Naomi Aoki

I remember seeing her when school started, but neither of us had shared one word with each other. To put it in a poetic kind of way, we were ghosts who rather didn't acknowledge each other's presence. But that changed when our science teacher decided to give us a class project in which we’d have to work in groups. And oh man…I hated science fair projects.

Mr. Hopkins was also our homeroom teacher, but the subject he was fluent in was the terrifying art of science. That day, he had given us the great opportunity to pick who we wanted to be with for the project. I felt cheated, considering I couldn't take advantage of an offer like this. I didn't know anyone in the class, and it seemed like everyone else did. In fact, I watched all but Naomi Aoki scramble around the classroom. They dashed back and forth to place their hands and claim friends like they were a piece of candy.

I felt helpless as I could only sit there and wait. I kind of felt like I wanted someone to pick me, but I knew that the chances of that were slim. Yet, when it came to Naomi, she had only been reading another one of her books from her bag. It seemed she hardly cared about the project we just had been assigned.

Little did I know, It was only a matter of time when I'd begun peeling the first layer of her enigmatic skin.

At some point, everyone had finished picking their partners and cooled down. Mr. Hopkins began getting into the nitty-gritty details of our project shortly after.

“Okay,” he began to say as he stared down at a paper on his desk. “Is there anyone that does not have a partner?”

I looked around the classroom. Nobody had raised their hands, which wasn't a surprise at all. They had all managed to get their buddies in a manner of seconds. But, as I looked towards Naomi, she kept her hand by her book. I had wondered if she was even aware of what was going on. She only continued turning the pages of her book in silence.

I began to feel super self-conscious. I hated standing out in the crowd. It would've been a different story had someone else, at least one person, raised their hand. I was fine standing out as long as I hadn't been the only one. As tempted as I was in keeping my hand down, I also was familar with the consequence behind it. I didn't want to end up with a big project all on my own due to a stupid misunderstanding. Deciding that a few minutes of discomfort didn't compare to weeks of agony and stress, I made my choice. Swallowing my anxiety, I raised my hand with hesitation.

Mr. Hopkins looked up from his desk and noticed the one hand hanging in the air. He took a glance at another sheet of paper on his desk. I assumed it was the list of students in his class based on what he said next. “Chase Lyte?” He referred. “That’s your name, correct?”

It was in the middle of fall, so he hadn’t learned everyone’s names yet. At least, not the ones who kind of stayed in the background.

“Yeah…” I answered back.

“Let’s see…” he mentioned as he rummaged through the list on his paper. “Who can I put you with…?” He slid his finger downwards and soon jerked his head back up. “Oh!” He turned his head back my way, but onto another person. “Naomi Aoki?” He called the girl to my right.

I figured she was too busy with reading to listen and pay attention, but she proved otherwise. In fact, she surprised me when she placed down the object that captivated her interest on her desk. With a swift yet graceful turn of her head, she looked towards our teacher.

“Yes?” She answered in a sort of polite but unenthused manner.

“Do you have a partner for the upcoming project?” He asked.

Hearing that, I couldn’t help but wonder why he turned straight to Naomi with a question like that at the time. It was like if he had already been expecting that she'd be without a partner too. Did he already know her? Or had it been the silence she dedicated herself to since the start of the year? After all, she did give off an overwhelming sense of independence.

“I don’t need a partner,” she responded, straightforward and to the point.

Her confidence had to have been extraordinary to say something like that. After all, she didn't just blurt it out in front of the whole class. She had asserted her dominance right in front of me, her proposed partner. I wasn't sure how I should've felt about that. On a more important note, it made things more awkward with the person who proposed the idea in the first place. He and I both knew that he couldn’t exactly leave me hanging on my own.

Instructors tended to have a real weird way of doing things when it came to their classes. If Naomi wanted to be on her own, I was sure that he could have just fitted me in somewhere else. Yet, he didn't seem so willing to give up on the idea of pairing me up with Naomi instead. For some reason, it was like they preferred equality among the groups. Couldn’t they handle one group having three people? Or was it because someone else was working on their own? Maybe it was both. Or, maybe it had something to do with students lecturing the higher ups about fairness.

