soulmates ⋮ heroes of olympus au

three.

The bell ringing interrupted his thoughts, and the teacher Mrs. Stevens flounced into the art room and began taking attendance. For once in his life, Frank actually paid attention to the names she was calling out instead of zoning out per usual. She eventually called her name, Hazel, and Frank found himself fighting back a smile for more reasons than just being able to remember her name.

"Okay so I know you all are going to hate me for this," Mrs. Stevens started after she took attendance, tapping a pen on the clipboard in front of her. "But we're going to start out the year with a project."

Everyone around Frank groaned in annoyance, and Mrs. Stevens shushed them. "Now, we're going to be working as partners." Hazel reached to a girl with bright red hair that he recognized to be Rachel Dare and began eagerly whispering with her, while Frank was looking around the classroom, desperate to at least find someone he somewhat knew to be his partner. "Assigned partners."

The class became louder with their frustration, and while Frank was relieved that he no longer had to find a partner himself, he had always hated assigned group work. HIs luck with partners in the past had not been the best. Teachers tended to assign Frank with the people in the class who didn't do any work on projects, and his grades always seemed to suffer in the process.

Mrs. Stevens began calling out the different pairs, and Frank kept his fingers crossed, praying he would be paired with someone who would do more than 10% of the work.

"Frank Zhang, you'll be working with Hazel Levesque."

Maybe Frank's luck doesn't suck as much as he thought.

Hazel turned towards Frank and nodded as a greeting, smiling but keeping her gaze low. Frank tried to meet her eyes and smile in response, but she lowered her head back to look at her sketchbook that she had been drawing in for the past couple of minutes.

"So you guys will have about a month to work on this project" Mrs. Stevens began to explain. "You'll be spending the time learning about your partner and then the final result will be creating a portrait of your partner that you feel represents them. Now, I'll be giving you one day a week for the next four weeks to work with your partner, but then you'll have to work outside of class with your partner."

Normally, Frank would have taken notes when a teacher was assigned a project like this, but Frank figured he would be able to remember it all pretty easily. Plus, Frank didn't want to look like the odd one out because he would've been the only one in the class taking notes.

"I'll give you the rest of the period to get to know and begin to work with your partner," Mrs. Stevens said as she gestured for the class to move to sit next to their partners before sitting back down at her desk.

Frank turned to Hazel, who had moved over to sit in the empty seat beside him but appeared to be hesitant to start the conversation. He couldn't help but notice how her feet were at least a couple inches off the ground, swinging back and forth.

"Hi," Frank began in an attempt to initiate a conversation, extending out his hand to her. "I'm Frank. I figured we should at least introduce ourselves properly before we start the project."

She shook my hand and looked up at me for the first time that period, the hint of a smile gracing her features. "I'm Hazel. So I guess we need to get to know one another to do this project?"

"Yeah...yeah we should do that," Frank stammered, feeling his cheeks beginning to heat up with embarrassment. "So...what are your hobbies?"

If Frank could, he would slap himself over how lame he was being.

"Well clearly I love art," Hazel said with a chuckle, gesturing with her arm around the room. "But I'm also super into riding horses."

Frank smiled at her, hopefully keeping a cool facade, but his brain was going absolutely haywire as it kept pointing out the fact his tattoo had both a horse and a sketch pad. He tried his best to calm his mind down, attempting to convince himself that it was probably just a coincidence, but his heart didn't seem to want to listen. "So you're an equestrian?"

"You know what that is?" Hazel exclaimed with a small laugh. "I just encountered someone in my history class who didn't know what an equestrian was. I swear it's a dying sport."

"That's kind of nuts that someone didn't know what an equestrian was," Frank replied, chuckling. The conversation hit a lull for a second, then Frank realized he should probably speak up. "I guess I should tell you about myself, shouldn't I."

"That'd probably be nice, yes."

For a second Frank hesitated, trying to think of what about himself was actually somewhat interesting to tell Hazel.

"I love playing football," He eventually told her. "I'm one of the linebackers for the team, but I don't think I really want to pursue it as a career. I think I want to be a veterinarian because I've always loved animals, especially eagles. But I'm still not entirely sure."

Eyes widening in what seemed to be shock, Hazel sucked in her breath really quickly, but Frank couldn't figure out what about what I had said could lead to a reaction like that. "Oh, that's...that's really cool."

Hazel's stutter confused Frank even more, but he didn't dwell on it for too long, as the two ended up talking a lot more about their lives and had a fun conversation together. He could tell Hazel was reserved, but as they spoke more she began to open up a little bit which made Frank smile even more. Hazel turned out to be really funny, and Frank found himself laughing for ages over the small jokes that the brown-haired girl would make. It also didn't help that Hazel had one of the prettiest smiles he had ever seen and almost seemed to brighten up the already vivid colorful art room they were in.

Because of this, Frank found himself disappointed when he heard the bell ringing, signifying the end of the class period. "I'll see you tomorrow?" Frank asked as if he was unsure that Hazel would be there in class tomorrow.

"See you tomorrow," Hazel confirmed, packing her stuff up into her purple backpack that was covered in colorful patches that clearly placed on there herself. "Bye, Frank!"

Frank couldn't help but stare at Hazel as she made her way down the hallway, her curls bouncing behind her as she walked. He felt someone move next to him in the hallway, and he looked to see that it was Percy. "Dude, are you okay?" Percy asked him, sensing that something was off about his close friend. "You seem a little bit flustered."

"I'm...I'm good."

Percy, who could somehow tell that Frank was still lying, followed the direction of Frank's stare, and managed to catch the boy staring at the back of Hazel's head. "Oh...you like her."

Frank rolled his eyes, annoyed at Percy's insistence. Of course Percy would think Frank liked her – which he didn't. "I am not! And it's not like you can say anything, either. You wouldn't stop talking about the girl in your English class at lunch."

"Hey!" Percy began in a defensive tone of voice. "Annabeth was just really interesting to me. That doesn't mean I am attracted to her. But you, my friend, are definitely attracted to Hazel."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"You might deny it now, but one day you'll admit I'm right as I always am," Percy patted him on the shoulder and began walking in the opposite direction. "I'll see you sixth period!"

Frank found himself groaning in annoyance as Percy sauntered down the hall away from him, clearly pleased with himself. It was only the first day of school, and Percy was now convinced that Frank liked Hazel when in fact he was simply just interested in her. Interested in the girl with the pretty curly hair, funny jokes, and bright smile.

Interested.

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