Pink, red and white.
These are the colours currently littering my school. These colours stare right back at me dauntingly and I almost want to turn around and plead with my father to take me back home. There is a large banner hanging at the building's entrance with the word, love, painted in red. Following that is a bunch of hearts and smooching faces and three x's. Does that mean kisses? I am pretty sure that means kisses.
What were the smooching faces for then? A bit redundant to add both, no?
The walls are decorated with pink flyers and red, heart cutouts are hanging from the ceiling with strings attached to them. White and black angels which are sharing red hearts between them too.
My face blanches out and I start to feel a certain something rising inside me as I continue to let my eyes feast on the scenery around me.
What the hell is this?
My face drops in realisation.
"Happy Valentine's Day," an unknown girl yells in my ear and I jump away from her in shock. After handing me a flyer with a large smile painting her rosy lips, she turns around and focuses her attention on other people walking into the building.
Oh, that's right. Valentine's Day.
A day of true love and pure romance. A day couples abuse to smile at each other with sickly infatuation coating their stupid faces. A day to shove your love down single people's throats, single people like me. A day to receive as many gifts from your boyfriend without the obligation of giving him something in return. A fucking sexist rule if you ask me.
How has a month already passed? I swear it was just yesterday I was bailing my brother out of jail.
"You know," a voice starts speaking beside me and again I jump a little at his unexpected appearance. After calming myself down, I let my once raised fists limply swing by my side, "you were supposed to dress up for the occasion."
"It's the one day I decided not to," I exclaim and then jokingly bury my face in my palms as if to appear devastated. Peeking up at his guileless face through my fingers, I don't miss the humour in his eyes.
"So," Christian begins as we begin to advance towards our lockers, "d-do you have a Valentine?"
"Nope. Nobody loves me. It's so sad."
"Well, I don't have one too," he quickly says as if to try and provide me some form of comfort.
"Yeah, by choice."
He rears back and stares at me in confusion.
"Come on, you know that... he who shall not be named still likes you. You aren't so dense that you have not noticed him staring at you in class with longing in his eyes."
He just shakes his head dismissively, rolling his eyes.
"I'm just saying. If you wanna get spoiled rotten today, you could just go and talk to your future husband, because you guys are gonna get back together eventually. You might as well just do it now, right?"
"I b-broke up with him for a reason, Seong Jin."
"Yeah, but he's not sleeping with my brother anymore. I'm sure of it because he's with this girl called Francine. He calls her Franny. Did I tell you that he even went to jail for her? My parents were actually so pissed at us. But also I think it was a blessing in disguise because he has been going to a lot more job interviews lately."
"W-What?"
I glance over at him and echo his question back at him, "What?"
"What did you just say?"
"What, you want me to repeat all of that because I said a lot of things?"
"Riley is… is sleeping with your brother?" he breathes out, a small frown of hurt dimming his entire face.
Looking at his face, I realise that he had no idea that his ex was sleeping with my brother a while ago. Painfully, I pinch my face and grit my teeth into each other.
"Shit," I mutter sheepishly.
"You snitch."
I turn around to spot Riley standing near us with scathing daggers being thrown in my direction. Angrily, I whisper-shout to him, "You didn't tell him?"
"No, I didn't fucking tell him. Why would I tell him that?"
"Why wouldn't you? The fact that you hid it from him, says a lot. If you didn't see anything wrong with it, you would've told him."
"There was nothing to tell. Why would I tell him that? Why the fuck are you even talking about it like it has anything to do with you? It's none of your business."
"It's fine," Christian cuts into our whisper-shouting before an argument can break out between us and he adds while feigning nonchalance, "We're broken up so it's not like you were cheating on me."
With that being said, he quickly rushes past us and when I catch the look of despair on his face out of the corner of my eye, I start feeling a bit guilty for probably making his day sour so early in the morning.
