After watching the fox walk away for a moment, the dragon finally turned to Mark and responded to him. "Y-yeah, I'm all right. Thank you. It's just... I didn't really see any of that coming, especially on the first day." As he continued, Mark tried, as subtly as he could, to study the hybrid's furred face. His combination of species (dragon and what else?) had made him . . . well, not unattractive. Not that it mattered to Mark how attractive he was. Still though, he'd interjected kindly when Mark was being insulted.
And Mark had been really bent out shape, becoming angrier than he ever normally would, when Gauge had said that crap about the guy's hybridism.
"And what that guy said about me..." the dragon's voice trailed off as he winced a little. "What he called me. 'Blender-bred', or whatever. God, that was uncalled for." Mark tiredly nodded in agreement, looking down at the floor in distaste. "But anyway," he kept on, "I'll get over it. I wanted to at least thank you at least, for telling him off in my defense." The creature smiled at Mark.
Instantly, Mark looked away from him. It was a good thing that his fur covered the entirety of his face, because Mark was sure his cheeks would be red. That smile . . . it was just phenomenal. Mark couldn't explain it. There was just something . . .
No. Mark wasn't going through this again. It was just a passing thing. It was just false feelings. It was just loneliness and desperation. It wasn't something he was doing. Not. Doing.
Mark, already looking down at his polo as he smoothed it out, was not expecting what came next. As the hybrid officially introduced himself - "Anyway, my name's Kamren" - he gingerly took Mark's paw in his own (was talon the proper term?) and shook it. And despite his dense covering of fur on his face, the feel of their hands connecting, all the more obvious through Mark's unroughed paw pads, was surely making him blush. Their contact was all kinds of wonderful - Kamren's claws tickled the webs between Mark's fingers.
However, as was inevitable, it ended as any normal handshake did, after a moment. It took almost all Mark's willpower not to make it blatantly obvious that he was filled up with confusing, distressing emotions, the embarrassment and dread of earlier washed away, if only for a moment. The remainder of the willpower went towards bringing himself to the reality of . . . reality. Mark knew what things were like. He wasn't dumb. There were things he could do, and things, many things, he couldn't.
Turns out, reality was right around the corner. He was broken from his thoughts by the sound of Kamren's voice again. "And I really hate to be cutting this short, but I don't want to be late to my next class. It's English, all the way in the library, with our homeroom teacher, actually. Ms. Dancyon?" Mark's head perked up slightly as he realized that he had his next class with Kamren. Smiling, he spoke to Kamren, gesturing with his paw down the hallway.
"Hey, that's, uh, that's also my next class! I think we'd best hurry, though, 1st block is just about to start." As Mark turned and began walking down the hallway, he turned to Kamren and smiled slyly at him. "Hey, at least it'll be better than homeroom today, right?"