The Spring Festival that Ming had informed us about took place today. She was ecstatic that we would be joining her to celebrate her culture. To be honest with you, I was also thrilled. Ever since she informed us about it, I've been anticipating it. I have always enjoyed honoring Asian cultures. In keeping with the concept, I have a few attire and weapons in my closet. I was wearing a shirt, some loose pants, and a katana. I packed it in my car in case I couldn't bring it in, but when Caesar, Riley, and I arrived, I noticed a few guys entering the event brandishing katanas.
I took that to mean that I could bring my katana inside. In order to prevent it from striking other people if I continued to walk, I had it placed on my back. Ming, Hiro, Caesar, Riley, and I were sitting on the fields at this very moment, watching the people celebrate as they ate, rode rides, saw performances, or just enjoyed the spectacle as it passed by. Since Jazmine and Cindy were traveling together, we were waiting for them. I considered accompanying Jazmine; Cindy insisted that they ride together so they could chat while driving. She attempted to persuade Ming to accompany her, but she went with Hiro instead.
Hiro and Ming going together is understandable. It would make sense to accompany your partner since they are currently dating. In addition, I think that Hiro and Ming went together to demonstrate to Ming's parents that Hiro is capable of becoming more active in his Asian culture. The fact that Hiro is so Americanized is one of their complaints about him. Since you have no influence over how your life unfolds at any given moment, it really isn't a big deal. Hiro's parents were never stringent about him learning about his Asian culture, even though he was raised primarily in America.
Hiro's parents remind me of Jazmine's parents, Tom and Sarah. Tom and Sarah, the parents of Jazmine, are similar to Hiro's parents. It's clear that the two needed to become more self-aware and learn about things like their culture and self-care, but their parents never really intended to make them learn these things against their will. They also didn't want them to conform to any prejudices against their own race. Hiro's parents, for example, aren't like the strict Asian parents you may see on television or perhaps in real life when it comes to school. They encourage Hiro to pursue his goals of becoming a DJ and music producer. I'm happy that they are taking this action because it enables Hiro with more time to practice networking. Every other weekend he's at someone's house DJing and he makes good money off of it.
One thing that bothers me is that they don't always introduce Hiro to the essential elements of their culture, like his language. He's not speaking it as well as he ought to. While his extended family is still active and resides in Japan, I understand that there aren't as many Asians in this area. It really embarrassed me to hear that he claimed not to have known what his family was saying the entire time he was there, particularly after he took out the interpreter. Though I can see why he needed to understand them, I thought it was a little unfair of him and his parents that he had to use a translator. But he's trying to make it to Ming and her parents to learn more about his Asian culture not just for them but also himself.
I felt my pockets vibrate and I took out my phone thinking I got a text from Jazmine, but instead, it was from Aaliyah. I sighed. Ever since we met up at the mall, Aaliyah has made it very clear how she feels about me. I implied that I liked her as well, but I was with Jazmine. And again, I'm going to try and make it work before we just cut it loose. I feel that if we talk about certain things, it's going to strike a nerve in one of us. Like, I can't stand when she talks about Caesar, and she can't stand when Aaliyah comes into the topic.
Every time someone mentions Aaliyah, Jazmine will leave the room because she doesn't want to sit and listen to how people think Aaliyah and I will be a better couple. Although Jazmine and I are dating, I feel that even she is starting to feel doubt in the relationship. I think she's doing the same thing I'm doing. On the way to the festival, while I was driving, Caesar was sitting in the passenger seat. He was supposed to be giving me directions, but instead, he was texting somebody the whole ride.
I got a glimpse of his phone to see he was texting Jazmine, but he also was switching back and forth between apps to do stuff. I felt a certain way about him still texting her. I looked over at Caesar to see he was self-involved in his phone and wasn't even paying attention to what was going on.
Out of spite, I decided to entertain Aaliyah's text. She was supposed to be giving me space, but she's hardly done that because she's still throwing hints and checking in on me. She's sent me pictures of her half-naked during demon hours. I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit turned on by it, naturally. I probably didn't make the situation better when I was sending her picks of me getting done with my workouts.
Aaliyah: Heyy Hueyy!
Me: Hey Aaliyah.
Aaliyah: Sooo what cha doin'?
