Kimbell's P.O.V.

When Mako Moore walked into the classroom, I did not expect to see him sporting a massive bruise on his cheek.

Now, I had always noticed the mystery that is Mako Moore. I mean, it was hard not to notice him.

He was antisocial, his sister often picked one-sided arguments with him, he always sprinted out of the classroom right when school got out, and for some reason, the captain of the swim team was constantly trying to get him to join.

His dark brown hair always looked like he had just rolled out of bed, but somehow he made it work. His green eyes were an unusual, pretty, and bright hue. And for someone I had never seen hit the gym, he always had a pretty muscular figure, although as short as he was compared to me. Hell, if it wasn’t so apparent that he didn’t care about school, I probably would’ve developed a crush on him.

Mako hardly seemed fazed by the looks he got, but after having him in three of my classes, this was pretty out of character for him.

“Do you think he got in a fight?” the girl behind me whispered to her friend, and I rolled my eyes.

‘Mako Moore in a fight? Oh, please, he’d probably want to sleep instead!’ I snickered to myself before glancing at Mako again.

How did he get that bruise? As questions burned in my head about the sleepy slacker, Mr. Johnson, our AP Physics teacher, walked in and waved his hand for everybody to quiet down as the bell rang overhead.

Mr. Johnson paid Mako’s fresh bruise no mind as he began the class. I, however, continued to glance over at Mako throughout the class. I wanted to ask him where he had gotten that bruise, but I didn’t bother to find out since I hardly knew the guy.

Once the bell had rung, Mako packed up his things first and instantly got out of the room. The day went on, Mako making another appearance in my third hour AP Calculus class before he wordlessly left that too.

It was now lunch, and I was seeking out my English 11 teacher, Mr. Quin. I was in dire need of an English tutor as nothing I tried seemed to work. I needed to keep a 4.0 GPA or higher to keep attending this private high school for free, but I was beginning to fall behind in English.

As I headed over to Mr. Quin’s classroom, I bit my lip. I didn’t like asking for help, but after seeing how bad I did on my last English quiz, my mom encouraged me to get a tutor.

I turned the corner and began walking down the English hallway. Just as I had reached Mr. Quin’s classroom, I heard people talking. I only got a quick look before I stiffened and darted out of sight of the doorframe.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Mako said.

“It is a big deal, Mako. Have you seen your face?” Mr. Quin asked, concerned.

What was Mako doing in the English department? I had never pegged him for a writing type of guy, and with how lazy he was, I found it hard to believe that any teachers would care enough about him to carry the amount of concern that Mr. Quin held in his voice.

“It just looks bad,” Mako insisted.

“Can I ask why she hit you?” Mr. Quin asked.

“She got mad at me,” Mako answered quietly.

“Why did she get mad at you?” Mr. Quin pushed.

“Because I did something that I wasn’t supposed to do,” Mako responded.

“But what did you do that made her hit you, Mako?” Mr. Quin continued.

“I’m not allowed to tell you,” Mako whispered, eliciting a sigh from Mr. Quin.

“Mako, I had you last year for Honors English 10 and this has happened during that time as well. Mako, this is serious,” Mr. Quin pressed.

“But it’s just Izzy!” Mako reassured him. “She’s my sister.”

Mr. Quin simply sighed.

“Mako, there’s a cycle that abusers follow and your sister Izzy has followed it to a T. She’s nice to you, and then slowly begins to insult you, and then finally she hits you before she does this grand show of trying to apologize and then the cycle repeats. I honestly think you should talk to your parents about this,” he pressed.

“No! It’s not her fault it’s mine for not being the normal little brother she wants. She’s right, I am a freak amongst humans, and her reaction is normal for-,” Mako started before I heard Mr. Quin get up.

“Mako. You are not a freak. Her reaction isn’t normal. It’s unsolicited, and I think you need to tell someone other than me, like the police. Or at least your mother. Just think about it, okay?” Mr. Quin asked, and I took a deep breath, knowing that Mako would be leaving soon and would catch me red-handed for eavesdropping.

I rounded the corner and walked up to the door. I gently knocked, and Mr. Quin looked over at me.

“Um… is this a bad time? I can come back later,” I asked, feigning innocence.

“No! Come on in Kimbell, Mako and I were just wrapping up our discussion. What did you need?” Mr. Quin asked, giving me a smile.

