Hating You
Squit Ayumin

Chapter 3: Girls Rule

"Ryo, go help Rika with her hand-luggage."

Ryo lazily lifted one eye open in response to his father's request. Beside Rika's feet was a small bag; anybody could carry it with ease. He closed his eye again and answered, "She looks fine to me."

Silence.

He opened his eyes again to see his father giving him a disapproving look. Ryo knew well from experience that a long, unnecessary lecture would follow.

Grumbling, Ryo got up and walked over to Rika. She gave him her signature sour look. He ignored it, set on his mission. Without saying a word to her, he lifted her bag.

"What the—give it back!" she demanded. "What do you think you're you doing?"

She seized her bag from him, jerking it so forcefully out of his grip that the top half of his body lunged forward.

Ryo turned to his father with an incredulous, did-you-see-what-she-just-did look on his face. His father, however, had sat down in Ryo's former seat and was now focused on his computer's screen.

Apparently, he hadn't seen a thing.

"Don't touch my stuff," she hissed as she shoved his shoulder away from her.

He contemplated arguing, but, for the sake of his sanity, he merely sat down in a seat away from her and his father.

His mother then approached him, mere seconds after he had sat down. "Ryo, dear, why don't you try and be nice to Rika? Look at her. She's standing by herself against that wall. She must be terribly shy, and we raised you to be friendly towards awkward people like her."

He looked at Rika again. She was looking very un-shy, frowning and glaring. "I don't want to."

"Ryo Akiyama, we raised you to be a gentleman. This is not how a gentleman acts!"

Ryo tried not to roll his eyes.

Usually, it wasn't easy to push Ryo's buttons. He was actually pretty patient and enjoyed making new friends, but something about Rika bothered him.

Perhaps it was the fact that she was the most unbelievable person he had ever come across.

"Besides, she is Rumiko Makino's daughter. She's an important asset to your father's company. You have to be nice."

Ryo finally rolled his eyes, disregarding his mother's immediate frown. She hated when he did it. "Mum, I don't care if she's Princess of Japan. I've already tried to be nice, but she's a mean girl. I'm not trying anymore."

She didn't respond for a moment, but instead gave him a stern look.

"What?" he said, knowing it'd annoy her.

"You will talk to her, Ryo." And stood there in front of him authoritatively until her son finally gave up, sighing, and walked to Rika once again.

"What?" Rika greeted irritably as she saw him approach her.

He let the comment pass.

"We got off to a rough start," he began.

She rolled her eyes. "If you're trying to kiss and makeup, forget it."

Ryo gave up at this point, and, without even responding, went back to sit down.

"She told me to piss off," Ryo reported to his mother as he shut his eyes again. "I'm serious when I say I'm not trying again."

Ryo was uncomfortable.

He shifted in his seat, moving the flat, airplane-provided pillow around in an attempt to find a more comfortable sitting position.

"Can you stop moving?" Rika snapped, turning her head to face him. "Some people are trying to read here."

He ignored her as he continued his search for a cosier spot.

"Eugh," she groaned as she took her own pillow and smashed it to Ryo's shoulder. "Use that, and stop being so damn annoying."

Having enough of her, he took it and smashed it back on top of her book, crinkling a few pages. "No, thank you."

Satisfied, he turned around to face the window.

He let out a small yelp as he felt a hard slap to his shoulder.

Rika had hit him with her book. Hard.

"Are you insane?" he hissed.

She pretended not to have heard him, instead opening her book and reading again.

He wanted to pick up that book, shred all its pages and throw the remains at her face.

Instead, he turned his head and looked out the window again.

These next two weeks were going to be hell. The only good thing that came out of this was missing the final day of the semester.

Three… two… one…

TK smiled a little. There was only two more minutes until the official beginning of the winter holiday.

As he shifted his eyes from the clock to the front of the classroom, he stopped to look at Kari. She sat diagonally to him, two rows away. At the same instant he had looked over to her, she turned around to get something from her bag.

They made eye contact.

Embarrassed, TK quickly looked away and out the window.

They hadn't spoken a word to each other since they had moved in together. TK made an effort not to leave his room when she was in the shared areas, and, if he did, he went straight out the flat door. One time, Kari had left to do something, and he had taken that opportunity to unpack everything she had left him.

So, other than the first day they had moved in together, they hadn't really seen each other. Even this morning, TK had woken up an extra twenty minutes earlier so he would leave before she did.

Once he decided he had stared out the window for a sufficient amount of time, he turned to look at the clock again.

His English teacher had a habit to not end class until he absolutely had to, so TK had a tendency to watch the clock once the last few minutes of class came around.

