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“… Is the dramatic silence over yet?”

Tomoyo thought for a second. “Not quite yet… hold on… Alright, that should be enough pausing for dramatic effect, don’t you think?”

It took her a moment to gather her thoughts again. Fai, huh? Sakura had to admit, from his name it sounded like he had popped right out of a fantasy RPG. Thanks to her very imaginative nature, a brief image of him with a broadsword in hand flashed before her mind, but she shook her head. No, he was definitely more the staff type.

“Can’t take your eyes off?” Tomoyo purred. Was it just Sakura, or did it seem like her newest friend was up to something…? As she stuttered out nonsense in reply, Tomoyo simply smiled. “He’s looking at you, Sakura.”

“H… Eh?” She stopped herself from “hoe”-ing again. It would not be good if she let that slip.

Sure enough, he was staring right over at them—right over at her, to be exact. She felt embarrassed; did he know they had been talking about him? From the look in his eyes, it sure as heck seemed like he did. Sakura could feel her face getting redder by the minute.

And then he did the unimaginable: he waved with a carefree smile plastered on his face.

Feeling like an idiot, she waved back, and then quickly turned around to stare at the oh-so-interesting speck of God-knows-what on her pizza slice.

Well, that was awkward.

“Ohoho, your face is beat red, Sakura!”

She sat in silence for the rest of lunch as everyone thought it was necessary to comment on Sakura’s sudden resemblance to a tomato.

The second-to-last class was Biology, which seemed to be the only class none of her lunch-mates seemed to have with her. The classroom was pretty jam-packed, and there was only one empty seat in sight. Of course, that was the seat that she was assigned to. And of course, that seat just happened to be next to Mr. Flourite.

Face already heating up from the ever-so-awkward scene from lunch, she dropped her book bag with a heavy thud (it was about to explode from the textbooks she’d gotten along with the notebooks she’d bought) and sat at the table.

Was it just her, or was there a total tense air between her and the boy next to her? She glanced at him while the teacher was busy writing things she was sure she was supposed to be taking notes on. He was staring straight ahead with a clenched jaw. He seemed like he was in pain or something…

“Are you okay?” The words slipped out before she could stop herself. Gosh darn it.

He turned toward her, eyebrows raised, then smiled. “Actually… you dropped your book bag on my foot.”

“Oh! I-I’m sorry!” she whispered back, moving her ten-ton bag. Well, that was brilliant! Just drop your crap on a stranger’s foot. Yup, that’s the best and easiest way to make a friend.

Fai gave a sigh of relief. “Hyuu~! That’s one heavy pack. Haven’t they assigned you a locker yet?”

…

“‘Hyuu~?’” She’d heard a lot of weird sayings before, but that was definitely a new one.

“Kinomoto.” She jumped at the teacher’s voice and felt the blood drain from her face. Oh no, she couldn’t be in trouble the first day! She would be labeled the entire year by the teacher as ‘the one who can’t keep her mouth shut’! Luckily, that didn’t seem to be the teacher’s intention. “What part of a cell is this?” He pointed to a diagram on the board.

“That’s the mitochondria.” Thank goodness her class in Arizona had studied this just two weeks earlier.

He nodded, pleased. “Good. Over here we have…” He turned his back on the class and continued with the lesson.

“So, you’re Sakura then?” Fai asked. He rested his chin on his palm and stared at her with, you guessed it, a smile plastered on his face.

“Yes.” She had no idea why everyone at lunch seemed to think he was so aloof and antisocial. He seemed perfectly friendly! She started to actually copy down what was on the board. “And you’re Fai, right?”

“Mm-hm! You and Tomoyo were talking about me during lunch,” he said lightly.

Her pencil skittered across the table and onto the floor. “Oh, uh, we weren’t really—she was just filling me in on everyone. Y’know, to give me the lay-of-the-land and everything!” Would the embarrassment end?! Somebody in Forks had to hate her.

Her teacher obviously wasn’t that person. He ended their horrible conversation by moving on to the next activity. He passed out a classroom set of microscopes and slides. Each table (two sat at each table) got a worksheet that they had to fill out before class ended.

Pro: She got to do group work, which was always better than boring individual work. Con: She had to do it with Fai after the blush-fest she’d been providing for the last half hour.

Once again, thank goodness she hadn’t moved two weeks earlier. She and Fai actually whizzed right through the sheet. Fai seemed to be pretty good at biology, since he was able to name them after looking only a fraction of a second through the microscope. Biology wasn’t really Sakura’s favorite, but she was pretty speedy as well.

For the rest of the class period (everyone else took quite a while to finish), she and Fai chatted it up. Mostly he asked her questions, like what it was like in Arizona and stuff like that. The conversation carried pretty well, which was surprising, since most “nice to meet you” conversations turn really awkward within the first couple of minutes. Fai seemed like a really nice guy!

But something was off.

The first problem was his face. Okay, that probably came off meaner than it was supposed to. What she meant was, even though he smiled a lot, it never reached his eyes. They were always vacant, and Sakura easily recognized it as sadness.

