Note: italic - said in English or thought. Normal - said in Japanese.

Ruki was already in his seat, when SHE walked into class. Everybody in the class greeted her like she was a super star. So what if she’s from America that doesn’t make her someone worth praising. But he had to admire her for not letting all this attention get to her head.

All the approval he was giving her was causing him to look at her for much too long. He was even noticing what she was wearing within the few seconds she walked into class. Today she had on a bright green tank top and dark blue jeans that had rips going down the front, starting from her upper thigh and going a little beyond her knees. But the thing that stood out was her shoes, they were pink and red flats that looked like it had a zombie on it. From the decaying skin and ed up teeth. He sees more detail in the shoes as she gets closer to him.

Tearing his eyes off the interesting shoes, he looks up at her, but not to his surprise, she sits down without looking at him. Still, his eyes give the impression that they didn’t want to look away and seem to notice more and more things about her. Like how she had her hair pulled back, showing off more of her face. He also notice that with the lack of fabric covering her top half she was showing more skin and he sees, which brought much shock, a black and white tattoo on her left arm of a man with a beard, crossing his arms and wearing sunglasses, looking like a true bad .

Then at that moment, unconsciously, his eyes traveled up from her arm to her neck. It was slender and looked so soft and oh so inviting. Out of habit he his lips, then his eyes widen with the understanding of what he just did and was thinking of doing. He looks at his desk to distract himself, ‘what the hell was I thinking?! How could I have possibly thought of just getting up and kissing her neck?’

An uncomfortable clearing of the throat from Vera bought him back from his self hating. She must have felt him staring at her. Now that she was closer he could see that she had a few piercing on her ear, although not as much as Akako. But also unlike Akako, she had variety of wired ones like a silver gauge that was maybe around size of 00g. She also had a tragus that was green and two regular lobe piercing that where on top of another.

He thought to himself, ‘why haven’t I notice all of these things before?’ he finds himself looking back at the man tattoo wondering who he was. Once again he finds his eyes traveling the length of her body, only stopping to watch her scratching one of the rips on her upper thigh. Every time she would scratch the slit he could make out another tattoo peaking out. Unlike the one with the man, this one had color to it. But since it was covered he couldn’t tell what it was.

Suddenly he hears the voice of a guy named Daisuke talk. Ruki stops looking at Vera’s leg and looks at the guy. Daisuke has turned around in his seat to look at Vera. He says in broken English, “You’re just like a Yankee Vera.” She laughs, Ruki thinks, ‘why does she laugh at something that loser says?!’ he balls his hands into a tight fists and makes his lips into thin hard lines.

“What do you mean by that?” she smiles at him, ‘she never smiled at me, let alone looked at me without glaring’ Ruki thought angrily. Poor Ruki, if he only knew the reason why she never looked at him, it was because she was afraid of him and was too proud to admit that she was. Also he did try to ‘teach her a lesson’ just a few days ago and still continues to try. If he wasn’t so clueless of these obvious facts he would have understood.

Now his heart rate goes up and his eyes keep jumping from Vera to Daisuke. This went on for a few nanoseconds till his eyes finally settle on Daisuke, who was smiling at Vera. “I mean you’re like a Yankee because of your ears and the tattoo.”

She looks at the man tattoo and softly places her hand over it and says, “Oh…”

Daisuke was about to say something but stops midway because he looks over at Ruki with his eyes narrowed into little slits glaring angrily at him. He gulps and turns back to face the front of the class room.

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Vera thought it was funny how her class mates were calling her a Yankee. Just because she has a few tattoos and more than one piercing doesn’t mean she’s a wild child or anybody bad. She just liked to have art on her body … nothing wrong with that.

The true trouble maker was that blond pretty boy next to her. Did he seriously have to mess with everything in her life? First it was the bulling, which by this point she made up a simple system: 1. never travel alone, 2. if you’re going to hide, don’t hide in bathrooms, and 3. when school is over GO STRAIGHT HOME!

But now he was even trying to get everyone not to talk to her. That Daisuke guy wasn’t the first one to get scared away, there was this girl, Vera can’t even remember her name anymore, that started talking to her the first week she was there, but as soon as she found out that Vera was Ruki’s next target she stopped talking to her.  She doesn’t even look her in the eyes any more.

This must be part of his plan, to get her alone somehow without anyone to help her. If it really was his plan then it was working. She was alone. Even without his help she was alone. She couldn’t even talk to anyone that wasn’t family … well unless she wanted her chance to go back to America to be taken away.

Suddenly the ringing of the bell brought her back to the present. Sighing, she gets up from her seat and heads to Ms. Y’s class. As usual the group of delinquents was hanging around the door of the class room. Vera could feel that intense stare follow her all the way to the classroom. She was already used to him looking at her like that but today, for some reason, it seemed like he was looking at her more closely like he was trying to find something about her. She didn’t like it one bit. But like always she pushed that feeling back and walked into the classroom.

She sits heavily onto her seat causing Kai to look up from a paper he was looking at. He smiles his naturally sweet smile, “Hello! We’re doing bookwork today.”

She nods. He reminded her of Abbie. They were so alike from his smile to his height. The only thing was that she was a girl, of course, and she had blond hair.

Abbie was so happy when she found out that Vera was going back to America. Vera could see her jumping up and down through the phone and she couldn’t help but smile. But her smile faded remembering that she had to wait about two long mouths before she could go back.

She had to admit that she was lonely. Of course she had her family, in her stay here she had gotten closer to her cousin and her aunt but it’s still not enough. She needs someone outside of family to talk to… but who?

The annoying chime of the bell brought her back to the classroom, ‘Holy crap I was thinking the whole class period and didn’t do !’ Kai stands up with book in hand, "Well, see you tomorrow." He leaves the classroom.

Then suddenly something clicks, ‘why haven’t I thought of that before?!’ she yelled in her head. She had a single most thought at that moment. She gets up from her chair, walking to the door, ‘this might… no, it WILL get me in trouble if someone finds out’ she smiles brightly and walks out the classroom.

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E/N: So this is the start of the progress in Ruki's attention towards Vera! Hope you enjoyed and new chapter next week!