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"So what've you got next?"

I had to raise my voice a bit for Tony to be able to hear me, beneath the common noise and bustle that always rumbled in the hallways during passing periods. I'd had to call his name once the class got out, since I guess he hadn't actually expected me to live up to my offer to walk him to his next class again. The first period of the day is always easiest to get to, since you've got all the time since you first arrived to get there; for all of the others, the board judged it acceptable to give you four minutes to get possibly all the way across the entire building, body-traffic notwithstanding. Some of the teachers understood that, though, and offered some leniency for the supposedly-strict tardy policy.

But, still. It wasn't smart to fuck around.

"Ah..." Just like before, the cheetah pulled his wrinkled schedule out of his pocket and unfolded it, taking a moment to look over the colored paper. "...History."

"Oh yeah? American, world, European?"

"World. It is a requirement... I would not take it if I didn't have to."

"Oh, you don't have to tell me twice. I've actually got that next, too; who's your teacher?"

"Um - Mrs.... Ruben, I-" Then, his face lit up in response to mine doing the same. "Oohh. You have her too?"

It was the little things, right? I couldn't help my tail wagging behind me then, every now and then brushing across Tony's leg. That was the problem with hanging out with a canine like me, and something that you'd often hear other people complain about in the halls. In my Public Speaking class last year we'd been assigned to put together a speech about our top three pet peeves, and this one girl's consisted entirely of when people's tails keep hitting you in the hall, when certain species seem to be unaware of how strong their natural scent is, and the way that otter just kind of slide in and out of the lunch lines without waiting their turn.

So, yeah. The little things.

"I think you'll be fine. It's not a hard class, really; she's old and tries not to speak if she doesn't have to, so usually we just have to read a chapter in a book, and then take a quiz the next period over whatever it was we just read. Not hard at all, so long as you can read. You-" This was something the kind of which that Tyler and I said to each other often, as a sort of joke... and here it was, just slipping out of my mouth before I could catch myself. My heart picked up with that oh my God I fucked up worry even before I'd finished: "-You know how to read, right?"

Tony just kind of looked at me for a second... and then covered his mouth with a paw, just barely suppressing a snort. "Yes, Matt, I know how to read... actually, I have an easier time reading than I do - speaking the language..."

Exhalation of breath, nervous laugh, shrug. The cheetah kept stride beside me, easily weaving between the students going against us in the other direction. Every now and then you'd encounter someone that just really absolutely needed be right where you were walking, and would find yourself suddenly jerked or rammed to the side, or in some extreme cases, just straight-up pushed. I think that was how most fights started.

Yet again, after all, this was high school. Penthouse of bad decisions and stupid displays. There was that panther that tried to smoke a blunt in our math class last year; that time an idiot lion tried to get a swing in on the wrestling instructor, and ended up both suspended for a week and in the hospital with a broken jaw... that one had gotten into the school paper; then how one of my sort-of friends confessed her love for one of her teachers, only to have him call the police on her and then have her removed from his class...

...and then there was when Mike, grey-furred cat who nobody had heard about until about halfway through last semester, asked out the boy he liked during one of the semi-weekly pep rallies, in front of about half the school. He said yes, but the latest news on that was that they almost got frisky in the bathroom during one of the band concerts of the other guy, and a teacher walked in and caught them with their pants around their ankles. Literally.

I don't know. I don't really stay up-to-date on all of that stuff. We do have one of those gay-straight alliance things here, but it's like... it's like the ping-pong club. That's cool, sure, but it ain't my thing, and it certainly doesn't interest me. I wonder if Tony had signed up with any clubs.

"Okay-" I briefly touched his arm to get his attention. Short fur, softer than I'd expected, warm- "I dunno if you've noticed, but the school's kind of... partitioned. You know?"

"I do not know."

Mrs. Ruben was one of those teachers that always stood outside the door of the classroom, smiling and greeting each student individually. Again, she's old. That's a real grandma thing to do.

"Oh, well... where we just came from, the orchestra place? The band hall is right up there too, down the other hall. I think we passed it on the way in. And right up where we are now, this whole hall..." Here, I waved my arm around to show the extent. "This is, like, the history hall. All the teachers here - except Mr. Hightower, he's philosophy - are history, or geography, or whatever. Social studies. Across the hall is English, over... there, somewhere, is math - morning, Mrs. Ruben... you get it."

