Let's get Physical, PHYSICAL (Nicki)

[DAPHNE BAY JONES]

PHYSICAL SCIENCE LAB #1

was scrawled across the dry erase white board in large letters. And of course, the first lab would be a lab with the partner you would have for the rest of the semester (Partners would change again after christmas break). The young, red-headed freshman was rather nervous about the upcoming decision the teacher would be making. What if her partner was rude to her because of her deafness, or didn't understand, or totally shut her out all together? It would never work! Would her teacher even care?

The professor walked from one side of the room to the other, deep in lecture about instructions for the lab. Fortunately enough to professor was aware of their one deaf student and had printed her the instructions to read as well as any other information she would need. Otherwise the poor girl would probably be so lost in translation during these somewhat lengthy lectures. The only thing that wasn't listed, was her partner's name, it was only marked by a big, black, daunting, 'T B A'.

The teacher paused, facing the classroom and checking all the students expressions to see that they were all paying attention. It was often hard to keep the attention span of such a large group of fourteen and fifteen year olds, but the teacher had hoped the thoughts of finding out lab partners and actually getting to do an experiment would keep their minds on track. Seeing that all eyes were forward and watching, the professor continued with the instructions and details of the assignment given to them. The particular lab was one of the teacher's favorites, it was all about projectile motion. The students would build a catapult out of popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and a spoon and be able to effectively launch marshmallows from the contraption. It allowed for plenty of creativity and recreation, as well as a simple, yet hands on and fun activity.

The red haired girl had read through the assignment paper at least three times before the teacher gathered everyone's attention again to announce the lab partners for the semester. The female's hazel/green eyes followed the professors lips as he went down the list of pairings. Finally, she recognized the lip movement of her name, 'Daphne Jones, you will be paired with," The teacher paused half a second, looking directly at Daphne and saying her partner's name clearly, "Nicki Michigan." Immediately the red head turned in her seat and scanned the faces, looking for a hint of recognition at who her partner might be. She hadn't met any Nicki's yet, she she had no clue who to look for. Daphne only prayed that her partner would give a nod, wave, smile, something to give her a hint who they were.


notes: link to lab experiment
tags: nicki <3
plots: first time meeting to make bffls

[Nicki Burne Michigan]

Physical science, one of the worst subjects in existence. It definitely made the top ten list of classes he didn't like, though that wasn't say much, seeing as he had less than ten classes every day. Honestly, he just despised school in general, not that he would ever make that clear to the teachers. It hadn't gone over too well in his old school, where the teachers had despised him for his lack of motivation. He was going to try better this year, he really was... but, really, he couldn't find any motivation to take his head off his arms as he sat through science, praying that it would be over soon. He hated this time of the school day. He was done with all the classes that he actually liked, and now he had to suffer through the rest of them. Had the school made his schedule this way on purpose? It was horrible, the way this place tortured him. And it wasn't even that far into the school year!

To make things worse, they were getting partners today. Why exactly did they need partners, again? Nicki had always preferred working on his own, and, frankly, other people didn't like him either. He could be adorable and sweet, in fact, he was... most of the time. When it came to being forced to work in partners, he could be an ass, there was no other way to put it. He didn't like other people, so he avoided them and expected them to return the favor. Forced partnership just a put a wedge in his perfectly content little life. Anyway, they were keeping their partners for such a long time... what if he didn't like his partner? Well, then there would be nothing he could do. He would be stuck with whoever was announced for the rest of the semester. Annoyingly, his partner hadn't been announced yet.

The tiny freshman looked up at the board, tangled black hair falling around his face as he skimmed the insanely large amount of words. Why would the teacher even bother writing that up there, anyway? If Nicki was a teacher, he would have just said everything instead of cramped his hand by writing down everything they went over in class. Nicki sighed, running his fingers through his hair and trying to focus on what the teacher was saying. He was just so bored. Then his name was spoken, and he snapped to attention, looking up at the teacher with wide and innocent eyes. No, they weren't an act.

She had said something about partner... but all he had heard was his name. What was up with that? She had obviously told someone that he was their partner, but she hadn't bothered to tell him who it was...? Maybe it was because he had looked more than half asleep before this, and hadn't been paying attention. Well, he was paying attention now. Dark eyes skimmed the front of the class, wondering who up there was his partner. Seeing as he was in the very back, he could see almost everyone, and he didn't miss Daphne turning around to look at the class just as he was. However, his mind didn't make the connection, and he still had no idea who his partner was... great, just great.

