Hero sat on the wide steps on the entrance of Bartholomew, Andro behind him. On the same step but further left, sat Isah, who, with a smile to match the sun, was on the phone to Irina.
Beside Hero, sat the fourth and final member of the four friends. Giovanni Richards was grinning as he watched all the attention the boys got. His light silver hair- which was his favour for the month- shone with added glitter. His shoes, bright new Saint Laurent's, had Hero smirking.
"Gio," he mused quietly, not taking his eyes off the rising sun. It was early in the morning still. "What did I tell you about taking my shoes?"
Gio didn't respond instantly, but from the corner of his eye, Hero noted that he was smirking. "You said- and I quote- "Gio, please bless my shoes with your feet. I will cherish them for life, and sell them on ebay when you're famous and I'm a broke bitch.""
Hero couldn't suppress a laugh. "What a memory you've got on you, Gio," he said, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. "Honestly, even I don't remember word-for-word what I said. But you... wow."
Gio nodded, proud. "Precisely." He muttered. "Oh, I heard about the new girl. Shitty I had to miss that."
"About Ari?" Andro interjected, looking up from his phone. Hero's jaw tightened, but he still looked outwards, his arm leaning on his bent knee. "What's there to miss?"
"Nothing," Hero said instantly, giving Gio a look, who shrugged and wrapped his fingers in a lock of his own silver hair. "Don't worry about it."
Andro, shrugging, returned to his phone.
"Who are you texting this early in the morning anyway?" Hero asked, turning slightly to look at his brother, whose cheeks, he noted, had tinted red upon the question.
"Aria," he replied. "She's in Pick and Micks. She's just asking if I want anything."
Hero's jaw clenched further, though he didn't understand why. It was none of his concern who his brother- or Greeny, at that- spent their time with.
"Tell her," he couldn't help himself from saying. "to get me a black coffee."
Andro didn't respond, but hummed instead. "I mean, if we're giving orders, I'll have a green tea." Hero raised his eyebrow at Gio. "What? I'm on a diet."
Hero rolled his eyes at that one. When was he not?
"Milk tea," Isah called out. "Tell her to get me a shortcake too, please."
"Guys," Andro said defensively. "She's not a waitress."
"Well, don't you want your new girlfriend to have our approval?" Isah looked up at that, recognising the tone instantly from Hero's mouth. He narrowed his eyes slightly. "That's the way to get it."
"She's not my girlfriend," Andro replied in a small voice.
Hero rolled his eyes and stood swiftly, checking the time on his watch. "I'll be in class." He looked at Isah expectedly. "You have it too, Genius. Unless you plan on getting a late lesson from Professor Kieran-"
"I'm coming, arse face," replied Isah with a groan as he hauled himself up, slipped his phone into his back pocket, and stretched. "Don't forget, we have Pool today. Hero? Andro, you in? "
Hero nodded. "Two-on-two?" he asked. Isah nodded. "Yeah, we'll do it."
They walked to Finance, which was in the other building. Climbing down the steps, Hero suddenly felt eyes on him.
For once, instead of ignoring it, he actually turned to see who it was who was looking at him. His eyes instantly connected to two balls of icy green. His jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed. He made a move to go straight to her, but halted upon seeing that she was coming to him, the same expression on her face too.
He awaited the lecture he knew she would give him- the demand for a new phone... something, to lure him back into her attention hold again.
Instead he blinked when she held out a cup of steaming black coffee for him.
He looked up from the cup to her, who was watching him with pursed lips. He took the coffee silently, almost too afraid to ask if she had done anything to it before giving it to him.
She had all of their drinks in a plastic cup holder. She picked up the one marked Milk tea and then dug into her backpack for a wrapped shortcake, both of which she gave to her brother.
Hero blinked harder as she climbed the steps, gave Gio his green tea and finally, with a smile he would trade the coffee for, she took a seat next to his brother, handing him his hot chocolate while taking a small sip of her own.
Hero clenched his jaw, turned on his heel and walked. Isah stumbled to keep up with him.
"You donkey," he groaned when he had finally caught up. "Just slow down. Not everyone has ten-mile-long legs."
Hero ignored him and tried to focus on the bitter taste of the coffee, and not the bitterness left behind after he had seen Greeny so comfortable with his brother.
***
Aria stared at the equation in front of her, her lips curled, her hair tied in a bun on the top of her head. She bit the pencil between her lips and wondered what x was. She had already tried completing the square, but had ended up with pie as an answer, which she knew to be wrong. So, as she stared at it again on the canteen table, she was unable to- for the first time in a long time- figure out what to do.
"Aria," Sebastian groaned beside her. She ignored him . "It doesn't matter if you can't answer it. It doesn't take away from your intelligence."
She continued to ignore him. She felt a presence beside her. She ignored that too, and focussed only on the numbers on the page, pushing back the hair covering her eyes.
"If a is the number of dollars," she said to herself quietly. "And x is the number of days, it should be directly proportionate. If you multiply x by three, you have to half a. So-"
"Move," a voice said from above her. She didn't deter her concentration, and narrowed her eyes. In one swift move, her chair was sliding to the left with her still on it. She knew before she looked up who had kicked it, so she didn't bother moving her head off the table, but grabbed her sheet of paper so it came with her. She lifted her head, and then tilted it, chewing on the corner of her lip.
"You always round number of people down," she reminded herself quietly. She felt eyes on her. "And years down, too. Otherwise you get too much."
She sighed, and fiddled now with the corner of her notebook. She heard forks clanging as someone took a seat next to her. She smelt him before he was there, anyway. She wondered why, if he was desperate enough to literally kick her chair away earlier, he couldn't just stay away and let her be.