The cheetah frowned, following me into the classroom. I made my way straight for my usual seat, and after pondering it for a moment, he elected to take the one directly in front of me. Usually someone else sat there, but... whatever, right? "Matt, I am very, very bad at - finding my way around."

"Hey, man, it's okay." While reaching into my bag for my textbook, I looked up... and found him looking back down on me. My first reaction was to smile, so I did. "Took me a good three weeks before I had my schedule memorized.

Tony sat with his arm draped over the back of his seat. At this school, we had those horrible desks where it's all a one-piece set, and the chair is connected directly to the desk itself. That reminds me: there was also that time some kid got body-slammed into a desk so hard that is actually turned into a two-piece set. "Three weeks..." He counted on his fingers, claws about halfway visible beneath the fur. "How much longer is left in this semester?"

"What is it, March?"

"Marzo... yes. That is right."

"And we finish in May? Late May. Or early June. Spring break is coming up soon, thank God. And then there's prom shortly after..."

The cheetah's ears perked up at that, and for a moment, he looked at me with surprise. "Ooohhh..." Tony dropped his muzzle into his paws. "Ah - spring break..."

"What? What's wrong with that?"

The bell rang, then, with Mrs. Ruben to come into the room soon after. She let the door click shut behind her before talking; me and Tony both kept our ears perked, but just as I'd expected - "we'll be starting today off with a quiz over Chapter 39, and once I pick that up, you are to start on Chapter 40... I have a presentation at the end of the period that will help you with some of the main concepts..."

"I -" Tony looked up at Mrs. Ruben, and her eyes lit up at seeing him. I forgot what it was like to have a new student. "-will tell you about it later..."

~ ~ ~

Of course I'd forget about it, though. Despite having been born about halfway through the Cretaceous and legitimately being deaf in one ear, Mrs. Ruben kept a damn sharp watch on her class throughout the period, and discouraged any talking unless we had a partner assignment going on - which came around, almost literally, once in a blue moon. Today was not one of those days.

After history class, Tony and I split up again, and this time I actually couldn't walk him, as much as I'd wanted; next I had chemistry, and my teacher runs an even tighter tardy policy, and with Tony's English class being clear on the other side of the building... well, I didn't want to risk it. So we kind of smiled at each other outside Mrs. Ruben's room, "see you at lunch? It'll be the same place we hang out at in the mornings", "oh! Yes! That sounds good", waited another second or two (my tail was doing its slow wagging thing again), and then said goodbye and went our separate ways.

Chemistry's one of my tougher classes. Well - it's not tough, really, but it's just the one I tend to have the most trouble with. Often I just have trouble paying attention, which contributes to the problem more than anything when all of a sudden we're taking a quiz and it's asking for me to draw the molecular structure of so-and-so chemical we worked with last time, and... well, I know glucose, methane, and water, and that's about it. Tyler's better with chemistry than I am, so the few times we work on homework when we hang out, he helps me with that and I give him some needed assistance on his math homework.

Another problem with chemistry class is that it was my third period, and right after third period comes lunch. So I always had food on my mind as well; some days, you could almost hear the collective growling of near-empty stomachs... especially on mac and cheese day. Today was also not one of those days

Because of that, I'd chosen to bring my own lunch today, and thus was the first one to make it down to our little hanging-out spot once the lunch bell rang. Ty showed up soon after with Lexi behind him, a lunch tray held in each paw (not to say that he'd made her carry his - since Tyler had one in his paws, too). She was a smallish vixen, pretty natural wine-and-chocolate fur coloration. I forget where it was they met, but, God, were these two perfect for each other.

We sat back in a little alcove of sorts, a little space set out from the hallway so students could get in and out of this classroom easier - and so during lunch, they wouldn't have to sometimes literally step over and on top of us to get by. I don't know how many times I've gotta say it, but this is high school. If someone's just having a bad day and you're in their way in the hall, there's always a small chance that they'll intentionally step right on your food and just continue on their way without so much as a sorry. It's happened before.