Me: I'm out with my friends at this spring festival. What you up to?
Aaliyah: Oh, nothing! I'm just at the house doing homework
Me: Doing homework on a Saturday night is crazy!
Aaliyah: Shut up Freeman! You probably did the same thing.
Me: I never had to, Williams. I made sure to do my work as soon as possible so that I wouldn't have to have my weekends taken up.
Aaliyah: Alright smartass...anyways what are you doing?
Me: The gang and I are waiting on Jazmine and Cindy
Aaliyah: Oh, Jazmine's going to be there? I thought it was like a guys' thing.
Me: No, um Jazmine is also part of the friend group I'm in
Aaliyah: Oh right, I forgot.
Aaliyah: You're friends with Cindy?
Me: HELL NO!? Why would you think that?
Aaliyah: Because you just said you're all in a friend group together
Huey: Yeah, but I'm not friends with everybody in the group. And by everybody I only mean Cindy. I can't stand her! I only tolerate her because of my brother.
Aaliyah: Ok, makes sense.
Aaliyah: If you don't mind me asking, how is you and Jazmine doing?
Me: We're doing okay. We started talking again, so that's good.
Aaliyah: She's not ignoring you no more?
Me: No, we're starting to talk and get back on a somewhat good path. I just feel we need to have a honest conversation with one another.
Aaliyah: About?
Me: That's for us to figure out
Aaliyah:Oh ok
"Finally you guys arrived!" I heard Ming excitedly say. I looked up to see both Jazmine and Cindy who had finally made it.
Me: I'll talk to you later
I put my phone away in my pocket and got up off the ground.
"Sorry, we had trouble finding the place," Jazmine implied looking at Cindy. "How so, I sent all of you the location?" Ming asked crossing her arms. "I didn't want to use Siri's slow ass, but we got here faster than what her time was," Cindy exclaimed.
I rolled my eyes when she said that because 'what the fuck'! Ming literally gave you the location and you could have gotten here a little earlier if she just had followed instructions. This is the type of shit she does that somewhat pisses me off. I can understand if you knew where you were going, but none of us knew which is why we used Maps.
"Whatever, but since we're all here, do you guys want to go together as a group or walk around in pairs?" Ming asked all of us. "I'm going with pairs, a nigga is hungry," Riley said already voting. "I told you to eat before we left, but I'll go in pairs," I said, calling out Riley. Before we left Grandad told us to eat so he wouldn't have to give us money to get something to eat. He feels they overpriced things at events such as this which I agree with him on, they do overpriced things.
"Okay that's two votes," Ming said now looking at Hiro, Cindy, Ceasar, Jazmine and me.
"I'll do pair," Ceasar simply said. "But it's an odd number of us, who are you going to pair up with?" Jazmine asked. I looked at her funny because why does she care?
"I'm meeting up with someone, so I'll be fine," Caesar simply said patting her on the shoulder. Wow, that's a shocker. I thought he was going to tag along and be a third wheel. Thankfully, I don't have to put up with that tonight. "It seems that we all are agreeing on pairing up since we already know what we want to do," Hiro said.
"Yeah it's best to just pair up and meet back here when the parade starts," Ming said while everybody didn't have a problem with it. "Sounds like a plan, Imma go with Reezy," Cindy said walking over to Riley and grabbing his hand so they could go enjoy their time.
Ceasar had already headed in a direction. It seemed like he knew where he was going. "Hiro and I will go together. Jazmine are you and Huey okay with pairing up with each other?" Ming asked with concern in her tone.
"I don't mind we'll still have fun," she said smiling at Ming. She looked over at me and seemed excited. "It's cool with me!" I said as Ming grabbed Hiro's hand and they both started to walk away.
"So what do you want to do first partner?" Jazmine asked as I shook my head. "I don't care what we do, just as long as we don't ride rides I'm good?" I said. I don't like getting on rides because I don't like how it makes my body feel. Sometimes I feel I'm going to throw up and other times I don't like to be strapped to a machine that takes me on a crazy rodeo. "Okay Freeman, that is something I can work with," she said as she grabbed my hand. She pulled me into the crowd and we started to walk.
