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There was this big of a sign that says 'LIBRARY' in front of me, and to be completely honest it did make me sick just seeing the sign.
"Look…" I tried to explain but the ass wouldn't listen to me. "I really would not want my punishment to be in the library."
"Let's go in," he said as if I didn't say anything. He grabbed my hand and dragged me inside; I could swear that was sexual assault judging the grip mark he left on my skin.
Oh good Lord. I felt like throwing up seeing how big the library was and the number of shelves in it – the books, they were the most evil of all.
It wasn't like we made a grand entrance or something but for unknown and mysterious reasons, people were staring at us and when Mr. Jerk looked at them they hurried back to what they were doing.
"You are going to work in the counter as one of the librarians for the whole two weeks," I'd never seen him wear an emotion. "You have to work for six hours a day."
This was so forced labor – so abusive and terrible. "Um… Sasuke, right?" I wasn't too certain of his name since I just came yesterday. "First of all, I'm not saying this because I think you're hot but I really thought I saw you before."
He ignored what I just said. What a nice guy he was. "Your shift will be ended in six hours."
"I hate to say this but I would not like to do it," I was being real nice and calm when I said the statement. "I don't know what librarians do actually."
"Punishment is a punishment," was his cold and nasty reply, "it isn't for you to decide."
"And it's for you to decide!" I just lost it; people stared at us once again. "I never wanted this and now you want me to do a job that I don't like? Who are you? My father?"
I just started bitching like no one was inside the library but him. "You don't know how frustrating it is for me to be here and you want me to work at the library?"
"Library is like -" I was cut off when I saw a wonderfully gorgeous man, sitting alone and reading intently, in one of the tables. "…a heaven to me. I'd love to do the job you appointed me."
He was confused but I didn't really care – not that I should anyway. I went to the counter, the place where I was appointed to be in, and stared at the wonderful guy I knew would be the guy to fulfill my fantasies. Well, that sounded gross and wrong but the guy was just absolutely my type.
-
It had been two hours and Mr. Wonderful was still there, and Mr. Jerk left after he explained to me what my job was. I didn't really understand him because I was kind of admiring Mr. Wonderful from afar when he was telling me what I should do.
I blinked as I heard a snap. "Miss?" I looked at the girl who called me. "Do you know where I can find 'Spanish for Dummies'? Cause I'll need it to do my summer homework."
"Um, no," I replied with all honesty. "I don't, sorry."
"But you can look at the computer in front of you," she argued back, and I didn't like the way she said it. "Duh…"
"The hell with that," she started to get on my nerves. "Well, you see, I don't really feel doing any work right now cause being librarian isn't really my thing," she completely and utterly annoyed me when she raised her eyebrow on me," and if you should know I don't get paid so stop being bossy and find it yourself."
With that she walked out.
After my shift was done, I was called again by Sasuke. He told me he received seven complaints about me. Nasty complaints. They complained that I was terrible, and I believed I didn't do that bad.
-
As soon as I got back to my dorm, my phone rang – it was my dad.
"Sweetheart?" how my daddy could sound so sweet like nothing bad was happening to me here? "How well have you been doing?"
"Did you mean how bad, not well?" I tried to sound as miserable as possible. Well, I was not having fun anyway – I mean, sure, I met this wonderful guy in the library but that's just about it – I didn't even get to get near him. I'd been here for more than 36 hours. "Think about how bad I was in the kitchen when one of our chefs tried to teach me how to cook fried chicken – well, worse than that."
"Oh, honey. Didn't you make any friends?"
"Nope," that was too easy to answer. "Don't you feel sorry for your princess?"
"Really?" his voice was terrified. Would he give in? "But I talked to Sasuke, he said you guys get along amazingly!"
"You talked to him?" I was pretty shocked. How could he know him? "And no, we ain't friends – I just met him."
"You don't remember who he is?"
"Na-uh," I tried to remember who he was but I just couldn't.
"Remember the masquerade ball two years ago?" dad made me remember. "That was his sixteenth birthday; I believe you hang out with him in the party."
Gracious goodness! No wonder I thought he looked familiar. He was that guy… the guy I shamelessly flirted with whole night at the party. Oh holy Lord. I'd know if I were in a bad situation when I just start blabbering all these religious things.
"I'll call you later, daddy," I hang up the phone, not waiting for him to reply.
I lay on my Victorian bed, think what my next move would be. Should I pretend that I didn't remember anything about that night? Would it become less shameful if I'd do that? Oh my God.
-
I heard not so peculiar loathsome knocks on my door, that's why I was forced to get off of my bed. I opened the door and saw a person that I knew would be standing there.
