Chapter 3

"So, any boy news yet?" Sango, my best friend, pried at me. I have been single for a few years now and she really wants me to find a boyfriend. As much as I would love to have a boyfriend, my last relationship was so bad that I really do not mind being single for the next 5, 10, or more years to meet the perfect guy. I don't want to end up in another shitty ass relationship.

I didn't know Sango back when I was with my ex, and I haven't really told her the extent of what he did to me as I don't want to talk about it. She knows some things that he had done to me, but the more severe things she has no idea about. Neither does anyone else. I've had many opportunities to open up to her about it, but I just couldn't bear to talk about it. There will be a day that I will explain the extent of that abusive relationship, but it still isn't the day.

"No boy news." I said with a poker face. Kouga kind of popped up on my mind when she asked me this question. I debated in my head about whether or not I should mention what happened, but I decided against it. Nothing is going to happen between us, I won't allow it. As hot as he is, he clearly just cares about getting his dick wet. Like my ex. So I really don't want to go there.

Sango sighed and said that someday I will find my 'Miroku'. Miroku is her boyfriend, who is one of the most amazing guys I have ever met. Sango is incredibly lucky to have someone like him, even though he can be kind of a perv sometimes. It's kind of funny how well their relationship works out though. Sango is 28 years old while Miroku is 22. The age difference isn't all that bad but it's rare that you see a girl her age date a guy his age, usually because early twenty-year-old guys lack maturity. Miroku is incredibly mature, though, when it comes to responsibility. Because of his charming personality, Sango always dreams of me having my own 'Miroku'.

Sango and I try our hardest to see each other at least once a week. We're both very busy and work pretty opposite schedules so it has become pretty difficult to see each other. We try our hardest though.

"Why don't you try using Tinder?" she suggested. Funny thing was, I was already on Tinder. I didn't tell her that though, but I said I'd take a look at it. I've been on Tinder for a while and for the most part it's all creeps, guys with no personality to them, or people looking to hook up (which I see nothing wrong with, it's just not what I want right now).

I'm not gonna lie though, I haven't really been using Tinder all that seriously. I just swipe through profiles super fast without really looking at the pictures, and most of the time I swipe left on really cute guys out of muscle movement and they disappear into the abyss of Tinder. Because of this lack of effort, I very rarely even reply to anyone anymore when they send me a message.

I later got home and had that Tinder thing on my mind. Once I was in my cozy pyjamas I decided to look thru my Tinder. There were no new matches available for me to rate anymore as I tend to spend most of my boredom swiping left and right. This only lasts so long when you do it every night at work. I scrolled through the matches I already had and no one was really peeking my interest enough to send a message. I decided to delete my profile and start fresh. I chose completely different photos and revamped my bio. I closed the app and decided to start swiping tomorrow once a good handful of guys will have rated me by then.

After I closed Tinder, I logged onto Facebook and started scrolling through my very boring yet addictive Facebook newsfeed. As I was browsing around, I remember that I had posted my old coffee table last night for sale in one of those buy/sell/trade groups. Facebook does this thing that if someone messages you and they aren't friends with you, they automatically send it to your spam folder and you get no notification for it. I guess they did this to keep people from being bothered with stupid and useless messages. I went to my inbox to check if any interested buyers and I saw there was an unread message in my spam folder.

Quite excited, I opened the folder. When I saw who messaged me, my excitement quickly turned to shock.

It wasn't a buyer. It was Kouga.

I received a message from Kouga.

I have no idea how he found my Facebook profile, but he did. And me sent me a message. It was a simple 'Hi' with a smiley face.

Now, I could ignore it. I haven't opened it yet, therefor there won't be a 'read receipt' on it. I can play it cool and be like 'Oh yea I didn't get anything' if he asks and this would play out to be the perfect excuse.

At the same time though… My interest is incredibly peeked. What does he want? Why did he send me a message?

I originally decided to ignore it for the time being as I didn't want to seem to be too eager with my response, but it's showing he sent me that message four hours ago. At this point, maybe he thinks I am ignoring him?

I just starred at the unopened message.

It's just a 'Hi'. It's harmless.

Maybe I should reply? What harm would it be? He might just want to chat… and if that isn't the case, I can tell him I'm not interested. Right? Yea, I could just do that.

With that reasoning in my mind, I opened the message and replied. I cracked a joke about his insane 'stalker skills' and his ability to find my profile without ever telling him my last name.

He laughed at my joke and carried on playing with it. Kouga also took a jab at my incredibly 'fast' response time.

This is just so weird. I never expected Kouga to be messaging me via Facebook. It's been a few days since I last saw him at work, when he came to take a look at our heater. I didn't think he'd take my 'staring' seriously. I hope I didn't give him any wrong impressions.

So far though, our conversation has been incredibly clean and enjoyable. We've been chatting for a few hours now and he hasn't tried anything risky. I'm kind of surprised at how casual he has kept the conversation. I was half expecting him to start hitting on me at some point, but that has yet to happen. Instead it's been a great conversation. He's made me laugh a lot and I didn't even notice how long we had been chatting until he it was time for him to leave work.

When he said he had to go it didn't take me very long to realize it was because he was going home and didn't want to get caught talking to another girl.

That realization really brought me back to reality. It reminded me of what kind of man Kouga was. While he comes across as funny, sweet and fun via text, there's the underlying truth that he is cheating on his current girlfriend with someone who is engaged. Now he's trying to chat me up. I really wonder where he's going to try to go with me… One thing is for sure I'm not going to fall for his crap.

If anything, this will be great ammo to show to Ayame once I show her what he's up to.

I will have to wait though until he makes a move and I call him out… Right now it just looks like I'm flirting right back with him and that won't help my case what so ever. It's already been over a week since Ayame admitted to me what has been going on between the two of them, so it won't work if I told her this conversation happened right around the time she admitted everything. I want to be a good friend to her, so I'm going to have to find a way to show her what kind of person he is.

I also hope that making her realize that she's not doing much good for herself either by cheating on her fiancée either. I hope that seeing what kind of scumbag she's risking her relationship for (even though I don't particularly like her fiancée) will help her stop. I don't want to see her being the bad guy.