of lunches and conversations
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because the news does not only spread like fire, it also eats her like a monster.
-
The first time he reads the three words and the signed name, he merely blinks.
The second time, he contemplates if he will throw it to the nature-friendly waste can.
The third time, and the last one, he decides to keep the irritating piece of trash.
He clutches the piece of paper in his hand, exasperation written in his coal eyes. In a heartbeat, he starts to fold it carefully in order to keep it again, safe and secure.
"What's that?" The young woman of nineteen springs old asked him, olive eyes brimming with laughter and smiles as her light auburn tresses sways gently from the crown of her head. He merely shrugs the curious inquiry and hides it inside his pocket, careful that she might not grab it from him in surprise.
"A letter?" A pout made its way to her lips. He walks on briskly, stepping a foot away her as their only distance. "A love letter?" She is unconscious of that petulant expression that creases her cheeks which his peripheral sight caught.
"Yes." He replies swiftly and nearly smirks in arrogance at her quick, distraught frown. He can so easily affect her in so many ways, this strange friend of his.
"From who?" She banters, fist clenching and her teeth gritting, as the girl follows behind with a threatening book to be thrown. Of course, she is overreacting to imagine that he is again stalked by some fanatical, love-stricken student, be it male or female.
It was rather odd, said the one who call himself as his 'friend', that a woman--'his' woman, to quote that stupid blonde--is always the one who defiantly defends his honor, his dignity and worse, his masculinity (He will never know why God bestowed him with such feminine facial features).
Tch, annoying creatures.
"You." He breezily answers, and manages to grab the book that falls limply from her hands. He snorts at the stupefied silence and the gaping, bewildered mouth that is already trying to speak.
"I-I did not give you any love letters," She flusters, turns beet crimson and flails her arms in front of him to hide the embarrassment in her face. "Never will I give you one for the rest of my life!"
"Yes, you did." An easy counter from her expected response and she falters to argue any further when he adds thoughtfully. "Asking for a date is counted as a love letter."
"I just asked for lunch in a note!" Her voice escalates into a squeak. Interesting.
"Yes, you did." He asserts and tilts his head to look at her slightly curious, ruffling the dark cowlick strands against his white collar. "Why?"
"I-I just felt like eating with someone--other than females (and noisy blond males), okay?" A sigh and then she glances at him pointedly. "Unfortunately, you lose your appetite when girls gather around and keep on chatting about your glorified ass."
"Me?"
"Stop smirking!" He was really fond of watching her glower fiercely at him. A frustrated growl from her makes the whole scene more comical. "Honestly, I do not know why every woman in earth adores the very dirt of your soles."
He raises a perfect, ebony eyebrow near his hairline. "I'm rather tired of it."
A pause.
"I told you, get a girlfriend."
Yes, that was really obvious to the most oblivious woman he'd ever met. His thoughts provides with sarcasm.
Instead saying the thoughts out loud, he graces her with, "I have one."
"Who?"
"We'll take lunch." He grabbed that pale hand, pulled her to pace quickly and muttered, "You'll find out soon enough."
"Am I in love?"
A choking gasp, a sputter of rice and an orange chicken ball went to waste.
"Ex-" It was followed by a series of coughs. "Excuse me?"
In the middle of a perfectly made lunch, that exasperating oblivious girl just have to ask that extremely obvious question dramatically.
She huffed indignantly when the pair of disgusted olive eyes glared at her. In response, she only grabbed the expensive pink napkins along the lunch box, smirking when she find faint blue patterns of sakura blossoms imprinted along the thin paper.
"Hey! They were given to me!" The culprit ignored her still and wiped her face decorated with white grains. Thank goodness they were in the secluded shadows of the school grounds near the towering trees or else her reputation would be forever damaged and mangled at her current state. "And you are not deaf, blonde pig! Can you just answer the damn question?"
"Why do you ask then, dear?" She demurely patted the paper towel on her cheeks, discerning her companion with an interested countenance.
