The next day in school, Mei hurried through the halls, rushing over to her four BFFs as the girls and Tyler strolled to their next class.
"Here!" She sprung on them, holding out the four burnt copies of Four Town's new album. The four of them just gushed in awe, their eyes sparkling in amazement as they each plucked a copy off of her.
"I will cherish this with my life!" Abby sang (more so yelled)
"Oh my holy God," Miriam added in, hugging her case like it was her one and only child.
"Sweet," Priya said, nodding respectfully at Mei.
"It's cool... I guess,"
The four of them turned their eyes to Tyler's unimpressed expression.
"I mean... is it, kinda stealing...?"
The girls' mouths dropped open.
"What? NO." Mei said quickly, laughing uncomfortable at the question, "There were no other albums in stock... we'd have to wait a whole WEEK for them to have them up again."
Tyler didn't mean to sound so self-righteous, but he felt a niggling guilt in his chest. He smiled awkwardly and just gripped his CD case as he dropped his hand down, before gulping and just giving the CD back to Mei.
"I can wait."
He began to hurry off to his next class, and his heart was beating fast as he had gone against the wishes of the girl he liked.
Mei's eyes only fell open in shock, and her three BFFs looked guilty as Miriam said.
"Maybe... we should wait."
"Miriam? What?!" Mei said to her, shaking her as if she had gone mad, "You're always burning CDs!"
"Yeah... I know," She said back, sweating a little under her beanie. She smiled weakly and just tossed the CD into her bag, not wanting to humiliate and upset Mei anymore.
"Respect," Priya added on, as she placed her own CD in her backpack too and Abby followed suit.
"I am gonna LISTEN to this TILL I AM DEAF!"
"Heh heh," Mei laughed nervously and gulped, putting hers and Tyler's CD away in her bag. This wasn't how she wanted to start the day off with him at all. Since when had he ever cared for doing the right thing? Since... when did she care about not doing the right thing..?
She gulped and walked quickly to the side of Miriam as they entered class.
And her heart began to flutter like a maniac when she laid eyes on Travis.
OMG! He was so cute! He was sitting at the back of the class – y'know, where all the 'cool' kids sat. Oh, how badly she wanted to go over to him and stroke her fingers through his silky black hair.
"Mei, MEI!"
She snapped out of her daydream, to see that Miriam was waving her hand before her face to bring her back to reality.
"Huh?"
"Since when?"
"Since what?"
Miriam frowned and the two plopped to their seats near the front of the class... the 'goody two shoe seats.'
Miriam looked at Mei annoyed and added on, "What about Tyler?"
"What about him?" Mei asked innocently and Miriam looked at her very disappointed. The pale braces-wearing girl just huffed out heavily and got out her books, slamming them to the table as she muttered.
"Just forget it..."
"Already forgotten," Mei said as she looked with dreamy eyes over to Travis. Miriam just rolled her eyes, not in favour of this at all.
When the lunch bell rang, Mei toddled out of class on cloud nine. Her posse quickly assembled and the girls were chatting away, nearly one over the other.
"So, how was class?" Tyler asked, a bit withdrawn for he still felt guilty over not accepting Mei's gift.
"Oh, it was magical..."
"Magical, ay?" Tyler said with a smirk and Priya smirked as well, "Well it couldn't have been, because I am the KING of magic. So if I wasn't there, it wasn't there either."
"Oh, Tyler..." Mei went on, her gaze glazed over as she daydreamed in her head, "It was beyond that, huhuhuh..." She sighed out. Just as she did, Travis walked past with a confident smile on his lips and Mei only watched him, nearly drooling.
Tyler instantly saw this and turned his own eyes over to Travis, glaring in his direction with jealousy as he uttered to the girls quietly.
"I'll be back in a second."
"Take your time..." Mei sighed, still in her own head and he swung around, his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved into his pockets as he marched Travis's way.
"Is it just me, or is the sky extra blue today?"
He slowed down a bit when he heard the boy talking to some of his friends, and Tyler took a deep breath out as he responded to them out of the blue.
