The warm sun peeks down at the world through the stray clouds littering the blue expanse of the sky. It has surprisingly stayed moderately warm this Sunday afternoon, but I can almost taste the cold wind that's approaching.
After we left the mall, I told Dominic that we needed to go to the park to practise for our upcoming ploy tomorrow. When I said that to him with a mischievous grin on my face, I could tell he was almost frightened by my ominous words.
Nonetheless, here we are, in the park, surrounded by a bunch of children running up and down, screaming, swinging, and playing in the sandpit. The sound of joyful laughter rings loud in the air and I spot a few parents around, most of them are sitting on benches watching their children from afar.
"We need to practise this so you don't mess it up," I tell him while chewing on the last of my fan tuan. After swallowing the grinded comestible, I stuff the scrunched up wrapper in my back pocket. When through my peripheral I catch him rolling his eyes at me, I narrow mine at him warningly and add, "I'm serious, Dominic."
"Do we really need to practise how to bump into each other?" he mutters, frowning in a displeased manner when the words leave his mouth.
They sound absurd without context, but with said context, which I have given him, this is the greatest ploy in the existence of mankind. "You know, when you said that we should come here, I thought it was so you could tell me the entire plan. For me to get accustomed to it and make sure that everything goes perfectly."
"See? There you go again with your obsession with perfection." I cross my arms over my chest.
Has he not learned from our previous efforts that flawless actions never work out? They fail horribly. They get my efforts to befriend Jodie mercilessly rejected. Having conversations with her never fails to give me a headache because the things she says sometimes are just idiotic. Sometimes I wonder how she's in the top ten for academics and Dominic isn't. It doesn't make any sense.
"Also, we're not practising how to bump into each other," I quickly say, to correct him. "We need to practise how you'll catch her when you bump into her."
Distracted, he kicks a stray stone, bouncing it up and down on his foot.
I stop talking to stare at his actions irritably.
Is he even listening to me? Does he think that I'm doing all of this just to waste my time? I also had plans today, plans which were admittedly not going to be accomplished because after going to church I am too knackered to do anything, but they were still plans nonetheless.
Narrowing my eyes at him dryly, my prayers seem to be answered when the stone eventually drops to the ground. Again, he goes to repeat his actions.
"Dominic, can you please focus for just one second?"
Sluggishly, he stares at me expectantly.
I badger him earnestly, "I mean, if she falls do you really think she'll want to associate herself with you? Do you want to screw up your chances with the fish?"
I don't miss the way his face scrunches up in bewilderment, probably wondering what the hell I'm talking about. "The fish?"
I nod once, releasing a noise of agreement behind my throat, but that doesn't seem to clear his bemusement. In fact, I think his eyes get clouded with even more confusion.
"It's code for Jodie. You know, we can't go around saying her name all the time, because someone might end up overhearing our conversation and we don't want them to figure out that we're planning to get Jodie nailed by you."
"I'm not doing this to nail her, Starr. There are much bigger things in the world than sex."
I watch him blankly, not convinced by his words in the slightest. I kind of figured it out over time.
Last night, I couldn't fall asleep and had already done all my homework. That's how I came up with the idea of making a list of reasons why I thought Dominic likes my former best friend and honestly, before I could even jot down the first point I had to sit there, thinking hard. Why does he like Jodie? Is it, because she's beautiful? That could be a reason, but not reason enough. I don't think just beauty can make someone like Dominic fall in love or rather catch feelings for someone.
In the end, it all boiled down to one thing. Sex. He wants to have sex with her. This has nothing to do with him liking her. He just wants a taste of that arse and honestly, I don't blame him.
He pauses, giving me one of those dull looks I'm so used to by now. "Why the hell would you go for the fish of all things?"
"Well, because we're trying to catch her. Hook, line and sinker."
"We're not calling her the fish," he says with a tone of finality.
After silently staring at him, I adamantly decide, "I'm still gonna call her the fish."
Slowly, he blinks his eyes shut and I can tell that he's slightly losing patience, but to reel his emotions back in, he releases a sigh of what seems to be defeat. "You're incorrigible."
"Wow. You've finally found something other than moronic, idiotic and stupid to describe me as. Incorrigible. That's a new one, more syllables than you can handle. I see someone has been brushing up on his vocabulary this weekend just to insult me. Should I feel special?"
