Well, when did it begin, probably no more than a month ago. That's when this feeling first came into realization. I'll be honest though, I hate it. Everyone says it's all roses, but they're dead wrong. I'm not even sure what made me feel this way in the first place, such a simple interaction yet I can't get it off my head. Ever since then, that part of me has longed for another opportunity, it craved to experience that feeling again. However, I fully realize how foolish that is in reality. Hell, we hardly know each other at all, in fact, I guarantee she doesn't even know my name.

Well… I say all this knowing full well what I've already done. A love letter, so stupid I know. I think if anyone were in my shoes they would have impulsively done the same thing. What could go wrong either I confess and she says yes or I have a memory that haunts me for the next ten years. Win win in my opinion. Okay, I get it, I messed up. So what though, I'll just have to live with whatever happens today after school on that rooftop.

The whole day I couldn't focus on a single thing. All I had was a hundred scenarios of what would happen running through my head. Well, we weren't doing much in class anyway. I wondered if she even got the letter and if she did, maybe she threw it out or showed it to her friends and they all laughed. Regardless I would be there on that roof, waiting this afternoon. If she doesn't come I guess that'll be just as much of an answer as saying no, it would sting way less honestly.

The only person I had told about these, albeit terrible, plans was my friend Hiro. Luckily I got the opportunity to speak to him at lunch to at least calm my nerves. 

"Okay listen here man, you really messed up. Like what were ya thinking, are you dense? You've only talked to this girl once you know." Hiro said as we ate.

"Yeah it was stupid man I get it, can't you at least give me some kinda encouragement?" I reply, sighing.

"Nope, not one bit. You screwed yourself, bro, gotta live with it now. Can't bail out on this one."

Okay, so I lied. That conversation just made me feel even worse than I did before. Why did I even tell him that, I should've expected him to react that way. We finished up lunch and parted ways for our classes. The rest of the day was honestly a complete haze, I felt like I was going to throw up with how nervous I was. I know Hiro said I can't bail but maybe there's still a chance, some way to get out of this. No matter how hard I think there's nothing that will work, he really is right I'm screwed.

The final bell tolls, signaling it is time to do this. My fight or flight was really about to kick in since I wanted to run away as fast as I could. I didn't though, you got to give me guts for standing my ground at least, even if I am a total idiot. The action of walking from the classroom to the roof felt like it was in slow motion. As I made it to the rooftop door I paused for a second, still wanting to get out of there, but I opened it. She wasn't here yet. I went and sat down on one of the benches not knowing what else to do. 

I waited for what felt like an eternity but finally, the door opened, but it wasn't her, it was just some other girl. Now that I think about it, the roof was a pretty popular spot to ask people out so there's a chance it was "double booked" today. She went over and sat by the other side away from me, probably just as nervous as I was. Now it was the waiting game of who was going to appear first, the person she asked up here or the girl I did. I won it.

The door creaked open and who could have guessed, she actually came. I couldn't believe it. I sprung out of my seat and she started walking over to me. Once she got right next to me she looked me up and down and said "Hey, uh, you're, the guy who sits next to me in math right?" She said, genuinely confused about who I was. I knew it was over from that simple line alone. 

"Y-yeah, that's me." was all I could muster out.

"So, listen, I'm gonna have to reject you. I mean not only do we not even know each other but I also have a boyfriend after all." I wanted to jump off the roof. 

"O-o-o-okay, sorry to bother you" I mumbled. She didn't even say another word, she just walked away. I mean, how could anything else have happened besides that outcome?

I slumped onto the bench after the door shut, utterly destroyed, but at least slightly relieved it was over, really what was I thinking? Well, I don't think I would have been as mad as I was about this whole situation if not for one small thing.

I glanced back over to the other girl on the roof, and I am not joking when I say, she was laughing hysterically. She wasn't even trying to hide it, I get it must've looked pathetic but at least have some sympathy for me. I contemplated confronting her but before I got the chance the door opened yet again. This time it was a guy, and if I had to guess the guy she asked up here.

I could clearly make out their conversation. He walked over to her and she jumped out of her seat, a familiar scenario. They both started talking about the past few months together, nothing important just idle chit-chat. Well, that was until she hit him with the ultimate "I want to be with you forever." Those are some big words to spit out so how would you figure someone would respond to that? A resounding yes? No. 

Instead what came out of his mouth was "Sorry, I see you as more of a friend." shutting her down immediately. After hearing that, she stared blankly into nothingness, and he just walked away and didn't even say bye. Now despite my own failure of a confession, I couldn't help but take comfort in knowing it could have been worse. At least I hardly knew the girl I asked, she seemed like she'd known that guy for a while.

