6 Strange

I met Jacob when I entered their high school during one early Fall.

I had been always catching him having a glimpse at me as soon as I sat in front of his desk. He wore a crumpled, uneven uniform and long pants not permitted by the school. His hair's as messy as he was in real life, being friends with other self-imposed juvenile delinquents. It was as if he doesn't give care for anything around him unless necessary.

His hair twirled and curled in small knots, colored in a sunlight shade of blond and gold. The shade covered it from its body to the tips and darkened auburn to the roots.

He would usually slump backward when standing and walking around, shoulders straight and upright, chest almost rock-hard and broad. With a hardened palm placed on the surface of his pale side cheeks, he sits behind mine and barely pays attention to the class and to anything that happpens.

His eyes were colors of chestnut brown, often sleepy and drowsy, yet quite strong and sharp as if looks could kill. A small healed scar on the side of his face was barely noticeable, often patched up and covered with a piece of a band-aid, and a small dot of mole on the side of his head's left temple.

Jacob was taller than I, unfortunately, always crouching and sleeping on his chair, and would sometimes look outside the classroom's window watching the others play sports. He barely listened to the class, always participates when it's time to goof around.

It wasn't really a shock for me to have known his outward nature. One fine and a good look at Jacob and all you would have seen in him was that he was a freaking weirdo, the epitome of the word "obnoxious."

What's a shock to me was that, despite his external appearance, he does very well in academics. He was also a member of the varsity basketball team and all-around athletic during school festivals. His average grades never falter, as well. And he seldom joins (or was forced to join) the school's male and female beauty pageants.

At least that's how I had remembered him to be.

"How did you even end up in such a shabby hole like this?" Juli asked, her face frowning on every spoken word. "You know very well that you're better off to somewhere better other than this crappy mishap of an educational grounds."

She speaks as if her words are both filtered and unfiltered, words that had been processed within her mind countless times and chosen to deliver a blow. Those may have been the reason why she was elected as a class representative. She's known as a hard-headed girl, able to withstand even the toughest gangster inside and outside the school.

"Language, Ms. Carson," I said. We walked along the hallway towards to where the student meeting room held. "For a lady like you, you sure have a pretty fine way with words." I continued. A solemn smile on my face was painted across. For a very short time, it was as if we knew each other very well. As if we had been best of friends from the past, during our past incarnations.

"For a 'lady' such as I," she emphasized while her left hand and extended fingers pointed towards her chest. Her tone, diction, and accent changed with every word that came out of her mouth. "I couldn't care less." She said as she whipped her hair on her side. "And why are you trying to avoid my question." Shooting a look at me, her glares felt as if they were going to burn right through.

My continued chuckles filled the thinning air. The cold breeze blew and I felt it travel across my clothes. Juli's hairlines cut off from sudden gust of the wind, to which she slowly and properly reached and arranged.

Juli's all beauty and grace, but she's an unstoppable force no one could ever trample. She was just as neatly uptight as a person as I am, but not too much to create sore visions in those of the beholder. A very long, dark, and silky hair swayed behind her back, with darkened-brown and round eyes. I'm a little bit taller than her, yet it felt as if she's the taller one whenever we strike each other's banter.

She sometimes wore red shoes, and sometimes black. With a green wristwatch on her right hand, she's always meticulous and particular with time. She has the aura of a woman who owns the world but is diligently responsible for every action made.

A heterogeneous mixture of being imprisoned and enjoying freedom. A confusing feeling of warmth and freezing.

And a very trustworthy confidant.

I must've told her almost everything about me, as well as my peculiar hobby. She did the same, clenching her fists and threatening to punch me the moment I spill her beans.

"It's a very long story," I said. My voice traversed the whole corridor, echoing as it traveled on every space it could travel on to, almost piercing the classroom walls as we passed by.

"Then tell a shorter one?" She said. Her voice shook the walls, and I could hear the students within them tremble. They shook by her very presence, and they drop when they are in front of her.

"They'll really wet their pants if you keep on raising your voice like that." I laughed. I nudged my glasses and repositioned them, and blew a despaired, tired sigh.

"Who the hell cares?" She said. The whole floor quaked on her every syllable. I could hear my fellow male schoolmates whimper inside their classrooms that almost made me pity them.

"And that Jacob..." Her voice softened like a storm is being calmed down.

"What about him?" I said. I side-eyed her angered expression. It was worth laughing with, seeing her rosy lips pout, but I may have my mouth stitched up in multiples if I did.

"The moment that douchebag lays a hand on you, be quick to tell me. Alright?" She said as she raised her right arm, contracted it, and flexed her muscles. She showed her biceps as if she's some kind of weightlifting fairy godmother ready to throw fits and violence towards those who would hurt her or me.

"Do that and your school dress may be replaced with colors of orange and black stripes," I said. My joke went over her head as she continued to stomp the ground beneath her as if giants were walking across the world. "And you'll ruin our class's face for the upcoming pageant competition."

"If I destroy something, then I might as well destroy the face of a devil." She said. Her expressions all fired up in excitement.

"He's a fine guy once you really know him," I said. The sarcastic tone of my voice was thin and barely noticeable.

"He's a fine piece of work, that's for sure." She said. We both laughed at the expense of making fun of off him. "But Zachary, I'm being serious, just one word and I'll knock him up the stratosphere." She said as she gestured a straight, upward uppercut punch.

I stopped for a moment in front of the representatives' meeting room and let out a faint giggle. She looked at me, her waist held between her folded arms, with a smile arched across her mouth.

"I'm being serious, too," I said. I motioned a "thank you" gesture to her as she just rolled her eyes. Her groan was the grumbling of an empty stomach.

"You're one strange guy." She said. I held the knob of the door of the meeting room, almost turning it for it to open.

"He's just as strange as I am," I said. The smile on my face felt more genuine as they tickled and beamed. She looked somehow aghast with the sight and smiled as menacingly as possible.

"And what about the reason/s why you transferred here then?" She blurted out as we walked inside the room. The other representatives were preparing for the ongoing meeting as we sat on empty chairs.

"That's for another time," I said. Her lips pouted, much like a duck's. She crossed her arms while sitting gently with looks almost carving holes behind my head. I chuckled with her measly demise.

The meeting was the same old regular agendas we representatives discuss. Budgets, rules, and regulations, upcoming events, etcetera. The same-old, same-old. What's new are the trees that we can see outside the room, framed by an opened window.

Its leaves were almost gone, and the first drops of snow will soon fall after.