Taylor tries to play off her expression which is a cross between bemusement and annoyance with a strained grin as if to come across as polite as she possibly can to Dominic.
Beside me, I catch him shifting around in his chair while glancing down at the table and playing with his chips, quickly nibbling on one to refrain from holding eye contact with my friend. When I catch a hint of pink creeping onto his ears, I resist the urge to burst out laughing. I would not have pegged him for a shy guy. Well, I did before, but after spending all that time with him, it seemed as though he had the confidence of a singer.
What is he doing here? Taylor mouths at me, eyes enlarging in shock.
I merely shrug in response to her question.
"Hey, Dominic," she greets him with a fake smile.
He slowly looks up at her with his lips pressed into a thin line, giving her a stiff nod.
"How you doing, mate?"
"Probably neutral," I respond, smirking when he glares at me for speaking on his behalf.
That's until Edward decides to show up and the little smirk that I have on my face disappears when he looks at me and stretches a breathtaking boyish grin on his face.
My lungs do their part and my breath hitches in my throat. Before I can scold them for slacking off, they immediately start pumping more oxygen in and out and around my body. I have to force myself not to squirm in my seat and squeal like a crush induced teenager, and instead throw a casual, lopsided smile back at him. The smile hopefully does not give away how much I like him.
Through the corner of my eye, I catch Dominic eyeing him curiously.
"Hey, Seong Jin," he says, winking at me as per usual.
"Hi," I breathe out.
Edward is still smiling widely until he sees the person beside me and just like Taylor, he furrows his brows in confusion before cautiously sitting down in his usual seat next to his girlfriend. Question runs through his eyes when his gaze flickers over to me, but I just avert my gaze from him without responding to his silent enquiry.
Not long afterwards, Damien strolls over to the table with a little too much pep in his step for the awfulness that is school and when he sees that his spot has been stolen by Dominic, he frowns in perplex, but luckily, he does not say anything in regards to the peculiar sight and just asks for a chair from one of the other tables. When they tell him no, he just takes it in the end, not even flinching at their protests.
"Uh… wassup, man?" he greets.
Again, Dominic just nods stiffly and swiftly, keeping that emotionless look on his face. He dismisses the curious looks that both guys are throwing at him and resorts to eating the chips from my lunchbox again.
Both boys look at me like, explain yourself, Seong Jin, but I pretend to be oblivious to these looks and purse my lips awkwardly.
As silence plunges between us all at the table, I promptly open my book again and pick up reading from where I left off. From time to time, when the character of Mr Darcy is being infuriatingly perfunctory and disrespectful to Elizabeth, I simply sneak a furtive glance up at Dominic through my peripheral vision thoughtfully.
He looks emotionless and just… dead. You know, I am starting to get used to it now. I cannot even imagine him smiling fully, let alone laughing. Honestly though, doesn't it get tiring not showing any emotions at all? I don't think I can go a day without laughing or grinning like the Joker.
"Of course, I'm going to ask you to the dance. Who else would I ask, babe?"
When Edward coos that, I flicker my gaze from the words swirling beautifully on the pages just in time to catch him planting a kiss on my best friend's cheek who beams happily and turns around to snog him right on the lips, resulting in a full make out session right in front of us.
Damien does not hide his gag and covers his eyes as if he is some sort of prudish child who would vomit at the sight of anything romantic in anyway. We all know that he is anything but innocent. The stories he tells me about what he and Faith get into sometimes...
I quickly turn away from the sight and instantly jump in shock. Dominic's face is right in font of mine. Wha… what the hell?
I push away the thought of him being close enough to kiss, because that is the last thing I should be thinking about. Kissing should be the furthest thought of them all.
Dominic secretly leans into me and whispers softly so the two lovebirds in front of us do not hear us, "I don't see it."
"What?" I whisper back, narrowing my eyes at him.
"Why… him?" He looks at Edward through the corner of his eyes pointedly.
"The same reason you want Jodie."
"Oh, that's not the same."
"Yes, it is."
"What are you guys whispering about?" Taylor finally cuts through our conversation, looking at us in an interested manner.
I open my mouth, a deceitful response already playing on the tip of my tongue before I settle for a stammered, "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Yeah, it's, uh, nothing important. We were just discussing some… science stuff," I reply with a stiff smile.
"Like?" She arches a brow almost like she knows that I am straight out lying to her.
"Like… Dominic will tell you," I say instead, and he looks over at me with a mouthful of chips as his eyes widen. "Um… what science stuff were we whispering about?"
He gulps the food down his throat which bobbles up and down with the action. "Him."
"Him?" Edward decides to contribute to the interrogation.
The boy beside me scowls in unexpected irritation and stares Edward dead in the eye. The testosterone levels thicken in the air and it would be impossible not to notice how both boys have stiffened.
I think we can all feel it bubbling in the air, even Taylor squints down at her food confused. Damien leans backwards in a laidback manner as if he is just waiting for something to unfold. Humour stains his expression.
