"You're doing great! Don't let those old farts affect your progress!"
Bam!
Still with his eyes shut, the boy returned to shout comforting words to her and left the restroom again.
Larissa froze in place while she was clasping her chest.
Thump thump thump
"W-what was that?"
She could not point out the strange feeling her heart was sending to her entire body. She hurriedly picked up the tissue box and hydro flasks to follow the boy, but it was too late.
The boy was already at the end of the hallway when she went out of the restroom, leaving her in a daze while hugging the things he had left for her. She wondered who the kind boy was and wished that they could meet again without expecting that she would see him again soon.
"Hey! Risa!"
Thwack!
"Ouch!"
Larissa was hit on the stomach with the rugby ball because her attention was outside the field and not in the game.
"Hey, what the hell are you looking at? Focus on the game even if we are only going against newbies!" Her teammate loudly slapped Larissa's arms. She then gestured her hand toward their other teammates to tell them to have a break.
"Bing, do you perhaps know who that boy is?" Larissa pointed openly toward where the boy was because the boy was quite a distance from them to get noticed. Her teammate then squinted her eyes to clearly see who Larissa was pointing at and instantly recognized the boy who was leisurely chatting with the other students.
"Boy? I think he is the same age as us! Stop treating everyone smaller than you as a child! Giant!"
Larissa was slapped on the arm by her teammate again. The boy Larissa was pointing at was actually not that small. He was actually tall, that is right for his age, but as Larissa, who is taller than anyone else, thought the boy was in a much lower grade than her. In particular, he has a softer voice for a man.
"So you know him?"
"That's Jerrod Guillermo! He was the elite of the elite! I think he is some kind of leader in his class. He is extremely wealthy and talented! I heard they sent him multiple times abroad to compete!" Bing shared excitedly.
"Oh? Really? What field is he in?"
"Music. I know little in that field, so I haven't really checked on his work. He is famous, but what is nice about that? He looks healthy, but not that strong. Nothing beats captain Erwin on the football team! He is the guy who we should really admire!"
Some of her teammates also joined them in their conversation, and they all talked about the football team and the muscled guys they admired, but Larissa's attention was on the other side of the field. Larissa's eyes couldn't help but stare at Jerrod, but then she flinched and looked away when she thought Jerrod was about to look at her.
"Oh? What is going on?" One of her teammates caught what happened and pointed at her chest teasingly.
"Oh my! Rissa, did your stone-cold heart finally see a charming prince?"
"W-what? I don't know what you are saying!" Larissa was flustered and her face turned red, so she ended up running away without finishing the game.
She ran away to calm her heart.
In fact, it was not the only time her heart beat wildly without her will. It always happens whenever she thinks about Jerrod.
"Ah! The flask! I need to return it!"
Larissa hurriedly took the flask from her locker room to return it to Jerrod, but once she went into the room where she last saw him chatting, he was already gone.
After that day, she used the flask as an excuse to try to approach him, but never actually did so because of a lack of courage. She only followed Jerrod and looked at him from a distance while holding the flasks. The more she learns about Jerrod and the people around him, the more she believes she does not deserve to be associated with him.
Larissa felt ashamed of her status and could only admire Jerrod from a distance, not until months before their graduation.
"What kind of drama are you filming, Risa?"
"Bing! You startled me!"
Bing, one of her teammates, appeared behind her and whispered in her ear. Larissa turned to Bing while she hugged the flask in her arms.
"Risa. We've been seeing you acting like a stalker. Why don't you confess to him soon? We are going to graduate, and we won't be sure if you can see him after that." Bing advised.
"C-confess? I don't have that kind of feeling about him. I-I just want to return his hydro flask!"
"Then return it now."
"I..I..c-can't!"
Larissa was about to run away again, but Bing snatched the Hydro flask away from her, which made her stop and turn to Bing again.
"I'll be keeping this for a while. You can only get this after you confess to him. Bye!" Bing ran away with Jerrod's hydro flask, which made Larissa freeze in place.
"Can I really confess to him?" Larissa mumbled.
She touched her chest as she felt tempted to confess. Jerrod doesn't actually know about her existence, as he's never seen Larissa, even when they are at the restroom. She wonders if she can do it with the goal of making Jerrod know she exists. She tells herself not to expect a good answer, but her heart beats faster in anticipation.
She thought for a while, but then once the bells rang for the class to start, she didn't go back to her classroom and instead took a paper and pen as she wrote something on the paper while crouching down beside the shoe lockers.
"Am I doing it in an old-fashioned way?"
Larissa sneakily placed a letter inside Jerrod's shoe locker and left like a thief.