Either way, he was adamant about whatever he believed in. Smitten with subtle embarrassment, he continued to try to squeeze me in. An emotionless comment like that wasn't enough to make him give up.

“Would it be alright if Mr. Lyte worked with you on this project?”

At the moment, I believed it was the first time she had ever made direct eye contact with me. She seemed to stare deep in my soul as if she had been judging my worth. Or, maybe she was shooting daggers at me for intruding her independent space. I couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated as I had to endure that icy stare.

“Alright,” she answered with an unreadable expression on her face.

As she continued to observe me for some time more, the teacher decided to move on along.

“Okay then!” He clapped his hands together with a sort of sheepish smile. “So, everyone has a partner now, right?” After pausing for a moment to receive no objections, he resumed speaking. “Alright, good!” Naomi had finished with her looks and proceeded to pick her book back up and continue reading it. As for me, I decided to exhale a breath of relief. “Now, I know I let you guys pick each other’s partners, but there’s a catch. I’ll be handing out the specific objectives each group will follow. In other words, every group will have something different to do.” He stopped to see a hand raised by one of our female classmates. “Yes?”

“Wait. So, are you saying that if we want to do something specific like the Laws of Motion, we can’t unless you pick it out for us?” She asked.

“Correct,” he returned. “Now, the only reason I’m picking out the projects for you guys is so we don’t have any duplicates. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that knows some people will choose the easiest project and churn it out in a night. Everyone will be getting something different. That way, I won't be getting thirteen copies of bottle rocket experiments on my desk at the end of the day.” Several students in the class groaned, but it didn't take them long to get over it.

Mr. Hopkins decided to hand each of the groups' projects he had printed out on papers. He didn’t choose a certain project for a certain group, he just pretty much handed them out at random. When he stopped by Naomi and me, he decided to approach me instead. Whether it was the truth or not, it was a bit obvious to tell he was a little uncomfortable around Naomi. It could have been that he just didn’t want to bother her. Whatever it was, he had decided to give me the instructions to what we'd be doing for our project.

I took a glance and skimmed through it. From what I read, we were making the solar system. To do that, we would be needing to get foam balls, paint, and all that junk.

Ugh… I kind of hated this kind of crap, but if we had to do it then we had to do it.

“Now, class is almost over. If any of you have something you’d like to discuss with me about this project, please feel free to stay behind,” he announced.

Everyone else began discussing things among their groups and partners. I took a break from rereading the instructions and sighed instead. It didn’t appear to be too difficult. I just hated using my time on such time-consuming things. I hated doing things that I didn’t exactly have a passion for, which, in reality, were a lot of things. Then again, I guess it was like that for every student, so I couldn't complain.

Out of nowhere, I felt a sudden presence right next to mine. I almost jumped at the sight of Naomi when I looked to my right and saw her standing next to me. She was looking at the paper on my desk in such an eerily quiet manner. I quickly grabbed a hold of the paper and handed it over to her.

“Here,” I took slight caution as I offered.

Without a word, she accepted the offer with heavy silence and looked it over herself. Then, she took it to her desk and continued to keep her eyes on it. I observed her behavior for a moment until the bell rang. Everyone got up and continued to discuss things with each other as they walked out.

“Have a good day!” our teacher expressed at his desk.

Apparently, no one seemed to have had any questions about his project. That is until Naomi spoke up about it.

“Sir.” She stood up and faced him from her desk.

“Yes?” He questioned.

Naomi walked towards his desk and placed the paper in front of him. “Is this really necessary?”

From what I was able to see, she had been giving him a solid, stern, and serious look.

“Um…” He seemed to be a little unsure of what to ask or say. “…what were you expecting to do?”

“A research paper could prove to be a better alternative,” she offered.

Her heavy strike caught him off his rather easy guard. “You…you want to do a research paper over something like this…?” He seemed to be just as confused as I was.

There was no doubt that I would rather do the project we had been assigned rather than write a paper. No doubt.

“Yes,” she answered with no hesitation. “This is trivial.”

