, but Hitomi didn't think it would make that much of a difference to the way she was viewed at school.

 

Well, as it turned out, it did.

 

Gym class that day was held outside, but the jacket would have been stupid. It was still September and very warm, so she left it in her locker and headed out with the rest of the girls in her class.

 

No one seemed to notice it until Hitomi got on the track to run the 100-meter. When she put her feet on the blocks the girl beside her noticed, but luckily did not get a chance to comment before the command was shouted for them to start.

 

Hitomi ran her best and left the other girls in the dust. She didn't think it was such a big deal until the girl who was timing her ran up to her to tell her what her time had been. The girl introduced herself as Yukari.

 

“Wow!” Yukari exclaimed, her reddish hair bobbing unconsciously. “Just over fourteen seconds! You should join the track team! Your name is Hitomi, right? Tryouts are next week. You've just got to come!”

 

It was then that Hitomi heard someone say quietly, “Hitomi Kanzaki.”

 

She turned her head to see who had spoken, but it didn't seem like anyone was addressing her. However, she noticed a small knot of girls looking at her and talking. There were actually people talking and they were talking about her! This was a new experience for Hitomi. At first, she didn't know what to say. She was tempted to walk up to them and say, “Look, if you've got something to say to me, you might as well say it to my face.”

 

But the gym teacher blew her whistle calling them away and Hitomi was soon holding the stopwatch to time Yukari.

 

After that, the teacher got the girls to run laps. The boys had gym class during that period too, but since the girls were using the track, they were taking it easy and playing baseball on one of the diamonds. There was no co-ed physical education at this school and apparently they believed in the old saying `ladies first', so the girls got to have their physical assessments first while the boys played. One curve in the track came dangerously close to where the boys were playing, and Hitomi got a look at two of the boys.

 

On her first lap, she noticed Dryden. Despite his obvious muscles, he was playing outfield, but he wasn't hugging the chain link fence like some of the other boys who obviously didn't care about class and were happier getting a better look at the girls in their gym uniforms. He was standing perfectly still, holding his baseball glove and looking only at Hitomi.

 

Hitomi blushed and turned away. That boy was not safe!

 

On her second lap, Dryden's team was batting, so she didn't have to worry about keeping her eyes on the track as she ran because he wouldn't be infiltrating her personal space with one of his looks. He was sitting on the bench on the other edge of the field waiting for his turn to bat.

 

Hitomi noticed the boy who was pitching. It was hard not to notice when the umpire (the boy's gym coach) shouted “STRIKE” at everything he threw. He was some athlete! He had longish brown hair … and reminded her of someone. Maybe it was his build … maybe.

 

When the girls finished their physical assessments, Hitomi walked towards the girl's showers with the others. Yukari came up beside her and started talking to her about joining the track team again. Hitomi was just starting to think that maybe these months (now five), wouldn't be so bad after all. It would be nice to have a friend again.

 

Just then, one of the other girls came up to her and asked her in a really cagy voice, “Hey Hitomi, did you hear about that school shooting that happened last May?”

 

The girl was trying to provoke her, and Hitomi wouldn't bite. “Have we met?” Hitomi asked icily.

 

“I'm Lillian,” she said.

 

“Nice to meet you,” Hitomi said casually, and then turned away purposefully to answer Yukari's question. “I would love to try out for the track team, but do you think they'll take me?”

 

“If you can run the 100-meter in the fourteen second region, I'm sure you'll fit right in. I'm the manager. If you train up you might even be able to get your time down to thirteen seconds,” Yukari explained excitedly.

 

“Does the team get many chances to compete with other schools?” Hitomi continued.

 

Finally, Lillian went away, but Hitomi guessed that she'd be back once she got her facts straight about what happened. “Right now,” Hitomi thought, “Lillian only thinks that I was involved in that, but once she checks up on it, she'll know for sure I was. Then the real problems will start.”

 

***

 

By the end of Hitomi's first week at school, everyone knew as much as could be known about her story. Some students were sympathetic, some of the rougher ones wanted to be her friend; Hitomi thought they were obsessed with tragedy and would speak seriously with none of them. The teachers gave her worried looks like they were afraid something would happen with her. The strongest reaction was not to the fact that she had been there during a school shooting and that her best friend had died. The strongest reaction was that she had been missing for four months, and would give no one an account of where she had been. Her tattoo seemed to indicate that she had been involved with something dangerous. At least that's what everyone seemed to think.