[DAPHNE BAY JONES]

Somewhat hazel green eyes, paired with rather pale skin, and flaming red hair eyed the room full of students around. The girl was searching frantically for her new lab partner, and was afraid if she made the wrong eye contact she would find the wrong person. It was only half a second did she notice the dark haired boy in the back of the class, over the past couple weeks she'd only see the top of his head as his face would be down into his arms. The freshman's eyes scanned the room once more, before again seeing the boy and that he was the only one who seemed alert. That couldn't be him, could it? She just couldn't picture such an american sounding name to such an Asian appearance. She usually tried to avoid using such general terms for someone's race, but she wasn't quite sure what the boy was judging by the name he had. Nicki's eyes met hers for a moment, and Daphne smiled, hoping to confirm who he was and that they would be partners.

Daphne turned her petite frame back towards the front of the classroom, smiling to herself, the boy looked like he would be nice, unlike some of the other hearing people she shared classes with. Many of them looked judgmental and rude. The girl looked down at her paper, making sure to write out Nicki's name on the top next to her own so she would remember who her partner was or how to spell his name even. Was it with a 'Y'? Maybe an 'I'? 'CK' or 'KK', she couldn't decide, so just wrote 'N. Michigan.' instead. She knew eventually it wouldn't matter how to spell his name, because she'd soon enough come up with a sign name for him. Whether or not she told him what it was or meant was still to be decided depending on what kind of person he turned out to be towards her.

The teacher stood at the front of the room, using grand gestures towards the lab equipment around them as their uses were explained to the students in mild detail. Most of the things they wouldn't be using for this lab, and probably wouldn't need to worry about for another couple of weeks. Daphne glanced up at the clock, not a whole lot of time left in the class, time must've flown by and left them with only twenty minutes or so. The teacher noticed the same concern, there wasn't enough time in this period to do the lab today, so it would have to wait until next class, and then offered to the students to go meet with their partners, talk about some ideas for the lab and get to know each other a little better.

Once the teacher had finished speaking, Daphne turned around in her seat again, trying to locate the dark haired boy as the rest of the class got out of their own seats and located their own partners. The freshman gathered her small, dark purple backpack and rose to her tip toes to try and see over most the other much taller students. She slowly made her way through the groups of chattering classmates, it always felt so surreal to her to walk through crowds with barely any audible sound, besides the vibrations of feet hitting the floor and some other various movement. Daphne wandered her way towards the back of the classroom, looking for Nicki, but she couldn't quite picture what he looked like anymore and wasn't sure who he was. The girl saw the dark haired boy with his head halfway down towards the table and moved over to him, she was about ninety percent sure it was him, so Daphne put on a smile and waved when he looked up at her.

[Nicki Burne Michigan]

When the red haired girl smiled at him, his lips hesitantly formed a return smile. She seemed to be the only one that was looking around, and as everyone else seemed to be partnered up already… well, his sleepy mind finally clicked. So that girl was his partner, then? She didn’t seem too bad, so far. Well, she was pretty, and she had smiled at him. That wasn’t bad, right? She seemed nice enough, but he wasn’t sure. During the short times that he had paid any attention to the class, she hadn’t answered any questions. Hadn’t talked at all, actually, but maybe he was just zoning out too much. Well, whatever. She might make a good partner and she might not, but it wasn’t like it really mattered. It was just one class, after all, not like he would see her anywhere else.

Yes, Nicki’s name may not have been very fitting to his appearance, but it was his name and he was too lazy to legally change it to something Korean. He would actually prefer a Korean name, but his parents moved around so much that they had just decided to give each individual child a name that fit the culture of the place they were born in. So his older sister had a Korean name, and his younger brother had an American name. Nicki? Well, Nicki was supposedly American, but he was pretty sure that his middle name was English… and his last name was a horrible translation of what it was in Korean. How amusing, for him to be stuck with that on his school files for the rest of his life.

The freshman was still slightly zoned out as the drone that was their teacher started talking about the lab materials. Yeah, yeah… why did he care? He preferred to figure things out for himself, after all. Even if he ended up with a few injuries in the process, I was fun working things out for himself. Better than listening to the endless instructions, at least. His head was on his arms again, his eyes closed as he tried to catch up on some of his missed sleep. The beginning of school was always hard for him. Getting up so early in the mornings and going to bed so late at night… the shifter just wasn’t used to it yet, especially after a summer of relaxing. His shift did a lot of relaxing, too, so the lack of sleep was getting to him more than it would get to the normal kids that were starting normal highschool this year. After all, he went from a summer sleep schedule to about five hours of sleep a night, and nobody would like that, would they? The odd sleep pattern had already caught up to him once or twice, and he had caught quite a few nasty colds. Once he had even had to stay in the dorms for a few days before he could go back to school, leaving him with a lot of work to catch up on. How annoying.

