He was such a stubborn butt. Elsword Sieghart was such a big, fat, butt. He was always – always – teasing her. Jumping out of the janitor's closet, throwing melon bread at her across the room, tapping her shoulder and eerily whispering into her ear. It didn't help that she had an anxiety problem, too.
One day, inspiration clicked in her head. It was when Aisha was observing Eve and Chung that she realized something – she may not be the bravest person in the world, but what were the chances that Elsword was? Giggling to herself, she bounced up from the lunch table and rushed to the library, leaving her friend Ara gaping in her wake.
Plopping herself down at a table in the library, she scribbled down nearly a paragraph of ideas, sometimes looking up to think for a few moments. When she finished nearly an hour later, Aisha scrawled on top:
Aisha's Guide to Scaring Your Friend
Grinning, she closed the piece of paper and slid it into her binder. This was going to be a fun night.
Since the academy of Elrios required the students to live in dorms for their terms, it would probably be easy to get into Elsword's room. Except she had to pass the hall monitors first. The slip of paper was in her butt pocket (for the 'memory' of Elsword Sieghart, the butt), and she was wearing simple basketball shorts and a loose sweater. She tucked her long purple hair into a cap and set off towards Elsword's room. She crept cautiously around the dorms until a voice interrupted her:
"Hey! You there!"
Aisha froze. A hall monitor, revealing himself in the dim light, plodded over to her, eyeing her suspiciously. She crossed her arms over her chest warily, watching his eyes graze over her slender figure. "What're you doing up? It's midnight out. You're supposed to be in bed."
"I need to use the bathroom." She blurted.
The hall monitor raised an eyebrow, and said, "There are bathrooms in your dorms."
Aisha blinked, then cursed silently under her breath and looked up directly into his eyes. This seemed to throw him off a bit, and she said, "I left my hairbrush at the bathroom down the hall." She lifted her arms up, hoping she looked somewhat innocent. "I'll just be gone and back."
The hall monitor still looked suspicious, but nodded and allowed her to continue. She searched the numbers until she came upon a familiar one: 467. Elsword's room. Knowing him, he'd probably be up playing horror games. Aisha smiled, and pulled out the extra key she'd managed to swipe from his jacket pocket when the dork wasn't looking.
Aisha didn't know if he was sleeping or what, but apparently he used the bathrooms always at 12:13 sharp. This was coming from his roommate, Raven, who was currently sick in the infirmary. He was the only one she'd trusted with her ingenious plan, and he seemed pretty cool with it.
The petite girl darted into the room, releasing a quiet, shaky breath when Raven's information proved to be correct. A light filtered from the bathroom, and Aisha slowly tiptoed to the closet, gently pushing it open and hopping inside quickly. A toilet flushed, and she hurriedly closed the door as a mop of red hair appeared from the bathroom.
After three minutes or so, Aisha fished out her cellphone and shone the dim light on the first one: Closet Scare. Grinning, she waited another minute before scratching at the door. The clicks and taps presumably coming from Elsword's computer stopped for a moment, and there was a squeak. Probably from his swivel chair, Aisha presumed. She was about to scratch again when suddenly the blue light coming from the other side of the closet turned off, and she heard scuffling steps. They came nearer, but stopped abruptly, and there were squeaks of bed springs.
She cursed. He couldn't possibly be sleeping now! Aisha tapped at the door, but only a snore met her. Geez, he slept quickly. She slowly pushed the door open, and stared at him through the darkness. Aisha scowled, and whispered quietly, "You suck, Elsword Sieghart."
He snored at her.
She crossed off Closet Scare the following day. Obviously that guy feel asleep way too quickly, and if she tried to pull the same trick again he'd figure it out. Elsword was one smart butt.
So Aisha tried the next one: Under the Bed Whisper. The plan was to hide under his bed, and start whispering nonsensical names. His and his sisters, namely. When she asked him about his sleep last night he simply said, "I've been playing way to much video games."
Then he'd given her a weird stare, like he wanted to say something, but he stopped himself. After a moment or two after that, he'd said, "You look mad."
But regarding the current issue, Aisha had once again successfully gotten into the boys dorm (luckily, the hall monitors had switched out) and back into Elsword's room (he'd noticed the missing key and had filed a report to the principal… that butt), and was now under his bed, waiting for him to finish up playing Amnesia or whatever that was.
She would have to do it quick. But as time passed, the boy showed no intent of ever finishing, and the only sounds were shrill shrieks he suppressed after a moment. Getting drowsier and drowsier with nothing to help wake her up, she fell asleep under Elsword's bed.
When she woke up, it was light. Way to light. It couldn't be… She smacked her head on the top of Elsword's bed as she scrambled to get out, and gaped. The sun shone full and bright overhead, and his digital clock read: 9:25.
She was more than two hours late to class. She paled, then turned red with irritated fury, against herself and Elsword.
That butt.
"Why the heck were you so late to class today?" Elsword ducked under an outstretched hand to keep up with her. She adjusted her arms slightly to balance out the weight between books, and glanced at him. Aisha scowled.
"None of your business." She dodged an arm stealthily and stopped when she felt his hand grab hers. "Oh, what do you want?"
He eyed her briefly with an exasperated expression, before saying, "Uh, I don't know, the smartest person in school was two hours late without any reason to be?"
Usually Aisha would be smug in this situation, but the lunch duty she had gotten for being two hours late was darkening her mood. "Uh-huh." Aisha waved him aside absently, and he let go of her hand. It was obvious that he didn't believe her, but she couldn't care less at this point. "I'm going to go to class now – "
"No, wait." Elsword lunged forward, and this time he grabbed her wrist. "You will tell me why you were late."
