For fuck's sake, this place is a fucking maze, not a school!

Sky was almost late again as she rushed into the classroom, out of breath and her cheeks blushed - only to notice that there was only one free seat in the whole room.

A seat on the table where the cute scar-lipped boy and his friend, the pale-as-a-vampire kid sat.

The loser table.

Oh, crap.

Sky hesitated, glanced around again to see if she'd missed a free spot somewhere, but in vain. The only thing that her hesitation caused, was that the boys noticed her clear unease to join their table, which immediately made her feel bad.

She'd been hanging out with Yasmine and her friends for a couple of days now, but it hadn't yet managed to erase her humanity completely. Sucking up her reluctance, she grabbed her backpack and walked to the table.

"It's fine, we don't have leprosy." the pale boy commented. "Nor the black death. You're completely safe."

Sky felt her cheeks heating.

"I didn't mean to–"

"Hey, I wouldn't sit at my table either if I had a choice." the boy said. "But I don't, so here we are."

"I was just trying to see if any of my friends had this class–" Sky started, but got interrupted again.

"You mean Queen Yasmine and her evil minions?" the boy asked. "The advanced chemistry class? Because that's where you are, in case you'd gotten lost. The 'How to torture innocents' is across the hall."

"Hey, I don't think you know me well enough to start throwing insults." Sky snapped. "Besides, I'm here to study, not to make conversation."

The dark-haired boy opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again, and shrugged. From the corner of her eye, Sky noticed that the scar-lipped boy was looking at her, but as he was still saying nothing, she decided to ignore him too and instead pulled her chemistry textbook out of her bag and slammed it on the table.

Chemistry happened to be one of her favorite subjects, and she wasn't going to let these nerds ruin that for her. She'd be perfectly happy just listening to the teacher and doing her work, no social interaction needed.

Her solitude only lasted a couple of moments, though, before the dark-haired boy again leaned closer to her, and continued talking.

"I'm Demetri, by the way," he said, as the lesson began and they started to write down notes from the board. "And this is Eli."

He nodded towards scar lip - Eli, Sky corrected herself - who in turn made a small nod.

"And?" Sky replied. "Now that you've introduced yourself you can continue insulting me?"

"No!" the kid - Demetri - replied. "I didn't mean to. Just–"

"Just trying to bother me while I'm studying?" Sky rolled her eyes and gripped her pen harder.

"Fine, whatever." the boy said and gave a frustrated sigh. He opened his notebook and started writing too. Sky welcomed the silence that fell into their table and took a deep breath to ease the tension on her shoulders.

The teacher was explaining the connection between moles, molar mass, and mass, which was simple enough since Sky had already read that chapter from the book last night to be prepared. Almost without thinking she scribbled down the notes and let her mind wander.

She glanced at the boys by her side. Demetri was now making weird hieroglyphs in his notebook, but maybe they made sense to him since his brow was deeply furrowed in thought. And Eli–

He looked up from his notes, and Sky met his gaze, totally unprepared. He had big, blue, beautiful eyes and Sky was instantly drawn to them, drawn to him. For a couple of heartbeats they just looked at each other, and Sky saw how his pupils dilated, how his throat bobbed–

She broke eye contact, her cheeks heating.

What the actual fuck, girl? Stay focused!

But suddenly it was very hard to stay focused, and she became intensely aware of Eli's presence, of the way his fine, long-fingered hand gripped the pencil, the sound of his soft breathing in the silent classroom. Even if Demetri was sitting between them, Sky could feel Eli's closeness in the air like an electric current that made something hum inside of her core.

She cleared her throat and swallowed.

"I'm Sky," she said silently. "In case you didn't know."

It suddenly felt like a very important thing, to tell her name to Eli.

"Oh, I knew," Demetri said. "But anyway, nice meeting you Sky."

And once again, Eli said nothing. But when Sky glanced at him, he was looking at her again, and there was a small ghost of a smile on the corner of his lips.

After some time of silent studying, the teacher announced it was time to practice and handed a worksheet to every table. Sky reached to take the paper, and quickly scanned the numerous exercises but none seemed to be too complicated. But there was just one sheet for every table, which meant...

