· 。ﾟ *. 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐙𝐄𝐑𝐎 , ───── ❛ the burgundy on my t-shirt ❜
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YANCY ACADEMY SUCKED. At least, if you asked Percy Jackson it did. The place was full of stuck-up and bratty preteens that'd been sent there for behavioral issues but then again, so had he.
It was no wonder that he only had one friend. He was okay with it though, knowing that with his past luck he'd probably be out of there and shipped off to another school by the end of the year, parting ways with Grover and never seeing him again. Like usual, he didn't know how wrong that idea was.
He sat in the cafeteria with his friend, thumping a pencil between his fingers as he stared down at his maths notebook. He was convinced he was about to fail the next period's algebra test.
He was absolutely certain he would when the bell rang and ended the lunch period, meaning it ended his procrastinated study time. With a sigh, he flipped his book shut and shoved it into his backpack.
"So failing this test, man." He sighed to Grover as he slung his backpack onto his shoulder, picking up his lunch tray to chuck it into the garbage when they exited. "What else is new?" His friend remarked humorously.
"Aha." Percy feigned a sarcastic laugh as he looked at Grover, paying absolutely zero attention to where he was walking, like most things he did. The boys continued trudging towards the exit, grumbling complaints about their classes and how they couldn't wait for when the end of the day bell would ring and finally set them free. Everything was going just fine until it wasn't.
Before he could even look, Percy felt his body collide with another. The boy jumped back with a small, girlish yelp, finding the contents of his lunch no longer on the tray but instead on the floor . . . as well as the girl he had ran into.
He looked up to find the trash from his tray now on the floor at his feet, and the what-once-was-white shirt of the girl across from him now sporting a bright red splotch, courtesy of the punch that was unfinished during his meal.
The girl's face was paralyzed with shock for a brief moment as she looked down at her shirt, brunette strands of hair falling over her face, escaping the clip that held her hair back.
"I—I am so sorry!" Percy frantically exclaimed as he scrambled around to collect wrappers and napkins off of the floor that he'd dropped. "Oh my gods . ." He heard the girl mutter to herself as she looked up from the burgundy stain on her shirt, holding the helm of it out so that the wet cloth didn't stick to the skin of her stomach.
Her wording was weird, but before Percy could even think about questioning it, Grover gasped from behind him, "Laurie?"
The girl— who was apparently named Laurie— snapped her eyes over to the curly-haired boy across from her, the state of her shirt momentarily being forgotten as her face broke into a smile. "Grover!" She exclaimed. "I didn't know you went here."
She did know that. Grover knew she knew that. The important thing though, was that Percy didn't know that.
"Yeah yeah . . um, are you new here? I probably would've seen you around before." The boy responded, his friend still scrambling around to place things on the plastic tray in his hands. Grover was right, Percy thought. Yancy wasn't the smallest of schools but it definitely wasn't so big that he wouldn't have notice one of his friends.
"Yeah, um today's my first day, actually." The girl replied with a head nod. Her eyes kept switching over from the boy she was talking with to the dark haired boy beside him, as if she were waiting for him to speak up as well.
"Oh, this is my friend, Percy." Grover said as he gestured to the boy who'd just stood to his feet, his ears and cheeks flushed red in embarrassment. "The one who . . just turned your shirt into the queen of hearts' roses."
Laurie offered a small chuckle as she looked at Percy, brown eyes meeting his green ones for the first time. He offered a sheepish smile that faltered upon seeing the expression on her face.
She looked at him with a look that said she was nothing but purely unimpressed, the glance she gave Grover almost saying "seriously? him?". The look quickly went away when he smiled at her, to which she returned.
"I'm Laurie Castellan, it's uh, nice to meet you." She said with a smile. Percy decided right then that she was already a better person than he was. If someone had stupidly poured bright red punch all over him like he'd just done, he would definitely not be introducing himself with a smile five minutes later.
"Yeah, um, you too." He mumbled awkwardly before he left the conversation for a moment to throw away what was left of his rubbish. Watching the dark haired boy leave earshot, Laurie turned to Grover, her smile dropping and being replaced by a skeptic look.
"Really? Him?" The demigod whispered, referring to Percy. Grover raised his eyebrows in a playful manner as he nodded, "Him."
