|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:38 pm
Scyeth was looking for one Miss Alex...Alex...Alex What-was-her-last-name-again? The blond frowned and wrinkled his nose. How was he supposed to find a professor if he couldn't even remember her full name? Oh, she wasn't exactly a professor though, she was someone's assistant. Who he also couldn't remember at this time. How was he supposed to find anyone at this rate?! He couldn't find the stupid room if he couldn't remember the number or whatever.
So that left the blond with only one choice. He was going to have to go classroom to classroom until he found the one with Miss Alex Whosiwhatsit. Was he going to have to call her Miss Alex? Because honestly, that sounded really, really lame. Scyeth flipped his bangs out of his face and began on hiw quest. Door? No, computer lab. Door? No, math lab. Door?
"...are you Alex?"
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:54 pm
There were mountains of it.
Paper.
EVERYWHERE.
The woman quirked her lips and scowled at the plethora of paperwork to be done, making a mental note that she'd have to have a nice little chat with Greg. And by chat, she really meant a beating until he could restrain her. She was pretty sure she could get in a few good hooks, especially if she caught him off guard. That gave her some grim satisfaction, but it didn't make her sudden work load any lighter. Damn.
She'd roll up her sleeves if she had any, but thankfully, tank tops did not afford such trivial things. Alex rubbed her arms in a similar motion anyway, grumbling obscene words under her breath, blowing a strand of hair from her eyes with pursed lips. Her hair was getting so long that she had to resort to putting it into a loose bun at the base of her neck, and even then it splayed everywhere like a pinwheel. At least it was manageable and wouldn't get in the way while she bent over the novel's worth of things to be done. The only paperwork she chose to do was for her own job, not for his! She sighed quietly, simultaneously cursing her 'boss' despite the fact that she was doing this only because she loved him so. Jerk. Ugh. The work still wasn't doing itself. Much as she didn't like it, it seemed that she'd have to do it after all.
Before she could do much else, she heard her name from an unfamiliar voice, prompting her to turn her resigned green eyes to the owner. She blinked for a moment at the boy before offering a c**k-eyed grin. "Last I checked, yeah. What can I do for ya?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:03 pm
Oh good. She didn't seemed offended by lack of title or last name or anything. Scyeth stepped into the room and looked around. Holy s**t. Holy s**t. How did someone even build up this much paperwork? Scyeth turned to look around, but he could really focus on anything but that enourmous stack of papers. Damn. Was that what he was supposed to help her with? The blond scowled a wicked scowl. Now that was just evil. He was a student, he should be doing paperwork!
"Here to help?" he muttered awkwardly, folding his arms over his chest as he finally fixed his blue-eyed gaze on the woman. Wait a minute. Alex? Didn't RuiZhi tell him he had a sister? Was this the same woman? (AUGH DON'T THINK ABOUT RUIZHI, SCYETH. DON'T DO IT.) Augh. Scyeth shifted his weight and tried to focus on what he was doing. Right. Looking Alex over and trying to will her from assigning him paperwork. That's right. WILL, SCYETH. WILL.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:18 pm
"Oh I'm going to kill him," she grumbled darkly. More loudly (and without the hint of death in her voice), she remarked, "Sorry you got roped into this. I don't want to be here anymore than you look like you do." Alex offered another lop-sided grin before motioning him over, tapping on a stack of paper. "S'real easy though, I swear. You just..." she hesitated, eyes sweeping over the document as if she wasn't really seeing it, "...the name, near the top, he said. Yeah. There's a name...and you just have to write the first initial of the last name, here." She pointed to a large empty box on the paper. "That's it. Simple?"
Too simple, she thought, but she wasn't about to say it. Believe it or not, she made an effort NOT to look like an a** in front of the students. "I'll just be date stamping 'em as you finish. Team effort. Should go relatively fast. Filing...ugh." She sniffed indignantly. "Greg can deal with that, the cur." She just hoped the kid wasn't swift enough to ask questions. She hated questions. Especially if the answers made her look like an a**. Did she already think she was being an a**? Jeez. This is why she avoided interacting with people. Give her killer diseases and jerk natives any day; she much preferred to talk with a well placed fist. This kid...