"Group work," she muttered. "Great."

She wasn't a fan of working in groups. Especially with people, she didn't know at all. Even if one of them was a cute guy she'd like to know.

"Let me see," Demetri said and took the paper from her fingers, which briefly annoyed Sky.

"It's just simple exercises," she said with an eye roll.

"I can see that," Demetri replied, and took his pen. He began solving the first problem by himself, leaving Eli leaning his elbows on the table and trying to see what his friend was writing.

"I think we're supposed to do this together." Sky noted reluctantly. "Besides, you're doing that all wrong."

"What? Are you questioning my superintelligence?" Demetri asked.

"No, I'm just telling you that you don't know your math, geek-boy."

"But it's M = n/m–" and he stopped mid-sentence, furrowing his brows, which allowed Sky to snatch his pen and point at the scribble he had managed to produce on the sheet.

"No - it's n = m/M–" she explained. "You're messing it up!"

"I'm pretty sure it's the other way around–"

"No, don't be dense!" Sky replied, and pointed at the equation in her book. "Look, n is the number of moles. And you get it by dividing the mass with the molar mass–"

"She's right," Eli said - and Sky almost fell off her stool.

It was the first time she heard his voice - such a nice voice, a little raw and husky, probably for not speaking that much - and Sky really liked it. She couldn't help but stare at him for a couple of heartbeats, unable to form an answer.

Eli gave her an embarrassed look, and red spots emerged on his high cheekbones. "What? I can speak," he muttered silently, once again covering his scar with a hand.

"Apparently." Sky replied. "And thank you, I am right."

"But–" Demetri started again, but then resigned and gave a sigh. "Fine, I admit to being defeated. It's only that–"

"It's the metric system," Eli said. "It's confusing."

"No, it isn't." Sky noted. "It's very logical."

"Excuse me." Demetri turned to look at her. "I am the definition of logic. I am practically a Vulcan - and I still find the metric system confusing."

"Then maybe you're not studying hard enough." Sky shrugged but gave him a smile.

"And you are?"

"Obviously."

She flipped the pages of her textbook until she found the periodic system of elements, and then began copying the needed atomic masses of elements into the paper sheet.

Demetri gave a rather theatrical sigh, and Sky noticed a small smile on Eli's lips again. It was very catchy, but she tried her best to suppress a grin.

Chemistry. You're supposed to be studying, not checking out distractingly cute guys.

"The molar mass of sodium–" she muttered, her finger following the lines on the page.

"22,99," said Eli.

"Right." Sky replied, and glanced at him. "Thanks. And there were three grams of it, so..."

She quickly did the calculations and got the answer.

"0,130 moles?" Demetri said, arching his brows.

"Yeah." Sky replied. "Easy."

"You're surprisingly good at this," Demetri said, leaning his elbows on the table.

"Oh? And why is it surprising? Because I'm a girl, and girls can't do math?"

He shrugged. "No, because you're–"

"I'm what?"

"He's trying to say that he thinks it's weird that someone who hangs out with Yasmine and her friends could be smart," Eli muttered, managing the longest sentence Sky had heard him say so far.

Sky glanced from Eli to Demetri. "So you think that just because I like pretty clothes and high heels, I'm stupid?"

"I didn't say that!" Demetri replied. "You're clearly not stupid–"

"And you just said that surprised you." Sky rolled her eyes. "You're a jerk, you know."

"I wouldn't say I'm a jerk–"

"And I think you should know that there is more to people than the way they look." Sky snapped. "Just saying."

At that Eli looked up from the worksheet, his eyes meeting hers, and Sky couldn't help a blush on her cheeks.

Yup, there definitely is more than meets the eye in that kid.

And she wanted to get to know it, to know it all. But that would be fucking stupid, because she had just gotten cool friends, and he was a–

A loser? A freak?

And are you any better yourself, just because you can hide your scar under your clothes and he can't?

Demetri, clearly unaware of Sky's inner torment, just gave a sigh and picked up his pen. "Come on, let's finish this, chem-genius," he said. "I might be a jerk, but I still want to get an A on this."

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