The Boy Next Door

five

"My brother Ryuu takes me here all the time. He'll kill me if he finds out we ate here without him." Mei giggles and hands me my tray of takoyaki. She'd dragged me to the Markets the second the final bell rang. We decided that, although Mei was craving some ice cream, that we would at least have a decent meal. I don't know how she's able to keep her model figure with such an unhealthy appetite. I guess it's just one of the many things I can probably learn from her.

We take a seat at one of the shop booths, facing each other. The position kind of reminds me of when Sou took me to eat fruit tarts at that bakery yesterday.

Mei picks up her toothpick and takes a bite out of her takoyaki ball. I do the same. The outside batter is so crispy that flakes of it fall onto the tray below me. The soft paste inside just about melts in my mouth. I think I can really get used to the food in Shizuoka.

"So," Mei begins, "you and Sou, huh?" She gives me a playful wink.

"What?" I scrunch up my nose.

"There's no way that he'd just give any girl a ride to school on his bike. He never does that." She stuffs the rest of the takoyaki ball in her mouth. "Yorth thpethal."

I giggle a little bit. "What was that?" I take another bite. Delicious.

She takes a moment to finish chewing. She holds her finger up to me as if silently saying, "one moment". "You're special," she repeats.

I snort at her and wrinkle my nose. "Pff, no I'm not."

"This is perfect!" Mei ignores me and starts mumbling out a bunch of things to herself--something about a "plan" and "getting us together", but I could care less when my delicious lunch is getting cold in front of me. Her hands move here to there, gesturing to spots and placing imaginary things midair. I guess it's all some sort of plan that she's trying to demonstrate--more to herself than me. I hardly listen to what she's saying, because it's entertaining enough to watch her enthusiastic mouth spit out words at a million miles per hour.

When she seems to finally be satisfied, Mei smiles and takes a sip of her drink. We spend the next few minutes simply savoring our lunches and people-watching out the window. When I see a group of boys walking by in the same uniform as ours. The group of boys tease and push each other around until one of them trips on a crack and falls down. His friends burst into laughter around him and help him up. Somehow the boy's clumsiness reminds me of Sou, and the way that he'd suddenly dropped his eraser by my desk earlier today in class. Mei's comments on it had been pretty spooky afterwards, if I remember correctly. Something about 'not seeing him doing that in a long time'.

"Hey," I say, pointing my empty toothpick at her, "you said something about Sou 'not doing that in a long time'."

"What do you mean by 'that'?" She asks in a monotone voice.

"When he was trying to pick up his eraser, remember?"

"OH!" Mei claps her hands together. After she takes a moment to recall the event, she gives me a wink. "Yes. I remember. You two put on quite the show."

I roll my eyes at my friend. "You've established that."

"Yeah, yeah." She dismisses my words with a wave of her hand. "Anyways, Sou is kind of weird when it comes to pretty girls and relationships and whatnot. Like, all the other guys would probably be humping you while you walk down the halls if you weren't still 'the new girl'."

I cringe at the last bit.

"He's actually really awkward when it comes to relationships, so he's had this same step-by-step plan ever since he was in, like, first grade, on how to approach a girl."