Author's Note: Somewhat graphic-ish regurgitation in this chapter. If that kinda thing like sicks you out, you probably don't want to read this. A little reminder here too, that this is technically the first chapter and whatnot. S'all just backwards o_e'

I've (surprisingly)never really had any flames before. I feel like this might get me flames, since it's all cracky crap and whatnot? Yeah? That's cool with me, you know. If you like wanna flame, but you're not cause you feel too nice, go ahead and incinerate me in a big ol' bonfire. It's okay :3


(i tell my lies and i despise every second i'm with you)

She. Would. Not. Stop. Needling. Him.

Always careful to come across like she wasn't, but she always was. She would be 'helping' him in the student council room and every time she passed him a paper, she made sure her fingers ever-so-slightly brushed over his. She would make excuses to hang around him, like saying an assignment he knew perfectly well she could handle by herself was actually one she really needed his help on.

She may have had that innocent front, but he'd catch her ogling him with cerulean depths of want and certitude. It didn't matter that Nathaniel had already rejected her, oh no. She thought if she kept up with all her needling that he would just give in and fall for her, and she would get her way.

Such a pleasant, helpful girl Melody was. But so selfish. Her smile was not unlike his own. A polite semblance shielding the infatuation, and the infatuation cloaking the determination to hook her claws into her prize.

But he saw through it easily. It takes a false smiler to know a false smiler, and his layered grin of mendacity was far more practiced than hers.

It was only a matter of time before he would get her to back off permanently. Foolish, needling bitch she was, she provided him with an idea on how to do just that all on her own.

"I think a picnic at the park would be the most romantic date ever," she said one day, seemingly out of nowhere. But of course, she was intentionally cuing him. Take me out for a picnic, Nathaniel, please? Pretty please? You'll have to eventually, won't you?

"Oh?" He lifted a brow and looked at her uncertainly, whilst the varicosed seeds took root in his gray matter.

"Sorry," she breathed, lips sheepishly quirking and coral blush dusting her cheeks. "I guess that was pretty random. This romance novel I'm reading has got me a little daydreamy."

And if that's what's got her daydreamy, then it's the crime novels that have gotten him sadistic. "You're funny sometimes, Melody," he chirped genially enough and resumed his imaginary task on a cracked clipboard.

"Would you like to go on a picnic with me?" he asked about a month later with a bashful simper on his visage and resonating hostility beneath it.

Melody was incomprehensible for a moment and the file in her hands fell right out of her grasp. Just like in any cheap, mushy chick flick. How sickly sweet. "Oh! Oops!"

She crouched down and began to push the scattered papers back into it. Nathaniel kneeled down and helped her, for once making sure that it was his fingers that skimmed over her small, neat hands. Her eyes met his and she pinked, seemingly so, so timid. But he saw the satisfaction in her gaze as easily as he'd seen all of her evasive pretenses. He and satisfaction were in a love/hate relationship, he knew that emotion inside and out. Melody didn't know how to flirt with it properly.

(Or him for that matter.)

"Yes, of course. Is this, ahem, like a date?"

"Yes, like a date." His ginger smile broadened and he helped her up.

"Oh, great," she gasped, flustered and giddy as child in a toy store. "When?"

"Saturday."

Saturday's weather was as pleasant as could be expected. The brisk autumn breeze carried leaves of red, yellow, and orange from place to place. It rustled through the trees and blew through Melody's wavy hair. She was dressed cutely, really. She wore a long-sleeved knit dress and thick, navy tights.

He made the food. She didn't question it because he was Nathaniel and Nathaniel was an amiable, nice guy. Nice guys did things like make all the food.

It was warm food to suit the nip in the air, a thermos of tomato soup and foil-wrapped grilled cheeses to go with. Convenient food, though he would've made anything suffice. He spread a blanket on the grass and they settled atop it comfortably, one sandwich and two bowls split between them. She had a smaller thermos of hot chocolate quite identical to his own, except for the little fact that his was not actually filled with hot chocolate. No, his was empty.

But with each spoonful of liquid tomato, water, sodium, and his special just-for-Melody ingredient; ipecac, his thermos got a little less empty. Every time he supposedly took a drink, he spat every splash of the poisoned soup into it.

Melody jabbered on and on. Chittering and chattering about things he couldn't give two shits about. Blubbering about how romantic he was and how she was so blissfully happy that at last he'd just given her a chance. He was only halfway listening to any of it. He was simply humoring her until the ipecac soaked into her system.

"Do you mind if I ask why you finally changed your mind about me?" she inquired, shy roses unfurling in her cheeks. "You don't have to answer, I'm just curious."

"I'm not sure, really," he breathed a chuckle. "It must've been something you said."

She blinked at him, doe eyes gleaming curiously. His immediate desire was to rip them out of their sockets with his bare fingers.

Then, what he'd been waiting for happened in a matter of moments. And it was every bit of gratifying he'd hoped it was going to be.

A sudden, pitiful yelp was pulled form her pretty lips and she clamped a hand over her mouth. She leaned forward, shoulders hunching as another cry was muffled by her fingers.

"Are you okay?" he asked out of the obligation to feign concern.

She tried to answer him, vomited instead, and couldn't pull her hand away fast enough to expel it all. Thick, putrid rivulets of liquidy stomach contents seeped through her fingers but she choked on most of it. Gagging, she then ripped her hand away from her face. Her head snapped forward as she puked again. She whimpered in between thick, painful spluttering, trying to get her breath back as her puddle of inconsistent, undigested food stained the blanket.

He couldn't help staring at it. Partly out of morbid nature, partly because if he stared at it, it was only going to embarrass her that much more. Her cheeks were puffed and red as she upheaved today's meals a third time, the reeking pool of chunks and soupy fluid widening to the size of a dinner platter.

(It would be rather awkward to explain the stain to his mother later.)

"I'm s-sorry," she choked out, bewilderment and shame in all three wan syllables. Ah, he relished in it. Especially her shame. Tears were streaming from her eyes in ceaseless supply and she kept her head down, her beautiful brunette tresses getting caught up in her own barf. She was so pathetically humiliated that after this disastrous date, Nathaniel doubted Melody would ever be able to look him in the eye again, let alone flirt with him.

"I'll call your parents to come pick you up," he told her with a strenuous effort to keep the mirth out of his tone.