A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Six: Part Two

A knock was tapping against my bedroom doors.

“Hotaru-sama, we’re having dinner now.” Megane’s gentle voice informed through the door.

I was lying on my stomach over the fluffy covers of the bed with a school textbook in my hands. “I’m not hungry,” I replied, glancing towards the shadow looming underneath the door.

Lie. My stomach was grumbling non-stop. I tried my best to conceal any noise from exiting the door and into Megane’s noticing. A part of my gut told me that eating dinner with knives and forks and sitting at the same table as a hated nemesis could lead to bad actions.

“Are you sure? You’ve been skipping dinner for three days in a row.”

No, I’m not sure! Give me food, Megane!

“Y-Yeah, I’m sure.” I clutched my stomach and silently demanded it to shut up with the grit of my teeth.

“Alright then, Hotaru-sama.” Megane answered, his shadow swaying in one place through the crack of my bedroom door. “If you ever change your mind, please suit yourself and come downstairs.”

His shadow took a short pause. After a few seconds, the shadow glided away and out of sight.

I planted my face into my textbook in frustration, and the smell of fresh, glossy paper filled my nostrils. Even if I did decide to change my mind, I couldn’t make my way downstairs without getting lost in the process. I was certain that Megane and that blonde boy thought that the maid they had assigned me would gladly help me through the maze of hallways. In truth, the maid clearly had no intentions to assist me whatsoever. What she would have probably done was lead me to an unfamiliar path and then run away on me. It would be much worse if I had put my faith into that maid’s hands.

And besides, I had no attempts of changing my mind, no matter how hungry my stomach demanded to be, or how much my stomach’s growling made the room shake. I was strongly tempted, but I silently refused and resisted.

I lifted my face off the textbook. After that excruciatingly difficult math exam that morning, I decided it was smart to skim over what a “Pie-ta-gor-ran Theorem” was.

“Pa-tha-gor-ree-an” I murmured the text aloud. “What a weird word! Too many consonants are squished together . . .”

I slammed the textbook shut and nonchalantly slid it off the side of the bed. It collapsed onto the floor as I buried my face into a pillow. I dusted the T-shirt I wore over my shoulders and let out a long, hissing “Ugh”.

I had locked myself in my bedroom ever since we arrived home from school. Throughout the whole car ride home, the blonde boy hadn’t said a single word. I had lazily swung over onto my side and letting the lumpy seatbelt buckles pinch my back. I was never used to car rides, so watching the outdoor surroundings twist and turn made me nauseous.

And I couldn’t sit up with my back straight. The last thing the boy had said to me was very disturbing, and it stubbornly clung onto my thoughts.

“The way he looked at you didn’t look as if you’re just his friend.”

I pried my face off of my pillow. My hair had been repeatedly ruffled once I had gotten home. The silkiness that the hair mousse had left in my hair still remained buried in my almond-tinted locks. But otherwise, my hair had returned to its usual fluffed tangles.

“Of course I’m not just his friend!” I scowled in a whisper. “I’m also his coworker! And a fellow first-year classmate! Besides, I think what that boy said was probably the longest sentence he’s ever spoken!”

“The way he looked at you didn’t look as if you’re just his friend.”

I narrowed my eyes. The way Amanatsu had looked at me was the way he’s always been looking at me. I inferred that the blonde boy had very, very, very strange opinions.

“Wait . . .” I murmured, closing my eyes in thought.

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend . . . ?” I slowly repeated.

I continued to run the sentences through my mind. The blonde boy’s mellow voice etched deeper into my head.

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“The way he looked at you didn’t look as if you’re just his friend.”

I puckered my mouth in confusion.

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“The way he looked at you didn’t look as if you’re just his friend.”

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?!” I shoved my face back into the fluff of the pillow in offense. “There’s no way that guy seriously thought that Amanatsu is my boyfriend! He was probably just messing with me! When you’re a fellow coworker and you’re a fellow classmate, you tend to look at people differently, right?!”

Silence responded to my self speech, and I felt my face redden in embarrassment from talking to myself. Though as I pondered through the peculiar words of the blonde boy and as I pictured how Amanatsu has always been looking at me, a faint ring chimed throughout the bedroom.

I squeaked in anxious shock, whipping my gaze through the room searching for the source of the strange ringing when the small, round table that sat in the corner of the room caught my eye. A tiny red light upon the telephone’s base moderately blinked, and the phone receiver vibrated in place.