Lexi sat herself down to my right, setting both of her trays carefully on the floor in front of her. Once she'd ensured that her milk carton wouldn't fall over, she shined a bright grin my way, and raised a paw. "Hiya, Matt. Sorry I couldn't come by last weeks. Clubs n' stuff."

"Yeah, I know. Clubs n' stuff. Did your... what was it..." Before I'd gone to bed last night, I whipped up a little sandwich - pastrami, cheese, and nothing else; I'm a simple man of simple pleasures - and now idly waved it in one paw, trying to search my thoughts. "...thingy... go well?"

"What, my speech?"

"Yeah! That's the one."

Before she answered me, Lexi picked up one of her bread rolls and looked over it. She'd done that ever since she found this kind of dusty grey-green mold on one of them two years ago. Yet again... "Oh, went well. I didn't forget anything this time. Woulda been better if this dingbat-"

Tyler jerked to the side - "ow!" - and rubbed where she'd elbowed him.

"-had shown up like he said he would."

"I told you, I got signed up for a shift I'd personally asked off!" As he spoke, he reached over to swipe Lexi's other roll; she caught his wrist right as his fingers closed around it. "It's not my fault - hey, look, what's the point of getting two lunches if you aren't gonna share? Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his girlfriend's brow?"

"The hell are you talking about? That's - neither capitalism nor communism, what is that? Is that indentured servitude?"

Sometimes, I did miss being in a relationship. There was that kind of easy back-and-forth banter that you can only sorta get with your friends, and even then, it's not as... I don't know. Satisfying, I guess. With friends you can laugh and jab each other, but with a girlfriend, you kinda grin, and giggle, and lean in...

Maybe I was going too far. Lexi and Tyler, still doing their thing, bumped noses... and then Ty took his chance to take that roll right out of her paw. This time, she didn't bother trying to get it back. But, then, her hazel-green eyes focused somewhere to my left, and she straightened up.

"Ah, hi. Can we help you?"

Even before looking to see who it was, I rolled my eyes. Every now and then you'd get that teacher who would be all pissy about public displays of affection, sometimes going so far as to give you detention for a kiss on the cheek. However, the voice I then heard was one I should have expected, but didn't - it was cool, smooth, accented. The same voice I'd heard so much from today already.

"Hello! I am Tony. I am - a friend of Matt's. Can I..." The cheetah held his own lunch tray in front of him. I noticed that he'd gotten two cartons of juice. Weird, considering the juice here usually tastes like something skimmed off of an oil slick. "Can I eat with you?"

Lexi glanced to me, and her whiskers twitched for a second, with her ears following right after. There was something going on in that head of hers, but just what, I had no idea. She pursed her lips as if to say something to me, then opened her mouth, inhaled... and looked back up to Tony, a smile spreading across her face. "Oh! Yeah, sure. Good to meetcha, Tony. I'm Lexi. I don't know if you've met - my boyfriend, Tyler..."

"I have." As he sat down and curled his long tail around his legs, it brushed against my lower back and made me shiver with the slight tickling. "Um... do we... introduce?"

Tyler watched him as he chewed on his first bite of that roll; Lexi was the one to continue talking. "Are you going to be a permanent fixture in our little group of misfits here?"

"I... I think so." Amber eyes glittered at me. He had one of juice cartons between his paws, fiddling with trying to get it open. "Is that okay?"

Lexi looked to me for a moment, then at him, then back to me again - still there was something going on in her head - and then shrugged and took another bite of the roll that Tyler had commandeered from her. "I mean, I'm okay with it. We aren't gonna haze you or anything. Well - I'm not."

The jackal still leaning against her just echoed her shrug. "Matt seems to like you, so. I can't say no. I mean-" He jerked a thumb towards her. "He let me keep her, so - ow! Hey! Quit it!"

At first it seemed like Tony had prepared to say something else, but - suddenly lost his confidence and busied himself with his lunch, whiskers back and eyes avoiding mine.

"But, yeah. Sometimes we've got Sandra around here, too, but I dunno where she's been... she'll show up. I think you'll like her. I don't know. You already know us, so..." Tyler shrugged again. "Why don't you tell us about yourself, Tony?"