"I've been with you this whole entire weekend. When would I have found the time to brush up on my vocabulary, you moron?"
"Again, with the moron."
I sigh in mock disappointment, but when Dominic doesn't see the fun in my jesting, I roll my eyes into the back of my skull. I should really stop trying to create a lighter atmosphere with him. It'll never work, because shit like that is a two-way street and right now, this feels very one sided.
"Fine. Let's just get this over with. You know, I'm supposed to be at church, but I sacrificed my time with the Lord and Jesus our saviour to be here with you."
"Church at this time?" He pulls his phone out to see how late in the afternoon it is for me to still be at church.
Actually, church ended a long time ago and I'm pretty sure my entire family went back home after lunch at the diner. I can already see my mum going ballistic with rage at the fact that I'm not in bed with my supposed influenza. But I will make something up like I needed to breathe in some fresh air or whatever.
"Wait a minute, you go to church?" he muses, appearing to be visibly surprised at that. From his look of disbelief, I don't know if I should feel offended. I probably should.
"Yeah. Why?"
I cross my arms over my chest, popping my hip out in a sassy manner. My eyes narrow themselves dangerously, almost a warning of some sort. What makes him think that I specifically wouldn't go to church?
He lifts up his shoulder nonchalantly, seeming unaffected by my glower. "I don't know. You just don't seem like the type to go to church."
"Why, because I'm gay?" I ask, knowingly.
"No, because you're Korean," he responds sarcastically, squinting at me banally as if to silently ask me if I even have to ask. "What do you think?"
"Oh, so is it because I'm Korean or is it because I'm gay that you think I don't go to church?" I snap at him angrily.
"You don't have to get so defensive. It's just church." He smirks in amusement at my reaction. "Besides, I'm an atheist so I don't really care about that."
"You're an atheist? Why?"
"What do you mean why? I just don't believe in a god." Finally pocketing his phone in the back of his jeans, he brings his gaze up to me again. "I mean, without even discussing the fallacies and inconsistencies in the Bible, how do you come to qualms with an all-powerful and all-loving being just allowing evil and suffering to exist?"
"Free will."
"I don't believe in free will either."
"What?" A chuckle of disbelief escapes me and earnestly, he nods. "So, you're a determinist too?"
"No, determinism is determinism. Free will is just an illusion that you think you have, but you did not decide for your neurons to fire in the way they did when you asked me that question."
My eyebrows furrow in confusion as I try to process his words but because of that, I start thinking about the rapid firing of my neurons and wondering if his words were antecedent for my contemplation.
"I think if I believed in a god, I would hate them." His words stun me for a split second and I don't reply in time to them, because he continues to say, "Seriously, I would hate them more than I hate you."
"You hate me?" I muse in disbelief.
"Do you even have to ask?"
"But… why?"
"Do you even have to ask?" he repeats, pointedly watching me.
"Because I liked you?"
"No," he shakes his head and then in an explanatory tone, he says to me, "because you pestered me just because you liked me. I hated those first few months of eighth and ninth grade."
"Sorry," I mumble.
"By the way, do you realise that Christianity promotes incestuous behaviour?"
I think his question over in my head and the only response I can give him is, "What?"
Crossing his arms over his chest condescendingly, he states, "Think about it for a while, Adam and Eve had babies and those babies had to make more babies. The only way for that to happen would be for the siblings to have sexual intercourse with one another. That, or they had to do it with their parents. Which isn't a much better thought."
"Okay," I stop him before he gets ahead of himself. "Yes, Abel and Cain possibly married their sisters to populate the earth but back then it did not have adverse effects seeing as they tended to live longer than we do. As sin took its toll on the human race, that is when we started seeing the negative effects of incestuous relationships essentially."
"Okay," he murmurs, watching me heedlessly as my words have just thrown him for a loop. "So, incest bad or incest good?"
"Incest bad. Let's just get back to practice. You know, we can probably get a lot done in a short period if we just agree on one thing for once," I tell him, thinking of the time we have just wasted ever since we set foot in the park. How did we even get to the topic of religion?
"No, we agree that incest is bad. Well, I think we agree. Your stance on it is a little ambiguous."
Instead of entertaining him, I say, "I'll be the fish and you'll be… yourself."
"Obviously."