"Good morning, Sasuke," I greeted him to show some manners. "Any problem I caused again?"
He looked at me from head to toe. I would have thought that he was attracted to me if he didn't say, "Why are you not dressed up for classes? Classes start today."
"No lie?" I knew he wasn't lying because when I looked outside my window people were hurrying into buildings. "God, why did not anyone tell me that?"
"You have," he paused to look at his expensive wristwatch, "exactly 5 minutes and 32 seconds to be in your respected classroom."
And then he turned his back on me and started walking off. Just great.
-
I breathed in and out. I entered the room I had to be in and there were ugly glances on me, and those glances didn't feel great. I hurried as much as I could, and I didn't even have a chance to read my horoscope!
The teacher spoke, "You're about an hour late and it's first day of class. Introduce yourself."
Everyone stared at me.
"I'm Yamanaka Ino," I gave them my nicest smile. "I just got here two days ago."
"What does your family own?" one of the students from the back asked me and trust me, she sounded arrogant. To the sound of her voice, anyone could tell that social status did matter a lot in this campus.
"I'm rich," I retorted with attitude. "Is that enough?"
"Well, everyone in this school is," she said to me as she flipped her reddish pink hair. "We want to know a specific level."
"I'm richer than you are," I could hear 'owww's' from our classmates when I said that. "What's your level? I'm probably at least two levels ahead of you, judging from the Prada purse you're holding – I got that purse almost two years ago, I saw that bag in the mall last week and it's been on sale."
All of the sudden everyone looked at each other. The girl who challenged me kept quiet as she pushed up her glasses on the bridge of her nose, and didn't dare to look at me anymore.
I looked at the teacher. "I can sit wherever, right?"
"I'm Mr. Sarutobi Asuma," he told me. "And yes, you can sit anywhere."
I saw Sasuke at the back row near the window. I didn't hesitate to take the available chair beside him and it did look like that it didn't really matter to him.
People stared at me once again and then I heard stuff like,
"Would that be okay to Sasuke?"
"He never let anyone, especially girls, to take that chair!"
"I just cannot believe that it's okay to seat on there."
"Is this girl for real? What a blatant bitch."
That's it. I couldn't stand it anymore that's why I stood up and looked at them. "Okay, just tell me what the freaking problem with this chair? Did anyone die on this chair or something?" Everyone became quiet. I turned to Sasuke to ask, "I can sit here, right?"
"…Yeah."
"Enough with that," teacher Asuma said as he gave a little chuckle. "Please take your seat, Ms. Yamanaka. Y'all need to pass your summer homework."
"The hell is that?" I asked Sasuke, to which he didn't say anything in response. He really was much more distant inside the classroom.
"A-Any p-problem you're having?" the blue-haired girl that had very rare pure whitish lavender eyes asked me, I thought my eyes were weird but hers were much weirder. But it seemed like I saw these kinds of eyes not so long ago. Well, see, I don't really have good memory. "H-How c-can I help you?"
"Uh, can you please tell me 'bout the summer HW?"
"I-It w-was assigned to us three months p-prior when we e-enrolled."
"Um," I raised my hand and the teacher asked me if I had questions, "I never got the summer homework packet."
"Oh you don't have to worry about it," he smiled at me. "You're excused since you just graduated and you didn't really enroll on time."
I caught many of my classmates giving me nasty looks.
-
After my shift in the library (I was devastated because Mr. Wonderful wasn't there), I went directly 'ADMISSION OFFICE' and asked what room Sasuke was in because I received a voicemail from my dad and asked me to check on Sasuke as often as I could because daddy said "he was hurting." And funnily, I found out that his room was just across from mine.
That night, I knocked on his door. And I had to admit that it took him a long time to open the door to the extent that I was about to lose my patience. But he did open the door.
His face was wet and he looked so… lonely. This was also the first time I saw him not wearing formal clothes.
"I can come in, right?" he stepped aside and let me in.
His room just looked identical to mine's; the only differences were the furniture and the wall paint.
"State your business," he demanded colder than usual. And for some reasons, he couldn't look at me with straight face. "I want to be alone as soon as possible."
"Daddy made me remember that I met you on your sixteenth birthday," I felt awkward that I was talking to him out of the blue. "And just now, I received a voicemail from him…" I paused and looked for the right words to say, "Well, I don't know how to say it cause we aren't really close but I'm you know… here for you."
He didn't say anything but he looked at me and there was a tear from his left eye that fell gently.
"I better take my leave now since you want to be alone."
I was about to turn around and head on the door when he grabbed my hand and said, "Stay."
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