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Name: Nico Di Angelo

Age: 16

Grade:12

Height: Don't know or care.

Period: You should know since you are my teacher.

Reason for being in this class: It was on my schedule.

Goals of the year: Don't die. 

Friends: N/A

Fears: N/A

Talents: N/A

Anything else I should know about you? N/A

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I feel pretty good about the paper I just turned in. It's the first day of school, and I'm already done with these teachers who claim to care about us as individuals. Yeah that's all bullshit, and we all know it. This history teacher just wants to weed out the bad students from the get go, so I figured I'd make his job easy. I know, I'm quite the hero, right?

School is the absolute biggest waste of time. The competitive social aspects only add to my long seated hatred for the educational system. Getting good grades and making friends? Yeah I'd rather run naked through the woods into a wolf pack. The only reason I attend this hellhole is to at least get out of that other shit hole that is my home. Ditching only sends home notices of my "bad behavior" so I just zone out through the long lectures and try to get through the day with as little human interaction as possible. I'm practically invisible no matter where I go, so it's pretty simple.

But I do have to be honest--I mean with this shit of a personality at least there's one bright side to my otherwise gloomy disposition--I did like school at some point earlier on in life. I ended up skipping two grades because of it, and now I highly regret that decision. So now I make sure my grades are only average, despite the ease I could ace them in. No one wants to be the 16 year old senior smart kid. Well maybe some people would, but definitely not this one.

The sunshine in my day comes from the one class I can actually stomach: orchestra. Despite my general distaste for giving a fuck, I do enjoy the 50 minutes I can spend playing music on my cello. I miss my old school, oh yeah did I forget to mention I'm also the "new kid" now, great way to stay under the radar, am I right? Well anyway there was a teacher there, Mr. Chiron, who actually made the course interesting without being a total try hard middle age dude. He taught ancient greek history, which was already weird enough for a high school, but I'm happy it was on my schedule.

The bell rings and the history nut at the front of the room tries to wrap up the syllabus as quick as he can. As I head to my next period, english oh the joy, I get shoved into the wall hard.

"Fag." The tall blonde mutters and I sigh. No matter the city I always seem to attract the attention of douchebags. Blame my short stature and dark clothes for the bullying. Being the little shit I am, I decide to respond to his kind gesture.

"You know I love being pushed into lockers early in the morning, it's a totally refreshing way to wake up." I say, putting the most saccharine tone into my voice. He turns back toward me, "I'd watch my mouth if I were you kid."

"Why, is there something on it?" With that he punches me in the face.

"Yeah, there was: my fist." Damn, I walked right into that one. I guess my overflowing wit and charisma fail me sometimes. The second bell rings and the guy snickers as he walks away.

"See ya later punk." I rub my cheek to get the pain to go away, whilst getting rid of my shock towards the punctual bully--gotta give props where props are due, I suppose.

I walk into english. The teacher has already started talking about something, so all the attention is on me. Great.

"Excuse me, mister why are you walking into my class late?" She asks incredulously, as if her class is an important meeting with the ambassador of France. Already having dealt with enough today I decide to wave her off, "I'm new, I got lost, miss."

"Make sure it doesn't happen again," She dismisses, "Name?"

"Nico Di Angelo."

"Well Mr. Di Angelo, you may quietly make your way to your seat." She nods to the right side of the room where there is one empty chair, and I plop down into it. The chair squeaks beneath me and I look in disdain around the plain, grubby room. Glancing over at my seat partner, I grimace. I can tell just by looking at him that he's a jock. The first thing you notice, besides the rippling muscles that is, are his shocking blue eyes. His skin is nicely tanned, which complements his short blonde hair. If I wasn't disgusted by what I was sure to be an abysmal personality, I would consider him to be very attractive.

Hm I guess I forgot to mention that about me. You know along with all my wonderful traits, you know the dry sarcasm and brutal lack of talent, I am in fact a flaming homosexual. The Gods definitely decided to go all out in making my life one long walk through a hellscape. Yeah, I'll just go quietly kill myself in the corner if you don't mind.

I get ruffled out of my thoughts by someone poking me in the shoulder. Me being me I immediately flinch away.

"Woah dude, no need to be scared I don't bite." I look up to find the person attached to the poking being the jock.

"What do you want?" I ask dismissively.

