The Joker's True Feelings

-//-//- Phase 1 -//-//-

She looked lost, and lonely, looking about the classroom aimlessly for companionship. Their teacher had assigned a group assignment with two to three people per group. Her friend, the odd, annoying boy who spoke too much logic, had transferred out of the course, finding it meaningless to his studies. Since his absence, she sat alone, talked to no one. Her left hand caressed the inside of her right arm at the bend of her elbow. It was certain she felt awkward and out of place. He sighed and stood halfway up in his seat. This automatically caught her attention, bringing her gaze to meet his. He waved her over, as if she was silly not to. She hesitated at first, not quite sure if she should go. They were not the closest of friends. Sure, they had a class last year and played cards when they could. Were those intense slapping games of cards filled with laughter and yells what sparked a small subtle relationship? He smiled at those memories. He had hit her hand several times brutally, her hand managing to slap the cards before his. He credited her silently for those feats, apologizing when she cried out, scowling at him in distaste. He grinned even more, but his grin faded as she stopped halfway to his desk. His other partner for his group assignment looked at her with uncertainty. His foot found his leg and he gave him a stern look. “Let her.” “But—” “Let. Her.” He submitted and set to work reading the instructions to the assignment. She sat down next to him at a respectable distance though it was obvious she wanted comfort. She was a dependable little thing. He learned few things about her from the previous year: do not make her mad, do not tease her, and she loves animals and longs to go to the country.
“Guess where I’m going this weekend.”
She looked up, slightly confused, her currently dark brown eyes looking at him with interest. Suddenly, they sparked with realization, flashing a new color: a light sea green.
“I hate you,” she mumbled under her breath, making him laugh softly, grinning constantly, and his pure sky blue eyes shining as brightly as hers.
“Y’know,” he said, his voice growing softer through the sentence, “I’m going to try to be nicer to you this year.”
She looked at him with intense confusion, her eyebrows furrowing in the middle. Her lips parted to speak but nothing came. She licked her lips nervously. He began to think twice about what he had just said. How stupid he was to speak impulsively. He had never done it before. Yes, he is brutally truthful and teases people a lot but he was not impulsive. Yet what drove him to say that one thought and out loud? He could have told just himself that, if she noticed it, it would not be from him telling her. Their other partner ignored them, writing down his own copy of the boy’s work. He watched her correct a sentence, erasing away each letter efficiently by tracing it with the butt of the pencil. Her writing was so strange, a combination of cursive and print, her Ys and Gs curling into the next line below it. Oh well, what was said was said, no taking it back. He meant it though; he felt he was too mean to her last year, teasing her a little too much.
“You were never mean to me,” she said, not looking up from her work, her eyes darting from paper to paper, her hand moving rapidly with such great accuracy. She said it with simplicity, no note spared. He automatically shrugged, picking up his paper and stacking them together. As soon as she dotted her last sentence he reached over and snatched up her papers before she could even tense her muscle to stand up.
“I didn’t put my name on it though!” she whined, trying to snatch it back unsuccessfully. He picked up his pen and wrote her name down quickly along with the date. With that he pushed on her head as he passed by her, forcing her to stay seated. He looked over his shoulder at her with his wide grin as he turned in their papers to see her with a flustered and annoyed look on her face. When he came back, he ruffled her hair and they were fighting again, laughing and grinning, slapping pairs of cards as they were tossed down on the table, all work completed.