“W…well, you see…” He appeared to have a tough time finding words to speak with as he rubbed the back of his head. I couldn’t blame him. I’m pretty sure he was never expecting another first-year like this to say the things that she said. In fact, I was sure he never expected this kind of behavior from any kid in high school. “I wanted everyone to do a visual project based on what you know. I was hoping I could display it in and out of the classroom. If it helps, you can do your own research if you want the extra details and information concerning your project.

Naomi continued eyeing him in silence before she closed her eyes and released a sigh.

“Fine.”

She returned to her desk to pick up her bag and began heading towards the classroom exit.

She didn’t even spare a glance or a word to me. Again, her partner.

I grabbed my bag as well and began heading out. I glanced over to the teacher for a second, and I couldn’t help but notice him giving me a certain kind of sad look. It was as if he was apologizing about pairing me up with her and sending good luck my way.

Who knows? If things don’t turn out well, maybe he might just give me credit anyway.

I took the expression on his face with a grain of salt and continued making my way out of the classroom. I thought Naomi had already headed off to her own business, but then I found her approaching me out in the hallway.

“Chase,” she called in a soft but stern manner.

“Y-yeah?” I was almost startled by her sudden appearance again.

“I have a proposition for you,” she declared. Oh… She’s going to tell me what I’ll be doing for my part of the project, isn't she? “I’ll do the work. Just don’t interrupt me.”

Wait… Did she just…?

“H-huh…?” I didn’t quite catch what she meant. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard this before in class,” she responded with no fault in her voice. “I don’t need a partner. If we share the work, it will only unnecessarily stall the completion of this assignment.”

You know, it was kind of cool that she was straight up giving me a free pass to not do anything. But, at the same time, I felt a little bothered by that statement.

“What…?” I still couldn't quite grasp the situation from her.

She sighed and placed a hand to her head from what appeared to be frustration. “I’ll do this all on my own. You don’t have to do anything for this project.”

Despite how tempting that was, it didn't feel right to accept it. I couldn't fathom knowing that she would be doing everything while I did the exact opposite. “But…that’s not fair,” I reasoned. “If you do all the work, I’ll get credit for something I don’t deserve.”

“It’s fine, Chase,” she returned. “I don’t care if you get credit for something you didn’t do. I just care about getting this unimportant work done in an appropriate manner. I do not want to use any more time than I need to.” It seemed she didn’t want to discuss the manner any longer, so she turned to take her leave. “Besides…” Before she left, she turned her head my way. “You’ll be doing both of us a favor if you let me do this on my own.” Afterwards, she began walking off, leaving me there in jumbled silence.

For the next several days, it was as if the topic of the project had vanished in thin air. To be quite frank, it bothered me more to be sitting around and doing nothing. This circumstance would've been a dream come true if it came to the other students. But it just didn't sit right with me. I soon began to realize that I was wasting more time worrying about it than I would have to do the project myself.

I’d hear talk of the project from my classmates and how much they’ve progressed over the next few days. Whenever they would mention the subject, I’d look over to Naomi, but all she'd be doing is reading her book. I almost considered the possibility that she wasn’t doing anything about it either. But it couldn’t be true. From what I knew, she wasn’t like that.

We had a few weeks to get the project done last I remembered, and everyone had to pretty much do it on their own time. As time passed, I could feel myself grow insane with every day that flew by. I wasn't that one kid who loved getting schoolwork. I just hated the thought of having unfinished assignments. I never considered the chance of forgetting about an assignment and failing it.

The fact of the matter was that Naomi and I hadn't been working together on it at all. Because of this, we had no direct means of communication. Having no idea whether she finished it or even bothered starting it was killing me. She had given me her word that she'd get it done, but I hardly knew anything about her. Thus, both my mind and heart couldn't find common ground to relax.

There were several times where I'd try asking her how things were going. With a simple cold-hearted glance, she'd shut me up. I didn't know if that was her intention or not. She had made it clear that she wanted to be alone since the beginning. Either way, nobody could have ignored the fact that she was just…so quiet.

For the first couple of weeks, I decided I would grin and bear with it. For a while, I thought she'd be the type of person to finish our assignment and turn it in without making a peep about it. I kept repeating this idea to myself to keep my anxieties from rising through the roof.

I couldn’t last though.