He glanced at Kari again, wondering if he should attempt conversation. He didn't have basketball anymore, so he was going to go straight home after class. Kari most likely would too.

He quickly looked away before she turned around and mentally sighed.

He'd have to face her sooner or later.

Briiiing!

"Have a great holiday!" his teacher exclaimed as students rushed out the door, ignoring him.

TK quickly stuffed everything into his schoolbag and walked over to Kari, who was carefully placing her belongings into her own bag.

"Hi Kari," he greeted, trying to sound as normal as possible.

She looked surprised, as if she had just noticed he was in her class. "TK."

Pause.

"Do you want to walk home together?" he asked awkwardly.

Pause.

"Erm, that's okay."

TK felt a pang of annoyance and embarrassment.

"Oh, okay," he muttered, not bothering to hide his irritation as he got up to leave.

"Thank you though," she added.

He pretended not to hear as he walked out of the classroom.

The nerve.

She made it sound like he wanted to walk home with her. Obviously, he was doing it out of kindness. Grumbling still as he reached his locker, he vowed to stop attempting to be nice to her, because, clearly, she wasn't making an effort back.

He quickly exchanged books and decided he'd rather work out than go home. Slugging his books over his shoulder, he headed for the gym.

Kari stared curiously at TK leaving the room for a second before she began packing her things again.

He sure was weird.

He had deliberately avoided her since Friday afternoon, and then he randomly asked her to walk home with him.

Anyway, even if she wanted to, she couldn't. Today was the Photography Club's end-of-semester party, and she didn't want to miss it.

Under normal circumstances, Ryo would have let her have it.

But this was Rika Makino, and she had angered him far too many times for him to give in so easily.

"I'm the girl, so it's only natural that you, the boy, would let me have it."

"I am not sleeping on the couch, Rika."

"Neither am I."

Crossing her arms, she sat on the bed and looked away.

It was like talking to a child.

"Look, we're two adults. We can both sleep on the bed and—"

"Ew, no!" Rika interrupted. "I'd rather hang myself than share a bed with you!"

Ryo frowned.

Their parents sure did have one twisted sense of humour to stick them together like this.

"Must you really be such a baby about it?" he asked. "There's not a sliver of attraction I have towards you—"

"Likewise."

"—So sleeping on the same bed—"

"I am not sleeping in the same bed as you!"

"Then you can sleep on the couch!"

"I'm not sleeping on the couch either!"

"Then sleep on the floor," he said lowly. "Look, I'm sleeping on that bed, even if it means I have to wait until you fall asleep to do it."

"You're a creep!" she accused. "And, if I wake up and find you beside me, I'll murder you."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Rika, I'm really scared. I'm at least twenty kilos heavier than you. I doubt you can even touch me—"

He was interrupted as something snapped onto his face, a physical force kicked his chest and knocked him to the floor, and something heavier landed on his chest, surely breaking some ribs and puncturing his lungs.

"What the hell!" he bellowed, throwing the pillow on his face aside. "You just threw a suitcase at me!"

Rika smirked at him from the bed. "Hypothetical situation: I did this to you after I realised you had snuck in bed with me. What are you going to do? Just stare and yell like you are now?"

He opened his mouth—and shut it when he couldn't think of a satisfying comeback. "You—"

"I?" she taunted. Her icy amethyst eyes sparkled with satisfaction.

He moved her suitcase out of the way, thinking about how much he wanted to chuck it straight at her face. He wanted to then jump at her and beat her to a blood pulp. He wanted to poke those eyes out and rip that smirk straight off her face.

Instead, he took her hand-luggage and swung it dangerously close to her face, making sure not to hit her.

He got his desired response as her smile quickly vanished and her look of superiority was replaced by fear.

"Maybe next time it won't miss," Ryo threatened.

Her fearful look morphed to an angry one. "What kind of a guy threatens to—"

There was a short knock before his father walked in. "Children, we're going out for dinner—Rika, is something the matter?"

Suddenly, Rika scrambled out of the bed and to his father. "Your…your son. He's trying to force me to sleep on the couch… He just swung his bag at me… I…I'm so scared…"

Ryo's jaw dropped.

She was unbelievable.

"Ryo!"

Ryo looked at his father, who looked furious. His eyes widened. "No! Dad, she's lying!"

He pressed an ear against the door, listening for movement inside.

Once he came to realise that the door was too thick to hear noise, he inserted his key and walked inside.

An enticing aroma greeted him, and his stomach growled in response.

"I'm home," he announced as he walked towards the dining room.

Kari sat at the table, eating dinner. "Welcome back."

