Nook in the Forest

III

Chapter 3: Meeting

Jiji woke up to the cool white ceiling of the nurse's office. Sitting up, she put a hand on her throbbing head and considered the empty room. Anger began to rise in her as she scanned the empty room for her attacker. Her eyes stopped on a post-it note stuck on the nurse's desk. Written in neat, swoopy handwriting, it read, "hey, sorry about running into you! rest well :)" with a messy drawing of a person bowing apologetically.

So, not only did he almost crack my skull open, he also had the audacity to leave me here all alone. What a gentleman. the girl rolled her eyes.

Hissing in pain, she managed to stand up slowly and make her way into the hallway. She turned and ran into a wall.

"Whoa, Jiji, you're awake!"

Her eyes looked up at the blue ones above her.

"Benji!" She hugged him, which caught him off guard, but he eventually relaxed into it.

"I'm glad you're okay."

"Thanks. And thanks for waiting for me," Jiji smiled bashfully at the floor.

"Hey," Benji responded, raising her chin with his finger until their eyes met. "You know I'd never leave you."

"Stop being all mushy, you're embarrassing yourself," she said, rolling her eyes while looking away to hide her blush.

"But it's true," he complained, pouting.

"Whatever. Let's get back to class."

—

After school, Jiji sat on a bench outside, waiting for the initial rush of students to leave so she could walk home mostly undisturbed. She was on her phone, scrolling to avoid talking to anybody. Benji always left early, so she was on her own from the minute the school day ended.

It was usually peaceful.

But not this time.

She felt someone watching her, but every time she checked, she just saw a boy sitting on the bench across the walkway. His head was also down, but he was almost completely hunched over, resting his elbows on his knees. Long brown hair obscured his face as he read what must have been a terribly interesting book. Jiji's focus moved to his shoes. Orange, not neon, but bright nonetheless. She examined the curves of the pattern and the flat-bottomed soles. Skater shoes. Stylish, but...

"Not good for running away," Jiji spoke aloud.

"And why would I need to do that?" Golden brown eyes looked up at her through the dark fringe of elegant eyelashes.

"Well I..." Jiji trailed off as she observed his somewhat graceful action of closing the book and resting his chin on his fist.

"Should I be concerned?" A tinge of amusement showed in his eyes, and Jiji looked deep into them as she felt another breeze flow past them.

She blushed, realizing that she spoke aloud and stared instead of responding to the guy she accidentally talked to.

"You..." Jiji trailed off, studying the color of his eyes once more.

Golden brown, just like the color of maple syrup, and pumpkin pie, and autumn and-

"Wait!" Abruptly, Jiji got to her feet and pointed at the boy. "You're the one that almost killed me!"

He was confused for a moment, but he slowly took on a guilty expression as he registered what she had said.

"Well, 'killed' might be a little extreme. You were standing in the doorway and I accidentally ran into you, because you were obscured by the wall. Simple as that." He had taken to examining his book cover like it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.

"I fainted because I hit my head so hard. How do you explain that?" She stood up straight, putting her hands on her hips.

"Technically, you fainted after I ran into you. When you fell the first time, you were totally fine until you looked at me. Am I that scary?" He seemed serious, but a smile was tugging at the edge of his mouth. He thought it was funny.

"I can't believe this. First, you nearly murder me on 'accident,'" Jiji mirrored quotation marks with her hands. "Then, you leave me to die in the infirmary. And now, you're denying it!"

"I never–"
"I don't want to hear it! I thought maybe I'd get a nice apology or something, but no. I've heard enough." Jiji stormed off in the direction of the café.

She moved too quickly to hear the softly mumbled "i'm sorry" that tumbled out of the boy's mouth as he stared dejectedly at the ground.

—

The doors slammed and Jun braced himself, opening his arms to catch his enraged little sister as she ran into the shop.

"Jiji, what did I say about running into the shop?" Jun hugged her trembling figure.

"Mapht tphu muhm umleph aimph buyim," Jiji mumbled against his merchandise hoodie.

"So, are you dying?" Jiji pulled away to see her brother's incredulous expression.

"No."

"Okay so why–"

"But I almost did! There was this guy and-" Jiji argued, walking away from him and sitting on the nearest stool at the counter.

"Slow down," Jun interrupted. "First of all, how..." He stopped after processing what she had just said. "Wait. A guy?!" He faced his sister and studied her seriously.

"Yes, a guy. Anyways, he–"

"Like a real life guy." He pointed at her. "That you interacted with."

"Yes. But–"

"Not Benji?"

"Not Benji. Can you just–"

"So there was a real-life guy. That you interacted with. Who was not Benji," Jun clarified slowly, squinting doubtfully at his sister.

"YES!" Jiji sighed, getting up from her seat. She began to pace around the room. "He ran into me and I was like what the heck so I looked up at him and he was all like 'excuse me' and I hit my head again and fainted and then I woke up in the infirmary and he left a note that was all like 'oh sorry i almost killed you oh well' and he DIDN'T even stay to help me but it's okay 'cause Benji was there, but then I saw him later and–"

"Wait." Jiji shot him a murderous look. "Sorry. But you mean to tell me that Benji waited for you outside the nurse's office?"

"Yeah," she breathed, gazing up at the ceiling wistfully.

"Not buying it." He shook his head decidedly.

"Why is it so hard to believe that he would be nice to me? I'm his best friend!" Jiji threw her hands in the air.

"Correction. He's your best friend. And he's not really that great of one."

"He's actually an amazing friend, and you wouldn't know, because he's my friend. Anyways, I saw the guy after school and he basically denied anything happened and blamed me for my fall," Jiji rolled her eyes. "So annoying."

"So you're mad because he took you to the infirmary, left you an apologetic note, and told you that he didn't actually knock you out because you technically fainted after the fall, which was not his fault."

"Why do you have to say it like that? Can't you ever be a supportive big brother and just listen?!" Jiji groaned.

"Okay, okay. He's horrible and men are the worst." It was Jun's turn to roll his eyes. "So what's this mystery boy's name?"

His words were met with a vacant stare from his sister.

"I–"

The welcome bell jingled and the siblings heard footsteps fall on the entrance mat. Both whirled around to see who opened the door.

Wind chilled the lobby as green eyes locked with brown. 

—

A/N: who do you think it is?  >///<