During the last week of our alotted time, I decided to just do it myself. It wasn't that I didn’t trust Naomi. I just couldn't handle relying on someone I didn't even know with a figurative blindfold on my head. After all, since the start of the school year, I've always been going at it with a "Want it done? Do it yourself." kind of motto.

Naomi had kept the printout of the instructions, so I decided to try to find them online in the library. It would have been easier to ask Mr. Hopkins for another copy, but that reeked trouble for the two of us. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea of Naomi or even concern himself with our situation. There's no doubt he'd worry over how we had been handling things in such a weird fashion.

I didn't need any more stress. This was only one class I was taking. I tried to work things out as logically as I could. If I wasn't able to find the instructions anywhere online, then I decided I would ask our teacher as a last resort.

Arriving at the library, I walked through the double doors and headed past the reading area. In a short distance ahead of me was the small computer lab section of the library. Just as I was about to pick out a computer to sit at, something caught my eye.

Classes had already been finished for the day. Yet, I saw someone sitting alone at one of the large square desks meant for four or six people. At first, it was difficult telling who this person was, but I was able to have a glance at what they had with them. There were various materials sitting on their desk, such as foam balls, paints, and brushes.

Was this person working on a project for our class too?

Curious, I decided to make my way over to see how far they had gotten along. I heard some soft muttering and perhaps even a few curses under a heavy breath. Their identity was still a mystery. Having a view from behind, I figured it was a female from the shape of her figure. Her head appeared to give fierce focus to the papers in front of her as her pencil marked intense scribbles.

As if sensing my presence, the soft muttering of her words ceased. Then, she immediately turned in my direction.

“Naomi?” My words almost stuttered. A stern furrowed brow formed above her eyes as if I had just interrupted her from doing work. As usual, she didn’t return a response. Instead, she sat back and held her head up with her arms crossed. She looked at me as if she was waiting for me to give her a good reason for being in the library in the first place. “W-what are you doing?” I asked, despite remembering what she told me the last time I spoke with her.

She sighed and turned back to the supplies she had with her.

“I’m working on our project.”

Hearing her use the word “our" began to unleash the guilt I had kept at the back of my head up until now. I should've been sitting down and helping her out. I gave a silent sigh of my own and decided to join her at the table, whether she liked it or not.

“Look, I know you wanted to do this on your own, but you look like you’re having some trouble.”

“I don't need your help. I can figure this out,” she mentioned without sparing a single glance at me. “I just need some…extra time.”

“Can you at least tell me what’s got you stuck?” I asked, resting my cheek on my fist.

She released another drawn-out sigh. From there, she almost looked calm yet reluctant to give her answer.

“I didn’t think such an insignificant part of the proposed assignment would take so much time to do.”

“Insignificant?” I questioned, still having no idea what had her so stumped.

“I have all the details,” she clarified. “Gathering a few pages of research and information took no time at all. But I can hardly believe that this is taking the longest.” She allowed me a view of the materials that were laid out on her desk. We needed to make an actual physical representation of the solar system with them. So far, not much progress had been made with the diorama. I guess my worrying wasn't too uncalled for after all. “We already have perfect and accurate photos of the solar system itself. Why do I have to paint fragile pieces of foam and piece them together to reach a poorly compared result? It’s such a waste of time.”

She wasn’t too expressive with her words, but my gut told me she loathed doing artistic stuff like this. It was the extra stuff like painting and setting them up in a correct manner that was bothering her. I guess it was just like her to only want to focus on the actual research and learning part of the assignment. Hearing her perfer a research paper over a simple project like this told me as much.

“Well…to some other people…it’s not such a waste of time,” I decided to share. She didn’t say anything back. She only continued to observe my face as she retained the impartial look on hers. “You’re all about learning the information from reading. I get that. But some people learn by visualizing things, not just reading them.” I picked up one of the foam balls and noticed how the paint was scarce and muddy. “I guess you can take me for example. I know you wanted to just turn in a research paper, but I, for one, choose this by a landslide. Doesn’t mean that I like doing it. But it’s something I’d definitely prefer over a research paper. To me, I guess it’s also a lot easier to understand than typing words on a paper.”