"Maybe you need to get your eyes checked, buddy."
The group of boys turned quickly around to look at Tyler and Travis only uttered out in a soft calm voice.
"What..?"
"All I'm saying is, I haven't seen one speck of blue with all the clouds we've got."
The boys only chuckled at Travis and his false observation and Travis only glared back at Tyler, annoyed.
"You shouldn't be trying to one-up me, mate. Cos' I know KARATE!"
"Could've fooled me."
"Oooo!" The crowd cooed in excitement and Travis quickly clutched hold of Tyler's collar, lifting the dark boy nearly off his feet as Travis's stare glared right through him.
"Maybe you need to be knocked down a peg."
"Yeah, like this?"
Tyler suddenly head-butted Travis hard and the boy stumbled back, hitting the lockers behind him and dropping on his rear to the floor.
The boys were all cheering and chanting, trying to egg the two on for a fight. Travis quickly got back to his feet and sprinted suddenly forward, about to slam a punch into Tyler's face.
-But Mei ran before Tyler, turning red panda and the fist just bounced off her flabby red stomach, reflecting back to Travis and the boy nearly punched himself in the head instead.
"Mei-?" Tyler peeped out quickly and she turned to glare at him. She grabbed his arm and yanked him away from the scene as she growled.
"Do you want to be sent to detention?!"
"Wha-?"
"You were just about to start a fight!"
"I'm well used to it,"
"HUH!" She yelled furiously, turning around and puffing back to her normal human self. She eyed him right up close and continued, "So it's wrong to steal but it's okay to start fights! You hypocrite!"
"No, I'm not,"
"Why were you even trying to stir things up with Travis?"
"So did that KISS mean ANYTHING?!"
Mei stepped back startled when he yelled this, nearly teardrops balling at the corners of his eyes. She only looked at him silently and Tyler wiped them with the back of his sleeve, as he uttered.
"Yeah, I thought not..."
"Well..." Mei went on, trying to come up with a defense, "There's no harm in looking..."
As she said this she gazed over at Travis and the group of boys. When Tyler saw her dreamy gaze he only grit his teeth, storming off and yelling as he did.
"YES. THERE. IS."
Abby, Priya, and Miriam only watched on in disbelief as Tyler went off and then turned their eyes over to Mei who was rolling her foot around nervously.
"Girls... back me up?"
"Normally we would, Mei," Miriam said honestly, "But you really hurt Tyler's feelings..."
"Tyler doesn't have feelings."
The three gasped when she said this, Mei suddenly clapping her mouth shut with her hand.
"Even the undead can feel," Priya said sombrely and began to march off in Tyler's direction. Abby followed and Mei only looked at Miriam devastated.
"Please back me up," She whispered and Miriam gulped, shutting her eyes and turning to leave as well.
"Come back to us when you're ready."
Mei only watched devastated as her best friend left like the others. She only turned her sight back to Travis in the distance and it was then she realized just how stupid her words had been.
She had never really had someone ever like her before. And not because of the panda thing, or looks... but her, for her.
And maybe Tyler was hurt because SHE had been shallow. Was she really so shallow she'd hurt her friend over superficiality?
"Wait, girls!" She called out to them at once, realizing her fault. She ran in worried steps out of the building to the lunch yard and froze when she saw Tyler there, huddled up against the metal railing fence and the girls surrounding him in solidarity. But when he glanced up as a shadow fell on him, he stiffened when he saw Mei Mei's guilty face, and he got up quickly, acting like nothing was wrong.
But everything was wrong...
"What do you even want?" He asked coldly, the girls slowly getting back up themselves.
"I want..." Mei whispered, her fingers pressing together in nervous fear, "I want..."
When he looked back into her deep golden-brown eyes, there felt a spark in their gazes at one another... and it made him shy.
"W-what?" He stuttered out.
"A..." Mei said her words with so much worry behind them, "A..."
"An A plus?"
"A date..."
The three girls gasped in shock and all turned their giddy eyes at Tyler as Mei continued, gulping in fear.
"With you."
