Tale of Redemption

Chapter 2 : Blooming

"See you tomorrow! Stay safe! Watch out for rabid dogs with the faces of your ancestors!" I yelled at Cleo and Neol.  They walked down the stairs holding hands, and down the street.  Seriously, if I had to make an OTP, Cleol was it. Well....there was always Johnlock, right? Oh well. Shippings were lyfe for peoplez like us. Hah. But, no, seriously, they'd been pretty tight since I first met them my senior year.  Though I don't think they were planning on it, Alli and I could've been fangirling over them for months before Neol got the guts to take her out to Jamba Juice. 

"Who wants to clean up?" Real said with an expression of pure concrete. Not the grammar term.

"I call the kitchen!" Alli blew a childish raspberry at us both and ran off. "WHEW! SUCKAS!"

"I guess we get this pigsty of a living room..." I sighed.  "HEARD THAT! IF YOU WEREN'T SO MESSY, MAYBE YOU COULD GET A BOYFRIEND—I MEAN, A JOB! DEFINITELY WHAT I MEANT!" I could've written in every language how much I wanted to curse at her at that moment, but I held it back. We started picking up the paper plates and crunched-up pop cans.  Right as I was straightening up the sofa, a pair of sirens wailed outside, along with some car horns being laid on.  Alli ran into the room and Supermanned onto the couch.

"Nice job, Als, I just fixed the couch.." I rolled my eyes as she squirmed and rolled over the now ruined mess of throw blankets and scratchy lumbar support stuffed fabric items (Otherwise known as pillows). 

"Whoa, I think that In N' Out Burger down the street is on fire..." She pointed through the curtains to a radiantly roaring destruction of my favorite cuisine: grease and grill. 

"Noooooooooooooooooooo, what will I do now? I must have my burgers..." I dramatically threw myself across the shag carpet.  Bad idea.  My face burned with rug burn.  "Hahah! That's what you get for exercising only to get to your diabetes destination!" Real squinted hard at me when I sat up, my face feeling red from embarrassment and the possible shredded skin bleeding on my forehead. 

Alli clapped her hands. "Back to work, mein kinder!" She flew off the floor and zoomed up the stairs to the study.  For some reason, she always spent her evenings in there but never told us about the latest novel she read or research on marine biology. Nothing to worry about. It wasn't like she was an introvert like some people...

When we finally finished cleaning the living room, it was a quarter past one in the morning.  Real unfolded a grey fuzzy blanket with pandas all over it.  My favorite animal.  Snuggling up next to me, he rested his arm around my shoulder and allowed me to rest my head on his chest.

"Dai suki..." He said outloud.  It meant 'I love you' in English. Being the only Japanese people in our group of friends, we spoke in japanese whenever possible. It was just awkward for others, and all those Japanese I students asked us for help on homework. Just ridiculous.  But in this case, it was something we could share personally, ever since.... 

"Shhh! Don't be so loud! Alli knows the basics and knows sure enough what that means from anime..." I punched him playfully in the arm. In reaction to that, he pretended to double over in pain.  Honestly, Real could be a real comedian when he wanted to. "Don't you need to go home soon? It's late, and you're working at Kentaro's tomorrow..."  Kentaro was Real's boss. He worked at a book store. Fancy that, coming from one of the most intelligent and bookworm people I knew.

He rested his head on my shoulder and exhaled loudly.  "Curse your logic... Man, it's almost half past one.  Sorry, Yumi.." Real wrapped the rest of the blanket around me and stood up.  His car keys were on the coffee table on the way out the door next to the coat hangers, which meant this was good-bye.  It might be time to stop watching animes for a while, I'm starting to sound like Yui talking to Kirito...