"Um, to do what the teacher said. Weren't you listening?" He asks, a quizzical look on his face.

"No." I shrug and roll my eyes.

"Well she said to get to know your seat partner, we can't do anything else for the day because the books for our course haven't come in yet." He gives me a half smile, which I don't return. "Oh."

"So." He draws out.

"So." My eyebrows raise and I smirk at him.

"What's your name?"

"I said it in front of the entire class." I wave my hand, as to stop further questions.

"Okay," he drags the word out a little longer than he should, seeing if I will ask about him. I don't. He seems a little pissed. "Well mine is Jason Grace, nice to meet you, Nicole?" I glare at him. My next words are short and filled with menace,"Ni- CO. I'm not a girl."

"Oh, oops, I must've heard wrong." He says with a wink, "So what's your favourite colour?"

"Use that head of yours and think about what the answer to that might be before you ask it. Just a suggestion." He looks confused so I wave my hand at myself and he understands. My whole ensemble gives it away. Black is the definition of my "look." Black skinnies, black shirt--although there is a red skull on this one, so props to me for having variety in my attire-- black converse, black leather bracelet, and my marbled grey gauges.

"So you're goth then?" I shrug, "I don't do labels."

"And your favourite color is black." He continues

"No it's pink, how did you miss that one, I for one thought it was obvious!" I throw my hands on my cheeks in mock surprise.

"Wait so it's pink?" I groan.

"Ever heard of sarcasm, Grace?" I ask seriously.

"Oh, okay. Sorry I thought you were being serious for a minute there. But hey, I won't judge. Pink's an okay colour. One of my favourites is purple. My number one favourite, though, is yellow." I must have looked at him strange.

"There something wrong?"

"Oh, no." I reply

"Okay?" He says, trying to get me to explain.

"I hadn't pegged you as the kind of guy to like 'girly' colors." I tell him, using air quotes.

"I don't think that there should be any distinction between colours. It doesn't matter what's 'girly' or not." He says. Hm, I think I'm starting to like this guy.

"Your turn to ask a question now." He says.

"Do I have to?" I ask, more like whine. "Yes." He tells me, with a stern expression.

"Well I just did, so your turn." I smirk, at my mass trickery skills.

"That doesn't count!" He points out. "And, pray tell, would it not classify as such?"

"The questions have to be about the other person so that we can learn more about each other."

"You didn't say that you said "your turn to ask a question." You said nothing about what it had to be about." I explain nonchalantly.

"Fine, but next time you have to use the rules I just stated."

"More like made up." I mumble.

"Hey, that's rude." He squints, pouting. "But does that make it any less true?"

"Fine, okay. Let's just get on with this. Um how old are you?" Ugh, one of my least favourite questions.

"That's a weird question. I'm a senior like you"

"Well people have different birthdays I wanted to see if I was older than you. So answer, and while you're at it, when's your birthday." Goddamn he's persistent.

"Why do we even have to do this stupid activity?" I deflect the question.

"Because our teacher told us to."

"It's not like we're gonna be friends, so what's the point of getting to know each other?" I shrink back into my seat.

"What do you mean? There's no reason we can't be friends." He tells me as if it's obvious. And why wouldn't he think it was obvious, he is the definition of a popular guy, he's probably used to people throwing themselves at him to be friends.

"There are many reasons we shouldn't be, Grace." I refute, putting on my mask of scorn, as per my usual.

"Well why not?" I look down.

"No one ever wants to be friends with me." I shrug.

"Hey." Jason says and I roll my eyes, looking towards the clock.

"Look at me." I don't obey. He grabs my chin so I'm staring right into his perfect sky blue eyes.

"I'm gonna prove you wrong." He says. The bell rings and he lets go of my face and packs up. He turns back to me and says

"I'll make sure of that." He gives me an award winning smile and walks away, leaving me in utter shock.

He said that like it was nothing. Everyone always claims making friends is easy, but it's never been like that for me. Chalk it up to my severe trust issues and general distaste for social interaction, but I've also never found it very important to try. And this random kid who has known me for less than an hour, and whom I was quite rude to, has decided to befriend me? It's suspicious to say the least, and I don't believe him one bit.

