AN: So this is a piece from a one hundred set I'm doing (#27: Foreign), using characters from a much longer story, and obviously all of the character relationships make sense to me (even if this isn't quite the way things happen). If anything's confusing, please let me know. The French: Petite ami means "boyfriend" (IIRC) and vraiment is "really."

She's not from here. It's as glaring as the red sunglasses she's wearing- and what's the point of sunglasses if you can see through them?- or the smirk on her face- and why on earth is she grinning at him like that?- or the way she stands in the middle of a crowd of grubby students and shines like there's no one else in the world worth looking at. ...Or the way she's coming closer, slipping through the other teenagers like they're not even there, like there's a path straight between him and her.

She has to be looking at someone else… except he's up against the wall and there's no one behind him or beside him (since he's not from here either; he's spent his last few days trying to find classes instead of friends).

She puts her hand on his shoulder; he is absolutely terrified, a rabbit faced with a fox and a realization: there's nowhere to run. He's trapped by the wall and her hand and the way she says, "I'm Danielle."

Her voice is soothing and soft and alluring (so maybe she's more of a snake than a fox), and before he knows it, he's answering, "Zachary."

"Well, hey there, Zach," she purrs, her voice even softer (but he still hears that Zach- it's not Zach, it's never Zach, and that lodges in his mind and keeps him somewhat sane) and her face much, much closer to his than it was a moment ago- dear God, she's not going to kiss him…? If she does, he'll die on the spot; his heart will explode from the shock because according to all the rules of the world girls do not talk to him, nobody talks to him-

And then she says, "You must be new." And she laughs- she laughs- and ruffles his hair. The bell rings, but she still doesn't release him; she takes his hand and guides him to his first class. He would like to say that he can find his way on his own, but his voice has disappeared, gone into hiding with the rules that, until this morning, governed the universe.

O-o-O-o-O

She's not from here. It's obvious when she plops her tray down next to him, ignoring the popular girls waving at her and the jocks whistling at her and the geeks praying that she will look their way. "I've only been going here for a few months myself," she comments, and she doesn't seem to care that he has not said a word beyond his name all day. "It's overwhelming, isn't it?"

He nods, shoving what he thinks might be a vegetable in his mouth before he can reply (because all that will fall out is a "What are you on?" or something in that vein, and he doesn't want to be rude, even if she is crazy).

"So where are you from?"

He pauses. Has she yet to realize that it doesn't matter what country he was born in? The place he's a real foreigner in is this situation- someone calmly holding a one-sided conversation with him, someone looking him right in the eyes, someone apparently caring what he thinks. Especially since that someone is a pretty girl who has a thousand other things she could be doing with her time. "Wales," and he wonders if he'll ever be able to use sentences around her. Maybe he'll be able to tell her, "This is really odd to me," when he's thirty. Of course, by then she'll have probably wised up, but hey. That's what telephones are for.

"I'm from Korea," she says, and unlike him she has no accent to betray her, but he supposes he can see it in the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles and how she hesitates over anything with an r. "I lived in France before I came here, though. It's a lot different. This whole place was a headache waiting to happen when I started."

"Haven't noticed much change." Closer, anyway. Maybe it'll only take him a few months to work his way out of fragments. "Bigger, that's all."

She glances at him, and she laughs, and her whole face lights up. "Now there's an understatement." She touches his arm and smiles like she's hiding a delicious secret behind her lips.

He looks away quickly and tries to pretend that it's the "vegetables" that make him long to taste that secret.

O-o-O-o-O

She's not from here. It's in the way he's stopped noticing how their friendship should be awkward except when she kisses both of his cheeks before they part ways for the weekend, even in front of her ever-changing boyfriends. How red he gets when she does that- and he always blushes; he never gets used to it- never fails to amuse her.

Friendship.

They're friends, although he rarely thinks that word. To him, she is Danielle- a girl with an American father and a Korean mother and a grandmother who tends to lapse into French, calling him cher and homme and fils like he's a member of the family even though he's only her grandaughter's new friend. She is the girl who has always ignored the rules that decide social class and gender identity and all the other crap they learn about in sociology, the one class they share and laugh about behind the teacher's back. She is the only friend he has brought home (because she is the only person he knows who doesn't balk at climbing onto his roof and stargazing).

He has other friends (it was inevitable, it seems, because whatever Danielle did to the world stuck, and other random people have decided they enjoy his company), yes, but she was the first. He is rarely completely comfortable around her (because, although he's learned to ignore it, there's still something in his head that refuses to stop yelling about how he's a boy and she's a girl- especially when she's just dropped her latest petite ami or when she cocks her head and smiles at him sideways), but she's easier to talk to than any of his other friends. She won't give him that dry look that Audrey does (because Audrey is two years older than him and never lets him forget it) or make a snide remark like Peter (because Peter, in his own words, has the sarcasm on speed dial and can't help himself). She'll just smile, maybe ask a question, maybe touch his hand- and she never notices that he slides back into fragments when she does the latter.

