#5

It's lunchtime. I still haven't made my way to Class 1A. I'm in Class 1F, which is actually on another floor. It's not like I can just randomly pass by that class and happen to run into this girl that I don't even know, and casually ask her to come to the rooftop after school to receive confession from a guy that I puked on a few days ago. But I had to do it. I didn't want to get beaten up again, but I genuinely really felt guilty too that I ruined his confession (but at the same time, it sucked major balls that what I thought was going to be my moment of confession turned out to be a beat-up).

There was still half an hour or so left of lunchtime, so I finally got my courage up and made my way to Class 1A. I peep inside and there are many girls and boys chit-chatting and idling around in the classroom, as they normally do.

I'm hesitating whether to go in or not, trying to take a step in but then turning back again, just rinse and repeat. Then a dandy looking guy comes up to me and asks,

"Do you need anything?"

"erm, yeah. I'm looking for someone"

"Ah ok. I'm the Class Rep. Who are you looking for?"

"Actually, I don't know her. I'm here to look for her on erm… my friend's behalf. Her name is 'Rika', so I'm told"

"No problem!"

Then the dandy little dude turns around and calls out into the classroom

"Hey Rika! Someone's here to see you!"

A girl's head pops out from a small group of students standing by the window, and as soon as I have eye contact I realise it is herl, the girl that I like, the girl that I made faint, the girl whose fangs that I tried to check out.

"Whoa! It's the freak!", squeals the girl, Rika, apparently.

Other girls turn around to see me and I see another girl that shoved me the day before, the one that made me faint.

"It's this jerk again!"

"Get lost you loser!", a random boy shouts – dude... I don't even know you.

"It looks like you are well known to my classmates", shrugs the dandy little cunt of a class rep.

"erm.. sorry but can I talk to you?", I ask Rika across the room, raising my voice because, well, I had to, to get heard over the crowd.

"What do you want?", Rika asks back

"It's complicated. Please. This is not for me. I'm asking for a friend"

"Yeah right, 'asking for a friend'. Who does he think he's fooling?", says another random bitch from the crowd.

"Well, let's see what you've got to say", Rika looks amused and starts to make her way towards me.

"Rika are you sure?", a concerned friend of hers asks

"Don't worry. I kicked his balls before and I can do it again" – ah fuck, please no.

So Rika and I are standing outside the classroom in the hallway, I can feel the eyes of disdain running over me from the other students but I came here with a mission.

"Hi...Rika..? Let me first apologise about yesterday.."

"Well, it's okay now. I kicked your balls. So it's settled"

"Could you please stop talking about my balls… anyways, I'm here because I have to make up to someone"

"Oh? What could this be?"

"You remember the guy that confessed to you like three days ago? And he got puked on from the sky?"

"Yeah, it was gross"

"Erm… it was me"

"What do you mean?"

"I vomit on him from my classroom window, at a very unfortunate timing"

Rika then burst out laughing

"So let me get this straight, you vomit on a guy confessing, then kicks a ball to my face the next day, then stalks me to the infirmary to check out my fangs?"

"ewww… he's so gross" – I could hear multiple voices from the onlookers saying something of this sort.

"Look, if you put it like that I really can't say anything. But still, it's all my fault and this guy's in poor shape, the least I could do for him is to ask you to give him one more chance"

"No. It's my decision whether to accept a confession or not"

"That's not what I'm saying, at least give him a chance to do it again without it being ruined by stupid me, you can reject him for all I care, but at least the man deserves to be rejected with a clean face"

"Hmpf. And what's in it for you?"

"Nothing. I just want to right the wrong I did"

Rika seemed to contemplate for a bit, then gave her answer

"Ok. I accept. I will grant him the chance to be rejected cleanly, and I will give you the chance to 'right the wrong'"

"Thank you so much"

#6

"Tobi! Open the door!"

"This is the police! Open the fucking door!"

I hear them banging on my door. My mom, the police, and god knows who else. I'm running out of time. I have to get rid of all the trace, all the evidence, all the things that I never should have had.

#Rattle, Rattle#

They are furiously shaking the doorknob. I've pressed all the furniture in my room against that door. This should keep them at bay for a while, but if this went on they probably get a fire truck to ladder up to my window.

"Open the fucking door! You have nowhere to run!"