"Hey." She blinked at him suddenly, curiosity on her features. "What's you're name, anyway? Unless you want me giving you nicknames, and those are often frowned upon, or so I've been told." Alex grinned a bit. Some people just didn't like being told their nick name was 'Stick Boy' because it looked like they had a stick jammed in an uncomfortable place. It was best just to give them names and not explain it, let the imagination do the rest. Yeah. Creativity is healthy, or something.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:57 pm
Scyeth picked up on the first mumble, but decided not to comment. Was she mad because he was sent? (He was irritated he was sent, but shouldn't she be glad for the backup?) Oh, whatever. He wasn't here to dissect relationships. The blond pushed a stray bang from his face and eyes Alex, nodding as she made sure he understood his assignment. "So I'm initaling someone's paper for them?" he questioned, slowly makig his way across the room. He frowned. That seemed awfully easy. He frowned deeper and shrugged to himself. "Why am I here if all you're doing is initialing and stamping?" he asked. Of course he asked. It was in his very nature.
Oh, his name? Distracted, the blond shrugged. He had completely forgotten to introduce himself! "M'Scyeth," he said, blue eyes half-closed. This was really boring. ANd he wasn't feeling particularly chatty, but if he could convince her she didn't really need his help, he could deal with a brief conversation. He teen stifled a yawn and shrugged. He was waiting for an answer, or maybe just a chair so he could actually, you know, write a letter or two.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:23 pm
Alex snorted at the question. "Not exactly, it's for filing purposes. I don't make the paperwork, I just have to pick up the slack." Sharp green eyes shifted to the youth as he asked the dreaded question, but the thing she'd been so worried about dropped from her mind at his introduction.
"Ah." The word was emotionless, despite the faint smile. "So you're Scyeth." She stared at him for a while, wondering if he knew who she was. It was possible that he was clueless...or that he didn't know. Or didn't remember. Either way, clueless, and it was just as well with her. After a few heartbeats of staring, she thumped the paperwork with her fist and declared in a jovial voice, "You should be thankful it's easy and that I'm not asking you to write his reports." The words didn't quite match her tone, but she was getting better at it. Which distrubed her, but that was neither here nor there.
She felt uncomfortable, like she did around that More kid. Walking around the desk, she used a booted foot to kick a high-backed chair in Scyeth's direction. "You'll be done in a half hour if you're quick," she chirruped in that same faux-jovial voice. "I'm going to look over some of the foreign applications while you get started."
Unceremoniously (and likely unusually for a teacher), she plopped onto the ground against the wall, crossing her heels. She picked up a stack of papers and eyed them in a more familiar way than she had the others. Alex made a soft humming noise to herself as she picked up a red pen in her left hand, marking the designated areas on the paperwork without a second glance to the blonde.
Oh, Zhi was gonna hear it from her. At least that made her smile.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 9:45 am
The staring showdown did not bother Scyeth. He said nothing as she observed him, said nothing as the made remarks and said nothing until she kicked the at Scyeth. He caught it before it could slide into him (what a horrible noise) and flopped down onto the chair, folding his arms over the back to watch Alex as she sat against the wall and took her own stack of papers. "You're Zhi's sister," he finally said, raising an eyebrow. It wasn't question, merely an observation. "And you wouldn't make me write his reports," he drawled, "at least, you wouldn't if you've seen any of my reports thus far." She didn't know about his pledge to do better and didn't need to know until this little escapade was over.
He shifted into the chair and hauled himself over to the large stack, huffing a sigh as a he grabbed a black pen and the top sheet. Name? Yep. Initial. Page aside. Next page. Name? Yep. Initial. Page aside AUGH. "This blows," Scyeth said, three pages in. How could Alex possibly need help with this? Sure, it was mind-numbing, but that was about as far as the difficulty level went. The blond narrowed his eyes and stared down at Alex. "...you can't read, can you?" He raised an eyebrow. "Or maybe you can't write? There really isn't any reason you shouldn't be doing this. It's too easy. And. Why didn't you tell me the name when you were looking over the sheets?" It all came out at once, like Scyeth needed to buffer himself against a sharp rebuttal.