She has other friends, too- many more than he does, because she draws people like an imploding star, dazzling and almost too bright to look at- but she tells him, once, when they are sitting in her bedroom instead of his roof and she's the one who's been dumped and her voice, uninterrupted, is the only normal thing: "I don't know why, Zach, but you're the closest friend I have."

And the answer is as easy as his smile, as it never, never is, "Same here."

After that, somehow, his friends become her friends. Audrey is easy. She may be a junior, she may be dry of wit and of smile, but (as Audrey, with her dark hair and dark clothes tells him, frustrated with how much she enjoys this girl who likes far more color than is healthy) it's too much effort to dislike Danielle.

Peter is trickier. Peter is wiry like a gymnast, with eyes that don't match and the soul of a jazz musician and a hatred of being touched. Whenever Peter walks by, Zachary always catches himself listening for a song because Peter has to be dancing to something.

Peter doesn't trust Danielle. "She can't be healthy," Peter says, his voice slow but sure.

Zachary can't get his head around the concept. "Why?"

Peter hesitates- and Peter never hesitates to say anything. Peter has a silver tongue- he always has the right words to shape his thoughts, just like he always has the right notes on piano to go along with the saxophone- but Zachary is stuck with whatever halting phrases stumble out. Zachary envies Peter that beyond anything else, and if he is stuck for words…

Finally, "She's too much. Too nice, too sweet, too pretty. All good in small doses, but Danielle is like an injection straight to the brain." Peter taps his skull without looking at Zachary. After a moment, softly, "And it'd be very easy to like her too much."

Zachary can understand that, anyway.

Danielle persists; the more Peter backs off, the further she pushes, and watching them is funny and sad and something else- something that tugs at Zachary's heart and finally silences that I'm a boy she's a girl voice.

Watching them, Zachary almost misses it.

O-o-O-o-O

She's not from here. It's a year after they first met, and how she doesn't quite fit shows when she tugs his sleeve at his sixteenth birthday party, pulling him away from Audrey and Peter, who are arguing over cake about the best Robin Williams movie. It's in the way she won't meet his eyes, the way she fists one hand in her skirt and refuses to release his own, the way she begs him not to tell before she will say anything, and in the way she finally mumbles, "I'm in love with Peter."

It doesn’t surprise him. He has known, in a way, for a very long time- she doesn't bother hiding her heart, and Peter isn't half as good as he'd like to be at hiding his. He has always known that she is not for him- she shines too brightly.

Peter shines, in his own way. Maybe enough so that she won't block him out.

He realizes that she is still looking at him, her eyes- and when did they get so big and blue?- desperate for a response, an affirmation, something to tell her that she is not foolish for feeling this way. He's back to one-word answers, and he can't even say it in English, "Vraiment?"

She's shaking. "Yes, really," she mumbles, and she looks away. He's never seen her like this before. She never keeps secrets. She never tells another boy that she's in love before she tells the boy in question. She has never been afraid to love before. She seems to realize his thoughts; she looks back at him, and she's scared now- it's in her eyes and the way she squeezes his hand just a little too tightly. "I know I've said it before, but it's different this time. It's-" She shakes her head, shrugging.

Zachary nods, taking her other hand and holding her eyes with his. "I know." She swallows. "I know."

She throws her arms around his neck, and he really, really hopes she won't start crying. It's his birthday, and he doesn't want to have to associate it with his best friend sobbing into his shoulder. Instead, she hugs him tight and lets go quickly, as though she's finally noticed what he's been wishing she would for ages. She kisses him twice on both cheeks, and he doesn't ruin it by blushing- he can tell it'll be the last time she does that.

The two of them melt right back in; Peter pretends not to notice they've been gone, even though Zachary has noticed the way his eyes always flick to Danielle every few moments, just to make sure she's still there- a habit that always betrayed how he felt to everyone but the two of them. "Birthday hugs?" Audrey says, her eyebrows almost disappearing under her baseball cap. "How come nobody told me about this?" And to Zachary's utter amazement, she grabs him and hugs him so tight he's sure he passes out for a moment- under these circumstances, a blessing.

He wishes Danielle had waited to tell him. He needs to think, to remind himself that this doesn't hurt, not really- that he only wishes it would. Right now it does, though, a funny little constant while she pretends everything is normal even as she can't keep her eyes off Peter.

O-o-O-o-O

She's not from here. She doesn't pretend indifference around Peter, like so many teenagers try, but she doesn't throw herself at him. And somehow she finds an inbetween, a place that works. It's a place Peter, with his bebop and mismatched eyes, can put up with; it's a place Danielle, with her bright smile and constant need for contact, can be satisfied with.

Zachary is very happy for them both. There's enough of a waiting period between her confession and Peter's that he can be more-or-less honest when he says so. There will be a time, he is sure, when they fight (because they fight a lot; the problem with shining, he supposes, is that you make sparks) and he will have to be on both sides, and then he won't be so "happy" about it and he'll regret not listening to that girl-boy voice, but for now it's all right.