The Love Scandal ♪ Nishimura Riki

25 ♪ i like you...like a friend

Chapter twenty-five

Riki walks with her, suspiciously slow and always a foot behind in distance as they approach the beach. Jihyun receives a sudden premonition that tells her Riki's one glance away from shoving her into the water so keeps herself wary.

"Throw me into the ocean and I'll throw you into the campfire and burn you to a crisp," Jihyun says.

Riki is affronted by her statement and crosses his arms. "How do you know if I was or wasn't planning to throw you in?"

She casually glances back at him, giving Riki a simple look. "It's quite literally you, Riki. I'd be dumb to not think that you were."

He smiles a bit like a child. Jihyun's expression is undeniably amusing, and the way she reads him is intriguing. Like she's known him for years rather than the couple of weeks that they have been together. (In a way she has–but only his artist alias).

"Then I'm glad you already know so it won't be surprising when I do," Riki replies.

Jihyun glares at him, but he looks evermore entertained by all of her efforts to scare him off. She learns that way that a simple, valueless threat to push him into the fire does nothing to change his mind because he's still grinning.

"Riki," she says through her teeth.

"You know," Riki starts off. Jihyun surmises that he's about to start a new topic hearing as his tone of voice changed, and for a moment she wonders what he would bring up next. Who knows what goes on in his mind when they talk? "I never really said anything after the competition."

Jihyun only notices then that they had walked a bit further from their group when she takes an inquisitive look around the area in their vicinity. It didn't seem like the group noticed though because the only thing that helped Jihyun discern them was the endless splashes near–or in–the ocean.

"It's not like you had to. I mean, I didn't really say anything either," Jihyun murmurs.

"I at least wanted to congratulate you...say you did good out there."

Jihyun lets out a disbelieving chuckle as she thinks back to the day. They didn't say much of anything to each other following their win as the winners themselves, while everybody else was already ahead of them in doing so. It was honestly the most praise Jihyun'd seen, especially from accounts she could've sworn posted the exact opposite about her but oh well.

"Don't you think that the school and the internet are doing that enough?" She jests.

Riki tilts his head, and he looks strangely serious about something that seems so trivial to her. So Jihyun just waits for what he'll say, somewhat acknowledging that she could easily say something wrong given the strict air around her.

He responds, "But you didn't hear it from me."

As the beat of her heart starts to pick up in pace, Jihyun quietly sighs. So far it's; Riki: 1 and Jihyun: 0. Scratch that. Riki's winning over her by a landslide and Jihyun doesn't even know when it started.

"Well, now I did."

Riki wanders beside her as they stop where they are, facing out towards the horizon. The sun droops further beneath the level in which they can see the water, and indigo bleeds into the sky above them. The soft kiss of golden orange caresses Riki's face from what she can see and eventually, she looks away before getting caught, squinting her eyes to block the immense light as she observes the sunset.

"It's like a game of push and pull," Riki abruptly says after the silence has settled.

As a result, Jihyun fires him a question, "What is?"