"Some arrogant moron asked me" The rose tresses complemented her flushed cheeks. "And he mocked me when I denied it."
It was a shame indeed that this female genius and in position of being an essential cheat mate, err, honor student in the batch, was this clueless.
"Perhaps, he is right." A wry grin made way to the popular extroverted girl as she noted the way her best friend squirmed under her observation. "You have zits."
There was a horrified pause.
"You have been missing sleep, I think."
Then it was followed by a sputter of protest without any comprehensible words forming.
"You have been spacing out lately."
"No!" The monosyllabic gasp came afterwards.
"And you have been lying to yourself more frequently than before."
"Ino--!"
"That was a growl already? I see." She said amidst the warning signals went off beneath her golden hair. "Besides, it's about time! You are turning twenty, after all, cranky old woman."
Sakura, in all her restraints for burying her lunch companion underneath the tree, merely responded dangerously. "Twenty (she grits the word like gravel) is barely getting old."
"But you are cranky right now!" Ino prompted with a spare takoyaki stolen from the pink container with much gusto. "Only spinsters, old aunts and never-had-boyfriends-in-entire-womanhood are cranky."
"Prove it!"
"Big-busted sensei of yours."
"She had a fiancé!"
"Anko-sempai."
"If everyone keeps looking at your bust instead of your face, let's see who's cranky!"
"Shizune-sempai, then."
Green eyes rolled in disbelief. "You suggested roasting Tonton!"
"Nope! There's a correction, honey." A perfectly manicured finger waggled in front of the pink-haired friend's nose. "It was my boyfriend. And how would we know that people still kept pigs as lovable pets?"
"Brad Pitt does." She countered.
"Blech, hate the guy." Ino now sniffed disdainfully. "I'd rather have Sasuke-kun."
"I know, damn it." Sakura muttered as she pouted with her chopsticks at the point of her pouting mouth. Rolling her eyes, her voice groaned, knowing that Ino always make the whole dialogue towards that insufferable human. Prompting to cut the following words that will come out from the blonde woman, she blurted out. "Can we change the topic? Plea--"
She miscalculated where the ridiculous exchange was heading.
"There is really something going on between the two of you!"
"Wha-?" Stammering incomprehensibly, Sakura tried to survive herself from choking from her own saliva. "Does the rumor grapevine travels this fast? I only ate with him yesterday!"
"He made you his girlfriend!" Ino whispered in disbelief. "Didn't you know?"
"I do-don't understand." She cannot put anything that happened yesterday that already made them an item. If Ino has gained this knowledge from the thriving, treacherous gossips around the school, Sakura can never look anyone in the eye again.
"He invited you to lunch. He stalked you home, and most obvious point of all," The blonde pointed all of this by counting them off with her fingers. "He escorted you to school!" An incredulous look on Ino's expression made it more frightening to impending realization that those actions were coming to everyone's minds. "It is bound to be noticed by the population, forehead girl!"
"You got that all wrong!" Interjecting to the humiliating tirade, the trembling fist that Sakura tried to hide now slammed on the ground. "It was me who invited him to lunch!" Her pale index finger pointed to herself (and ignored the golden eyebrow that rose up towards the hairline). "We are practically neighbors!" She jabbed it towards Ino's chest. "So it will always be practical that we go the same way!"
"You do know that you are blushing, forehead girl?"
There was the sudden rush of feeling inside to beat her traitorous ex-friend.
"Well," The interfering, meddling, pig chuckled. "I don't blame you."
"About what?"
"For being in love, silly!" Ino slapped her shoulder amusingly
Sakura swore when she heard 'Shannarooo!' screaming in her throbbing head.
"Tell then, to the 'arrogant moron' who asked you," That grin Ino was making was sinister. "That he's right."
Instead, the stupefied lass only managed to shove the tomato onigiris to that big-mouthed woman from the stolen bento. They were his favorites, after all. "Shut the hell up, Ino"
Written: January 7, 2007
Edited: October 28, 2007