The Experience Buddy [Completed]

Chapter 12

"I have some doubts about your itinerary now." Hero said as he pulled the car over in front of my dormitory building.

"Are you up for a short hike?" I grinned sheepishly. "I could use some landscape photographs to aid my writing of sceneries."

"Can't you just use google search?" Hero narrowed his eyes.

"It's different to be able to see it with your own eyes." I stated.

"Hmm," Hero paused to think for a while and then nodded. "Okay."

"Okay? Okay??" I repeated, not sure if I heard him correctly.

"What? Are you hard on hearing now?" Hero sneered.

"See you tomorrow!" I exclaimed as I got out of the car, hugging my new plushie tightly. I ran up the steps and turned around to wave as he drove off. Then I skipped back to my room, feeling excited with just the thought of being surrounded by nature.

That night, I fell asleep while hugging the Flounder plushie. The smell of the carnival still lingers.

"Needs...to note...that down..." I mumbled as I dozed off.

The soft morning rays penetrated the window and shone onto my face. My eyes snapped open and I jumped out of bed.

"Good morning!" I chirped when I saw Hero downstairs, leaning against the wall near the entrance of the building. He scanned me from head to toe and gave me a very judgemental look.

I looked down at my attire and then at him. "What?"

"Nothing, let's go."

The destination for today is the scenic trail just behind our campus, the Stanford Dish or just the Dish, for short. I made sure to wear comfortable clothes, aka sweats and joggers, but also had to make sure to keep warm in this cold weather so I wore a jacket on the outside and also had a scarf wrapped around my neck.

"I'm surprised we managed to reach the top within a reasonable amount of time despite you dressing up like a stuffed Thanksgiving turkey." Hero commented.

"That's a...new...insult." I was panting and sweating a lot underneath. The weather wasn't as cold as I thought it would be and the walk actually generated more body heat than I expected. I took off my scarf and jacket and stuffed them into my backpack.

On the way up, I took a whole bunch of photographs including a few with Hero's back view, since I was always trailing behind him. We were lucky that the weather is good today and the sky is clear. From the top we could actually see San Jose, San Francisco and the East Bay. Hero sat down on the grass patch and took something out from his backpack. I snapped a couple more photographs and sat down beside him.

"A sketchbook?" I asked, feeling surprised.

"Yeah." He answered as his pencil strokes began to fill the empty paper with lead. I continued to watch him from the side in awe as he was sketching the view of San Francisco. The way he moved his pencil was like an ice sculptor carving ice, strokes varied from rough to smooth but every movement was with intent and precision.

"I didn't know you could draw so well!" I exclaimed. "Do you always draw landscapes?"

"Yeah. I stopped drawing portraits two years ago." He replied.

"Why?"

"Because with landscapes, their changes are more predictable, unlike people." Hero shrugged.

"Did you draw anything when we were at Lake Tahoe? The view there was amazing."

"Actually, the rest of them don't know this about me." He said in a low voice.

Had I known about his talent earlier, I probably wouldn't have thought of him as a complete good-for-nothing. The guy that I am staring at now has such a complete vibe from the guy I usually know him to be.

"You are burning a hole in my face, again." He snorted.

"I was just thinking that I prefer hanging out with this side of you better." I told him as I picked up my camera and took a picture of him drawing.

"Huh? Whatever." He cleared his throat.

"Anyway, is it that bad to be seen alone with me but it is okay if we hung out in a group?" I put my camera down my lap and crossed my arm.

"Huh?" Hero stopped drawing as he turned to look at me with a perplexed look on his face.

"I had to lie to the rest because you said to 'keep this a secret' as you 'have a reputation to maintain'." I quoted, as I used my fingers to make inverted commas in the air. He continued to have this look of confusion on his face then suddenly, it switched back to his default expression.

"That's because I wasn't sure what activities you were planning on doing." He explained. "It's more of the what I will be doing, rather than the who I will be doing with that is embarrassing."

"I think your womanizing ways are more embarrassing." I told him.

"Girls love me and guys look up to me."

"Not me."

"That's because you are weird." Hero chuckled but his smile faded after a second. Then he looked at me with a serious expression.

"Wait. So you won't tell anyone about this...right? I can't be associated with such nerdy stuff."

Our faces were never within such close proximity of each other before. He was staring at me so intensely that I dared not blink and held my breath. What was five seconds in reality felt like five hours. My heart was thumping so fiercely that I thought it was going to pierce through my chest. Is this how the characters in horror movies feel when they realize they might be meeting the grim reaper soon?

"Uh huh." I gulped.

We stayed at the spot for a while more then we explored the backside of the trail that looks out into the rolling green hills. Afterwards, we went to have lunch nearby and decided to call it a day.