I'm slashing through pictures, printouts, handwritten notes, poster-size photographs. This kitchen knife is not sharp enough. At the same time as maniacally wielding the knife to cut up the papers – my memories – I'm using my left hand to grab and tear out other pictures off the wall, violently shoving them into my mouth and chewing like a mad man.

#Boom, boom.#

I think they got one of those metal rod things to break open the door. I can hear the wooden door crack. It will be only a matter of time they will storm into my room.

I have no time. This is bad.

Then I see a can of lighter fuel I have long forgotten I had sitting on the bookshelf. This could go wrong but I have no other option. I grab the can and yank out the lid, viciously shaking them to pour out onto my desk and the wall. Just as the door breaks open and people in uniforms rush into the room I toss a lit match onto the desk. As I get barged on my back and the police batons beat me on my head I see the desk go up in flames from the corner of my eyes, and the flame's quickly spreading onto the wall. All this time I'm still chewing the pictures in my mouth.

"Get the fire extinguisher!"

An officer screams out the order and in no time the white powders fill up the room. It makes me choke but I'm now chewing and swallowing the final bits of photo print papers in my mouth. They don't taste good.

Things settle down and the room gets quiet. I hear the sobbing sound of my mom just outside my bedroom door. The police officer with the fire extinguisher throws the empty can onto the ground and grits in frustration

"Fuck. We've lost it all"

This is a victory for you, love. I hope you are well.

#7

"So what happened?"

"Well, predictably, she rejected him"

"Oh poor sod"

"Yeah. Feels bad man"

"You are not any better. You seriously thought the note was from that girl, erm, Rika? But it turns out it was a bait note for a beat down"

"Ah shut up. I was so sure it was her"

"Why the fuck would you have thought that?"

"I just had that feeling. There was a connection"

"You didn't even know her name back then"

"But still…"

"What do you mean 'still…', you were proven wrong, end of"

I sigh and look out of the window. I see Rika in the schoolyard, walking gaily with three friends. They all seem to be having fun. Rika's smiling and other girls are laughing too. Maybe one of the girls made a funny joke. Maybe it was about some stupid weirdo that tried to see Rika's fangs. Is this the end? Why does it hurt so much every time I look at her.

Right from the first moment I saw her from afar, I felt this pang in my heart. It wasn't 'love at first sight' in a conventional sense. It almost felt like I was seeing a lover from my previous life, where our love ended and we had to part in some tragic way. No matter how far I watched her from, this piercing feeling always came. It hurt every time and I didn't know why.

Then she suddenly turned her head in my direction and I felt our eyes met. No, it couldn't be. I was sitting by the window on the third floor and maybe sixty meters or so away from her. I could see her because I was looking out for her but she couldn't possibly find my eyes in the bland background from so far away, but again, I felt certain that we've connected, just like the first time our eyes met. But then again, she turned her head away again and walked off, getting distant, continuing to talk with her friends.

I must be deluding myself. I don't know what's wrong with me but this girl's doing my head in. She is certainly pretty, but I keep telling myself there is something more, something special that I can't pinpoint, some special connection.. this is going around in circles, and I'm probably making things up in my head now.

"Snap out of it man" – Peko gives me a flick on my head

"Ouch dude"

"You fucked up. Life goes on. It's not like you've ever had a girlfriend anyway, and it's not like you made a move on her or anything. Nothing happened. You didn't break up or get rejected"

That gives me an idea.

"Should I ask her out?"

"Lol fuck. Yes you can. You'll get rejected, but you might as well"

"Yeah.. I think I might as well"

#8

I never thought I would do something so stupid like this, but I've actually written a letter to put into Rika's shoebox. Ironically, I decided to use the same bait note that I received for my beat down before – "Come meet me at the rooftop after school tomorrow"

After some time having observed Rika, I knew she had club activities on Tuesday after classes, which meant there was a window of opportunity where most students would have gone home but Rika would still be in school, and more importantly, her shoes still in her shoe locker, which would mean that she is guaranteed to see the note I put in.

