Hiya! When did FictionPress get here?! OO;; man I've been gone for too long. This story used to be on fanfiction, but some people who read it said it should be here, and thus I learned of this website. Eheheheh...Please review! Kini Takohashi

Pretty Boys

Volume One

New Love

Act One: Friends First

Scene One

"All right, class. Settle down, now."

The Biology teacher, an old, six-foot, bald man named Mr. J. Chu-Hua placed a black top hat on his desk as the twenty-six High School students sat at their desks and fell silent. They waited patiently as the teacher poured twenty-six neatly folded one-inch squares of white printer paper into the hat. "As you all know by now, your project on the sharks you dissected last week starts today. This will be done in groups of two. I shall pick your science partners for you now."

The students groaned; a few let out loud moans of sorrow. It was always the same when it came to partners and group work – Mr. Chu Hua randomly picked the students. It was common for each student to end up with his or her worst enemy. Of course, it didn't matter whom one boy was paired up with, because he had no friends to wish to work with and no enemies to not get work done with. His name was Umeko Hiromasa. Umeko was a quiet, intelligent boy with hazel-green eyes and strawberry-blonde hair. He often just did all the work himself and let his partner copy off of him.

Mr. Chu Hua pulled a stack of thick science packets from his desk. "If anyone here did not dissect a shark, was absent, or just doesn't want to work with their partner, I have a twelve-page packet that can earn an eighty-five percent if you get a perfect score." He set the packet next to the top hat and pulled out his first two victims. "Yuri Tora and Yuki Tomo," Mr. Chu Hua called. Two girls stood from their seats and moved to a spot off in a corner where they could work on their project together. Mr. Chu Hua called out the next names. "Joben Kane and Guotin Hisorke… Mucho Iso and Garden Mori… Uke Shinbo and Deki Woods…" Patiently Umeko waited for his fate to be sealed to a lazy, self-obsessed partner. "Umeko Hiromasa…" The teacher pulled a second piece of paper from the hat. "And Sadako Tetsu."

Umeko cringed. A few taunting chuckles came from around the room. It was just his luck to be paired up with the bad-boy of the Twelfth Grade. Sadako was a bad kid, plain and simple. He stole, skipped class, and was famous for his very short temper. He was always getting in trouble for getting into fights for the strangest reasons, such as 'getting a look he didn't like'. He was a bit taller than six-foot four-inch Umeko and had short, unkempt black hair and piercing, threateningly dark eyes. Umeko had never seen him actually do any assignments when he attended class, but once when passing out report cards, Umeko noticed that he was getting along with high C's and low B's. Umeko glanced over to the dark, neglected corner commonly known as 'Crook Corner', where Sadako sat with his tennis shoes up on the desk, glaring across the room at his new partner. That place fit its name perfectly – only the bad boys sat there. That was because the ceiling light was damaged (recently punched out when Sadako decided it hurt his eyes), The walls had profanity spray-painted on them, and the four desks had rude remarks carved into them. Currently, Sadako was in the desk right in the corner surrounded by the three other empty bad boy desks. Umeko, knowing Sadako wasn't about to move to a closer desk to him, mustered up as much courage as possible and slowly walked over to that evil area, clutching his notebooks to his chest as if they were a shield.

"Just don't make him angry," Umeko thought.

He took a seat in the desk to Sadako's left, glancing at the sharp spikes on his glove and wondering if he would end up with scars and bruises by the end of the period. He realized them how much he didn't fit there, in that corner. Not even his clothes looked bad – He was wearing a white t-shirt, straight, blue jeans, and white tennis-shoes, where as Sadako was wearing a black t-shirt and leather jacket, spiked gloves with the fingers cut off, dark, wrinkled, blue jeans that were torn at the knees, and black army boots with tiny spikes on the bottom. Umeko quickly took his mind off the clothes and decided to try and communicate with the fugitive.

"Um…hi," Umeko said cautiously. Sadako was leaned back in his chair, picking at his nails with his teeth and spitting them off to his right. His eyes suddenly shot from his nails to Umeko, causing him to jump. Sadako sized him up with those deep, frightening eyes, and then looked back to his fingernails. "You should take the packet," he said, his husky voice sending shivers up Umeko's spine, "because you'll have no luck with me." Umeko considered getting up, gathering up his books as quickly as possible, and going to the front to beg the teacher for packet work. However, something that was drawn on Sadako's desk caught his eye, and he stared at it curiously. It was a crossword puzzle. Someone had drawn a crossword puzzle in pencil during the previous period on Sadako's desk. Above, carved into the desk, was 'Puzzle of the Day'. Sadako had done well with the crossword puzzle, and only one row of squares was left. This particular row seemed to be the focus of Sadako at the moment, because he had a thoughtful look and hadn't commented on Umeko still being there. Umeko looked to see what the question was, curious to see if he could answer it. The question was 'What is a life-threatening heartbeat?'

Umeko pondered about the question.

"A heartbeat that is life threatening…"

Going over his health-class lessons in his head, he came up with one or two answers that might work. He counted the spaces in the row. There were eighteen squares. The first letter was A, and the last was N. It was two words, and the third letter was R. Suddenly, the correct answer popped into his head, and Umeko leaned over to Sadako's desk, and despite the stricken look on Sadako's face, wrote the words ATRIAL FIBRILLATION in the blanks. As Sadako studied the answer, Umeko leaned back in his chair. He lost a slight smile that had been forming when he realized he could have just made Sadako angry. He gulped quietly and waited for the worst as Sadako's eyes left the puzzle and met his. A smirk slowly played on Sadako's lips. "Heh…maybe you aren't so bad after all, kid," Sadako complimented. The smile that had disappeared returned to Umeko's face. "You too, Sadako."