I furrow my eyebrows up at Dominic in bemusement. Wondering why he feels the need to look at Edward so challengingly, I avert my gaze down and pointedly bump his thigh with mine in warning. This fortunately breaks their stare off as he shifts his eyes down to our legs and then slowly up at me.
The lifelessness in his eyes transforms into something I am not accustomed to seeing. Strangely, I see a spark of some sort of emotion in them. What could it be? What is he hiding underneath all that dark impassiveness?
"Yeah. Him." As he's staring straight and deeply into my worried eyes, he adds, "Isaac Newton. We were just discussing how his laws have really helped the human race to understand forces. I mean, without the guy we wouldn't understand practical… stuff."
I heave an inaudible sigh of relief and give him a hidden smile of appreciation. "Yeah. Stuff."
"Right. Stuff."
No, seriously, what is that emotion in his eyes? It's kind of freaking me out a bit. Dominic Lachowski is not someone who hides his emotions in plain sight. He obscures them very deep within his dark, dark, terribly dark soul, making sure that no one can see them. With Dominic it is either glares or nothing. So why is that I can see a little light of… whatever the darn, indecipherable emotion is?
Taylor clears her throat which snaps us out of the intense gaze we have on each other.
I blink in confusion wondering what in the hell just happened. The emotion in his eyes disappears and he glances away from me with a stiffness in his movement. After a moment of blinking at his side profile in bemusement, so do I.
When I catch Damien's gaze, he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively but I immediately shake my head at the silent implication in his gesture. The second I see the mischievous blaze which begins to bloom on Taylor's face too, I breathe a sigh of defeat because I just know that things are going to go downhill from here on out.
"So, Dominic," she starts with a little bit of an aggressive look in her eyes, "Seong Jin here was just telling me the other day that he ran you over in his car. How come you didn't kill him with your toy lightsaber?"
"With my what?" he muses in perplex.
I groan lowly in embarrassment beneath my breath, hoping that this is just a dream. Does she have to bring that up now?
Dominic tilts his head over to me and question focuses in his eyes. "What is she on about?"
"The things from Star Wars," I clarify quickly, but decide to add dismissively, "Look, don't mind her. In fact, please pretend as though she's invisible because one thing you should know about her is that she's just not alright upstairs."
"Could it be that you didn't find it in you to hurt him?" she continues to probe and I sigh dejectedly.
Dominic adds fuel to the fire by saying, "I mean, he's Asian."
"See, I told you that comment he made before was lowkey kinda racist," I exclaim in exasperation, looking over at Taylor.
My friends chuckle at my expense.
Looking up at him, I see his lips twitching as he gawks down at me in amusement. Irritation brews within me and I glower at him as he basically laughs at me with his eyes.
In my fit of annoyance, I take my almost empty lunchbox away from him, denying him the rest of my food. When I realise that my burger has been bitten in places that I haven't bitten before, I narrow my eyes up at him suspiciously.
He retaliates by reaching over to take two more chips and cheekily shoves them in his mouth.
"Why are you sitting with us today?" Edward asks him.
"Realised that you can't stay away from your soulmate anymore?" Damien continues from where Taylor left off.
"He-yo!" Taylor hollers and they high five.
I scowl at them.
If I knew that they would jump on the opportunity to embarrass me then I would have just eaten my food in the library. I am pretty sure that I am safe from any insinuating remarks there and I can continue living in someone else's shoes, like Elizabeth who is juggling surviving a zombie apocalypse alongside the very rude Mr Darcy whom she is secretly beginning to pine over. I also see less of Taylor and Edward being all touchy and kissing and overall, just plain lovey dovey.
"He's not my soulmate," he replies dully, causing me to look up at him and blink blankly.
"Oh, no. I'm pretty sure Damien was talking about you and Edward, but I am still convinced you're gay," Taylor clarifies.
"I'm not gay," Dominic responds monotonously, not even looking the least bit insulted by her assumption and I grin up at him strained when he throws a questioning look down at me. Didn't I warn him about her missing a few screws?
"Why would you pair your own boyfriend with another guy?" Edward asks, looking at his girlfriend weirdly.
"I don't know." She shrugs, glancing up in a thoughtful manner. Her eyes glaze over a bit as she loses focus on us, going inside her unimaginable head and I can already tell that she is going to say some out of pocket shit. "I mean, I have always had this weird fantasy where you're making out with a guy who just so happens to be wearing some spunky spandex; black spandex to be specific. It's hot as fuck."
We all stare at her incredulously in silence. This is why she should take her medication, because she starts saying things like that when she doesn't.
"You're sick," Edward whispers, shaking his head as if he's disturbed by what she has just said. The little grin on his lips states otherwise.
"See? I told you she's insane," I insert looking at Dominic who quirks his brows up in agreement.
"I'm not insane," she says looking at me as though she is offended by my words.
"She's pathologically psychotic. Don't degrade her condition like that," Damien remarks and again, they high five with obnoxiously loud guffaws of laughter.
