>>62800473There it was again. That smile and the attentive eyes. Susie’s heart was back to skipping beats.
“Umm, uhh… Yeah that was all.”
“You sure about tha-?”
“SEE YOU LATER DUDE BYE!”
Those shimmering red eyes followed her as she sprinted towards her apartment.
________
Adrenaline fueled her body all night, kept her up until the wee hours of the morning, and awoke her earlier than she would with a full night’s sleep. She would consider herself lucky if she got anywhere near four hours. She awoke neither exhausted or well-rested, but frenzied, as if she had never slept at all. Her body shook as it wrestled every ounce of energy it had in reserve into her system to keep her awake. Her seat at the back of the class scraped the linoleum underneath at times with her fidgeting. Such were the circumstances that had brought her to class a whole ten minutes early. Alphys’ greetings and concerned questions raised over the dragon’s apparent disheveledness were met only with boilerplate responses, given as if she were running on automatic.
“Yeah.”
“Uh Huh.”
“Yep.”
The awkward teacher hardly caught on until the rest of the class trickled in. The moment Susie saw apple-red eyes and hazelnut hair, her shaking body went taut. It didn’t let up any when Kris went to say hello.
“Hey, Susie.”
And there went her heart again, flying like a butterfly all around her chest.
“H-hey, Kris. I, uh…”
“What’s up?”
She didn’t have her line. Nothing prepared. She had to buy herself more time.
“Can I, uh, talk with you at lunch?”
The boy’s eyes remained alight under those wonderful, lush bangs of his. “Sure!”
If nothing else, the enthusiasm with which he replied to her was a good sign. A little victory in itself. Susie finally felt like she could breathe normally, and with the normalcy came a brick wall of exhaustion as her body finally let itself relax. She slept through most of Ms. Alphys’ lecture, throughout which, the human would often look back behind him and smile.