...the blond did not want to be here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 5:42 pm
"Yep," was her noncommital response. The woman made a snorting sound. "It's not called work 'cause it's fun, Scyeth."
Alex ignored the first part of what she would and wouldn't make him do. She counted herself lucky RuiZhi didn't go toting around that she was a monster...or at least, she assumed as much, or the boy wouldn't have been talking back to her. Of course, she was only a viper in the grass when it came to work. Outside of it? Probably more childish than anyone in the school, and that was saying something.
She paused marking the papers on her lap, her eyes rolling up although her head did not move. "I think I'm reading and writing just fine, don't you?" The woman slowly held up the papers. Not that Scyeth would likely be able to read them, since they weren't in English, but that was neither here nor there. "I figured you could just as well as the next student, unless you're telling me you're illiterate?" Alex smiled, and it wasn't entirely friendly.
Damn nosy kid. He'd almost hit the nail on the head. Almost. If he wasn't such a turd she might have corrected him...then again, maaaaaybe not. Admitting one's faults to a student was never a wise move. Let him guess for now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 12:53 pm
Scyeth did not smile back, not even a cold, mocking one. He just stared back at Alex and shrugged. She was getting a little less friendly with him. He must have been close. The student sad nothing and shrugged, turning back to his little stack of papers. She was reading. This was true. But from what he could tell, what she was reading was some language he didn't recognize. Huh. The blond mulled over what he knew, and what he didn't know, and marked papers as he went. It was easy enough that he could manage thinking and checking. Initialing. Whatever he was supposed to be doing.
Scyeth was about halfway through his stack when he looked up suddenly. "It's English, isn't it?" he asked. That would fit in with his unable to read and write theory, and it would also explain how she was managing her little stack of papers over there. "You can't read English." He was pretty certain she was foreign, everyone at this school was foreign. Zhi was Chinese, he was Australian, so it would make sense that Alex was from somewhere else, too. (...China?)
Scyeth folded his arms over his chest. "Well?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 7:03 pm
She finished the paper she was working on, taking several seconds before putting it aside with the finished ones. Bright green eyes turned back up to the student, placid and unfriendly. The woman didn't think it'd matter. She couldn't lie (as in she physically could not lie, she displayed obvious symptoms like eye twitches and jerks), and what was the harm in telling the boy why he had to do such a simple chore?
Other than her pride. Yeah, that wounded, snarling thing in her mind that was none too happy.
She was quiet for a moment longer before giving a curt nod. "Something like that." Alex declined to elaborate, looking back down to the stack in her lap and writing on them as if she'd told him the sky was blue. To say she was uncomfortable with the situation was a dire understatement, but she was the assisant and he was the student, so there wasn't much to be done. She wasn't about to ask him not to share her slight disadvantage, because quite frankly, he seemed the type to do it.
She was going to need to use the punching bag soon. Or Greg. Whichever was unfortunate enough to be found first.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 7:33 pm
Scyeth lips curled into a wicked grin, the wicked grin he'd offered in a very long time. There was nothing like solving a good puzzle to get the blond's spirits up, though it seemed to be winding Alex up tighting than a top. Which, in retrospect, was a probably a stupid thing. She was RuiZhi's older sister, and from what he understood, kind of a guardian thing, too. Which could cause a problem, considering Scyeth's current...predicament. Yeah.
"That's not really a big deal," he offered, giving a haphazard shrug. "Lot's of people can't read English." He turned and began to initial again. He needed to keep working, or he'd never be done. Not being done would be a problem, because this was seriously cutting into all of his time. All of his time. He needed that time to do homework and study and not think about boarding and plot. Yes, plot. He had made an idiot of himself and he had to fix that. "Spanish is more widely used than English, I hear."