Eventually Nicki became aware that the teacher had stopped talking, and he looked up. Were they supposed to partner up now? He scanned the room again, eventually finding the red haired girl, who smiled at him again. Okay, then, that probably meant that they were partners. He smiled back slowly, still not sure exactly who she was. But she couldn’t be that bad, right? ”Uhm… hi?” he mumbled, his lips barely moving. ”You’re my partner, right?”

[DAPHNE BAY JONES]

A light skinned, petite hand brushed through flaming red locks of shoulder length hair, eyes seeming sweet, yet somewhat nervous. The young girl chewed her lip anxiously, though her expression became more relaxed as the dark haired male finally perked up and made notice of her presence. She waved a small 'hello' before setting her books down on the table where he was sitting. 'You're my partner, right?' The boy asked her. 'Of course I'm your partner, duh, Why else would I be standing here?' She thought to herself, though still smiling, she nodded in response. Daphne wasn't quite sure if she should just be out with her disability or if she should wait and see if she would need to. Who knew, the two might not even talk at all, then she'd be in the clear easy, and maybe he wouldn't think she was a freak like some of the other students did. She was sure many of them wondered why certain teachers spoke so clearly, or wrote everything down, well it was probably because they were trying to cater to Daphne's special needs.

Being deaf wasn't easy, though it had it's fun advantages, like having private conversations in front of a ton of people.

The girl decided she would ease the dark-haired boy into the shock of being partnered with a deaf girl. She wrote her name neatly on a sheet of paper and slid it across the table to Nicki. It read simply, 'My name is Daphne, I'm happy to be partners.' Of course, Daphne thought it was extremely silly to write things out, but she figured it'd be easier than talking to him and sounding like she was mentally challenged and him thinking she was stupider than she really was. Daphne hoped Nicki wasn't that kind of person, because truth be told she did think he was kind of cute, even though he wasn't really her type. The young red head clasped her hands on the table in front of her, a sweet smile on her face as she waited for the boy's reaction.

Surely, a million things ran through her mind.. What if he rejected her, told the teacher he wanted to switch? That he couldn't work with a 'retard' or whatever other names he could think of to call her. Maybe he would bite his tongue and not say a thing to her face, but talk horribly about her behind her back, thinking she'd never find out or she wouldn't be able to understand him. So many people were judgmental in that way and it broke her heart to have it happen to her over and over again.

[Nicki Burne Michigan]

Though the red haired girl was confusing him, Nicki wasn't going to complain. He had had worse partners over the years, and compared to them, this girl was like an angel. He wasn't trying to be rude – quite the contrary. He wanted to make the best impression he could on his partner. After all, they would be paired together for the rest of the semester, so they might as well get along. He read the note and smiled, not commenting on the way it had been communicated. ”Uhm... my name's Nicki, but I guess you already knew that,” he said, rubbing the back of his head nervously. He was vaguely aware that he was blabbering on and on about the project and how nice Daphne's name was, and eventually managed to make himself shut up mid-sentence, looking warily at the fellow freshman. ”Uhm... do you want me to be quiet, too?” he asked quickly, maybe a little too quickly for her to read his lips. He gestured to the paper she had written on to show what he meant, not quite sure how much her means of communicated were disabled. Was she a mute, or was she deaf and simply deciding not to talk? Or was it something else entirely? Nicki really wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to risk hurting her feelings by asking.

Blushing slightly, he turned to pick up the sheet of paper with the lab instructions on it, frantically starting to read, to find a distraction. He was being such an idiot, and on their first meeting, too! He was absolutely sure that the girl hated him by now. Who wouldn't? He was stuttery and twitchy and downright nervous when it came to working with partners, especially ones like Daphne. Not that there was anything wrong with her, but it was easy to see that she was... different. No, not different in a bad way exactly, but... but... oh, all of his thoughts were coming out wrong! He couldn't talk to this girl, what if she thought he was an idiot or something? He sure was acting like one by now, reading the instructions like his life depended on it. He forgot whatever the paper said as soon as he read it, like the words went in one ear and floated write out the other. This wasn't good, this wasn't good, and oh... he should just start over, shouldn't he? They had obviously gotten off on the wrong foot.