It was like he was hiding behind that little white-and-red juice carton. "Ah... I do not know..."

"Oh, come on." I reached over and rested my paw on his leg, near his knee. Just like before, there was that intense body heat there, radiating through the fabric of his pants... cats, am I right? "Please?"

Another moment of silence, before he looked over at me again and sighed. "Okay. Yes. My name is Antonio Amador, and - yes, I speak Spanish, I-"

Lexi pumped a fist into the air. "Knew it."

"-but I was not born in Mexico..." Here, he shifted how he sat, and rested his lunch tray in his lap. The styrofoam bent a little bit beneath the weight of the food, and in that movement he'd gotten a little bit of mashed potatoes stuck to the back of his thumb. Looks like he didn't notice. "My - parents had us, me and my sister, speak Spanish... what's the word... only at home..."

This time, Tony looked up from picking apart his own lunch, one cheek puffed out a little bit as he chewed. "Exclusively?"

"Yes! That is it. My mother had us speak Spanish exclusively, until we had learned enough English in school... and then, she would help us with our homework, since she knew it herself but still wanted to get better... we lived, um-" The cheetah's little ears flicked back, but only for a second. "...somewhere... else... until we moved here. Less expensive. Um... cheaper."

"That makes sense. You know-" I couldn't help but smile, then, watching Lexi reach over and steal part of Tyler's lunch as she spoke, the jackal too busy looking down at his phone to notice. "-My parents did the same thing. The - the moving thing, not the Spanish thing. I'm in my third year of French, and let me tell you, I hardly know how to ask where the bathroom is. School requires you to have at least two years of a foreign language to graduate, but not that you can actually speak it at all - so they don't teach for that, either..."

Tony straightened up. After another moment, he did notice the potatoes, and - just brought his paw to his muzzle and lapped it off, little pink tongue flicking out for a fraction of a second. "I learned English just fine. I think."

"It's like a habit, you know? Here, we've always spoken primarily English, and that's what we need. Then over in Europe, you can walk down the street and ask any random person how many languages they know, and they'll tell you three or four... bah. Whatever. I'm sorry. I changed the subject." She propped her elbow on her knee, munching on one of her sandwiches. "Go on?"

"Huh? Oh. Oh, no, that is all. I am... not very interesting..."

"What?" Tyler suddenly spoke up, startling both Tony as well as myself. I thought he'd tuned out. "No girlfriend?"

More silence... except, of course, the very loud and always-present noise of lunchtime at high school. Tony picked up his other juice carton and opened it. Then, simply: "No. No girlfriend. But - um... I actually just remembered, I have to go set up another audition date for orchestra..."

"Oh." Lexi raised her eyebrows; Tyler looked back down at his phone; I watched Tony's face. His whiskers had started to twitch and flick again. "Well, it was nice talking to you for the... two minutes you were here. Thanks for stopping by."

"Yeah. Yeah..." The cheetah swiftly gathered his things and stood up, almost dropping his tray in the process. Then, he looked back down to me, and gave an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I will... see you tomorrow, I guess?"

"Yeah. That sounds good. See ya, Tony."

"Bye."

And then, right as he disappeared behind another group of people - Lexi clamped her paw on my leg, startling me again, and waited for me to look at her.

"Matt!"

"What?"

"That boy is hot as hell. Like - my God."

"What, really?" I looked back down the hall, and thought I caught a black-striped tailtip flicking out of view around the corner. "You'll excuse me if I didn't notice."

"I don't believe for one second that he's never had a girlfriend. Tyler - would you be okay with it if I leave you for him?"

"What?" He swiped through his phone a few times. "Oh, yeah, sure. You know I've had my eye on that one baseball chick- ow! Christ! How many times are you gonna do that? And how come you get to say stuff like that, but I don't?"

I raised my paw. "I've got his number if you want it."

However, that just caused her to raise her eyebrows again, and made the gears of her brain spin a little bit faster. I'd hear from her on that eventually, I'm sure... or she'd at least tell Ty what she was thinking, and in turn, he'd tell me. We'll see. "You do, huh? I might have to hit you up for that. Oh, hey - today's your off period, right?"