I went over to the shoes lockers by the entrance of the school building, looked around to make sure that nobody else was around. It took some time as every time I thought I could sneak the note in with no one seeing it I'd hear some people passing by so I freaked out and waited for another chance. After more than half an hour of toeing around the shoe locker area, it finally seemed to be the right time to take the action. I have already eyed up Rika's shoe locker, so I quickly moved over and opened the door. Then I realized I have not really thought things through. How does this work? Am I supposed to just put it in the locker or actually put it inside the shoes? I remembered when I watched the animes the notes often fall out when the girl opens her locker. But that would be awkward if she came with her friends, as they'd all see it. At the same time, if I put it inside the shoes she might just put her feet in without realizing, which would also result in a rather awkward crumpled note getting in between her toes.

So I just stood there looking at her shoes. I've now decided to put it inside her shoe, so I snuck the folded paper inside her right shoe. On second thought though, it looked like I put the note in too deep, it's like I couldn't even see that there was a note in there. This is no good. So I put my fingers in to pull the note out again, but it felt like the note was stuck and I couldn't get it out. What's going on? It seemed the note got stuck on the front edge. I tried to give the shoe a good shake but it was still not coming out, so I took the shoe out of the locker, held it up in the air, and tried to look inside.

"Eeewww. You are sniffing my shoes?"

"Whoa!"

Rika was standing right behind me giving me a puzzled (and somewhat disgusted) look. She had her friends on each side and one of them was already starting to mouth me off.

"You are that jerk that kicked the ball to Rika!"

"You are the perv that stalked her to the infirmary!", another girl chimed in.

"Look, this is not what it looks like"

"Well it looks very much like you are sniffing my shoes"

"No! I wasn't!"

"Then what were you doing?"

"I was just putting something into your shoes"

"Gross! What were you doing?!", one of her friends blurted out.

"oh gees, that didn't come out right. I was just.."

Then her friend snatched Rika's shoe out of my hand,

"Get your dirty hands off Rika's stuff, here Rika.. this guy's such a creep"

Rika just looked at me funny, then lifted the shoe to look inside, and then gave me a blank look again.

"It's okay girls, there's nothing inside. Let's just leave"

Then she put on her shoes and walked off with her friends. Rika didn't turn back, but one of the girls turned around to give me the finger on the way out.

That night I couldn't sleep at all. She surely must have seen, or at the very least felt the note inside the shoe. But she decided not to mention it to her friends. Was she trying to protect me in a nice way? In any case, she let me off on this one, but would she actually turn up tomorrow after school?

I don't know how the day passed the next day, but it did. Somehow. I waited a little while until most students have gone home, but then again I couldn't make Rika wait too long either, so I hastily made my way up to the rooftop.

As I reached the end of the stairs, I noticed the steel door leading out to the rooftop was slightly open. Rika must be here already.

I opened the door and took a step out, and looked around to see where she was.

"Sike! Motherfucker!"

I felt a big punch on the back of my head and tumbled onto the concrete floor. As I looked up feeling hazy, I saw the face of the good ol' blond dude from before.

"Why… what are you doing here..?"

"That one was from Rika"

"What the.."

"And this one's from me!" – a thumping kick on my stomach. I felt like throwing up again.

"Where is Rika?", I had to ask despite the unbearable pain.

"You are a fool if you thought she'd be here. She doesn't want to have anything to do with dip shit like you", snorted the scum bag.

"She.. told you to do this?"

"What do you think?", laughed the idiot as he stomped his foot on my head.

#9

I was standing in rain, in the middle of a small park that I knew Rika normally passes on her way home. It's not that I wanted to be overly dramatic, or make myself look pathetic to induce sympathy. I just didn't have an umbrella on me but I still felt I had to do it today.

As predicted, Rika appeared. She saw me from about ten meters away, but she did not stop or hesitate, she walked directly towards me, or more accurately, she looked like she was just going to walk past me.

"Hey", I halted her

"What's up?", Rika stopped and asked, looking nonchalant.

"Why did you do that to me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You got that scum bag to beat me up yesterday"

"Did it hurt?"

"Yes"

"Would it have hurt more if I turned you down face to face?"

That made me think.

"Yes"

"There you go then", and she turned around to walk off.

"But I rather get rejected directly and face it like a man", I yelped behind her back.

She stopped, turned around, and said.

"But it would have hurt me to turn you down myself"

What?

Then she ran off.

I've never seen her run before. She runs like a deer in the spring rain.