Chapter Text
Eugh, everyone really sucks. I don’t think I’ve felt any worse than today. I was absolutely ridiculed in front of everyone in class. Even my best buddy, Slums, laughed at me–and why? Because I think this new kid in class isn’t all that.
I was in my usual spot, the farthest left seat in class, which just happened to be the farthest from the new kid. My eyes would occasionally dart his way, catching glimpses of him. I leaned over toward slums and whispered.
“You think the new kids weird? Look at the way he wears his hat…”
“Peppered… Really?” She hissed.
“What!? Just an… observation.”
“Mhn, whatever, Pep…” She stood up grinning, her flannel draping as she lifted herself. She gave me one last snarky look before speaking up.
“Do you guys think Nathaniel's weird? Peppered does!” I could see him flush from across the room. Mostly everyone shook their heads.
“Slums I-“
“C’mon, Pep! You’re really saying he’s weird?” She snickered, glasses dipping down her nose a bit.
“SLUMS!” I stood on my chair, leaning towards her.
“What?! Give him some slack, he’s new!”
“And? I have more than enough permission to make fun of people! Especially with what I had to go through!” And the whole class rolled their eyes and chuckled loudly. It’s not my fault I got bullied hard in middle school, being isolated and punked constantly. The teacher stood up and cupped his hands around his mouth, a makeshift megaphone.
“Please calm down! You’re all being disruptive to the class next to us!” He put his hands by his sides and looked my way. “And you, Miss. Leave Nathaniel alone.” I sat back down and curled up, my knees against my chest.
Look, I’m not all that either, but apparently, I’m dull enough to be absolutely humiliated for thinking I was superior to this guy. He’s weird and pale, and he tucks his ears in his hat because he says they’re “kind of suspicious to others”. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. His hair is silver, despite being an 18-year-old, and he has this fly-looking hole on the tail-end of all of his pants. Who the hell puts a hole in the back of their pants?! Then the bell rang. Everyone stopped their sarcastic chortling and headed out of class.
“Fucking morons...” I mumbled to myself as I slung my backpack over my shoulder, boots tapping loudly through the halls.
“Why the hell does no one get a weird feeling about him! He’s just so…” And I blanked. What actually was he? Dumb, stupid… kind of charming? Anyways, that’s not the point. The point is that I don’t think he’s entirely human, and if I shared that with my class, I’d be the laughingstock of the whole town. Stuff like that spreads like wildfire, y’know? You can’t just say anything around these dickheads without it being spread around like a cat’s salival bacteria in a bird’s bloodstream!
As I walked home, I stared at the ground most of the time, some dumb shit playing in my ears from my iPod.
“Maybe I just hang around Hot Topic too and the library too much; actually, scratch that, I DO hang around Hot Topic and the library too much. I dig supernatural beings, and I dig vampires even more.” Yes, that spilled out of my mouth. No, I would not like to meet a vampire (although I do think I might be already), and yes, of course, I dress in black constantly.
When I got home, I tossed my bag by the door and ran up the stairs, waiting all day for this moment: maintaining my beautiful GeoCities page. The keyboard clacked as I typed in the domain of my website, vampirez1985.geocities.com, wanting to see today’s hits on the counter.
“Mh, 201… at least that’s one more than yesterday, huh.” It was one of those decent-looking websites with barely any hits. It did kind of disappoint me that no one would see my increasingly unhinged writings of vampires, werewolves, and all the things of that sort, though. I checked the guestbook on the homepage and, finally, someone wrote something.
“Erm, hello. Not trying to be mean here but I wanna fix a few misconceptions on your page. You see, vampires aren't all that bad. I mean, sleeping in a coffin? Heck, I sleep upside down. Well, I mean THEY do. Sorry. Sorry for bothering you.”
This mysterious individual claims to know more about vampires than I do? Of course, I had to reply.
“man u dont know anything.” Very mature. About three hours later, I got an IM ping from someone named “natell83”.
“Hi. I saw your IM name on your webpage. vampireshmu85? That’s you, right? I left a message in your guestbook.” I hesitated typing back.
“yeah thats me”
“I could give you some more… updated information on vampires, yeah? A lot of those are misconceptions on your pages. For example, you wrote about how they originated from those who didn’t understand rabies?”
“i did”
“Well, we do NOT infact, have rabies =) I’m a perfectly functional individual except from the fact that I have a horrifyingly huge hunger for the blood of those around me. I don’t like it.”
“are u making fun of me”
“No! I’m serious!”
“vampires arent real man”
“But… I am one? I can send a picture if you want :D” And I stopped. He was gonna send pictures? I was afraid he was gonna be one of those idiots who acted like they were gonna send something else, and then it ends up being dick photos. I walked away for a minute and grabbed myself a soda from the kitchen. I thought to myself. Hard. What if he was being genuine, and I was just a fool for not believing in those kinds of things? I walked back to my room, sipping on my ginger ale, carefully listening for the ping…and then it came.
I shuffled over to the desk and sat down quickly, pulling the IM tab back up, and by god was I not prepared for this one.
“Sorry I took so long! I couldn’t find my camera. Anyways, here you go!” The attached file was a photo of… the new kid, Nathaniel?! He was staring at the camera with a big, cheesy smile, two fangs overlapping his bottom canines. His ears were pointed at the tips, and he had a long, black tail that ended in a furball like a lion's.
“It’s tough to find a camera without silver! My friend, Uzi, fixed it so we could take pictures of ourselves, though!”
“uzi? oh i know her. purple hair, she goes to staples high right?” I asked casually, as if he didn’t just reveal himself to be a vampire.
“Yeah, her! She's a very nice girl!”
“ur nathaniel rightr?”
“Thats me =) And you are?”
“peppered. peppered .”
“Oh! Blue hair!”
“thats me.” And then, he put it really, REALLY bluntly. “Personally, I think you're very pretty ^_^"
I logged out, not replying to him, and kicked off my boots. My face was flushed and hot–I was shaky and embarrassed for once. What could he find endearing in me, of all people? Was it my personality? It couldn’t have been, I was one of the rudest people in school. My looks...? No, I look like an anarchistic social outcast. What the hell was he into? I had a very difficult time sleeping that night, my head spinning with so many embarrassing thoughts. My ears were burning, lips pursed, not wanting to open. It was all a bit tiring, so I decided to at least try to fall asleep, which took around an hour ½. At this point, I was inclined to believe that this couldn’t get better.