"Yeah. I coulda left as soon as lunch started, but... my dad said he might be able to give me a ride home today, and I'd like that a lot better than walking. So." Only reason I hadn't was because he hadn't yet gotten back to me on whether he could or not.

And because I told Tony we'd meet here for lunch. Would be kinda rude if I just left him here, right? Tyler doesn't seem particularly interested in getting to know him like me, and even though I've hardly known him for a day now, I still don't like seeing this cheetah uncomfortable and nervous. Already get enough of that walking him through the halls.

"He's quiet," Tyler suddenly said, as if he hadn't noticed we'd moved on from that subject.

Lexi tilted her muzzle his way, and before she'd even started speaking, he gave her his usual bright dumbass grin. "You were quiet when we first met. And, goddamn, look at you now."

"What can I say? I like hearing my own voice..."

~ ~ ~

Dad still hadn't gotten back to me by the time fourth period officially started, and the way it works at this school, if you have a free period you have to be either in a classroom during that free period or just off campus. You can't be wandering the halls or hanging around outside or anything. Kinda sucks when you have to, like, go to the bathroom or something, but otherwise... what business would you have in the halls, anyway?

So I just took refuge in the library again, thumbing through my planner and various folders to figure out which homework assignment I should prioritize first. Most everyone that can leave for their free period figure out a way to do it, so places like this tend to be emptier than usual, save for the few stragglers like myself. The other aids smiled and nodded at me as I came in, but left me alone. It's only the teachers you have to be careful with, where they'll have you do some of your usual work for them if you come in during a period you're not assigned to them. I learned that the hard way, after stopping by the German teacher I help out every other day.

I had some extra things due for calculus tomorrow, and needed to figure out how we should start on our astronomy assignment, so I sat down at one of the little aesthetically-pleasing desks in the center of the library (designed by one of the school's very own graduates! They look damn nice, sure, but you can't really sit by them because they're solid all the way down, and there's nowhere to put your legs) and got to work, though motivation had been dulled somewhat, as it always was at this time of day. After what felt like twenty minutes, I lifted my head off my desk and realized I'd only done two and a half of my math problems.

And, then, my ears perked and flicked behind me at a familiar voice, up near the front desk. What are the chances? I turned and looked, and sure enough Tony was up there, arms leaning on the desk as he spoke with one of the aids and long tail flicking behind him, fast and uneven. Something was bothering him.

I didn't want to miss him, of course, but I also didn't want to bother him... so I just remained in place for a while longer, one arm draped over the back of the chair and muzzle pointed his way, watching his exchange with the aid. Maybe he was getting his ID card done or something? I don't know. I think I heard him mention that a few times, but it was hard to make out with him facing the other direction. After a few more minutes, though, it looked like his business was done, and he turned to leave... but then something must have caught his attention or something, because next thing I knew, he'd half-turned back around just enough so his amber eyes fell on me.

The slightest of chills shot down my back and ended in my fingers in this kind of... kind of dull tingling. Weird. When he'd made his way over, he prepared to sit in the chair beside mine, and braced his paw against the back of mine for support as he did so - with his fingerpads and semi-retractable claws just barely grazing against my shoulder, only reviving that cool shiver. His muzzle kind of close to mine as he sat down, warm breath tickling at my whiskers-

-and sunlight-bright eyes on mine for that quarter of a second, before he swung his bag around into his lap and flumped down into that chair.

"Hello again," he said, as if he hadn't noticed a thing. My mind sizzled, though why, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it was just the nervousness of someone getting so close to me, but... "I have a free period. I thought your, ah... library... help thing was first period today?"

"I... it was. I have a free period too."

"Ooh. What are you working on?"

"Homework. Uh - calculus." For a few seconds I looked around for my pencil... and then realized I still had it between my fingers. Tony didn't seem to notice. "It's not going so well."

"Ah, dios, I need to do that too..." He scooted up closer and dropped his bag to the floor. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Oh! Yeah, no, go ahead... two heads are better than one, right? Ha..."

To this, he gave me a slight smile and nodded, long tail curling around into his lap with the white tip flicking around. "Yes. I guess so."

What the hell was it with these shivers? Was I just cold?