"What do you want to do first?" she asked me. I thought long and hard of what I might want to do, but nothing around her was interesting to me, "I don't know, there's not much we can do around here. Are you hungry?" Right at that moment, Jazmine's stomach growled and she nervously started to laugh at herself out of embarrassment.
"That answers my question," I said walking us over to the stand that had a bunch of fruity sweets. "How did you know what I was craving?" she asked as we got in line.
"You always like anything that is healthy and sweet at the same time," I said. "Okay, makes sense," she said as we waited in line. I knew exactly what she wanted. Any fruit such as strawberry and chocolate she would definitely eat.
As things were going well between Jazmine and me, I felt my phone vibrate again. I took it out to check my messages. I thought it might have been my Grandad texting and asking if we could bring him back some orange juice since he was about to be out. But instead, I got a 'goodbye' message from Aaliyah, who was undergarments. And no they were not sport undergarments, "Shit!"
"What's the matter, Huey?" Jazmine asked, concerned.
"Nothing's wrong!" I brushed off trying to keep my cool. I turned my phone off not wanting Jazmine to get a peak at the messages.
"Are you serious?" she asked as her tone changed. She seemed as if she was madder than usual. It was kind of freaking me out a little because Jazmine rarely gets upset. I never admitted this to her, but whenever she got mad it was somewhat of a turn-on at times, but during other times she would scare the shit out of me.
A good example is right now.
"Did you get a text?" she questioned crowing her arms. "Yes, Jazmine. Someone texted me, and I was surprised " I said being sarcastic.
It was quiet between the two of us before she sighed, "It's Aaliyah, isn't it?"
"Yes it's Aaliyah," I answered, ashamed. It has silenced both of us once more. "Are you envious of the fact that I'm talking to a girl?" I asked, bothered. Rightfully, Jazmine had a reason to be upset. If she had looked at my phone and seen what Aaliyah texted me she would definitely be mad.
"I'm not angry," she lied, "I'm upset that you won't tell me the truth about her." "The truth about what?" I asked, acting confused. I was trying my best to avoid having to talk about Aaliyah and her true intentions to Jazmine.
"Come on, Huey, stop playing dumb, I saw you guys have lunch together," she said calling me out. Wait? How the fuck does she know about us having lunch? I mean I told her I was having lunch with her, but when did she see me having lunch with Aaliyah? I thought she was at the house doing Riley's hair.
Jazmine and I had entered the woods away from the festival and decided to talk there. She had her back turned toward me and I had to walk behind her.
"Do you mind if I go out to lunch with Aaliyah, Jazmine?" I asked, a little irritated. "No, because I didn't care at first because I was certain that nothing bad would happen, but Riley persuaded me to go check it out. It obvious the girl likes you but you don't seem to notice that except everybody else. Then when I asked you did anything else happen, you said no, but you left out the part where she kissed you at the end," she fussed at me. When I heard the words 'Riley persuaded me to go check it out' I was pissed. I should have known that he would tell Jazmine.
"How was I supposed to know she was going to kiss me, Jazmine? That had taken me by surprise because I hadn't expected it. Before I could say something, her ride had driven away " I said getting upset. I never expect when Aaliyah is about to do something. One minute she's this innocent angel and then the next she's on demon hours. I didn't see how our conversation we just had led up to her sending nudes.
"However, would you like to talk about how Ceasar kisses you all the time right in front of me, or how he makes sexual jokes toward you, or my favorite, how you guys snuck away to the bathroom together to bang each other?" I exclaimed.
"Excuse me," Jazmine said, "Ceasar and I never had coitus and I told him to stop kissing me and all because I had a boyfriend.
"Really, so why did you two have to go to the bathroom at the same time? Then I heard you specifically say 'Ceasar you can't be telling people that you and I had coitus with each other. It's wrong and I can't have people hearing that. Plus my boyfriend is already suspecting something and he doesn't like you.'," I repeat, trying to inmate Jazmine's voice. She looked at me funny when I changed my pitch to somewhat match hers.
"First of all, if you were there from the beginning to the end you would have known that Ceasar was telling me about him and Austin," she exclaimed. "What about him and Austin?" I asked wanting to know. At this point, these three have me thinking they're a throuple. First, it's her and Austin, then Caesar and her, and now it's Caesar and Austin.
