Happy Encounters: A Shoujo Parallels AU Short

Beta Belt
July 2014
High School Staircase

“You need to talk to Elaine,” Cianna Alrada rolled her eyes as she continued walking, “She’s been sleeping in English. And while we were having Algeb, she was writing in her notebook.”

“She was also taking down notes,” Beatrice Mora mused. “But hell. That shit was creepy.” Arzen was confused as they went up the stairs, Gabrielle Angeles following and Mathias Angelo close by her side. “I’ll tell you later.”

Mathias broke in, “Anyway. Vens, you have to give the personal data sheet to Ms. Rocha.”

“Right, right. Hold on,” she sped off to the classroom and the others already walked to the other staircase, which led them to the second years’ level. Gabrielle snickered.

“If Ms. Rocha’s absent again, Venura’s going to throw a fit.” Cianna shook her head and Arzen soon caught up to them, blue folder in her hands. “What if she’s absent?”

“Then I’ll get delayed,” the girl grumbled as she took the stairs. Mathias stayed quiet as the rest of them followed, Cianna and Gabrielle talking about other matters while Beatrice listened. “I – we have to get this done by next week. I’ll get killed if I get delayed again,” she mumbled, and the ginger nodded sympathetically.

“Hey. We’ll get it done,” he promised. Arzen sent him a small smile and nodded, pausing once they reached the floor of the Sophomores.

Once they had arrived, Beatrice choked.

And began to laugh loudly.

Cianna gave Arzen an impish grin. Gabrielle nudged her side.

Mathias could only stare as Arzen’s face reddened to the extremes.

Summery December: A Shoujo Parallels AU Short

“Is this safe?” Mathias asked dubiously as they were strapped in, seatbelt across their waists. Arzen smiled but tightly held on to the bar of their ride, both of them awkwardly pressed together, bodies so close in a manner that he would usually find thrilling. But in this case, he was dubious of the ride – the Octopus, as Arzen had called it. She seemed relieved when the line only took five minutes, and was laughing at the expression on Daniel’s face when he and Elaine were strapped in, both of them flushed from the close proximity. “Arzen, I don’t like the feeling of this ride. It’s giving me vibes.”

“Jive vibes?” she tried, smiling widely in the process. He rolled his eyes at the pun, but couldn’t help a smile nonetheless. “Chill out. I’ve been riding this thing since seventh grade, and I’m still alive. The first time may be…scary, but you’ll be begging to ride with me again when this is over.” She hummed quietly as the ‘tentacles’ of the ride rotated, lifting them feet higher into the air. Mathias’ blue eyes widened.

“So what exactly does this do?”

“It rotates, bringing us up and down. But that’s not all. The carriages-” and she let out a loud squeal, Mathias yelping in surprise as their own red carriage spun around, “-they spin. They spin a lot,” she finished, laughing to herself because of the sudden shock and the look on the ginger’s face.

“This is ridiculous, we have to get off-”

“You can’t.”

“What?!”

“You can’t,” Arzen repeated calmly, flashing him a smile. From above, they could hear Daniel’s protest and Elaine’s laughter. Arzen looked up and grinned at the sight of the blonde trying to escape, and he soon quit, seeing his shoulders slump miserably next to Elaine. Maxine, on the other hand, was holding on to a screaming and whooping Liam. “Men. Say they can do anything, but strap them onto an octopus and they act like they’ve seen a ghost.”

“That’s just cruel,” Mathias complained, but his face blanched once they went higher. The carriage threatened to spin.

“We’ll argue later on,” she replied, one hand on the bar and the other discreetly travelling down and looking for his hand, “Today, we scream.”

In Which Volleyballs Hate Ice Cream

“You know, whenever we pass by and it’s not windy, bad things happen,” Gabrielle said as the group of seven passed by the road on the way to the Sports Complex. And true enough, it wasn’t windy at all. “I don’t remember what happened last time, but I do know that it’s always windy whenever we pass by.”

“It’s so windy, we get Marilyn Monroe skirt effects,” Arzen added. But it wasn’t windy, and they weren’t wearing skirts (neither were Mathias and Daniel).

“Happy birthday to you,” Gabrielle continued, trying to make her voice raspy and seductive like the late American actress’ own. However, her voice was low and dry and pretty much almost out because of all the screaming she had done. Mathias laughed.

“You might want to try that after the sembreak, Angeles.” The redhead glanced over his shoulder, where Elaine was dragging Daniel to the ice cream cart for some ice cream. “Want some, Arzen?”

“No thanks – I’ve lost a lot so far and I’m not getting it back,” the girl replied determinedly. Mathias rolled his eyes and grabbed her wrist, dragging her to the ice cream line as well. The other three could only watch in slight amusement.

“Shipping it,” Beatrice smirked. Therese could only smile and Gabrielle faked a facepalm, the two pairs eventually coming back with ice cream of their own. “Okay, so do we screw around with the stupid vending machine, or do we watch whatever game is going on right now?”