Dominic abruptly stands up, the sudden ruckus causing our conversation to come to a stop, and he gazes down at me. I see some sort of anxiety running past his eyes, but before I can properly decipher the emotion, he's already leaving the cafeteria in a rush. Staring after his hurrying, retreating back, I cannot help the concern which prickles my chest and I have to force myself to stay in my seat.
Where is he going without even saying goodbye? I get that rude and uncaring is his front, but at least wish the people you just ate from your parting. Don't just up and leave.
"What was that all about?"
I turn back to see the look of perplex that Taylor is giving to me and I blink my confusion away before shrugging unknowingly.
"So… he's the guy you have a crush on?" Edward muses, smirking in amusement when I narrow my eyes on him.
"I don't like him anymore. It was like three years ago. Will you guys ever let me live that down?"
"Probably not," Damien answers.
"So… if you don't like him," Edward starts and then leans over the table and asks softly, "then who do you like?"
His gaze punctures through me intensely and I try not to let a blush take over my cheeks, but I can't control it in the end. How can I when he's staring so deeply into my eyes with those mesmerising blue orbs that could put the ocean to shame? How can I when he makes me feel extremely breathless under his unwavering stare? How can I when my feelings for him just flourish with just one look from him? One measly look.
He's not making this any easier!
"What the shit?" The exclamation from my best friend pulls me out of my stupefied stupor and I let my awkwardly enlarged eyes slide off Edward and over to her bewildered face. "You like someone, and you didn't tell me?"
Well, yes. He is, after all, your boyfriend so…
"Who? Man, I should have known that all that Japanese guy and deep voice crap was just a front. My nipples were right after all. Always trust your nips, Taylor."
"Yeah, there is no way a year can go by without Seong Jin falling for someone." A deadpan stare is thrown at Damien for that comment.
"No, he is completely right," Taylor inserts and Damien nods at her appreciatively for taking his side. "It's like a disease you seem to catch every year which then gets cured a few weeks after your birthday."
"Who is it?" Edward muses, looking quite interested in the mystery boy. Oh, the irony.
"I'm never telling."
And I truly mean it when I say that. I even cross my heart and hope to die with this. If the news about Edward being my crush ever reach their ears, I swear to the heavenly supreme being, I am gonna kill Dominic with my bare hands, 'cause he's the only other person, other than myself, who knows about the wicked feelings I have for my best friend's boyfriend. If it comes out, I can bet my sweet arse it won't be from the horse's mouth.
"Oh, come on," Taylor whines, scowling irritably. "I'm your best friend. You have to tell me so that we can formulate a way to get the two of you together."
Just for a fleeting nanosecond I find myself glancing over at Edward and I play out in my head how it could have been if I had told him that I like him before Taylor asked him to be her date to the winter formal. What would we have become? Would he have said yes? Would he have said no? Maybe? His blue eyes are still watching me quite curiously and when he arches a brow at me, I shift my gaze down to the fingers tangling themselves in my lap. Then reality comes crashing down.
As much as may I like him, I understand the girl code. It has been drilled in me ever since I was a little sapling, an innocent, little sapling yet to be fed the wrong and right of the world and to betray my friend like that, the only friend who left popularity for me, is not just wrong. No, it borders beyond that. This is evil and ruthless and that's not who I am. Well, that's not the person I want to be.
When Taylor starts speaking, I focus my eyes on her again, "It will be our own spin on mission impossible or… or fifty shades of rejection. Something catchy like that."
"Those were all really terrible," I voice with a scrunched up expression.
"No, they weren't," she argues and turns to Edward. "Come on, back me up, Eddie."
He grits his teeth and pulls his face into a grimace. "Sorry, babe, but… they really were. No offence."
"I will never understand why people say that. All of the offence was taken." She pouts angrily, crossing her arms over her chest. "I swear sometimes I think you're more in love with Seong Jin than you are me."
What?!
"Don't be ridiculous," Edward answers, chuckling deliriously. Unintentionally my chest pangs as he leans over and kisses her on the cheek. Be strong, Seong Jin, be strong. Maybe I should be reciting that to my heart. "You know you're the only one for me."
"Okay, so I am gonna head over to the toilet so I can puke my insides out after seeing that," I say in a playful manner, gesturing to their whole display of affection. "Enjoy whatever it is you two do when I'm not around."
"Yeah, I'd rather not say. It's not for people under the age of Seong Jin," Taylor jokes.
Just for the sake of it I smile in response, but at the back of my mind I wonder about what they do behind closed doors when we aren't around to judge them.
Have the maybe done more than just kissing? What about when she invites him over? Do they ever border over to more than steamy make outs? Have they had sex? Would she tell me if they did? Even knowing how uncomfortable it would be for the both of us. Packing my lunchbox into my bag, I tuck my zombie novel underneath my arm and stand up.
"Oh, yeah, me too. I'm out. Peace." Damien pushes his chair back and quickly walks away. Clumsily, I hurry after him.