Why was he so nosy? "Why do you care?" She asked, irritated. "It's not like you have any reason to." She almost added 'buzz off, you butt', and ended up deciding against it.
"I do have a perfectly good reason to care." He let go of her wrist, and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes stayed on hers, not leaving them for a second. Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, Aisha glanced away, faintly hearing the bell ring in the distance, but her steadily quickening pulse was much more important to her now.
"Why is that?" Aisha asked uneasily. She didn't want to look up at him. But she did. His crimson hair was dark but flaring in the sunlight, and his posture made him appear as if he were annoyed. He did look good in the light, she admitted to herself. Elsword's eyebrows arched up at her, but behind them she spotted a tiny speak of weariness and exasperation.
"You really haven't noticed yet?" At this point, a tinge of disbelief tinged his voice, and Elsword looked at her like she was stupid. Her heart quickened, and her face burned with embarrassment at his statement.
She snapped, "I'm not that stupid!"
"Then - ?" Elsword was quickly cut off again after a millisecond of consideration from Aisha.
"… Okay, maybe I am that stupid. Just tell me." She set her books down on the ground, and stood on her toes to reach almost (not even close) eye-level with him. "Stop playing the wait game. We're five minutes late. Whatever you have to tell me, it better be important - "
"I love you."
Rena stared at Aisha in shock, and then a playful smile twitched across her lips. "Aha, so… he confessed? Like, seriously?" After a slow, hesitant nod from the smaller girl, Rena squealed, and nearly the whole of the lunchroom turned to stare at her.
"Shhh!" Aisha said, looking around as if there were a ticking time bomb around. "Don't squeak like that!"
Rena stopped, and then stared at her. So, the guy finally had the guts to tell her. "So, what did you say?" She leaned closer, anticipating. She'd have to ask Elsword about all the details later. Did she stutter a no while looking like a tomato like Rena herself had predicted? Had she said yes? Had she said no? No, no. She couldn't have said no.
"… I asked him to give me some time," Aisha admitted after a minute, staring down at her pizza. Her fingers twisted with the paper bag her lunch was in moments before, crinkling and then smoothing out the brown paper.
Rena paled. What? And she was so sure that Aisha… No, Rena was sure. Aisha definitely had a thing for Elsword Sieghart. It was obvious those two liked each other. Okay, maybe not that obvious, but it was to her. "You… asked for more time." She repeated lamely.
Aisha nodded uncertainly. Then Rena burst out, "Why?"
The smaller girl put the bag in the nearby trash can and picked at her pizza. "Well… I don't know. It was all so, so, so sudden that I didn't know how to react, and suddenly I said those things. It was you know… what do they call it? In the 'heat of the moment'?"
"Okay, Aisha, that is definitely not what 'heat of the moment' means. If you were in the heat of the moment, you would've made out with him." Rena grinned as Aisha's face slowly turned red. "Aisha. You go and say yes. Right now."
Aisha jerked her head up. "What - ?!"
"Go say yes."
"You can't decide these things for me!"
"But if I don't, you'll spend your time moping around."
"Can we just get off this topic, please?"
Rena considered. Aisha was a person to get easily sidetracked, so there most definitely would be another situation where she could mention Elsword and little Aisha's love troubles. "Okay, then. Why were you late?"
Aisha groaned. "Long story."
She perked. "I like long stories. Continue."
The other girl hesitated. "Well, the thing is, I was trying to scare Elsword. He was always, always scaring me, so I thought it would be fun to try and scare him. I've only tried two times, though, and none of them worked. I even wrote up a whole list! Here, see this." She dug around in her binder, and retrieved a piece of folded paper and handed it to her. Rena eyed it like it was candy. This was most plainly blackmail information for both Elsword and Aisha in the future. She took it gingerly from Aisha's palm, and flicked it open.
The first two were crossed off:
Closet Scare
Under Bed Whisper
Behind the Door Monster
And so the list continued on. But one at the end of the paper interested her, and immediately Rena smirked. "Oh, what's this, little one?" When Aisha looked at her questioningly, she pointed at the one at the very bottom.
Aisha paled before bursting into flames. "A-ah… That's not…"
Rena grabbed Aisha's hands and tugged her off the table. "That's it! You're going to say yes to Elsword right now! Like, right now! Where is he? Hey, Eve!"
Eve looked over at them blankly, Chung chewing on a sandwich and looking curiously over besides her. "Yes?" Eve placed her drink on the table, looking at Rena with exasperation, as if she already knew what was on the other girl's mind.
"Where is Elsword?"
"Outside with Raven."
Ooh, with Raven! "Okay, thank you~! C'mon Aisha, I'm not letting you go until you say yes!" With a positive twinkle in her eyes, Rena dragged the unwilling and complaining Aisha out the door and spotted the mass of red hair next to a more unnoticeable mop of black hair. "Yooo!"
Elsword and Raven turned. Immediately Elsword turned around, and Raven gave them a tight-lipped smile. Quiet kid. "Hey~ Elsword, Aisha has something she wants to say to you!" Rena chirped. By now, Aisha's face had gone pale, and both people involved looked uncomfortable, even the hardy Elsword. She pushed Aisha towards Elsword, grabbed Raven's wrist and dragged him out.
"Wha?"
"Shhh!" Rena pressed her finger to her lip, pulling a pencil out of her pocket and unfolding the guide she was still holding. "I want to see this." Although she said this to Raven, he was the only one who watched. Rena could plainly tell what was going on through Raven's facial expressions, and when a light smile reached his face she smirked and pressed the pencil tip against the paper, slowly crossing a line through the last one:
Confession
A/N: Hello. Thank you all for your feedback on Dream Goes On. It was written on a whim, so I wasn't sure of the quality but it seems satisfactory enough. Please keep in mind this is also written on impulse, so it might not be my best. Thank you.