Saturday 2 August 2008
mikki & Maxmillian Krisna Deveraux // day o n e

the door slid open, then close swiftly behind her. one, two, three steps and she was in front of the teacher’s podium, bowing slightly in respect.

“lee yeon ju,” she said simply, barely audible voice. she waited for the teacher to identify her as the new transfer student, eyes locked on her two feet.

she frowned.

her toes wriggled in her shoes, she’d had to change them per regulations but it didn’t help the fact that her socks were still soggy from walking outside in the snow. it was uncomfortable, just like coming into class. she didn’t have to look around to know everyone was staring at her.

the teacher had addressed the class and she took the opportunity to turn around, back to the peering eyes, and reach for the white chalk. her hand moved with precision and practice, name written in on the board with flow.

lee yeon ju.
turn, bow.

“i’m lee yeon ju, 16 and transferred from south korea. please take care of me.” she straightened her back and looked at the room filled with students for the first time.

Max had been pretty much not paying attention - sitting in the second row had its own perks (not being noticed by the teachers, for one). He was involved in a written discussion about their next raid with Alma and he'd missed the first part of Lee Yeon Ju's introduction in favor of furiously scribbling his argument on the paper.
 
He looked up once Lee Yeon Ju started speaking, though. Oh - a late student. And from South Korea. That made three in their class.

she nodded at the teacher as he assigned her a place and quietly made her way towards the empty desk. near the window, towards the back. it would prove to be a perfect distraction. she noticed someone smiling at her and she quirked her lips up back at him. she had the urge to cover her mouth with a hand, but abstained. you can’t see a smile through a hand.

dutifully, she sat down at her desk and unpacked the few school supplies she had with her. on short notice, mikki hadn’t had the time to shop for the necessities. the lesson droned on and she half-listened, half-inspected her new classmates.

Max paid full attention to their teacher and took necessary notes because classtime comprised of 90% of his studying time (the other 10% was going over the textbooks the night before their test). He did notice that Lee Yeon Ju-sshi was appeared quite groomed, though, which meant that she probably was a girly girl...
 
... sigh :< another classmate he couldn't buddy-up with. Well, it wasn't fair to assume before he talked to the girl, but to negate that assumption Max had to talk to her first, which probably wasn't going to happen...
 
Oh. Lessons. Right. Drooone when was breaktime again? D:

her head titled to the side as she noticed students who were paying attention and those who were dosing off just slightly. mikki couldn’t blame them. she adverted her eyes back towards the teacher. he certainly wasn’t the most interesting speaker encountered in her life. twirling her pencil between her fingers, she wondered idly if any of them were new, just like her. but even if they were, it didn’t mean they would suddenly become friends simply on those terms. she shook her head lightly and focused on taking notes. already a week late into term, she couldn’t allow herself to lag behind the others further.

before long, the bell rang to signal the end of class and mikki watched as her classmates turned in their chairs to talk with friends or leave the classroom. she stood up and scanned the remaining student body before making her way towards one student. he had seemed focused on the lesson. quiet as a mouse, she pulled a chair and sat right next to him, feet pulled up on the seat as she peered over at his textbook and started scribbling down notes in her own notebook. her handwriting was small and neat.

...
 
Max had this radar that goes off whenever a member of an opposite sex approached - not in a good way. He barely had time to get up - or hide behind Alma, really - WHERE WAS THAT GIRL WHEN HE NEEDED HER - before the new girl was peeking over his shoulder - peeking over his shoulder!
 
Radar going of the chart beep beep beep - !!! He let out a squeak and scrambled off towards the (thankfully empty) chair beside him. "What - what -" Pause. "Uh."

she slowly looked at him with her big eyes, not really surprised.

“you can call me mikki.” she said, simply.

she eyed him for a few more moments before dropping her gaze back down at his notes. she kept on writing. stop. push tip of mechanical pencil then noticed his pencil case. mikki had the decency not to look through it.

“do you have lead?”

... Okay, that was weird. This girl looked totally unfazed by his reaction, which was something he couldn't say about other girls, honestly. "Er. No. I - er, use ballpoints. Sorry. Er. I bet JiSoon-hyung has some, though..." He scrambled up and walked over to the table next to the table beside him. "Here you go."

mikki smiled kindly at him and took the offered lead, popping the cap off her mechanical pencil and feeding it.