"Okay, so I'm going to walk over to you and then that's when we'll bump into each other. I'll end up falling, but you'll catch me in the process—" I cut myself off when I realise something. Looking down at his still bandaged hands, I question him softly, "Wait, are your hands useful or do they still hurt, because I don't think you'll be able to catch me if they haven't healed?"
"They're fine," he quickly answers me with grimly tight lips. I sense some dishonesty in his words, but when he merely shrugs, glancing down at them and curling his fingers into a fist, I decide not to push him on his not so truthfulness. "They're not as painful as yesterday."
"I'm sorry," I apologise, looking at him with guilt in my eyes.
"It's whatever," he dismisses, averting his gaze into the far distance and licking his bottom lip in discomfort, he tries to move away from the topic of discussion. "Uh… can we carry on with the plan now?"
I keep my eyes trained on him with concern glinting greatly in them for a while, but when he arches an impatient brow, I decide to just leave that conversation for another time and continue, "Okay, um… and then you'll catch me… hopefully and then you have to stare deeply into my eyes for a while to make sure that she falls in love with you. After that you just apologise and then calmly walk away."
"I'm not apologising," he immediately disputes, taking his cap off and then fixing the mess on his head. After running a hand through it a couple of times, he places the cap back on his head.
"Well, you have to. For bumping into her."
"Nope," his stubborn arse replies.
I look at him for a while, hoping that he will change his mind, but Dominic matches my stare with a challenging one. Irritably, I pull my cheeks down with my hands when yet again, our decisions clash and I realise that we rarely agree on anything.
He always wants to dispute everything that I say, and I don't know if he does this on purpose or if we're just that much different to one another. And since I'm only doing this to get my sketchbook back and I don't really give a rat's arse if he gets with Jodie or not—actually I do since he's only giving it back if he gets with her so forget where I was going with that.
I hiss out an annoyed, "Aargh, fine. Don't apologise then."
When a sick satisfaction shines in his eyes, I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his immaturity. Not being able to restrain myself, I wrinkle my nose at the nuisance in front of me.
"Just get on with it already, Starr. Unlike you, I'm a very busy person who has certain things to do today."
After rolling my eyes, I begin to walk up to him, swaying my hips from left to right while glancing down at my phone as if occupied and I can't see him. A few more steps are covered before I feel myself bumping into Dominic. His chest is so stiff that I don't even have to let myself fall because it just happens naturally. Gravity acts on my body, pulling it down, but shockingly his hands don't catch me, so I end up on the ground with an oomph.
My eyes move up slowly and dangerously, meeting his slightly amused ones. I have half the mind to slap the funny out of him, but I don't want to hurt myself in the process. If his chest is that hard, how hard is his face? I would rather not find out. Also, I'll just end up in juvie, because Dominic has rich, influential parents. I can't touch him.
"What. Was. That?" I emphasise every word seriously, hardening my eyes into a deathly glare.
"What?" he muses, trying to appear like a guileless kitten to convince its owner that it didn't slash the armrest of the sofa with its sharp claws. Not this owner.
"You didn't catch me," I snap, annoyed.
Dominic's eyes flatten dryly, and I notice that he's doing that thing where he tries to make it look like he's the victim in the situation. Except I am the one who has the throbbing derrière to prove who the perpetrator and the perpetratee is in this circumstance. I'm clearly the innocent one, he has done me wrong and is perpetratee even a word?
"I tried," he murmurs out blamelessly.
"Your hands didn't move an inch," I point out, gesturing at his motionless body.
He looks over at his arms lying limply by his sides and raises his eyebrows in realisation. "Oh. My bad."
I click my tongue in annoyance and stand up from the ground, dusting my behind of any grass particles. When I shove my phone down the pocket of my ripped boyfriend jeans, I glance back up at him and see him pursing his lips as if to hold in his laughter.
Stabbing my finger into his chest to emphasise the severity of my upcoming command, I grit out through an angrily clenched jaw, "Next time, you catch me."
"Demanding, are we?" he makes sure to add his part, sarcasm coating his question thickly.
I begin to walk back to my place, grumbling nonsensical words under my breath. They rhyme with something along the lines of barce and mole.
I huff, making an effort to toss venomous daggers at him through my eyes when I catch the hilarity shining brightly in his from my reaction.
Well, isn't he just hilarious today?
I continue to paint him with my scathing stare when he still looks amused and just prepare for another retake of the whole scene. Ungainly, I begin to sashay up to him.
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