"Are you doing math?" His voice was purposely kind, she noted. As if he were forcing himself to be nicer to her. He needn't bother, she thought. She was only standing him for Andro's sake anyway.
She didn't reply, and in seconds he had taken the book from her.
She yelped, feeling her trail of thought get broken, and stood to take it from him.
Hero, however, was too tall. All he had to do was hold it above his head, and there was no way she could reach. She pulled at his arm and everything. Nothing worked, until she huffed and dropped her chin onto her palm, flopping back into her seat. Sebastian watched the encounter with curious eyes.
"Ah," Hero chided. "I remember this. Damn thing took me a week and a half." He took a seat beside Aria. "Need help?"
She narrowed her eyes and snatched the notebook from him.
"No." she said, wondering when he had taken maths. "Not from you, especially."
"Hey," A voice Aria didn't recognise said. She looked up to see a girl. She had spoken to Hero. "I bought you lunch."
Hero didn't move his gaze from Aria's face, but had a smirk playing about his lips.
"Why?" He asked, as if the other girl hadn't spoken. "Afraid I'm smarter than you?"
Aria looked between the two. Hero genuinely didn't know the girl had even come up to them. He was too busy observing the way Aria's cheekbones looked higher when she had her hair up like that. He thought it looked... nice.
"Erm," she looked at him, but looked away from the intensity (and playfulness) of his silver stare. "Someone wants you."
Hero raised an eyebrow, broken from his stare.
He looked up, finally noticing the girl, who was now blushing from embarrassment. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he muttered under his breath. He met her gaze again. "Thanks," he forced out, unaware of where this kindness was from. "But I don't want it. I already got lunch." The girl blinked, not expecting the kindness. Aria looked at Hero's uneaten plate, and felt her stomach rumble. She looked at the cue. It was too long right now, she would go later.
"W-well, you can have it for later... I bought it for you-" Hero zoned out her words as his eyes found what was really happening. Stood a few tables back, a few girls with their phones filmed the interaction. A dare. Again.
Hero clenched his jaw. "I said," he repeated, slower, deeper. "I. Don't. Want. It."
The girl turned a dark scarlet, and Aria's head whipped around to Hero, who was still glaring at the other girl. "Leave." She did, upon hearing the one word, and scrambled away, just as red-head had done the previous night.
Aria was in shock. What an absolutely self-centred, prick, annoying-faced asshole.
"You're such a dick." He looked at her as she spoke, bored.
"And you're so judge-y, but you don't see me complaining." He rolled his eyes at the baffled look on her face. In front of them, the chair scraped as someone took a seat. Neither broke their glare from one another.
"What is your problem?" she hissed, almost disbelieving. "I don't particularly care which animal made its way up your ass and died there, but you don't have to be such a class-a dickhead all the time."
"Ooh, little miss perfect messed up her angel language," he muttered patronisingly. Unknowingly, the two had moved closer to one another. "Someone call the police."
"The police," she hissed back. "Are reserved for the proper assholes such as yourself."
"I can buy the whole of the NYPD, Greeny," his silver eyes darkened. They both leaned closer to each other, both fuming. "They wouldn't dare touch me."
"Looking at you now, I wouldn't dare touch you either, Eden. God only knows how many diseases I would catch. Gosh, does sitting here put me at risk too?"
He chuckled, but it was dark, and sardonic rather than of humour. "You have no idea who you are fucking with, Greeny," he said, voice full of venom and so deep it scratched. "I can ruin you with one touch."
She leaned forward, uncaring for the first time of all the eyes on her. "You're on, Hero Eden."
• • •
Andro's eyes flickered between the two as he finally, finally realised why his brother was so weird around Aria.
He had a crush on her.
Andro couldn't suppress the small smile from his lips, which he quickly fought off.
Never before had Hero met a girl who actually fought back, or who had a reply to every one of his insults, just as she was doing now. Aria may have initially been quiet as heck, but once she was comfortable- which it seemed she was right now- she was a fire bomb. And, Andro noticed, Hero lived for it.
He glanced at Aria's friend- Sebastian- who, too, was watching the two with curiosity, his eyebrow gently furrowed.
Suddenly, Andro's smile dropped. Hero liked Aria? What did that mean for the two of them? He wasn't sure he liked her the same way as his brother, but he knew he would never let her get hurt. Plus, maybe he did, in fact, like her like that. Maybe the fact that, when their hands touched, the spark that lit up his body wasn't something all friends have between each other.
Andro glanced down at his hands as both parties arguing huffed and dropped back into their seats. Isah and Gio took their seats on the table too, and Andro immediately noticed the stares they got. He shook his head.
"Hero," he said, attracting Aria's attention too. She hadn't noticed him, or anyone else for that matter, sitting around them. "We should go get ready. The match is in half an hour." He glanced at Aria. "Would you like to come?"
"No." Hero said instantly, only confirming Andro's thoughts. He was so infatuated.
"To what?" She asked, rolling her eyes at Hero. What a prick.
"Pool," Andro replied, looking right at her. "It's in the Games Studio."
She shrugged. "Sure," she replied. "I have nothing else on for the rest of the day."
Hero groaned, while Andro smiled softly. Aria returned it almost shyly, attracting Hero's attention. He looked between the two, and could practically see the heart-eye emojis pouring from their eyes.
"Andro," he sung, holding out his water bottle. "Don't you and your girlfriend wanna eat first?"
Andro flushed a deep red, and Aria rolled her eyes, reaching over to slap Hero's arm not so gently. "Hate to break your heart," she muttered. "But you're not as funny as you would like to believe."
"You're right," Hero replied, rubbing his bicep. The girl could hit. "I'm funnier."