Kinda, Sorta, Not Prince Charming
Axel & Naminé
for Muffin’s challenge

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Once upon a time in high school, there was a quiet, lonely, but exceedingly beautiful maiden with porcelain skin like a china doll. Her sapphire eyes skimmed her dungeon (also known as geometry class), and her thin pink lips seemed to disappear as she pressed them into a hard line. Her delicate fingers tapped the pencil in her grasp quietly against her notebook. Secretly, she wished for a hero on a valiant steed to break down the classroom door and save her from this misery (also known as fractions and decimals). She was beginning to feel like a princess locked in a tower without doors.

If only she had wished more carefully.

The door to the classroom was thrown open so swiftly, she thought it might be ripped off its very hinges. The heads of all her peers whipped to catch a glimpse of a tall, slender young man leaning against the door frame. His hair was outrageous, to say the least, and the smirk on his face made the girls in the back of the room melt in their seats as they swooned. Other boys glared at him for getting all the attention. And the maiden sank down into her seat and hid her face behind her doodles, feeling warmth creeping across her ivory skin.

“What are you doing, young man?” the teacher questioned harshly. And the boy just grinned from ear to ear, waltzed in, and took a seat across from the fair maiden, propping his feet up on the chair in front of him.

“The name’s Axel,” he declared. “I’m new.”

“You’re also late,” the teacher pointed out.

He just shrugged. From where the maiden sat, she could smell citrus cologne and cigarette smoke. He glanced over in her direction and flashed her a smile, dazzling her with his glowing emerald irises and broad smile. She quickly turned away, her face on fire. He was a suspicious character, like a thief. The way he carried himself spoke volumes, as if he was silently screaming, “I’M A BAD GUY!” Yet, the fair maiden sat there, finding it difficult to seize her ferocious blushing.

The teacher appeared slightly irritated, but she shook it off and continued to write out equations on the blackboard. The fair maiden sighed a little too loudly, dropped her pencil clumsily a little too often, found herself stealing glances a little too inconspicuously at the boy across from her. Maybe she should have been more specific when wishing for a hero. She should have said something along the lines of not crazy.

“Hey. Babe.”

She spun around at the sound of his voice. Was he speaking to her?

“What‘s the answer to number five?”

He was already on five? She hadn’t even begun to write out the equation, let alone solve it. And where had he gotten some paper and a pencil? Her question was answered when she saw the girl on his other side giggling ridiculously. Her blue eyes widened as he waited impatiently for her answer, still wearing his smirk. “I… I don’t know,” she finally managed to form the words.

“That’s okay. I was just asking as an excuse to talk to you.”

And for a first, the fair maiden was smiling softly. So he wasn’t on a strong, white steed or wearing shining armor. So he wasn’t going to give her true love’s first kiss or ask her to marry her upon their first encounter. So he was kinda, sorta, not really Prince Charming.

But she didn’t mind so much anymore.