“Oh, I wanted to ask you about maybe getting a tutor for your class? I’m still having a hard time,” I told him, and he hummed before glancing at Mako. He then smiled and fully faced me.

“Of course, you can get some help. I already have the perfect tutor in mind. So, Mako, what would you think about tutoring Kimbell?” Mr. Quin asked in a full-blown grin at what he probably considered was a fantastic idea.

“Huh?” Mako blanched, having the same reaction I was having as he blinked at Mr. Quin’s suggestion.

“Mako this will be great for you to hang around another kid your age, and Kimbell gets a tutor. I think this is a win-win situation,” he continued.

At this point, Mako had remembered coherent speech.

“But Mr. Quin, I’m not that good at English! To be tutoring someone-,” Mako started before Mr. Quin shook his head.

“Mako, you are one of the best students I have ever had, you are always focused in my classes, and you excel at this subject. I can tell that you put a lot more time and effort into this class than you do in any other subject. You are passionate about English, and I think that such an enthusiastic student would be a perfect tutor,” Mr. Quin said, and I blinked at his praise for Mako, who blushed at it.

“Well if you say so,” Mako mumbled bashfully.

“So, Kimbell, does that answer your question?” Mr. Quin asked.

“Yes, thank you,” I told him, beginning to feel awkward around Mako after discovering his abusive sister.

“Well then, I presume you two will be on your way then?” Mr. Quin asked, and I nodded.

“I’ll see you next hour, Mr. Quin,” I told him, and he nodded and waved me goodbye.

We turned and left Mr. Quin to his devices and his probable lunch. As we walked down the hallway, I awkwardly cleared my throat.

“So… uh… what were you guys talking about?” I asked him and Mako looked at me, confused.

“You already know what we were talking about, why are you asking?” he asked.

I blanched at his reply, not having expected his response.

“H-How do you know that?” I asked sharply and stopped in my stride. Mako turned to me, a little surprised.

“I heard you at the door. It was sort of hard not to hear you, though, I don’t think Mr. Quin could’ve heard you,” Mako pointed out.

I sputtered, not knowing what to say. I had never realized how strange Mako was until now, as his comments and way of talking gave him an other-worldly feel.

“O-Okay. Well, I think that you should probably do something about your sister’s behavior towards you,” I told him, having gotten my bearings again.

Mako sighed. “It’s just Izzy being Izzy, it’s fine. She already apologized and is even taking me out for icecream later to make up for it,” Mako assured me as he continued to walk out of the hallway. I jogged to catch up to him.

“That’s still not okay. Mr. Quin made it out to seem that she had done this before. I’ll admit that a first time can be tentatively forgiven, but if it continues, it’s punishable,” I told him, and Mako stayed silent as we walked.

We made our way to the cafeteria in silence; the act of us walking together into the lunchroom was enough to make all of the rich gossipers do a double-take. I didn’t really pay the rich kids any mind, they weren’t relevant to me, but I cautiously looked at Mako’s face before nearly facepalming.

Of course, he wouldn’t care. This indifferent loner was so out of touch with the very concept of social status that it was surprising he hadn’t been the target of bullying yet. Though perhaps that indifference was what deterred the bullies in the first place.

“Okay, well, when would you be available to tutor me?” I asked, and Mako sat down at the empty table by the window. Nobody dared sit at Mako’s table for some reason. The masses avoided it like a disease, though now that I thought about it, it was probably due to his sister.

“Probably next week,” he told me as he opened his bag to pull out a homemade lunch.

“Can we do it sooner? The quiz is coming up this Friday, and it’s Wednesday. So even if you could just give me some pointers on what to fix for now that would be helpful,” I pressed, and Mako hummed as he opened his lunch box.

“Okay we can do it now. What’s the quiz gonna be on?” he asked.

I perked up at this. “It’s a vocab quiz this week, but I always get messed up on the part when they want you to identify the part of speech,” I told him as I pulled out the list of vocab words we were to review. I had already memorized their definitions, but for some reason, my brain just couldn’t wrap around the parts of speech that weren’t nouns.

“Okay let me see this,” Mako asked me.

I handed it over to him for him to take a look.

“Okay, so you can easily identify nouns since they will either be capitalized, or they can be paired with words such as ‘the, an, or a,’ and they can also be attached to possessive words such as ‘your, her, or his,’ all of which can be plural as well,” he told me. I nodded, pulling out a notebook and beginning to write down what he was saying.

