"Alright, class. Today I'm going to be assigning you a project that you'll have around a month to complete. I want all of you to submit your projects by the first of May. Does that sound alright?" Mr. Harrison explained, clasping his hands together and scanning the room for any signs of protest. "If you have any questions or objections, go right ahead."

A student seated in the front row raised his hand after which he questioned, "Can it be a pair work? We have a lot of other homework assigned to us as well so it'll be more convenient if it's a pair work."

"Okay, that sounds fine to me," he grinned in response. "If you still want to do it alone, though - go right ahead. There are no objections from my side. If you do decide on it being a pair work, however, I want a written report of the work done by yourself and your partner so I can assign you the appropriate marks accordingly."

I pursed my lips. The project was supposed to be on Trigonometry - and if there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that I sucked at Math. I turned to face Ethan. I could just pick him to be my partner and we could probably figure something out along the way, but another problem was that Ethan was terrible at Math too, which left me with limited options.

"I'll pair up with Alexandria," Barbara explained. "If you guys don't mind, that is. You'll be fine with each other, right?"

"Oh hell no," Ethan exclaimed. "You can go right ahead but there's no way in hell I'm pairing up with Kairo here. He sucks at Math just as much as I do and I don't want to fail. No offence, man."

"None taken, I was thinking the exact same thing actually," I huffed.

I scanned the room carefully to see who I could team up with - when my eyes landed on Alexander. I was unaware of whether he was good at Math or not, but at that moment it didn't really matter. After the little confrontation we'd had in the boys' washroom, I was left feeling oddly curious about him. I didn't know what it was but for some reason, I wanted to get to know him a little better. Perhaps it was because of how mysterious it seemed - I'd always been drawn to people who were shut off. It was how I'd met Ethan, too.

I chuckled at the memory of Ethan being the quiet little kid in class, never communicating with a single soul - all till the day we were assigned as desk mates in elementary school. Sure, he seemed quiet and looked like he had it all together. However, after our bond strengthened, I realized how much of an idiot he actually was. There was no doubt in my mind that he probably had a few loose screws in his head - but that was what made me consider him my best friend. Because I was dumb too. Our duo was something we'd often refer to as dumb and dumber.

In other words, we had an ideal friendship. Every other friendship quaked in our presence.

Even then, in some moments I considered sacrificing him to the tribes in the Amazon rainforest.

"I'm going to pair up with Noel," Ethan stated. "I don't even know if that's his name. He looks like a Noel to me. He looks pretty smart too."

And this was one of those moments.

I nodded in response. Following that, I quickly stood up and began rushing over to Alexander so I could grab a hold of him before anyone else could. I tapped him on his shoulder sheepishly and watched as he turned around like an owl doing a full head spin.

"What is it?" he questioned with a raised brow.

"Be my partner," I blurted out. "Wait- I didn't mean it like that-"

"I know what you meant," he snickered. "Why me?"

"Yeah, why him?" another guy I'd never seen before questioned from beside him. "He already agreed to pairing up with me. Sorry, man. Tough luck."

I heaved a sigh and nodded, "I underst-"

"Oh, did I?" Alexander suddenly questioned, furrowing his brows at his 'partner'. "I don't really remember agreeing at all. Sorry, man." And then, he shot the guy a lopsided grin that was coated in nothing but pride, "Tough luck."

"Asshole," the guy spat before storming away. I could nearly see the dark rain-cloud above his head.

I turned back to face Alexander who simply folded his arms across his chest and looked back up at me with a mysterious glint in his eyes, "Howdy, partner."