Bright for the Win

Chapter 12

A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Ohm's POV

Even though Win had denied being in a relationship with his roommate I could feel some kind of tension in the air between them, like one of them had some kind of feelings involved for the other.

Well, I am a very patient man. I am not the type to pull the object of my desire into my arms when he clearly is not ready, but I am the kind who relentlessly pursues from a distance until he finally realizes that I was the one he had been looking for all along.

I instructed Win to keep his ankle bandaged and to not put his weight on it for the rest of the day, and then I made a quick nod to his roommate before heading out of the room.

I didn't have classes until after lunch. A quick glance at my phone told me it was a few minutes past eleven. Although I had a good breakfast with Win at my house I was starting to feel hungry again. I thought of driving over to the Mexican restaurant where Win and I had dinner yesterday evening but decided against it at the last minute. For some reason I didn't feel inclined to deal with the heavy mid morning traffic outside the campus. Maybe I should have some Thai food instead.

I slowly walked through the campus walkways that led to the mini plaza. Some girls who were walking the opposite way smiled at me as I walked past them. I smiled back and kept walking.

Soon I reached the mini plaza and made my way to the Thai restaurant. I could see through the glass walls that there weren't too many students having their lunch there yet. The restaurant can get pretty busy during the lunch hour which was still a good thirty minutes away.

I pulled at the heavy glass door and walked in just as someone was rushing out. His head was bowed low and I wasn't at all surprised that he bumped right into me.

I held him by the sides to keep him from losing his balance.

"Mind where you're going, buddy," I said, not feeling offended at all that he had mindlessly ran right smack into my chest.

His hands had automatically clung to my sides to keep himself from falling. He looked up wide eyed at my face. Then he quickly let go, saying, "I'm terribly sorry. I should have watched where I was going."

"No problem," I replied with a smile.

I belatedly realized after he rushed out the door that his face looked vaguely familiar to me. Where had I seen him before. I didn't think that he was in any of my classes. Or maybe he was. It was only a few days since the start of classes so I wasn't all that familiar with most of my classmates yet.

After I gave my order and sat down at a corner table, my mind somehow went back to the fellow student who had bumped into me just a few minutes ago. I was feeling a bit annoyed with myself that I could not place his face any where in my memory.

I smiled my thanks at the pretty young lady who brought my order to my table. I took a sip from the glass of iced strawberry lemonade before taking a bite out of the beef satay. Mmm... I enjoyed the savory taste of it.

And then it hit me. At the same time I wondered if he had recognized me. I remembered how he had looked wide eyed at my face. Was it because he had recognized me or was it just because he had not expected to bump into anyone as he tried to rush out the door. Why was he trying to rush out of the restaurant anyway.

My mind flew back to my elementary days. We had both gone to an exclusive school for boys back in the city where both he and I had grown up. He went to a different classroom but I would notice him during recess and physical education class when sometimes our classes would merge in the playground.

On one particular day I had noticed some kind of commotion in one area of the playground where the students had gathered before the start of physical education class. I quickly walked towards where the commotion was to see what was causing it.

Some boys were beating up a poor helpless student on the ground.

"Hey!" I yelled, breaking into a run.

The three boys who were beating him up stopped what they were doing to see who had yelled at them. They recognized me. They knew that I could beat them to a pulp if I had wanted to. At the same time, they knew that I was the scion of the biggest donors of the school who had a big say in the affairs of the school. They knew better than to mess with me. They stood up and slowly walked away from the student who was still lying on the ground. One of the bullies put two fingers against the side of his head as a gesture of salute to me before following his companions.

I went closer to the boy on the ground and then knelt beside him. Except for some scratches on his forehead he wasn't bleeding profusely anywhere.

"Can you get up by yourself? Do you need my help?" I asked, already extending my hand to him.

He took it with a grateful expression on his face. I lifted him from the ground. I must have tugged too hard because when he got to his feet he got pulled against my chest. I held him tight to keep him from losing his balance and falling back to the ground.

"Thank you for coming to my rescue," he said in such a soft voice that I almost didn't hear what he was saying.

"No problem, buddy." I said, patting him on his shoulder.

He winced. Oops, he must have hurt his shoulder when he landed on the ground earlier. I shouldn't have patted him anywhere on his body in case it was a part that hurt.

My attention went back to my food. The beef satay was really delicious. It had been cooked to perfection. I should tell the cashier to give my compliments to the chef later when I go to pay my bill. I should order a takeout of it to bring to Win. I was sure that he would still be unable to get around to buy food for himself.

"Care for some beef satay?" I texted Win and sent a picture of it with my text.

I was so focused on my text message and text pic that I did not realize that someone had been standing beside my table.

I looked up and came face to face with the student who had bumped into me.

"I remember now who you are," he said, his face studying mine intently.