Scyeth raised an eyebrow and glanced at Alex. "...is this supposed to be a secret?" Because despite whatever Alex thought about Scyeth and his secret keeping skills, she was quite wrong. He'd been secret-keeping his entire life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 7:51 pm
"Spanish is not a specialty of mine. I speak very little of it and even then, it's old Spanish." There was nothing affable in her voice, her eyes not leaving the papers she wrote on swiftly and with ease. Alex had been in a bad mood for most of the year, and having to do someone else's paperwork with and prying student was not her idea of making things better.
She could pin this all on one person. Too bad she carried every little infraction like some terrible mantle...like the scars on her body.
The woman didn't care to answer the last part. To her, it sounded like he was just asking to make her life miserable. Then again, when she was being pessimistic, it was generally safer to poke her with a ten foot rake than to try and talk to her. "It's nothing," she dismissed in a cool voice, slightly accented. She had two accents, but only one really came out, and it wasn't her Italian heritage.
Putting the stack aside, she stood again, walking behind Scyeth to reach the pile of his own finished paper. There, she picked up an oblong time stamp from the top of the desk and, riffling the papers like a deck of cards, swiftly started to stamp each piece of paper as it fell. The stamp probably hit a little harder than it needed to, but hey, what was a little stress management in a non-violent fashion?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:10 pm
Scyeth did not really understand women. It probably came from his lack of a mother. He never had to deal with an overly emotional PMS, he never saw what happened when a husband forgot something important and he never learned what happened when you crossed a particularly irritated female. At the rate he was going, he was about to find out. The blond was, however, getting the sneaking suspicion this was not the female he wanted to learn from. Save that for some airhead he meets in the mall.
"If it's nothing, why are you getting in such a tizzy over it?" the blond scoffed, rolling his eyes. He couldn't help but get a little irritated. He was struggling to stay in charge of the conversation and it didn't really sit well with the student. Neither did the beating of the stamp and the paper. The blond huffed and shifted to face Alex again. "Take a pill, would you? It's not like I'm going to tell." He scowled.
"Who am I going to tell, Zhi?"
...oh wait. They weren't talking. Scyeth scowled deeper. Nice, Scyeth, nice. You are one smooth operator.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:20 pm
The stamp stopped. "A tizzy?" she repeated, frowning. "Since when is silence a tizzy?" Alex snorted and finished the stamping, putting the finished documents aside to return to her previous work. "And Zhi already knows. He'd never think any less of anyone...for anything."
It was true. Not knowing how to read or write English wasn't something RuiZhi would judge her for. Heck, he'd learned faster than she had, but it was mostly her pride keeping her from trying. Oh, and it wasn't like Scyeth knew she wasn't able to write either, but, she'd not count her chickens while they were eggs...or whatever that stupid American saying was.
"Believe me," she added as she settled against the wall. "If you must know, go ask Weiyuan what happens when I 'get in a tizzy.'" A faint smile played over her lips, although she felt guilt for even saying that out loud. He'd probably be pissed that she said anything at all, although she had a sinking feeling that this one and the outspoken brother of hers would not get along well.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:40 pm
Now they were getting somewhere. There was a change in topics, even if it was...Weiyuan. Scyeth couldn't help but make a face of absolute distaste. "I do not like Weiyuan," he grumbled with a grimace. "He is a pain in the a**," he added before deciding to keep it at that. Alex probably didn't want to hear him trash talk her brother, and the blond was in enough hot water already. "Eugh." Just thinking about Weiyuan flustered Scyeth beyond words. Something about that brunette rubbed Scyeth completely the wrong way.
"...Zhi is...a wonder, like that," he agreed, though he had the feeling Alex had not put that to the test in ways he had. Yes. He had that all to himself. (And for some reason, that made the blond feel a little bit better.)
And that's when Scyeth decided to try and make this meeting work towards his advantage. "...you know Zhi well, yeah?" he asked, barely noticing he was about three-quarters the way through his stack. "Does he like any girls?" He offered one of those annoying, teenage grins. She had no idea his motive. Why not just act like a nosy, cocky brat? It's not like it was that far from the truth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