Majority voted vending machine.

Arzen blanched at the sight of a group of Freshmen practicing volleyball, and Therese laughed at her expression. “Watch out, ball magnet.”

“Shut up, damn it!” she snapped, and walked forward with an air of confidence, walking straight to the pathway that would lead her to the vending machines at the basement of the complex. One of the freshmen girls laughed and hit the ball, launching the volleyball towards Arzen.

Her first instinct was to run.

But Arzen lifted a hand to block the impact and indeed, the ball bounced off her arm. She sighed in relief and turned to stick her tongue out at Therese, but Mathias’ sudden laughter caught her attention.

Bewildered, she turned to her left, where Daniel Edevane was staring at a volleyball on top of his ice cream. Elaine could only stare in major disbelief, the other three girls laughing as well.

The freshmen who owned the ball rushed forward, apologizing to Daniel, who brushed it off and wryly shook the ball off his now gone forever ice cream. Once they hurried away, Arzen could only stare at Daniel, unable to say anything else.

“I don’t think it was a good idea to block it in my direction, Monika Arzen,” he said dryly.

* * * * *

Finally, the swimming pool. Daniel had eaten (another) ice cream, and Elaine was eating her third for the day. Beatrice, Therese and Gabrielle were still with the vending machine, trying to get it to accept the wrinkled twenty-bill and the somehow failing five-coins. Mathias had told them to give up, but Beatrice could only glare and kick the machine angrily, causing the kids behind them to squeal and run away in fright.

“We shouldn’t be eating here,” Arzen tried, sending Elaine and Daniel a look. Mathias could only smirk.

“No one would notice,” Elaine replied, squinting her eyes and looking for Sharmaine, who was currently practicing water volleyball with her team. Arzen could only frown and sat down next to Mathias, who was reading her notebook with a semi-interested look on her face. 

“Besides, it’s not like someone’s going to spike a volleyball that would land on my ice cream,” she continued, nudging Daniel, who could only mumble a few words as he finished his own dessert.

“Suit yourself,” Mathias shrugged and continued reading. “So the murders will be themed according to fairy tale?” at that, Arzen blushed and took the notebook away, swatting him on the arm with it, “Ow – I was just asking-”

“ThatisanewstoryIhaven’ttotallyplannedyet.”

Elaine merely watched them, Daniel watching her quietly.

“Is Arzen not comfortable with sharing her ideas, or is it just with the Prat?”

“Just the Prat,” Elaine replied, “she’s worried he’ll think she’s weird for conceptualizing things about murders and killing that are related to things like fairy tales and such.”

“It isn’t weird.”

“I know – and you can tell by the look on his face that he wants to know more,” she pointed out, both of them watching as he had a slightly disappointed expression as Arzen held the green notebook tightly to her chest.

Daniel nodded quietly and sat down next to Arzen (making Mathias frown even more) and gently pried the notebook off her, flipping through it.

“He’s reading it-”

Mathias, however, was unable to complete his sentence.

A volleyball came towards them and he immediately blocked it with his fist, sighing in relief.

Daniel, however was not amused.

Arzen bit her lip to keep herself from laughing, momentarily forgetting that Daniel had her plotting notebook in his hands at that moment.

“That’s some shit timing right there!” a voice came.

Beatrice Mora had never been so correct, he wearily thought as Elaine grabbed Mathias by the collar, glaring intensely.

His blue eyes glanced at the ice cream, which was on the ground, and he cursed internally.

Shit. 

Eliminating the Stressor

“I think it was nice for Janica to invite us to her birthday,” Mathias commented while checking through Arzen’s Chemistry worksheets. “More so myself, because we aren’t that close unlike you are.” Arzen smiled slightly and took a drink of coffee from her mug, nodding her head slowly.

“As long as you were nice to her, you’re on the guest list,” she replied, remembering the smaller girl’s guest list from a Monday ago. Written on the top in her handwriting was: Guest List. AKA, people who are nice to me. “I think you’ve made her list ever since you helped her out in Geometry.”

“Well, I am quite efficient in the subject.”

“Don’t flatter yourself too much.”

He flashed her a grin. “Come on. This is the guy who got into the ‘Niners Club’ as Sir Andreo put it. Second time in a row, darling.”

“Yes, yes.” She waved it off and snatched back her worksheets from him, “A European beat an Asian in Math.”

“Stereotypes.”

“Mm. Sure.”

“It looks like you’re okay with balancing,” he mused quietly, and in a louder voice said, “Do you want to work on Stoichiometry now?”

Arzen gave a grimace.

“Goddamn it. I hate that freaking topic-”

“You’ll hate it even less when I teach you.”

“Ha, ha.” Her voice dripped with bitterness. “Okay. Get me out of the hell they call Chemistry, Mathias.”