She crossed her arms and looked to her side as if she was thinking about what I said.

“So, are you telling me you have more experience with this than I do?”

I wasn’t sure if she had gotten the wrong idea from what I said. As a result, I reacted with a bit of a nervous expression.

“I’m not saying that I’m smarter than you or anything!” I clarified and then released a breath of air in exhaustion. “You know what…?” I decided to just cut the talking and get to the point we should have been at long ago. “Let me do my part. I’ll paint this stuff and put them together. After all, you’ve already got the materials. It shouldn’t take too long.”

She remained silent for a moment as if carefully considering my offer.

“Can you finish this today here?”

“U-um…” I glanced at my wristwatch and noticed the time. It had already been around half an hour after classes dismissed. “I could probably finish in a couple of hours.”

“Fair enough,” she accepted. “If you really know what you're doing, then please, by all means.”

I almost felt honored that she had actually given me a chance.

“Heh heh…” I lightly chuckled after realizing that my great struggle was finally over. After today, I wouldn't have to worry about this stupid project anymore. As an added bonus, I was about to help the girl who I considered the most independent person in class. “Great. But you know…we should probably take this somewhere else. I don’t think the librarian will appreciate any paint smudged on the desks…”

“Then where do you propose we take this too?” Naomi asked.

I thought for a moment and figured out a solution. One of the classes I had been taking here was Art, so I believed it wouldn't be too much to use the room there.

“Let’s take this stuff over to one of the art rooms. It should be way easier to finish over there.”

“If you say so,” Naomi shared, allowing me to help carry the stuff over.

When we reached one of the available art rooms, it appeared to be empty. Nonetheless, we brought our project in and set it on one of the nearest tables. I grabbed a few paper towels in the room and covered the top of the table where I would be painting the foam. Naomi observed me set everything up, remaining silent throughout the entire time.

As I finished, she brought up a good question.

“If you’re going to be the one painting, what am I doing?”

“Well…” I looked over what we had. After painting, we needed to poke wooden sticks through the foam. Doing that would keep them vertical above the ground. But that didn't mean she couldn't start setting up the sticks already. “You know the position of the planets and sun, right?” I asked.

“I assume you’re speaking about the positions as shown in a professional diagram? Yes, of course,” she answered.

I picked a stick from the pile she had collected and showed it to her.

“The ‘planets’, which are these foam spheres, are going to be on this stick. These sticks are going to be glued to the flat surface that’s going to hold up our entire presentation. With that in mind, could you measure the distance between each stick? It'd be nice to get an accurate representation like those diagrams you bring up.”

“That’s possible,” she returned a firm reply and reached into her bag to pull out a nice-looking phone. I couldn't help but wonder if she was big about electronics as I was. She began tapping on her phone, giving me the impression that she might have been looking up an example of a diagram.

As she did that, I proceeded to coat over the unfortunate mess she had painted on the foam. As I worked, I began to think more about her.

I never thought that someone like her would have trouble with something like this. It was just me, but it seemed so silly.

I guess she just wasn't a craftswoman.

I felt a smile stretch out from my lips once I realized that I found some kind of flaw in her character. Naomi was too busy doing what I had asked her to do, so she wasn't able to notice it. Even so, I imagined that she wouldn't have cared about it anyway.

At some point, I figured it took me longer to finish painting than it took Naomi to do her part. As a result, she decided to perfect these positions and alignments to the best of her abilities. I wasn’t too sure if the extra effort was worth doing, but if it made her content, I guess I didn't care. The only thing I was chasing after was an A on my end.

I continued working on the rest of the planets as I handed over the ones that had been finished before. I even taught Naomi how to puncture the foam with the sticks. After doing that, she went on to glue them on to the solid platform. In the meantime, I found her using a little more glue than she needed to.

Oh well. It wasn't a big deal or anything.

When Naomi finished gluing the last planets we needed on the platform, she stepped back to analyze it. As she took a careful and thorough look at our project, I turned my head towards the window and gazed at the sunset. It took us an hour or two, but we were at least done. This assignment was finally out of our schedules.

Naomi released a sigh of relief.

“Are you happy?” I asked, feeling a warm mood escape between the two of us as I shared a soft smile.