He also just gave off this weird… aura? Maybe it was just a feeling, but he seemed different than everyone else. And no, it was not because he was blonde. Though it did seem nearly everyone else had darker hair… was hair dye that popular nowadays?

Class ended. Everyone handed the worksheets to the teacher and packed their bags up, which looked like they were about to explode and send papers flying everywhere. Fai and Sakura got up to leave as well.

“See you—um, hasta manana?” Sakura corrected. She really was behind in Spanish and needed to practice the little she did know.

“Actually, it’s ‘hasta mañana,’ with the tilde over the first ‘n.’” Fai was a senior, so it was to be assumed he had already taken Spanish. “Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. I’ve always preferred French, though.”

“Oh, um, right…” She wasn’t quite sure how he knew she hadn’t put the tilde over the first ‘n’ when she spoke it though, since she had said it exactly like he had. She beamed at him anyway though. It was always nice to make a new friend, and Fai seemed like a very nice person.

They walked out together, ready to go their separate ways, when their arms brushed. Fai walked away, but Sakura paused just outside the biology room. His skin had been ice cold.

The very last period of the day just happened to be Sakura’s favorite: Phys Ed. It had been her favorite since elementary school (just as math had been her most hated), and she’d always been pretty good at it. She had been on a number of school athletic teams throughout all of her school years.

It seemed this week’s focus was on one sport in particular: volleyball. Sakura wished they could have gone outside to play, but Forks was a lot cooler than Arizona. Even though it was only early October, the thermometer’s all read around a cool forty degrees—and that was the high. How in the world would she survive here?

Instead of the sandy volleyball pit outside, they were stuck inside the musty, humid and altogether disgustingly hot gymnasium. Okay, it wasn’t that bad. But it was damp, courtesy of leaky patches in the roof. And it smelled, but all gyms did.

“Sakura!”

Tomoyo waved at her from the top bleacher. When they had been changing at the start of the class period, Sakura had asked if Tomoyo had forgotten her change of clothes. It turned out that Tomoyo had a doctor’s note that said she wouldn’t be able to participate in gym for the entire semester. Of course, Sakura was horrified. What could be so terribly wrong with her friend? Tomoyo wouldn’t give out any other information.

The dark-haired girl smiled at her. “Sakura, you look lovely in your sports wear!”

She blushed. “Tomoyo, I think the match is starting…!” she said, trying to change the subject. As she spoke, a girl on her team served the ball over the net.

“Good luck! Oh, I almost forgot….”

Sakura didn’t wait to see what Tomoyo had almost forgotten; the ball was already being volleyed over back to her side. So, she did what came naturally; rocked the socks of every one of her teammates! It seemed they had been worried about her (her cuteness was deceiving, or so she’d been told), but they had no need to worry at all. She bunted the ball like it was no one’s business over to the other side, where it landed right on the back line.

The rest of her team cheered; the guys (their class was co-ed) even gave her high fives. They were delighted when they won their first set, many of their points thanks to Sakura.

It wasn’t until halfway through the second set that she noticed it. Tomoyo had cheered in the stands after Sakura had scored another point, so naturally, Sakura turned to thank her. She wasn’t really expecting something to reflect back into her eye.

“T-Tomoyo,” she started warily. “Is that a… camcorder?”

“Of course!” Why did Tomoyo make unordinary things seem like they were completely normal? “I have to capture your volleyball prowess for the yearbook committee!”

“But don’t you need a regular camera for yearbook photos?”

She was, as ever, unfazed. “Oh, I already took enough of those. These are for myself!”

Sakura didn’t get a chance to question further; her thoughts were interrupted by several people shouting her name. As she turned she saw the blurry form of the volleyball headed straight for her. Okay, so it wouldn’t kill her, but it would still hurt like hell! Not to mention all the taunts from Touya later….

The pain never came. Another form, coming from her right, flew right in front of her. The girls around her screamed in surprise as Sakura looked down to see a boy on the gym floor, hugging the volleyball that he had snatched out of the air.

Though she was shocked as well, she couldn’t help but think how majorly epic that was. Still, she knelt beside him, stuttering again (what was with her speech impediment today?). “A-Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

The boy sat up and rubbed his shoulder with his free hand. His brown hair was tousled from the fall (or maybe it was always like that?). “Yes… I am fine.” He offered her the ball. Sakura couldn’t help but notice had beautiful amber eyes. Did everyone have amazing eyes in Forks or what? “I think it is your serve.”

“Thanks…” She took the ball and the boy seemed to get up with no problem. He grabbed the book bag he had abandoned on the sideline and walked up to the front of the gym, where he handed the coach a note. He then headed into the boys’ locker room and out of sight.

Luckily, it hadn’t just been her that was watching him. The entire class seemed mesmerized. The silence was only broken when Tomoyo started clapping.

“Well, that was rather dashing, wasn’t it?”


A/N: There's the second part! Once again, you can find this story and subscribe/favorite it (if you want to keep up-to-date) on fanfiction.net My username on there is Kiana-Ishido and the title's the same: "For Lack of Twilight Parodies." See you for the third chapter, entitled "Is it Native American for "The Plush... Toy?" biggrin