I'm wrapped up in these thoughts as I make my way to the cafeteria. There are a few mostly empty tables towards the edges of the room and I find myself at one of them, sitting down and opening up my book. I almost screech out when two hands clamp down around my shoulders.

"Nico, why are you over here all alone? You should come sit with me." He grabs my bag with one hand and hoists me up with the other before I even get the chance to argue. There's a grin on his face, and my unease increases tenfold. He sees my scowl and just laughs it off, walking over to a well populated table. I follow him, not of my own volition mind you, but because I can't very well let him walk off with my stuff. I have a hard time keeping up with his long strides through the busy area. There is one seat left at the table, and it's on Jason's left. I cautiously seat myself and look down at my hands, not wanting to grab anyone's attention.

"Sup folks, this here is Nico." Jason says casually, slinging an arm around my shoulders. I tense at the action, but his arm stays there. "He's new, and pretty cool." This guy is insane, I've decided. 

"Nico, meet Piper, Beckendorf, Silena, Percy, Annabeth, Leo, Will, Frank, and lastly Hazel." He goes around the table systematically, and I'm a little overwhelmed to say the least. My breathing gets a little heavier, and my hands are fidgeting beneath the table. The girl to my left, Hazel I think, turns to me with a soothing smile. "Don't worry, the majority of us are well tamed." Her small jab towards the others is not unnoticed, but I only nod in response.

"Oi!" One of the boys exclaims, and she giggles, "My point exactly." I decide to just try my best to ignore everyone, and focus on Jason.

"Can I have my bag back now?"

"Oh yeah, forgot I grabbed it." He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly after handing it back to me. I put my book away since I clearly won't be able to read anymore now that I'm here. I sigh and wonder if this is how everyday is going to be. I don't think I'll be able to make it through the year if Jason is constantly throwing me into rambunctious groups of teenagers.

"So you must be new here, Nico, I've never seen you around!" I internally groan, of course everyone is interested in meeting the new kid.

"Yeah," I shrug, hoping she gets the hint that I don't want to talk more.

"What was your last school? Oh please tell me it wasn't Jupiter High, god those guys are so arrogant!" Jason makes a face, "Piper, I used to go there!"

"Yeah, but we've forgiven you." She sends a kiss across the table and Jason just shakes his head.

"So are you a former Roman?"

"Uh, St. James Academy." I tell her, and her eyebrows raise, "Never heard of a St. James Academy, where is that place at?" I wish I could throttle her right now, I hate nosy people.

"...Italy." I mumble hoping she doesn't ask again.

"Huh? I didn't catch that." She leans in, and I sigh for the thousandth time today, "Italy." Her eyes light up, and there's a smile on her face now.

"OMG! That's so cool! You mean like the country Italy, right?" I swear her voice shot up an octave.

"Dude, Piper what other Italy is there?" One of the guys snickers and she shoots them a stern look.

"Anyway. You must speak Italian then, you have got to teach me! Oh what is the food like there, I bet it's the best. You know I've always wanted to go to Italy, well there and France cause well duh, France! How long were you there, and why are you here when you could still be in Italaaaaaaay?" I don't think I've ever heard a girl speak so fast, my gods, she is terrifying.

"Woah slow down, Pipes, give the kid a break." This guy I think was named Will and I shoot him a grateful look.

"Well sorry for being excited, I think it's really cool you lived overseas." Piper pouts and I decided to at least give this "friend making thing" a try.

"Uhm I lived there up until a few years ago. It's my home country so yeah I'm fluent in Italian, I gotta say it's a hell of a lot easier to speak than english. You guys have the weirdest pronunciation I swear." Her eyes light up at my response, "Please say something in Italian, please?" I groan. I've been trying my hardest to make sure I don't even have an accent, and it's only the first day and someone is already asking me to revert back. I quickly rattle off a short phrase and the table is silent for a moment. I shrink into my chair even more now that literally all the eyes are on me.

"Gods, that was both so adorable and sexy, you have to teach me how to say some stuff!" Piper grabs my hands and I am caught up on her statement. She is smiling like crazy while I am trying hard not to blush, grateful that my hair is long enough to cover up some of my face. Jason looks at me once again and pats my back--what is with these people and all the touching?

"Welcome to the group, Nico." His smile is both daunting and reassuring. I try to send him a mental message of "help me," but he just chuckles at my expression.