Day Twenty-Eight: Ridiculous

Day Twenty-Eight: Monday

Twenty-Eighth Challenge: Doing Something Ridiculous

Heather hid behind the doors that lead to the orphanage garden, peeking outside every once in a while. Her fingers tugged at her red skirt, eyes anxiously watching the two boys outside, though her gaze was fixed on one. A light blush lit her cheeks as the ginger boy grinned and laughed at his blonde friend, the latter yelling expletives at his companion. Heather bit her lip lightly and wondered if she should step out and pretend to read, but put that thought down. It would be obvious if she just sat on the porch and read, her real intentions would be easy to find out unless both of the males were rather dim.

But that couldn’t be.

They were on the list, they couldn’t be slow.

Quietly, she stepped outside, a book resting in her hand. She quickly made her way to a white chair and sat down, lifting the book up and opening it to the dog-eared page. Nervously, she started reading, occasionally looking up to see if he had noticed if she was there, meters or so away from them.

Heather felt a small slip of disappointment upon seeing that his back was turned. She heaved a soft sigh and just decided to read, her green eyes skimming over Shakespeare’s words left and right. She turned the page and read, though she knew the passages by heart.

It was only when Romeo came to Juliet when she looked up once more. But at the sight, her eyebrows furrowed and she stood up, dropping the book on the coffee table and not bothering to pick it up. She moved forward and stood on her toes, wondering what the commotion was about.

There was Linda, her brunette hair in braids and wearing a simple navy blue dress. She pointed at the ginger and said something she couldn’t understand. The other kids laughed and the blonde flushed angrily, but the other boy merely blinked in innocence and suddenly embraced the blonde tightly, grinning and saying something that sounded like confirmation.

The other kids gasped and Linda smirked, her hands on her hips.

Only then did little Heather understand what her friend said next.

“Well then, so I guess you have no interest in anyone else?”

She couldn’t believe her ears.

But what he replied made her heart stutter.

“Yeah – I mean, why would I?” he pressed his cheek against the Russian’s, the blonde named Mello protesting vividly. “He’s my little Melly-Welly and no one else’s.” Matt Jeevas grinned proudly at this, obviously going along with what Linda had started, but to Heather, she completely took it the wrong way.

“Gah – let go of me, you sick freak!” Mello said, outraged, but Matt refused to. The ginger leaned in and whispered something in the blonde’s ear, making him look at him with a look of disbelief. “Are you freaking serious?”

“You know I’m serious when it comes to you, lovely.”

She had enough.

Heather swiped up the book and ran back inside the orphanage, not wanting to hear anything else. Her trembling hands held on to the book, and everything she had witnessed, she wanted it to be false – fake – just a rumor.

Unknown to her, Matt was just playing along with Linda’s fake accusation. Once the other kids had gone away, Mello pushed his friend off and glared. “What the hell was that about? Do you want them labeling us as a gay couple now!?”

“Chill out.” Matt gave a laugh. “Linda’s terrible. I played along to make her happy, besides, not everyone’s going to believe that crap, you know.”

“Both of you are terrible.” Mello replied with a growl. “But she’s a little witch, a wretch. I’ll give her that. Maybe I’ll set off rumors about her and Near – hah! Then it would be a win-win for me! Linda would freak and Near would get troubled because of it!” Mello laughed victoriously, but Matt had something else on his mind.

Was that Heather?

“Mello,” he tried, but the blonde was now walking off, formulating a plan. He sighed, looked back inside, but decided to follow his friend anyway.

He thought he saw a flash of her black hair, but shook it off. Perhaps it was someone else. But…if it really was Heather, did she hear the whole thing?

Damn.

So maybe Linda was a wretch.

* * * * *

The whole thing between Heather and Matt was a fiasco. Some would even call it ridiculous, but the thing was; only the two of them knew it.

Except one did not know what the other was doing.

Both of them tried talking to each other when they could, but it would always end up with them chickening out. Their gazes would come across in the halls, but Heather would look away and walk elsewhere, leaving Matt confused.

This went on for years, at least until Heather moved out of the Orphanage and elsewhere. However, the male couldn’t keep his thoughts off her. When he grew older, though, he focused on other things. But the memory of the little girl with black hair and green eyes would come back occasionally.

Until they came across each other, that was, on the one fateful night in Tokyo, Japan. He was shocked to see her much taller (but not as tall as he was), slimmer, and different from his perspective of her as a child. Shy, smiling Heather had changed into cold, silent Heather – and she didn’t even go as Heather anymore. The half-German discarded her middle name and kept it only as a middle name, and used Arianne instead. Her eyes were still green, but icy. She didn’t smile when they first met in the warehouse, but he could tell she was surprised – and so was he.

After that event, the incident when they were children started once more.

She chased him throughout Tokyo.

He hid from her grasp but chased her as well in secret.

It was a game of cat and mouse.