Riley turns around and desperately calls after him, but he does not turn around. He merely lets himself quickly disappear into the thick crowd and soon I cannot even see his chestnut coloured hair sticking out of said crowd anymore. With a thundering expression on his face, Riley turns around to glare at me.
Guilelessly, I blink.
"This is your fucking fault," he blames me.
"Me? I'm not the one who was poking his dick where it does not belong." My brows furrow and I wonder aloud, "Wait, did you bone my brother or was it the other way around?"
"What?"
"Thing is, I look at you and seeing as you're the experienced one, I guess you were the top, right? But then I think of my brother and I know the type of person he is. He wouldn't want to be topped, because of his pride and ego so I was just wondering how you guys—"
He walks away from me mid-sentence.
I nod slowly, lips pursed. "You know what? You're right. It's uh… it's none of my business."
When I arrive at my locker, I quickly open it after entering my combination, pulling my textbooks out and stuffing them in my little backpack and carrying some of my textbooks underneath my arm from the fact that my bag is already full. I leave the ones that I'm going to need after recess in my locker because I really do not feel like carrying that thick Math textbook and five other books I will not be needing.
Fishing my phone out, I send Christian a message, I'm sorry. I thought you knew. Biting down on my lip patiently, I wait for him to respond but he unfortunately doesn't.
With a deep sigh of regret escaping me, I shut my locker in frustration after zipping up my bag and then I spin on my heels to go to class. I end up yelping at the top of my lungs. His eyes widen in shock and he looks at me like I have grown a head or two. People around us look at me like someone who may need to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.
I smile in embarrassment until everyone goes back to what they were previously doing.
"You," I scold him instantly, slapping him on the chest with the back of my hand. "What did I say about sneaking up on me?"
"Did you have to scream like that?" he asks me, pressing his index finger into his ear exaggeratedly.
That's when I finally notice him in his entirety.
I have always thought that Dominic had a peculiar sense of style but what he is wearing today takes the cake.
With his velvet doublet, ruffled collar and boots that seem like they have been plucked from the Renaissance era, he stands out like an ancient prince in a sea of modern trends. His hair is styled in a way that I have never seen him style his hair. It puts focus on his dull, brown eyes. And I am not sure how I feel about that.
I am so used to the fact that he always has a beanie covering the top of his head and a few strands of curls lingering over his forehead and eyes. Now, I can see into his very soul. I don't… I don't think I like it very much. Why exactly is he dressed like he stepped out of a history book?
"Why are you dressed like you just got spat out of the fifteenth century?" I ask him the question playing around my mind.
"It's Valentine's day."
"Yeah, Halloween is in eight months," I chuckle at my joke, not even his glare can deter me from conveying my humour. "Oh come on, you gotta admit, that was kinda funny."
He shakes his head irritably so I just roll my eyes, unfazed that he is still the wet blanket he was a few months ago. Curiously, he questions, "So… do you have a Valentine?" and the words almost seem to taste bitter in his mouth.
With amusement glowing in my eyes, I ask, "Why are you frowning at the idea of me having a Valentine? Is it so farfetched to think that someone could like me enough to ask me to be their Valentine?"
Instead of answering my question, he says, "So I'm guessing that's a no."
Wryly, I stare up at him and blankly he blinks back at me. Pursing my lips, I shake my head and hoist my bag back up onto my back, my gaze averting away from him.
"Anyone would be lucky to have you as their Valentine," the words leave his mouth in short stammers, but I still manage to catch the sentence.
With my eyes fluttering in shock, I swivel my gaze back onto him and find him watching me a little too intensely. See, it's things like this that make me think that he might feel something for me. And then I think maybe I'm reading too much into what he's saying. Maybe he says the same thing to other people too, I don't know.
"Aw, you wore it," Jodie's familiar voice breaks our stare-off and excitedly she jumps up to embrace him.
Nervously, Dominic's eyes waver from me. Awkwardly, mine do too.