She sat there staring blankly for a while before getting up. I didn't even realize until she was there but, she decided to walk over to me.

"Hey." She said to me,

"Sup," I replied back, confused as to why she was talking to me.

"So, it seems we both had bad luck today, it's a rough world isn't it" 

Who the hell does this girl think she is? Rough world my ass, why is she even talking to me! She was laughing at me not even ten minutes ago! Of course, I wouldn't say any of that to her face. So instead I thought for a second and chose to simply reply with, "You got that right." 

"I'm Yuzu, by the way, nice to meet you" she replied, for some reason just genuinely introducing herself.

"Yo, my name's Ichi, pleasure," I said lying as It was in fact, not a pleasure.

"So hey… how much of that did you see?"

"About as much as you saw of mine."

"You know it's rude to listen in on people's conversations."

"At least I wasn't laughing at you."

"You… saw that? Sorry." She said, clasping her hands up and bowing her head. It probably wasn't genuine but at least she said sorry so I didn't chew her out.

"It's whatever, I deserve it, that was pathetic."

"Hey I guess we're both pretty pathetic aren't we?" I'm not sure if she was actually being sympathetic or not but it's fine either way. She spoke up again and asked, "Wanna go and get ice cream, people say it helps with this kinda stuff?"

I sigh and say "You know what, sure." I don't know why I agreed to that, I'd literally rather do anything else in the world than that. Who the hell wants to go out for ice cream with someone they basically don't even know right after they got rejected? Frankly, I just want to go home, curl up into a ball, and wallow. But I'm stuck doing this now so oh well.

We made our way to an ice cream spot near our school, apparently, it was really popular with the students, well according to Yuzu anyway seeing as I've never heard of it. It was an awkward walk there seeing as the only thing we had in common was the fact we just got rejected. It was just complete silence, both of us looking quite dead inside.

Once we got to the ice cream shop she finally spoke again. "This is it." She said holding her hand out and displaying it like some kind of commercial showing off a product. We walked in and browsed the different flavors, I was going to pick out cherry as it's my favorite but before I got the opportunity Yuzu said "Get the raspberry one."

"You mean, I should get the raspberry one?"

"No, I mean get it. I wanna try it so we can split, I'm getting this taro one by the way."

Now I know that I really should speak up in times like this, but I was already drained from everything else going on so I just bit the bullet and agreed. I would've been fine with that actually, I could've accepted it but what really got on my nerves was something else.

As we were one person away from ordering she looked at me, with these fake puppy dog eyes. "Hey, listen, Ichi buddy, I kinda forgot my wallet. Think you could grab this for me, I'll pay back of course." She said oh so innocently.

"You… forgot your wallet?"

"Yep"

"So you want me to pay?"

"You got it, like I said I'll pay you back"

I sighed and said, "Sure, whatever," In a clearly ticked-off tone.

"Thanks, Ichi, gold star for you." What does that even mean?

I ordered the ice creams and we stepped to the side to wait for them. When they came out Yuzu immediately grabbed them so that she could split the flavors in half. I just let her, I honestly don't care at this point. I will give her this though the ice cream did taste really good. I can understand what she meant about this place being popular. Well, that ended up being a downside because of what happened next. I think the best way to describe it would be Yuzu and I's worst possible scenario, note that we only have one thing in common.

As we were walking out we saw two people walking in. I think it's pretty clear who they were. Ding ding, that's right, both people we confessed to today. That's not the worst part though, no, because they came in together, hand in fricking hand! When I say I have never been more shocked in my life I mean it. I'm sure the same goes for Yuzu too. We both just stared at each other, absolutely dumbfounded by what we just witnessed. Not only that but neither of them even acknowledged us as we walked by.

"Hey, I just want to make sure I'm not seeing things but… were those two just now…? Before I could get another word off Yuzu already responded.

"Trust me, you aren't seeing things, they definitely were." She responded, looking like she just saw a ghost.

I'm pretty sure we both felt equally defeated at that moment. I mean there are some things that you could expect but, neither of us could have done that. We mindlessly walked to a nearby bench and plopped ourselves down. There we sat in silence eating our ice creams, completely depressed.

"I think I genuinely feel like throwing up after seeing that," I say randomly interrupting the silence.

"I agree with you on that one." She responds while staring blankly into nothingness.

"I mean him, her, how?"

"Don't ask me," she said in a pissed-off tone.

"How long do you think that's been a thing?"

"Well, I'm sure it didn't start today, which means both of us had a zero percent chance in our endeavor."

We went back to the silence and eventually parted ways after sitting there for a while more. I went one way, she went the other. I'm just still in disbelief at everything that happened today. So many things I've never experienced before, most of them crappy. Well, I guess at least Yuzu was right about the ice cream helping, only temporarily though.