So I'm Lazy and I've Got Lots of Work...

Therefore, I find it perfectly logically (acceptable or not is up to you to decide) to replace actual content with copied and pasted things. Such as my half-finished story for a writing contest on this forum thing. It's a story about... romance, and albeit my very limited knowledge into this field, I decided to give it a try.

And also, I asked Dino whether entropy was reversible and if he had any large lasers at his house. His answer to the first question was, "On the planetary scale, of course it's not possible." And his answer to the second question was, "Is this a serious question?" To which I replied, "Yes, it is."

And he said no.

Alas, my grand scheme to go back in time so I would have more time to write my research paper, and, in general, other homework assignments as well, will thus be slightly delayed. Not by much, though. I'm sure Vincent always has a way.

If he can solve cryptic crosswords, then he can do anything.

(Click here for the short story that inspired part of my questions.)

And, there is my story, or, the first part of it, as I have written it.

I love you, maybe.

Dedicated to my favorites: Dray, Allison, Prescott, and *name crossed out due to relevance to reality*

Heaven has always hated me. I am not lying. Every time something good happens, Heaven always takes it away from me. Every time I want to cry, Heaven makes sure only the brightest sunshine falls on my head.

I want to make this perfect for you, because you only get one chance at it, you know? No rewind button. No undo key combo. We all have only this once chance, and I want to make it worthy of you. But Heaven hates me, and I can't call forth the rain I want.

So this will have to do.

Forgive me.

When I first looked into your eyes, I thought you had the bluest eyes I had ever seen.

You were a foreigner. Blue eyes, blond hair, pale skin, all that cliché. The older kids told the younger ones that you were a monster out to get them at night. A vampire. A ghost, perhaps. They said the bluer your eyes, the greater the number of lives you had taken. I remember the first time we met, down by the bus station between Lily Road and North Avenue. I had missed my ride again, the fourth time that week, and my mother refused to pay for a caddy anymore. So I trudged to a stop in front of the orange metal pole that marked the bus station from the street, and waited.

You were already there, your clothes perfectly groomed and so out of place. Your face was so pale it made us look dirty. You smiled at me, out of habit more than out of friendliness. I smiled back, just as uncomfortable with the situation as you were.

I said hello, in an heavily accented English that I was sure you were laughing at on the inside.

You replied in perfect Chinese. "Hello. How are you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?"

The bus came at that moment, and you smiled again, apologetically. We both hurried on the bus, and amidst the crowd, I lost sight of you. But that question had been haunting me ever since I had asked it. How were you that morning? Were you really happy, oblivious to the whispers behind your back?

Had the bus not come that moment, and had you answered, would everything have been different?

I did not see you again until two years later, when we were assigned to the same class at the beginning of high school.

You had changed by then. Your face had a harder edge to it, and your voice deeper. You had a nonchalant aura. But your eyes were still the same blue, if only colder. If I had thought I could drown myself in your eyes before, then now I felt as if I could lock myself in the icy palace you built with your eyes and never want to come out again.

I wanted to say something to you, but you were distracted by a group of boys. They were pointing at you and whispering something in traditional Shanghainese, something even I did not understand, despite living my entire life near Shanghai.

One of the boys spoke in Mandarin. "Wei, you! Sheep-hair! Come over here."

You barely granted them a passing glance before occupying yourself with a silver chain you had. The boy who spoke to you started shouting again.

"Hey, I'm talking to you! Answer me, you bastard!"

I should have gone up to them and told them to leave you alone. I should have reported them to a teacher. I should have said something, anything. In hindsight, I should have done so much.

And maybe had I done something, there would be no more story to tell.

The tutoring thing was more of a fluke than anything else. I had been sitting under the tree in the courtyard, sketching the school, when Ms. Ling walked over and asked me if I was free every Wednesday afternoon.

"I see you here all the time," she explained, "doing nothing at all."

I am doing something. I am drawing. "Of course I'm free. Why? Is there something you need?"

"Well, you see, I have a student who is not quite grasping the curriculum, and I simply don't have the time to help him myself. You're doing fairly well with your grades, so I wanted to ask you a favor."

"You want me to tutor him?"

"Yes, is that possible?"

There were a thousand ways this could go wrong, I wanted to say. A thousand and one. But instead, I said, "What subjects would I be responsible for, and for how long?"

"Chinese, and math. I don't think English is necessary. You will only be helping him with one subject a session, with each session being two hours long. Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, if that works for you? I will tell him about our plans. You two can meet at the school study hall."

"Okay," I said. Had I been more alert, and less upset, perhaps I would have seen the warning signs and bowed out despite my cowardliness.

When I stared into your eyes again, they were still the bluest eyes I had ever seen, but somehow they appeared duller than what I was accustomed to. Was it merely my dreams that catapulted your reality into a form of perfection that was never real? I smiled weakly, the first time I had ever smiled to you since our first encounter, but you did not return the gesture. You saw me in the same way you saw everyone else, defiant, but hopelessly lost.

None of us realized the lost part, however. We just saw your defiance and assumed the rest.

"Hello," I said, trying to fill in the silence.

"Hello. How are you?"

You were polite, too polite. It chilled me more than any harsh words could. I grabbed a chair next to you and sat down. You had your notebook open, on the first page, clean and fresh and so unreal. There was one line of text at the top, scribbled in a flowery font that was evidently not yours.

Be good.

I paid no heed to those words at the time, but perhaps that was the turning point of this story. I had my choices laid out in front of me, two separate roads leading down unforeseeable worlds, and I made a decision. Did I make the right choice? I do not know. But I do know that things could have turned out so differently, and so easily.