A New Friend

The unexpected duo of a nerd boy and a buff girl were having a blast, laughter erupting from their table repeatedly. The more they discussed while shaping their lumps of clay, the more they discovered interests which they shared. Yet time wasn’t infinite and the clock ticked away, bringing with it the ring of the bell.

”I gotta say,” he turned to face her, ”I certainly wasn’t expecting us to talk about TTRPG for the majority of the class.”

“Why not?” answered Lily with an arched eyebrow. ”I think it’s cool, not that I had much opportunity to partake in it tho.” Suddenly her eyes opened wide, and in a swift movement she reached over, taking hold of John’s project. She held it close as she examined it. ”Woaahh” Her eyes were twinkling with excitement as she stared at him. “That’s me, ain’t it?” she asked, pointing at the clay figure. ”Ya modeled me a suit of armor, a weapon, and everything!” Handling it with care, she studied it under as many angles as she could. ”Once ya’re done, would ya mind giving it to me?” she almost begged, a twinkle in her eyes.

John was stunned at the sudden demand; what more he had not intended to use her as the model and had done so unconsciously, much to his embarrassment. “Ah… euh… sure, I don’t mind.” He scratched his cheek. “Do you like it that much?”

“Ya bet I do,” she replied with a smirk, putting the figurine back in front of him gently. “Ya paid a lot of attention when I was talking about my character, eh~?” she ribbed him with a playful poke on the shoulder.

He replied with a weak laugh. “I guess I did,” he mumbled as he grabbed his things for the next class, then they waved each other off as a token gesture as they each headed to their next classes.

John rubbed his eyes in an attempt to shake off the last few dregs of drowsiness that his math teacher had inflicted upon them. He was a nice guy, but go- but in Gaia’s name, did he have a tendency to ramble on and drain the energy of everyone. Were energy vampires a thing? He was sure he remembered watching something related to that anyway and with magic being a thing now, well, who knew?

<Gaia> I’ll keep the surprise!

Glancing at the notification blinking slowly, his thought was, ‘A new message from Big G,’ soon followed by, ‘New UI, nice,’ before a cold shiver ran down his spine when he read the message. ‘Shit, they’re 100% real.’

<Gaia> Are they? ;D

Ignoring the fact that the goddess was taunting him with an emoji, or at least trying to ignore it, he entered the bustling cafeteria. As per usual he noted that most of the tables were occupied by their usual cliques, not that he was part of any of them.

Pushing the thought away, he grabbed one of the dull green plastic trays as he took his place at the back of the queue. While he waited his turn, lost in thought, a finger jabbed him in the ribs and jolted him back to reality. A smirking redhead now stood behind him. Having to gaze slightly upward to meet her eyes, he realized that she was actually a couple of inches taller than him, maybe 6’4” or almost 2 meters in metric.

Noticing his surprise, her smirk deepened. “Pretty n’ tall, I know.” She flung her hair upward with her hand in a mocking mimicry of a model or some old rock magazine cover. She wasn’t just tall, even compared to him, yet somehow, during art class, he hadn’t noticed the absolute pair of knockers she was sporting, so he had to do his best to keep his gaze from drifting downward while they chatted.

“We share history next, right?” asked Lily, fiddling with her plastic tray as the queue slowly crawled forward.

After a pensive pause John nodded. “I think the teacher mentioned something about starting a new project?”

“I think so too,” Lily answered. “Oh, I’ll take the stir-fry, thanks.” After taking her food, her gaze settled back on him. “What’ch ya taking?”

“Uh, the same, I guess?” He shrugged, grabbing his own plate before heading for the register.

“Whatch’ya doin’?” Lily asked with a confused expression when she noticed that John hadn’t been following and was standing around awkwardly.

“Wondering where, uh…I would sit.”

“With me?” Her head tilted slightly as if to communicate that it was obvious. “We got the same class after lunch anyway…” Sad puppy eyes that seemed to be teasing were now staring at him. “Unless you are embarrassed to be seen with such a tomboyish gal.

Taken aback by the sudden teasing, and the realisation that a girl, a pretty one at that, might want to be seen with him, impacted him like a sack of bricks and rendered him speechless for a moment. “NO, I, uh… would love it actually.” The end was barely a whisper filled with embarrassment as he trailed behind the smirking redhead to a table in the corner where another redheaded girl that he recognized was already sitting.

“YO, MOIRA!” Lily loudly greeted the other girl, sitting beside her, leaving the two opposite seats open.

The stern looking girl, who seemed to be friends or least acquainted with Lily, looked at her with an arched eyebrow before giving him a quick look. “Greetings, I’m Moira Brighton, you may call me Moira.” She was handling her cutlery in a peculiar manner that appeared to be mindful of etiquette, at least to his untrained eye. “And you are?” The cutlery paused as her eyes stared at him.

“Johnny!” interjected Lily between two mouthfuls of stir-fry as she mowed down her plate.

“John, John Newman,” he corrected. “Please call me John,” he added before taking a bite of his stir-fry, mindful of his manner

“We met in art class.” Lily chowed down another mouthful. “He’s amazing, like Gregor level good.”

Moira’s gaze wandered from Lily’s crude chowing back to him. “Is that so?” Her tone shifted; he even perceived some hint of interest in it.

“I might be better than the average student.” He paused, chewing on his words. “I got no pretension to be a professional, Ms. Summers’ works are leagues above mine.”

“You ARE aware that she is recognized internationally as an artist, right?” answered Moira, half asking and half stating a fact.

“Really?” He stopped, fork midway to his mouth before lowering it back to the plate. “I knew she was successful as an artist and well off, but not that successful.”

“Pretty and rich, uh,” added Lily in front of her empty plate, patting her stomach. “Oh, you should see this.” She quickly pulled out her phone, a few swift taps on the screen and she turned the screen towards the other girl.

“I see, I had assumed you were exaggerating a little bit when you claimed he was up to par with Gregor.” Her gaze shifted from the phone up to John’s own gaze. “You should have a bit more pride in yourself.” Grabbing her chin in a pensive manner, she added, “ You could definitely make a living from this.”

“Thanks, I, euh… don’t know what else to say. I wasn’t… expecting so much to be quite honest,” John answered, awkwardly scratching his cheeks.

“We might have some work for this talent of yours,” Moira added. “I’ll tell Lilyanna to inform you when I have the details.”

John shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind making some extra bucks, depending on what the task is, of course.”