The Way He Looks At Her

Chapter 4

As fireworks were being set off, I slowly walked to him. The words slowly began to pour out of my mouth, "Haru..." He turned around and looked at me. Staring into my eyes underneath a blanket of fireworks, As I was going to finally say what I had been hiding inside of me, Haru got tapped on the shoulder and when he turned around to look at her, his eyes lit up and he immediately hugged her and held her hand as they walked off. He turned back around saying, "Sorry, what were you gonna say?" I just shook my head and said, "Oh, it was nothing". He shrugged his shoulders and continued walking hand in hand with that girl. I just stood there watching them walk off and for a minute, everything was quiet. I soon realized what I was doing and  I quickly went to join the others and watch the rest of the fireworks. I just couldn't stop thinking about them walking away under the night sky. I asked myself, "How did I end up in this situation."

I just kept asking myself many questions, "Were they together?", "Are they together?", "Who is she?", and maybe I was wrong, maybe they were just friends, maybe I got the wrong idea, maybe this was all a dream...? The next day, we went back to school and went home. I wanted to find out what their relationship was but am I in any position to know about Haru's personal life? I was hesitant to know but I just had to know. I texted Haru and asked him how he was feeling since we did lots of things on the trip. He said, "it was a bit tiring but I'm okay." Here we go, I'm gonna ask him, there's no harm in knowing right? "Who was that girl the other night that grabbed your hand?" The restless waiting of those three dots over and over again till he finally sent a message back. "She is childhood friend that likes me, she is annoying but my parents are fond of her so I have to hang out with her." I read that message over and over again until I was ready to respond back when he asked why I wanted to know who she is. I said,"Oh, I've never seen her around." He said, " Yeah she just transferred but she wanted to come on our trip because her old school canceled their trips because of the lack of money." We ended the conversation there.

When we went back to school, I saw him always with that girl and obviously I was jealous but what could I do. I always asked Haru for notes that he had taken in his freshmen year and he always gave them to me. But I was getting nowhere so one day I asked Haru if he could be my tutor. He said sure and what time and where. I said my house at 4:00pm and gave him my address. Since our exams were coming up, I needed extra help and I did feel bad to ask him for help since he also had to study for his exams but I wanted to get closer to him. When he showed up, went to my room and my mom brought snacks for us. We first did math and it was already 5:30pm. I got stuck on one of the problems and he leaned in to show me how to solve it. But all I could do is stare at him and suddenly his eyes looked so endearing and then at some point, I was looking into his eyes and he was looking into mine. I froze and we both looked away from each other.

He started chuckling and said, "You're blushing" I was embarrassed and I punched him lightly in the arm. He was still laughing and eventually we went back to studying but at least the ice was broken. I was able to relax in front of him. We still joked around but we were able to get our work done, it was 7:00pm and he had to leave. So we said goodbye and I walked him out. As we were walking outside, I told him, "I had a really good time and I was able to understand the math techniques I didn't know how to do, thanks to you." He replied, "I also enjoyed it and it was really relaxing to finally be away from my parents for a while." It was getting late so he quickly said, "bye" and started walking away. I waved bye to him as he went farther and farther, and I watched him until I couldn't see him anymore. I went inside and plopped on my bed and went on my phone for a bit.

Every Thursday, Haru would come over and we would study for a bit until exams came up. Hopefully we would both do well on our exams and the day we got our results, we both looked at our results together. He checked his first and he got a 198 out of 200, I was so happy for him then we checked mine, I got a 185 out of 200. I was still happy because I still did really good, who knows what I could have gotten if I didn't have Haru's help. We both celebrated that day and had a small party.