“Verbs are a bit trickier,, but they’re easy to spot if you know what to look for. Let me write down a sentence using one of the words,” Mako began as he fished out a pencil from his backpack and nonchalantly wrote down: “He never could substantiate his essay.”

“Substantiate is a verb since you can change the wording of the sentence to be this,” he continued and rewrote the sentence underneath the other one. This time the sentence was “He never substantiated his essay.” He wrote another sentence while he was at it: “He was never substantiating his essay.”

“Because substantiate can be used in all three ways, you have to look for whether the word your trying to determine as a verb or not can be rewritten both ways. Nouns and most adjectives can’t be written like this so that’s how you isolate verbs from the others,” he carried on.

As he continued, he was relatively close, even if he didn’t particularly realize it, and I noticed that he smelled like salt, but in a good way. His handwriting was also surprisingly pretty. It was cursive, but unlike most cursive, it was easy to read but somehow remained elegant to look at.

“Now for adjectives, once you’ve ruled out that it’s not a noun or a verb are easy to spot. However if you’re not sure about whether or not it’s an adjective you can follow these steps,” he began, snapping me back to what he was doing as he wrote down another sentence: “It was an arduous journey across the sea.”

“So when you want to determine when it is an adjective you have to ask three questions, how many, which one, and what kind. Since numbers are adjectives that’s why you have to ask how many, since this doesn’t apply, we’d move on to which one, and if that is also not applicable then we continue to what kind. We know that journey is a noun as well as sea. But since sea isn’t modified in any way, we don’t have to worry about it. So what kind of journey? An arduous journey,” he explained.

I hummed as I continued writing.

“Okay, well, that makes sense. What about adverbs then?” I asked him, and Mako shook his head.

“You’ll never really have to worry about adverbs in Mr. Quin’s class. Typically, they’re just verbs with an l y at the end, but it’s hard to identify them otherwise right off the bat,” Mako explained, and I hummed as I reread what he had told me.

“You know, Mako, you’re surprisingly easy to talk to for a guy who’s always by himself,” I told him, and Mako blinked at me.

“I’m not alone all the time,” he commented, and I rolled my eyes.

“I don’t mean literally, Mako, but besides the swim team captain, Maverick, I’ve never seen you really talk to anyone,” I rephrased.

Mako hummed to himself as he turned from me to bite into his cold lunch, which consisted of a salad that looked rather appetizing and an apple. I sighed at his unresponsiveness and pulled out my own lunch: a leftover chicken wrap that Mom had made the day before and a bag of chips.

“Oh, Mako, who’s this?” a girl’s voice cut through the silence, and I turned around to see Izabella Moore. Her perfectly manicured nails, dyed blonde hair, and makeup certainly gave her the entitled rich kid vibe that everyone else in this school had. Well, except Mako.

“Izzy, this is Kimbell, Mr. Quin wants me to tutor him in English for a while,” Mako explained without batting an eye.

I didn’t bother to give Mako’s sister a second glance as I outright ignored her. Unfortunately -or fortunately, I couldn’t quite decide, Izabella didn’t seem to pay my inattention to her any mind.

“Well, it’s great you’re finally making some friends. I can take you out for ice cream another day. Why don’t you hang out with Kimbell today? Oh, you could show him your surfboard!” she said chipperly, and Mako froze.

“Izzy, he can come over another time. I also already told you that I don’t need friends, and besides, I have plans today,” Mako told her, and it was at this point I felt a change in Izabella’s demeanor.

“Mako.”

Mako stiffened.

“Remember what we talked about last night? You need to socialize instead of going swimming,” Izabella warned, and if I hadn’t known about the abuse, I wouldn’t have heard the subtle threat between her words.

“Okay,” Mako whispered quietly, and just as quickly as her vibe had changed, it reverted back to that fake facade of a lovely older sister.

“Well, have fun! My friends and I are going shopping after school today, so if you want me to drop you and Kimbell off at the house, just let me know, okay?” she asked, and Mako nodded.

“Thanks, but you don’t have to do that,” Mako told her, and Izabella just smiled and ruffled Mako’s hair. I saw Mako stiffen at Izabella’s touch, and when she took her hand away, he relaxed again.

“See you later then. Take care, Kimbell,” Izabella told me, and I refused to respond to acknowledge her as she left.

“Mako,” I began gently, but Mako just shook his head at me.

“Don’t say it. I know what you’re going to say, but just… just don’t say it,” Mako told me, and with that, I shut my mouth and didn’t press any further.