June 27, Friday
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With a yank, two shoves, and another yank, Mai successfully opened the heavy main door of her mother and father's apartment unit. She supposed that she really should replace the rusty knob, but she shrugged, filing the thought away for another time.
The gloomy morning sky greeted her as she shambled down the length of the building's exterior fire escape, muffling a scream when she barely avoided a nasty slip from the unabrasive metal of the stair treads. She thought of how she really ought to tell the landlord about putting rubber on the steps to avoid accidents, but again, she shrugged and dismissed the idea. It was a moot thing to do, asking for safety precautions in this living space.
With her umbrella dutifully shielding her from the plum rain, Mai walked along the sidewalk, scooting away from the road for fear of having some dim-witted driver splashing her with dirty road water. She paused at a pharmacy to buy two capsules of anti-nausea medicine for her to effectually study in the unforgiving bus. It was the last day of Hell Week that day, the finale aptly being her worst subject: Home Economics.
For all her life, Mai had always been struggling to comprehend the slippery concept of 'Cooking'. She remembered her mother trying to teach her a few recipes, but everything ended up as burnt lumps of inedible coal. Even with just frying eggs, Mai had never been successful. All her friends were horrified with the end products of her attempts at cooking.
Imagine her struggle when she first started living on her own. She almost died! Okay, that was an exaggeration. She had regretfully tried to prepare food for herself to save money, and not long after, she acquired a hefty dose of explosive diarrhea after eating the curry she botched. She was nearly hospitalized then, giving her the fright of an extensive medical bill. She never attempted it ever again, but now she had to because of the school curriculum she must oblige.
A mighty blast of a wild draft passed through her whole body before she entered the welcomed heat of bus number 42. She shivered with the change of temperature as she gave her payment to the operator, calmly walking to her seat after that. Her medicine uncomfortably slinked down her throat as the imposing outer buildings of her (hopefully) future university passed by the window, reminding her to try her best as she memorized and re-memorized the recipe required for her practical exam.
Follow the goddamned recipe. Follow the goddamned recipe. Follow the goddamned recipe.
Mai tricked herself into a meditative trance, chanting this mantra as she went over the text. She was a third of the way through the twenty-second time she read the recipe when a shadow suddenly appeared beside her, violently pulling her out of concentration.
A crescendo of butterflies - no, they were bats, eagles, vultures - teleported into her stomach, the sudden weight rendering her thoughtless, speechless, breathless.
Truthfully, Mai had been so calm during this glum morning because she had thought nothing of the boy she last sat beside one week ago. She swiftly gathered that she would never see him again when he failed to show up last Wednesday. After Mai's initial embarrassment because of her humiliating thoughts about approaching the stranger, she hardened her resolve. She shall never be distracted by him again.
But now, instead of focusing as she had first intended, Mai finds herself quite nervous. Quite.
To approach, or not to approach?
"Why do you have a recipe book?" the boy asked listlessly, his eyebrows assymetrical above his eyes as those navy hued orbs lazily darted from Mai's book, and then to her own brown colored pair. When it was clear that she wouldn't - couldn't - answer, he turned to the screen that tracked the bus' route, absently picking at the invisible lint on his black sleeve.
"Ah, um, well," Mai stammered after a long moment of deafening silence, her stomach growing heavier by the second. "I have my periodical exams this week and I had Chemistry last Monday and Social Studies last Tuesday and Geometry last Wednesday and English yesterday and now I have Home Economics but I'm not sure if I'll pass 'cause I really really don't know how to bake so now I -"
Mai caught herself mid-rant and imploded right then and there. Her eyes widened as her cheeks instantly reddened with mortification.
'Saved by the bell', as the saying goes, and this time, Mai's bell was the operator's hoarse voice. The vehicle stopped for the third time and the operator called twice at the very moment Mai made a fool of herself. She sat up so fast that her head spun and she stiffly excused herself when the boy's legs were in the way once again.
In her haste to flee, Mai missed the amused twist adorned on one corner of the boy's lips.
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A/N: I read somewhere that the new Ghost Hunt live-action movie will be released Summer 2014, but does anyone know when exactly? And are there people ready to translate?! Tell me tell me tell me.