Star & Kai

one

Kai parked his black car in front of Star's house. 'im outside' he texted her. Somehow, Star always feel annoyed by Kai's way of texting. He never makes it right. It's either wrong spelling, punctuation, or grammatically wrong. But she knew that it's only her that's paranoid about it, no one even cares about those when they text. Not long after, Star came running out.

"Should I bring the keys?" she shouted as she opened the gate.

A voice from inside shouted back. "No! Just call me when you're home!" it said.

Star rushed out of the gate and hopped into Kai's car. "Ready?" Kai asked. Star nodded. She buckled up her seatbelt and took Kai's phone that was plucked on to the car's USB.

"I'm changing the songs. And put on your seatbelt!" she said, punching his left arm.

Kai laughed. "Nope," he said, popping the 'p'. If you know him, he always buckles his seatbelt. But he put it behind his back, just easy enough to push it around him before the police catches him. It's his habit.

"I'm not responsible for any harm that may happen. But I pray that there won't be any. Where are we going, by the way?" Star asked as she looked at the back seat. It was clean. Cleaner than yesterday. The other day, she left lots of tissues there due to crying over sad songs that Kai played.

"You want sushi or Italian?" he asked. "There's this really good Italian place in the mall. We should go there. It's in the west side of the city though," he continued.

Star looked through his phone. "This place?" she asked as she showed Kai a picture of him and his friends in an Italian restaurant. "Well, it's up to you. I'm down for any," she replied.

Kai nodded. His eyes kept looking straight forward, sometimes glancing at his best friend. They've been best friends for almost two years now. People have been asking about their relationship. They weren't sure that Star and Kai were just 'best friends'. Their closeness were real. That made them doubt their relationship.

***

"That's all. Thanks," Kai said as he finished his order. He pulled out his phone from his pocket and got busy. Star wasn't doing the same. She was admiring the sushi place. Yes, they ended up being in a sushi place since Kai craved for sushi. For a moment, Star doubted that he liked the Italian restaurant since he brought her here instead of it. Kai always brought her to his favorite ones, not the ones that he 'just like'.

Star hated silence. It made her felt awkward. She started to make conversations with him. But he was too busy with his phone.

"So, we're still going to the youth right?" Star spoke up.

Kai looked up from his phone. He put down his phone on the table. He knew Star. He knew that she wanted to have real talk. Not just chitty chatty talks through texts. "That's just useless. It's wasting your time," he remember Star said.

"Um, yes. Do you want to go to the west one or the east? I mean, we're closer to the west branch but if you want to go to the east, we can go there too," he replied. He ran his long, sleek fingers along his dyed gray hair.

"Let's go to the east. I've promised Nixie that I'll be there. Is that OK for you to drive back to the east?" Star asked again. She just wanted to make sure it was fine for her best friend to drive all the way back to the east.

Kai nodded. He looked around, just trying to familiarize himself with his surroundings.

"Hey, look. Have you ever tried these? It looks good," he said, pointing at a plate with some kind of sushi on it. The plate was moving around in a moving machine that goes around a big table.