Taking a deep breath and putting the paper down, Nicki turned to Daphne again, staring at the floor as he started to talk. ”U-uhm... I'm sorry about how weird I'm being... I'm just not used to working in partners...” he said slowly, nervously. He didn't want to say that he simply didn't like working in partners, in case he offended her.

[DAPHNE BAY JONES]

The male's question caught Daphne slightly off guard, she could only imagine how rude it would seem if she had truly wanted him to just shut up. No, no, no, that was all wrong. The young girl grinned, shaking her head in response, paired with the head shake a single hand came up, her index and middle finger tapped against her thumb twice in the sign for 'No.' Daphne had assumed the boy would at least be able to decipher her response with the motions she gave, if not she may be in trouble for the semester if she couldn't teach him basics of sign language.

Daphne's green, hazel tinted eyes watched Nicki with interest as he seemed to reread the assignment a few times over. She wondered if it was because he hadn't listened to the instructions, or was trying to distract himself from his new found partner. A slight frowned tugged on her pale pink lips, and a few stiff, silent moments passed between them. Not as if the silence made much of a difference to Daphne, it was something she was well used to nowadays. It was just the lack of eye contact or interaction that made her feel somewhat uncomfortable, and she was having difficulty deciding what to do next.

”U-uhm... I'm sorry about how weird I'm being... I'm just not used to working in partners...”

The young girl's slim hand came across the table and took the piece of paper she had written her name on and brought it back to her. It only took her half a second to crumple it and stuff it into her bag, she didn't want to be rude and wasn't going to resort to writing notes the whole semester. Daphne's words came slowly, as if she was putting a lot of thought and effort into them, but oddly enough it almost seemed somewhat natural as she paired her off-tone voice with fluid movements of her hands. "It's Okay.. Nicki. I am deaf." Her fingers formed the letters for O and K, followed by pointing to herself and moving her index finger from a place near her ear to the corner of her mouth. "I know it makes people.. uncomfortable sometimes.." Her voice somewhat paused at uncomfortable, a word of slight difficulty to pronounce when you can't exactly hear what comes out of your mouth to start with.

notes ASL no , ASL deaf

[Nicki Burne Michigan]

So, that was what had been off. He didn't understand the sign for no, but her shaking her head was enough to let him know the answer. She didn't want him to shut up, then, but he hadn't really been paying attention to the question and answer themselves. Maybe he had been staring a bit rudely when she started using sign language, and it was around then that he had picked up the paper to look for a distraction. Oh, this was going to be a hellish semester. The socially awkward Nicki working with a deaf girl? It couldn't end well, it just couldn't. Not because he would tease her or just dislike her in general; no, he would never do something like that to a disabled person. But because he feared that Daphne would dislike him. How was she supposed to work with someone who was constantly averting his eyes, unconsciously turning his head away so she would have a hard time reading his lips? Though, he had to admit that she was doing a good job so far. No, it wasn't Daphne that Nicki had a problem with; it was himself.

Her answer to his apology didn't really surprise him – he had sort of already guessed that she was deaf by the sign language she had used earlier – but he was at a loss for the correct response to it. He sat in silence for a few seconds, his hand loosely tugging on the fabric of his shirt as he brainstormed possible things to do. His elementary teachers would be proud of him if they knew what was going through his head – he was considering all sorts of things, including extremely stupid options. Eventually, though, he just raised his hand to his face, slowly echoing the motion that she had used. She had used it around the same time she had said deaf, so he assumed that was what it meant. ”Deaf?” he asked, trying to make it clear that it was a question. He racked his brain for any sign language that he had picked up from books, and eventually just ended up pointing at her, a worried and questioning look on his face. Pointing was a universal thing, right? He hoped she would know what he meant.

”N-no,” he said quickly, dropping his hand and rushing to assure her that she didn't make him uncomfortable. His speech only slowed down after he had gotten the first word across. ”You're not making me uncomfortable. I'm just...” Well, what could he say? She was kind of making him uncomfortable, but he didn't want to flat out lie to this girl. ”I don't like science.” Okay, so it may not have been the real reason that he was being so jumpy, but it wasn't a lie, either. He didn't really expect to see her outside of class, so it wasn't like she'd ever notice that he was this way everywhere else, too. As long as he avoided her out of science... no, that wouldn't work well. Nicki wasn't organized enough to truly avoid someone, and it would leave him feeling guilty. He would just have to hope for the best.