“you take good notes,” she commented as she resumed her scribbling. she stopped again and reached over to close the notebook. sure enough, his name was neatly written on the cover.

Maxmillian Krisna Deveraux.

that certainly was, a mouthful.

 

“maxmillian krisna deveraux,” she tested the name before continuing. “that’s a pretty long name.” the last name sounded french to her, but maxmillian was more english. it would be hard to write his name in hangul.

 "Er. Yeah. My parents ... yeah." He wasn't prone to telling people about his background in first meetings, no sir. "And uh, well, I just write what's important cause I usually remember most things, you know..." He scratched the back of his head nervously. "I mean, if you want to borrow really good notes, you might wanna try ... uh, some other people." They had a lot in this class.

she titled her head to the side, again. he was awkward. maybe more so than when she, herself, came into class with at least thirty pairs of eyes on her. dropping her feet back on the ground, she reached into her pocket to pull out two small candies. strawberry flavoured, guilty pleasure.

“here. token of appreciation.”

it wasn’t as if she had asked him permission to copy his notes, but mikki was like that. she needed, she took. of course, she had been brought up nicely and saying thanks was built into her. her palm was left outstretched, waiting for max to take the candy.

Ooooh, food. Max hesitated, still, but the fact that Lee YeonJu was playing it cool and actually offered him food kind of won major points. Major, major points.
 
"Um. Thanks, I guess." He took one candy from her palm. 

if charm didn’t win over guys, food certainly always did. she unwrapped the candy and popped it into her mouth, lolling the sweet from one side to the other with her tongue.

“what are you doing after the next period?” she asked him, pocketing the wrapper in her skirt before smoothing it down with a hand. “having lunch?”

side glance, she could tell some people were curious about her. mikki chose who she spoke to, not the other way around. this one, although awkward and shy, didn’t seem like the type to gossip or hang with bad crowds. she decided then that she liked him, as simple as that. mikki was generally nice to everyone, but she knew whom she could like and get along with as well as those she couldn’t. it didn’t bother her much to know there was a strong possibility this guy didn’t like her.

"Mmhm. Lunch with a couple friends." Usually Alma and Zaki, or if he were lucky he'd munch of JiSoon's lunchbox for extra food. "... Wanna join us?"

“if you don’t mind,” mikki said, slowly. she finished writing her sentence and made a flourish at the period. “is there a place where i can buy something to drink, here?”

she figured it was probably the most subtle, yet clear way of asking him if he could show her around the school. or maybe, the mikki way of telling him she wasn't familiar with the grounds. at all. ripping a blank page from her notebook, she laid it on max’s desk and randomly drew on it.

"Hmm. We've got vending machines down the hall, but drinks... usually we bring our own or go to the cafeteria on breaktime, you know?" Max wasn't getting it, yet. Could say that he wasn't used to dealing with girls.
 
For realz, yo.

“no.” she blinked and looked at him. there was a moment of silence. “no, i wouldn’t know,” she spoke in a soft, quiet voice. she smiled somewhat, turning back to her drawing. “i’m new, remember?”

"Well, yeah..." Max shifted a little. "... Well, I can show you around, after school, if you want to?" Oh, God. What was he doing offering to show the school to a girl. A girl he knew almost nothing about, even. He could very well embarrass himself.
 
... But then again his mouth had always been quicker than his brain. That was why he was friends with Alma, really (well, aside from the fact that she was batshit insane and a gamer to boot). 

she didn’t play coy. “i would appreciate that,” she glanced at him. “maxmilian.”

            students were making their way back to their seats and mikki looked at the clock on the wall. class was due to start in a few minutes and as if on cue, a teacher walked through the doors and started shuffling his papers on the podium. she adverted her eyes down at the paper and wrote a few digits next to the quick portrait she had done of max out of boredom. “if we don’t happen to have the same class at fourth period, this is my number. text me, we can meet at the front gate.”

            mikki pushed the paper towards him and got up, sliding the borrowed chair back into its place. she made a waving motion with her hand before returning to her desk for the next hour or so of class.

... Oh, she'd draw -
 
... him.
 
Aw, now he really had to show her around.

IIKOREAII thought hard on 19:45.