 

Marlene was getting pestered with questions about Hitomi by everyone who spoke to her. Hitomi didn't realize it affected her little sister so much until she accidentally overheard Marlene talking to her father about how she wanted to change schools. She didn't want to go to school with Hitomi. She was young, beautiful, and wanted to be noticed by others for herself, not for Hitomi's scandal. It was shameful.

 

Not only that, but Marlene redoubled her efforts to get Hitomi to confide in her. Marlene at least wanted to know what to tell people when they asked about Hitomi.

 

“Tell them to mind their own business,” Hitomi answered crossly. She was getting tired of constantly being quizzed.

 

Marlene stormed off in a huff.

 

Hitomi stared at the ceiling and wondered what she could do to improve things with her sister. Just as things were starting to look better with her dad, things had rapidly deteriorated with Marlene. Hitomi didn't know what to do.

 

She found school hard enough. The classes were easy. They weren't the problem. It didn't take much for Hitomi to jog her memory and remember what she had learned the semester before. She was even starting to wonder if it was necessary for her to retake the entire semester. Oh well, she knew talking to her father about it was pointless. School wasn't hard that way, but it was hard dealing with all the speculation regarding her.

 

Luckily, Yukari didn't seem put-off by what everyone said about Hitomi. She seemed genuinely interested in Hitomi as an athlete and as a person without all the excess hub-dub. Hitomi wished that Marlene would be able to find a friend in her grade like Yukari.

 

There was one other person who didn't seem like his opinion was at all altered by the change in everyone's attitude towards Hitomi, and that person was Dryden. At last, Hitomi decided that he must have known her story before they met, and somehow, was not shocked by it. He did not, as a rule, try to spend time with Hitomi on campus, but his eyes always followed her wherever she went. Instead, he would invite her over to his home after school, not everyday, but nearly. Hitomi always adamantly refused and wondered at his persistence. Why did he want her to go to his house so badly? It sounded like he wanted to seduce her or … something worse.

 

One thing that was unusual about her relationship with Dryden was that none of the girls seemed to notice the attention he paid her. They were all as wildly in love with him as they were freaked out by her, and it seemed to her the strangest thing that she was never cornered or threatened by a jealous girl. At last, Hitomi decided that they were afraid of her, and would rather lose Dryden to her than lose in a fistfight with her. Everyone seemed to think Hitomi was capable of anything - a delinquent to the core.

 

But everything about Dryden seemed suspicious and just a little bit creepy to Hitomi, and she wouldn't even become friends with him.

 

Actually, except for her friendship with Yukari, Hitomi spent a great deal of time by herself those first few weeks of school. She kept out of trouble and was still being chained up by her father at home. She never had permission to go anywhere, except for the one time she had gone to Van's bank and collected the remaining funds for her father. She sat around alone and thought about Van.

 

It was hard not to think about him and those few weeks they had spent together. Her relationship with Van had changed her forever. She tried to adjust to living with her family, sharing a room with her sister, suddenly being notorious, and the negative attention that came with it, but … always in the back of her mind was Van. Sometimes when she was at school she would suddenly realize that she was bitterly thirsty, and remember for just a split second that Van always had a water bottle with him so she was saved. Of course, he was gone and she'd remember very quickly everything that happened, but he had become such a part of her life that getting on with things as though he didn't exist was challenging.

 

And she still loved him … and wanted him … but she couldn't think about that part!

 

Where was he? Why had he done the things he had? Why did he want to marry her when he knew that he was going to be caught by the Dragon Slayers?

 

The list of questions Hitomi had was getting longer and her impatience to find out the truth about Van was mounting. Plus, she wasn't getting enough compensation from her relationship with her father to help her keep her promise to him to stay away from the Abaharaki. Hitomi made up her mind that as soon as she got the chance, she was going to drive out to Aunt Flo's farm and find out exactly what had happened to Van. If her father found out that she broke her promise, she'd take the consequences.