I snapped my jaw closed and ran a hand over my mouth, which was completely dry. “Am not.”
She snickered.
“Which one has your attention?” Tsukiko asked, looking in the direction I had been.
“Oh, come on!” Loralie groaned. “Him, again? I thought you got over your crush on him year before last? You know you can barely stand near him or talk to him. How do you think you’ll be able to have a relationship if you just freak out when he comes near you?”
“I don’t freak out when he’s near me,” I muttered.
She arched a brow. “Really? So, you didn’t scramble away from him when you almost got put on his team in PE last year?”
“No,” I lied.
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, just remember that I warned you to crush on someone else. You’re going to crush and then have your heart broken when you realize, again, that you can’t be with him.”
I mouthed back her words in a mocking way, which earned me a smack on the arm.
“This concludes our commencement ceremonies. Please head to the field and get in line to get your schedules. Welcome to Monster Academy!” Headmistress Gonzalez clapped her hands and rainbow sparks danced across the ceiling before falling on us.
Loralie groaned. “She threw glitter on us? This crap is never going to come out.”
I suppressed a laugh as I stood and waited for our row to exit the room. My gaze landed on Dante again and I’d swear for a moment, it looked like he was glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, too.
No, that couldn’t be. Definitely not.
“Let’s go,” Loralie said and nudged my back. “Time to stand in line for an hour and find out if I was able to convince my dad to get us in the same classes or not.”
“I think you did,” Tsukiko said. “He was very excited at the thought of us being in the same classes to spark friendly competition for top score.”
Loralie groaned. “Yeah, he only cares about me being top of the class.”
“I heard he made a bet with someone that you would get the highest grade. So, you better not make him lose money,” I teased.
She groaned louder.
We shuffled out, Tsukiko holding my left hand, while Loralie held my right hand, ensuring we didn’t get separated by the crowd.
We made it halfway out with no problems. Then, Rathik slid in front of us and turned around to smile at Tsukiko.
Rathik was a naga, a snake person, and he’d been trying to get Tsukiko to talk to him for two years now. He could change his lower body into a snake or keep human legs, but had scales along his arms and a few on his throat as well. We’d heard it was because he was worried about being attacked and kept the scales to make it harder for his skin to be pierced by a blade. His darker tone made his scales even shinier in comparison.
“Hi, Tsukiko,” he said with his eyes shining.
She tensed, her tail puffing up in shock behind her. “Hi,” she breathed.
Loralie pushed past me and smiled up at him. “Your scales are different this year,” she noted.
Tsukiko took a small step back, her ears lowered, but her eyes completely focused on Rathik.
Loralie was right, his scales were a brighter green this year, almost neon.
“Thanks, I finally unlocked some new abilities and powers,” he said proudly, his eyes moving to Tsukiko several times.
“Rathik!” Someone yelled up ahead.
“I have to meet up with my roommates. I’ll see you later?” He looked at Tsukiko, his attention on her fully.
She nodded twice while biting her bottom lip.
He smiled and it was almost blinding. “Awesome. Bye.”
He weaved his way through the crowd to meet back up with his friends.
“Oh, I’m the one with an unrealistic crush?” I asked.
Loralie sighed. “You two are hopeless.”
I slung my arm around her and smiled. “And you love us.”
She looked down at my arm. “Your stitch popped.”
Craning my head, I let out a long sigh when I saw she was right.
“Dammit. Well, let’s hope none of the others pop until I can go see Dr. Frankenstein and get it fixed,” I said.
“She freaks me out,” Loralie whispered.
“It’s because she’s human,” I said.
“Or, it’s because the woman was granted immortality, and Loralie knows she can’t reap her soul,” Tsukiko said, finally coming back to her regular self now that Rathik was far away.
“It’s not right,” Loralie snapped, black smoke seeping from her fingertips and nostrils. “Humans are supposed to die. Preferably quickly.”
“They keep elongating their lifespans,” Tsukiko said. “It’s worrisome.”
“They also keep gaining more and more technological advancements. I heard that they developed a flying machine with a camera attached to it. Someone said it almost made it to the school’s barrier,” I whispered to them.
“They’re trying to find our hiding places,” Tsukiko said, her tail tucking around her leg. “What happens when they do?”
“They’ll never find us,” I assured her and hugged her against my side. She was at least a foot shorter than me and fit beneath my arm easily. “If they do find us, we’ll kill them and make examples of them like our grandfathers did hundreds of years ago.”
Tsukiko smiled, revealing her fangs, and said, “Except we’ll be much more brutally efficient.”
“Brutally,” I agreed with a nod.
Two
LORALIE
“Can’t we take a nap first or something?” I grumbled as Tsukiko, Frances, and I got into line to pick up our class schedules.
The lines were even longer than usual this year. That was to be expected with all of the high school-aged creatures coming to Monster Academy. We were always separated at different elementary schools based on territory, but there was only one Monster Academy for high school on this continent.
“We are totally binging some shows after classes,” Frances said with a nod.
“You mean after classes and after you get your stitch fixed?” I asked with a teasing smirk.
She mumbled incoherently beneath her breath.
Frances had been created by Dr. Frankenstein, with some help from her parents, and on occasion one of the stitches holding her various body parts together came loose or snapped from being too rough.
She’d gone through a phase in elementary school where she’d had mismatched body parts. Everyone had teased her, and I’d punched a few kids who made her cry.
Her newest parts were top of the line, and she had even been able to choose them herself.
I had tried to convince her to get bigger boobs, but she refused. Not that she needed them. Her face was gorgeous and it was the only part that was completely her own, aside from her brain of course.
We moved forward at even slower than a snail’s pace. I was pretty sure even a slime could have chased and digested us by now.
The night sky was full of stars and a half-full moon that gave off enough light for us to see across the field, but there were also special lights that let us see even more without taking away from the stars and moon.