The next day, we were one hour early, waiting for the finals to begin at a waiting room just for us at the hotel.
John was sprawled on a large, velvet bean bag, looking like an egg yolk gently cooking in a warm frying pan. Healthy snacks were neatly arranged on little coffee tables all over the smooth, comfortable carpet made of silver silk. His half-lidded eyes told me he wasn't exactly asleep, but he must have been super relaxed. I was surprised that he could be so calm before a fight. Especially against Vanessa, who I suspected he liked.
I was very excited about the fight. Both John and Vanessa were excellent fighters, and it had been a long time since I could watch a fight without being involved. Finally, I got to be a spectator. I had even called for a bowl of chilled watermelon to be brought up to me when the fight began. I loooove eating watermelon when I watch things.
Suddenly, there was a soft knock on the door. So soft I almost didn't catch it.
John didn't even move a muscle.
"Who's there?" I asked.
John opened one eye. "It's Vanessa," he said with certainty.
"It's Vanessa," said Vanessa in the tiniest voice. The door opened a fraction of a millimeter and she poked her nose in.
"Come in," John offered lazily, not even bothering to open his other eye or change position whatsoever. He remained with arms behind his head, legs crossed and completely relaxed.
Vanessa opened the door and began to tiptoe into the room as if she had been a thief, which made me wonder what she was here for. Could she possibly think we couldn't see her?
It took me a second to realize she was trying to be quiet for John's sake. I also noticed that she was blushing like a tomato, her ears crimson. In her attempt to reach John silently she stepped over a particularly squeaky part of the floor and let out an enormous CREEEEEAK.
John opened one eye to find the source of the sound and found Vanessa frozen on the spot.
"S-sorry!" she called, her voice really high-pitched. "I... I just... Hi! I'm John. No, you're John. I'm Vanessa! And you?"
Suddenly, Poopleheim was floating beside me.
"I heard someone flirting really badly right now and I just had to check it out," he said.
"Flirting?" I asked, wondering who he was talking about. All the while, Vanessa had gotten hold of some of John's healthy snacks and was offering them to him.
"Would you like a John, snack?"
"Oh, my god," I whispered. Poopleheim was right. Vanessa was trying to flirt, and she was blowing it.
John didn't even reply, he just shook his head slightly and closed his eyes. I could tell Vanessa was trying to get his attention because she kept playing with her hair, batting her eyelashes, fixing her clothes, swinging her legs as she sat on the chair, and only after a couple of minutes did she realize that John wasn't even looking at her. She then smacked herself on the forehead, hard, and said, "Stupid!"
John looked up. "Huh?"
Vanessa paled. "What?! No, I'm stupid! No, no one is stupid!" she interjected, then added in an almost whisper to herself, "Stupid." Then, she thew her head back and broke into a loud cackle.
"Cringe," commented Poopleheim to my side.
For once, John looked confused. "Are you okay?" he asked the girl.
"Of course!" Vanessa all but yelled into the room, arms flailing about her, her face beet-red. She got up, took a bow, and skipped out of the room yelling, "Happy Birthday!"
John's birthday was still half a year away as far as I knew.
"Wow," I said, coming to sit down next to my friend. "That girl got a crush on you. A massive, titanic, gargantuan, colossal crush on you."
John frowned, looking at me like I had sprouted horns. "Nah," he said.
"Yah!" I insisted. "Poopleheim, you tell him."
The sword flew towards John and hovered in mid-air between the two of us. "With five hundred years of research of love and crushes, Vanessa got a level eleven crush, one level higher than the highest crush I've seen. She must be devastated."
John looked unimpressed. "Nah," he added after a while.
"I thought you liked her," I confessed. I was sure I had seen a strange look of something like concentration and dazzlement on his face that one time Vanessa had been fighting on the arena. I told John so.
He broke into hysterical laughter.
"I was farting!" he confessed after a while between gasps for breath.
Poopleheim summarized my thoughts, "Boi, you look weird when you fart."
With the fight between John and Vanessa happening soon, I wondered what the result would be knowing that she had a massive crush on my friend, while he was seemingly completely indifferent to her. Maybe that would make her deadlier.
