Drabble:126
Jared was intent on asking out Rose Hathaway the night of the Halloween dance and he was wondering how to exactly broach the subject with her. She was a pretty straightforward, often blunt, person, so he knew she would prefer that he not beat about the bushes. Then again, she was a girl, and they liked being indulged so maybe he could preach platitudes and compliment her first?
So immersed was Jared in his thoughts that he wasn't absolutely paying attention to the ground as he walked towards Rose's dorm. As a result of that, he tripped over the brick boundary of the pavement and started to stumble to the ground. He closed his eyes, bracing for the onslaught of pain, but it never came. A hand took hold of his upper arm and jerked him upright instead.
"Watch out for the bricks", his savior informed him, and Jared opened his eyes to see a tall (really tall) guy, staring down at him with a small smile. Now he himself was quite tall, Jared knew, but the guy in front of him made him look like a midget in comparison.
"Thanks, man.", Jared said, returning the smile. "And sorry, I was just preoccupied."
"No problem. Are you okay?"
"Yep. I'm Jared, by the way", he extended his hand towards the accented stranger.
"Dimitri", the guy replied, shaking his hand.
"I'm guessing you're not a student here, so you must be here for the party, right?"
"You could say that", Dimitri chuckled, a secretive smile twinkling in his eyes. "My Ro-I mean, my girlfriend goes here, and I'm here to surprise her. What's your story?"
"There's this girl I really like, who lives here, and I was thinking of how to ask her out for the party tonight", Jared confessed, but then he felt a bit vulnerable, so he decided to change the topic. "Great costume, by the way. Very Captain Algren", Jared complimented, eyeing Dimitri's shoulder-length hair and brown overcoat.
"Captain who?", Dimitri frowned in confusion.
"Nathan Algren? Tom Cruise? The Last Samurai?" You know what, never mind", Jared continued when Dimitri shrugged. "I was going up, so if you want I can send your girl down. What's her name?"
Before Dimitri could reply, a sharp scream cut through the night, commanding both their attention. "Comrade!", Rose shouted exuberantly, flinging open the door of the dorm's fire escape and running towards the duo, looking like a wild goddess.
Before Jared could think more than what the hell comrade was, Rose rushed up and flung herself at Dimitri, who embraced her and spun her around, murmuring Roza into her hair.
Jared's jaw slackened, and actually fell open when Rose pulled back from the embrace, kissing Dimitri straight on the mouth. He let out a little squeak, which made the couple separate and Rose stopped undressing Dimitri with her eyes to spare him an irritated glance, which turned to embarrassment when she recognized him, but she covered it up with her usual bravado. "Hey, Jared. Bye, Jared", she said flippantly, entwining her fingers with Dimitri, and leading him away.
Just before the fire-escape door closed behind them, Dimitri's head shot out to wish Jared good luck with his girl.
But Jared had a feeling luck wouldn't be good enough for him…
Most of his friends thought Rose was conceited and frigid, but if that kiss was any indication…unfortunately for him, Jared would never find out, and neither would his friends, because Rose Hathaway had a devoted paramour, who was not only freakishly tall, but a nice guy, whom she looked head-over-heels in love with.
Sighing, Jared decided to walk to the frat party-alone-and drown his sorrows in tequila.
This drabble is an alternate, what-if scenario for Drabble 109, where instead of seeing Rose and Dimitri at Halloween's from afar, Jared had actually bumped into Dimitri, a prompt given to me by yunacarman (this one's for you!)
That said, have any of you watched The Last Samurai? What did you think of it?
As for the drabble, hope you liked it and don't forget to review!
Cheers!