TK was somewhat getting used to the awkward silences between them now.

"That smells good," he tried, hoping to stimulate conversation.

"Thanks." She got up, half-eaten plate in hand.

He moved out of the way for her to go to the kitchen.

She threw the food away and put the plate in the dishwasher.

He wished she would offer him some, but he knew it was out of the question.

"Good night," she said before she walked into her room and closed the door behind her.

TK was going crazy.

Sighing, he walked into the kitchen for anything he could eat.

He wasn't the world's best cook, but he wasn't useless either. He opened the refrigerator.

Aside from a box and water bottles, it was nearly empty.

His heart fell. He hadn't gone grocery shopping since he had moved in, and he had been eating out every night.

He picked up the box.

"Do not eat," he read, taking the sticky note from the top of the box.

He crumpled the note and tossed it aside, opening the box.

There was half a loaf of bread, a packet of bacon, two eggs, and a carton of unopened milk.

It would have to do.

Making a mental note to replace the items later, he closed the refrigerator door, tore off a piece of bread and stuck it in his mouth.

Ryo looked happily at his concoction, deciding that he made a decent chef.

Banned from going to dinner with everybody else due to his lack of etiquette, he was forced to make best of his suite's kitchenette. About halfway through cooking, he realised he could have just ordered from the hotel, but he brushed the thought aside because his food didn't appear half-bad.

He had essentially taken everything he liked, mixed it in a pan, added water, and placed his mixture over the stove until it boiled. He had let it solidify a bit, and now it had basically turned into a big, grey blob of… thing.

He mixed it some more with his fork before he placed a small amount into his mouth.

To his satisfaction, it tasted rather good. Smiling, he took another bite—bigger this time—and swallowed.

Cooking was easy!

Ryo forced a pathetic cough, allowing the excess vomit from the back of his throat to leave his system and drip into the toilet below.

He clutched the base of the sink for support as he hoisted himself up and flushed the toilet for what seemed like the fiftieth time.

He considered for a minute to vomit on the bed to make Rika angry, but even he couldn't devise such plans as he gagged and vomited again—this time, on the floor.

Groaning loudly, he walked to the coffee table and picked up the phone, ready to call room service to clean up the mess he had made—

And vomited on the table.

"Kari! What is this?"

Kari stood up at the sound of her name, and, curious, she walked outside.

She gasped as a putrid scent invaded her nostrils.

It smelled of sulphur—no, rotten eggs.

"TK!" she squealed, seeing him holding his nose with one hand and pointing to a frying pan with the other.

"What the hell is that?" he demanded, his voice nasally.

"It's…it's expired food," she stuttered.

"Why the hell are you keeping expired food in the kitchen?"

She got annoyed. After all, she did leave a note of warning.

"I was going to give it to the plants," she said irritably.

He took note of her irritation and felt himself getting even more flustered.

"I left a note," she added.

He darkened, but then turned an odd shade of pale green. "I ate a little bit of the bread and drank some of the milk…"

"Didn't you see the mould? Or notice the milk tasted sour? It's been expired for days!" Kari picked up the bread and pointed at the spores. "It's so blatantly obvious."

She didn't remember him being this stupid.

"Well, excuse me," he growled, throwing everything from the box in the trash.

"Hey!" she protested. "I was going to use that!"

"It's still in there," he grumbled.

She frowned. "I don't know why you're getting so angry when it was my food in the first place, TK. I should be mad that you were even thinking about eating my stuff."

"I was going to replace it," he snapped. "Anyway, I'm going to my room. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't leave any more expired food in our refrigerator. That's disgusting."

"I hope you don't spend all night in the toilet," Kari said icily, surprising herself as she walked right ahead of him to her room. "If you need any laxatives, we have some in the cabinet next to the refrigerator."

She smiled fakely at TK's blushing face as she slammed her door loudly in front of him.

Once that sunk in, she walked to her desk and sat down again.

Stupid TK.

"Gross!" Rika yelled as she walked into the room. "What's that smell?"

Ryo groaned a little from the couch as he lifted his head to look at Rika.

Without responding, he slammed his head back down onto his pillow.

"Hm." Rika smirked. "Does this mean I get the bed?"

"Yes, yes, get the damn bed," Ryo snapped, waving an arm. "I don't care where I sleep as long as I get some."

Rika frowned. "Well, I'm not ready to sleep, so deal with it."

Ryo groaned loudly with frustration. "Rika, turn off the light!"

"No."

Ryo groaned again, too weak and tired to do much else. Instead, he threw his covers over his head, begging to himself that sleep would come soon.