While keeping her fingers to her mouth, she shifted her eyes my way.

“I still don't see a point in doing something like this. With as much time as we spent doing a mundane assignment like this, we could have learned so much more. The solar system is an extremely simple concept you learn in elementary. We’re not teaching anything new. We’re just redundantly wasting our time on something everyone here should already know.”

“Haaah…” I felt the need to sigh again. “Well, you never know. No one here might benefit from looking at this. But, maybe some kids on a field trip or something will see this and learn something themselves.”

Naomi pondered over my line of thinking for a moment before she responded to that.

“I suppose we both have our thoughts and opinions.” She turned to the finished project. “I believe I should be grateful now that this is out of the way.” She looked back at me. “What do we do with it now?”

“We have to hold on to it until we can turn it in,” I answered. “I guess I can—” I stopped myself when I realized that it wasn’t going to be easy. “Actually… I ride my bike here and back home. I don’t know if I can hold on to it. I think it’s too risky for something as weak as this.”

“I can bring it home with me,” Naomi offered.

“Is that okay?” I asked her.

She pulled up her phone and began tapping on her screen with her thumb. “I can ask if there’s someone available to pick me up. If there isn’t, I’ll just take the bus back home.”

As I glanced back outside, I began feeling a little worried. If she didn’t get picked up, it was possible she'd need to walk during the night. I didn’t know where she lived or how close the bus dropped her off from her home. With that in mind, I didn’t exactly feel completely comfortable with that idea.

At that moment, it took me a while to realize that this was the perfect opportunity to sort of… “seal the deal”.

“H-hey!” I suddenly raised the volume of my voice, which seemed to catch her attention. She looked up from her phone at me with still eyes. “Y-you want to switch contacts?”

“Contacts?” she questioned.

“Yeah…!” I clarified. “You know, I give you my number and you give me yours? We can both keep in touch with each other on our phones.”

Naomi didn’t seem to grasp the idea behind the matter.

“For what purpose?” she returned, having me feel a little hopeless in needing to explain myself. But I decided to use the reason I had saved either way.

“In case something happens,” I explained. “If you can’t get picked up, or if something happens with the bus, you can just call me! My bike has this other seat that will let me give you a ride home.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary…” She looked ready to decline my offer.

“Just in case.” I pleaded more for the fact that she would have to take this annoying diorama home on her own. “I just want to make sure everything goes alright. You can still message me that you got this assignment home safe so I don’t have to worry. That’s reasonable, right?”

She averted her eyes in thought.

“I suppose you have a point…” Her eyes moved back to mine. “Okay.” I felt immediately relieved when I heard her answer. We took an extra minute to switch numbers. Then, she grabbed a hold of the project and turned to me before she left. “I’ll…let you know what happens.”

I only nodded back.

“Well then.” She prepared to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Right, see you tomorrow,” I said.

I watched her walk towards the door of the room. I realized how she was carrying the project with both of her hands, so I quickly jogged over to the door to open it for her.

“Thank you,” she expressed, taking a second to glance at me before walking through. Before she began to navigate out of the hallway, she turned to me one last time. “Chase?” she called.

“Yeah…?” I asked, wondering what she wanted to say to me next.

“Thank you…for assisting me with this project,” she conveyed her thanks once more. “You helped me save time I'd rather use for something else.”

“Anything I can do to help…” I mentioned a little timidly.

She nodded in response.

“Goodbye,” she stated and then proceeded to leave.

I withdrew a heavy sigh.

After such a long day, I took a short moment to rest my back on the wall I stood in front of. There, I pulled out my phone and looked through my contacts. For a short moment, I stared at Naomi’s contact, which was the only one that appeared under the “N” section.

As I continued mindlessly looking at her name, I began to feel a little…accomplished.

Did I just actually become friends with the lone wolf of my class?

I felt a smile draw itself on my face as I thought about that. Yet, my mind began to soon wander into darker territories I've been avoiding for a good while now. I watched as my thumb soon began scrolling back up to the part of my contact list holding the letter "H".

As if finally coming back to my senses, I turned my screen off and stuffed it back into my pocket.

From there, I followed the direction Naomi took and headed back home.