23 Kameron

Jade smiled down at the screen of her cellphone as she ran down the steps of her home dressed in a pair of black cargo pants and a simple blue t-shirt. It was early in the morning, her aunt was asleep as usual, and school was closed for today.

A bright, sunny day...it was a perfect day to spend outside and relax, maybe she should-

Jade's smile dropped as she stopped in her tracks and realized what she was doing. She glanced down at her hands, her thumb hovering above the name, 'Manning'. The date next to her name indicated the last time they talked...about more than a week ago.

Yes, on a day like this, Manning would've had an outing planned for her and their group of many friends, either to the mall, the park, the beach...anywhere.

Jade shook her head and continued down the street, unconsciously walking towards Miss Anthea's shop as she had no determined destination at the moment. It's all in the past, she reminded herself, Manning and those girls are no longer my friends...

She scrolled through her contacts and forced a sad disappointed smile as she noticed how few the amount of people she was in contact were. What was she even expecting? After all, she wasn't exactly the very outgoing type, nor was she really popular.

She stopped scrolling as her eyes fell upon two names.

Emrys.

Milo.

They were the two most recent contacts she had added, and that was about two weeks ago when they first met. Since they met almost every day at a confirmed location, they hadn't texted much yet.

"Ah...should I ask them...?" she wondered aloud as she trudged along the streets.

She stopped at the red light near right next to the street light, staring blankly at the two names. "Right, Milo might be in class today," she mumbled to herself. "Then I should-"

She felt her cheeks burn involuntarily as she stared at Emrys' name. The more she lingered on the thought that she was texting him, privately, the more she felt unprepared. Flustered, she tore her eyes away from the screen and pulled at her hair, giving out a silent scream.

What was she supposed to say?! 'Hi'?! 'What's up'?!

"Uhm, are you okay?" a voice suddenly spoke.

Jade yelped and jumped to the side in surprise with her cellphone clutched tightly in her hands as a new voice rang through her ears. "Who-?" She glanced at the girl that appeared to her right, equally startled by Jade's shout.

The two of them blinked, eyeing each other up and down.

The girl that stood before Jade's eyes was just about the same height and age as her, possibly taller. Her shiny, highlighted hair was worn in a lob haircut, her brown eyes were just as brilliant, and she was dressed swaggy in a white hoodie and jeans.

Jade gawked at her, her mind had gone completely blank. Everything about this girl was just...on point!

The girl waved her hands in front of Jade's eyes, a small, twinkling laugh escaping her lips. "Hey, sorry if I surprised you," she said, "I was just curious since the light was green but you were still here...you looked like you were struggling with something?"

Jade hurried to straighten herself up, her ears and neck burning red with embarrassment knowing that someone was watching her. "Y- y- yeah," she stammered. "I mean, n- no! I wasn't doing anything!"

The girl shrugged. "It's okay, really. We all have those days." She pointed her chin towards Jade's cellphone, saying, "Might I help?"

Jade looked down awkwardly at her phone, not sure what to say. "Ah...I just want to text my friend, but I don't know what to say," she admitted, relaxing just a bit.

The latter neither frowned nor laughed, but all she said was this: "Well, if it's a friend, then it shouldn't really matter at all. Don't worry about it, just be natural. If it's your friend, it shouldn't even matter even if you text them nonsense."

She gave a reassuring smile. "Just speak what's on your mind, but it'd be best if you say it straightforward."

"R- really?"

She nodded. "Go on," she urged. "Who are you texting? I'm curious."

Jade hesitated for a moment, glancing uncertainly at the girl. She was strangely open and lax, straightforward, and unafraid to speak what's on her mind. It was...exactly the type of person Jade wished she could be. She wanted to reject her, but in the end, she showed her the phone.

"Em...Emrys?" she tried to pronounce. "It's a guy?"

"Y- yeah."

"That name sounds pretty cool," she marveled. Then she gave Jade a little nudge with her elbow. "So what's your name? Mine's Kameron, by the way."

And with that, all the tension Jade kept all built inside her vanished, and she beamed. "I'm Jade!"

Kameron seemed satisfied with her response, and she took the luxury to keep the conversation going. "I think I might've seen you around before," she pointed out. "Do you go to the same school as me? Cille Tech High?"

Jade shook her head. "No, I go to the academy in the opposite direction. School's closed just for today so that's why I wanna see what my friends are doing." She then glanced curiously at Kameron, wondering why she was out of school.

Kameron grinned as she saw the obvious question shining in Jade's eyes and she twirled her earbud wires around her fingers. "I just skipped school today," she answered truthfully. "I just didn't feel like going, you know? Sometimes a break is all one needs."