"I can't tell you, I told him I wouldn't tell anybody," she said. Okay, now I was starting to really get curious. "Okay, you and I both know you can't keep a secret, and I'm one of Ceasar's best friends so I won't tell anybody," I said.
It's true, Jazmine can't keep a secret. She always comes and tells me or someone in the group about what's going on. You would think she could withhold it from others, but it gets harder for her to keep it to herself as the days go by. "Okay...Ceasar is going through a sexuality phase of him figuring out if he likes boys or both boys and girls," she admitted.
See what did I tell you?
I remained silent because this did take me by surprise. Caesar like boys? Never would have crossed my mind. I thought it was a joke at first but she was being dead serious. "He didn't want to tell anybody but he trusted to tell me," she said tearing up.
"I don't blame him because have you met everybody in the group? The others may support him, but Riley will just make fun of him for being confused, and I don't think Ceasar needs that type of pressure on him," she said wiping away her tears.
Oh God, her and these tears. I brought her in for a hug and just started to rub her. She always cries when she feels she betrayed someone.
"Is that why you guys kept trying to play it off that he was with you?" I asked her as she nodded. "Okay, that explains why he kisses you and tells everybody that he's with you. I just got upset that he was doing a better job as a fake boyfriend than I was as a real boyfriend," I admitted.
"You gotta understand Jazmine you're my first girlfriend and I'm new at trying to be a good boyfriend. You had others before me and they seemed like a great match for you until they had to leave to go somewhere else," I said departing us. I explained to her how I truly felt about the situation and what I was seeing from my point of view.
"It was unexpected that you wanted to be with me, but I feel like you're doing a great job. I don't want you to always compare yourself to other men I was with or talked to. No one can match up to what you do for me. But I know there will be other females that you might find interest in, so instead of trying to keep secrets from me, can you just tell me? I rather you break it off from me than for you to go behind my back doing it. So please promise me you'll do that?" she asked of me.
How do I respond to this?
I was already doing stuff behind her back and I felt guilty for it. I knew deep inside I didn't necessarily like Aaliyah like that. I truly found her obsessive and lacked common sense. I think I was talking to her out of spite because I assumed something was going on between Jazmine and Caesar. But now that I know nothing was happening, I fee like a piece of shit for doing all of this behind her back.
I wanted to tell her all that had been happening between Aaliyah and I, but I didn't want to ruint the moment between us. Plus I had no intentions of breaking up with her over another woman.
"Sure Jazmine," I said, sadly. She gave me a peck on the lips and I leaned in to kiss her back. Kissing led to French kissing, which led to us being a little too handsy. I thought about us going down on each other in the woods. We would certainly get away with it because if Jazmine makes noise people are just going to ignore it because they're going to think it's an animal. Before clothes could be removed, Jazmine had stopped the both of us.
"Huey we should do this when we're alone without a bunch of people around to see or hear us," she said. I really wanted to do it in the woods, but I respected her decision and didn't bother trying to convince her. "We can do it when Riley leaves for his basketball game and when my grandad goes out of town," I suggested as she smirked.
"When will that be?" she asked interested. "It'll be his last game of the season which will be at the end of the next month. My grandad might go out of town for the weekend which will give us alone time," I said pinpointing the perfect time.
"What about Riley, won't he be home at a certain time?" she asked. "No, he'll most likely be home the next day because he and the team always go celebrate," I said. "Okay, so that should give us time, I can't wait," she said all excited.
Me too! I would love to have a repeat of what happened on Valentine's Day in the hotel. With nobody there, she can make all the noise she wants.
Jazmine and I once again kissed each other until we heard a firework pop in the background. We departed and he looked up in the sky for a second until I looked back down at her.
God, she was beautiful!
"We should get back to our meet-up spot," I said. The both of us started to head back to the hill where we met up. As we were walking, I felt a sense of relief that Jazmine and I were able to sit down and talk about our relationship. We argued, but it was a good type of arguing. It let me know what she was thinking and it let her know what I was thinking.
I'm glad we're on the same page now. I can let Aaliyah know that Jazmine and I are good and we can stop this whole proposal thing. I'm also gonna ask her to stop sending nudes because it's weird and random.
Thank you for reading!