Before Jade could respond, Kameron turned to face the intersection, taking a step towards the intersection. "The light turned green, are you going this way too?" she asked.

"Yeah!"

Together, the two crossed the street, shoulder-to-shoulder, and Jade felt a spark of interest towards this new girl. Unlike with Manning and her previous group of friends, Kameron was so much easier to talk to, and she didn't feel the slightest bit of discomfort with her.

Did she perhaps just make a new friend?

"Did you text your friend yet?" Kameron asked as they reached the sidewalk.

Jade cringed at the reminder, blaming herself to be so forgetful. "Ah..." In such a hast, she completely overlooked her fear for her choice of words and sent two texts before she could even regret it.

[morning!]

[where are you? have any plans for today?]

As much as she wanted to scream seeing her two pathetic messages, she did her best to keep her cool with Kameron standing at her side, looking over her shoulder in curiosity. She cast her new friend a nervous look after a few silent moments, stammering, "Y- you think he'll answer?"

Kameron jutted her chin at her screen. "Well, look for yourself!"

Jade glanced back down at her cellphone, and she nearly dropped it in relief and excitement as she saw the bubbles appear under Emrys' name, indicating his soon response.

The two stopped in their tracks just to await his response, suspense taking over the best of them.

The more Jade stared at the three bubbles, the more she came to realize how they were overreacting over something that seemed so small. The tips of her ears burned, thinking how dumb she must look at the moment. But when she cast a quick side-glance at Kameron, she didn't seem to mind at all, a calm expression washing over her light olive skin.

Her mind flashed back to when she used to watch other girls scream and squeal, celebrated and anticipate, and fawn over just a single boy's text. But then she blinked at Kameron's indifferent expression, genuinely confused.

Then...which one was supposed to be the 'normal' reaction?

Suddenly, her phone buzzed, a new message popping up in response to her texts.

[morning]

[we're at the front of anthea's shop, you wanna join?]

[we'll wait for you]

_______________

'Training'.

He needed something to do, something to keep his mind off everything.

He needed a distraction, so he told Gray that he wanted to train.

What else could he do?

Emrys stood in front of Anthea's shop, which was still closed for the morning and won't open again till the afternoon. Gray was leaning against the wall a few feet away, his head down and hands in his pockets as if he were sleeping, once again lost in his own world of thoughts. He was the one who offered to tag along, yet he still seemed out of the mood.

He always had wanted to ask him what he was doing, but the aura that he emitted whilst zoned out was so intense, he couldn't even bring himself to step close.

Emrys glanced back down on his cellphone. Just moments ago, he gathered the courage to block his parents' numbers, removing and hindering every single way of contact with his mother and father. If it weren't for Jade's unexpected text, he would've spent the next hours stressing over his actions.

A small ping drew his attention back to his message notifications, and he scanned the text, grateful for another quick distraction.

[Is it okay if I brought a friend along?]

He frowned.

A friend? he wondered. Strange. Was it someone she just recently met?

He glanced behind his shoulder at Gray, who was still paying absolutely no attention to him or what's going on around him whatsoever, or at least that's what it looked like. So, Emrys took the chance to answer for himself.

[alright]

His whole school already knew about his powers, what's the harm if one more person knew about it? Maybe Gray would've disagreed, but Emrys didn't see the problem.

In about five minutes, Emrys looked up at his name being called to see Jade waving at him in her usual cheery mood. Just behind her was a new face, a girl just about their age. Her trendy style and highlighted hair had him sure that she wasn't from their school, and she held some sort of an unusual persona about her.

And when she opened her mouth to speak, instead of a normal 'hello', it was, "Wow, Jade, this edgy-looking guy is your friend? Dang, not what I expected at all."

Edgy? What is edgy?

Before Emrys could even ask, he felt Gray appear right at his side and steal the words right from his mouth. "What's edgy?" he murmured, his voice sounding half-dead.

The four stood around in a little circle, a steady flow of conversation slowly picking up between the three high schoolers, leaving Gray to watch over them silently, as usual. A few minutes and the day was planned, the little group started to move onto their next location with Jade in the lead.

An addition to the group wasn't what he had expected when he woke up this morning in Gray's living room with plans to train, but so far, it was relatively nice.

It seems that he was growing to like being in groups.

He hurried forward to catch up with the quick pace the two girls were moving at, and Gray continued to trail behind.

Maybe no one else noticed, but he was fully aware of the hooded figure observing them closely at a distance away. That person may be out of sight, but he was still on Gray's radar.

Whoever it was, they were definitely following them.