I sat in my seat at the four person long table.  Stupid class.  Home-cooking, seriously?  I’m 16 for crying out loud.  I live at home with my parents.  My mom does all the cooking.  Why the hell would I ever need to know how to cook right now?

            I glared angrily at the supplied and ingredients placed in front of me.

            My chipper friend, Yumi, bounced into the class.  I waved as she came over to me.  “Cooking!” she squeaked at me.  I laughed.

            “Yeah, yeah, sit.  The note on the board says that the first project is a partner one,” I told her, lifting my backpack off the stool next to me.

            “Assigned partners and I’m not yours,” she replied.  My pag slipped out of my hand and hit the floor.

            “What?”

            She giggled.  “Says so on the door.  Didn’t you read the rest of the note on the board?”

            “Clearly not…”  I studied her with narrowed eyes.  “You got a good partner, didn’t you?  That’s why you’re happier than normal.”

            She grinned widely and nodded.  “Nakajima Yuto.”

            Yeah, I thought bitterly, I’d be happy cooking with Yuto, too.

            “So then who’s my…” I trailed off as a slender boy not much taller than me slowly made his way toward the table.

            “Hey, you’re Shika, right?  The sheet says we’re partners,” he said with a bright smile that made me smile automatically back at him.

            “Bye, Yumi,” I said, batting my eyes at her.

            She chuckled.  “Yeah, bye.”  And she bounced off to where Yuto was sitting at a table near the back of the class.

            Ryosuke slid into the seat next to me.  At least he’s cute.  He held out his hand to me.  “I’m Ryosuke.”

            “Hi,” I greeted him, slipping my hand into his.  He was cute and polite.  I’d seen him around school, but I’d never actually officially met him.

            He shook my hand a second longer.  “Nice to meet you.  I’m really bad at cooking,” he confessed.

            Letting go of his hand, I covered my mouth to laugh.

            “I think we’re in trouble then because I’m pretty bad myself,” I admitted.

            Just then our teacher came around and handed us the directions to make today’s project.  Ryosuke picked it up first.

            “Cesar salad?” he read curiously.

            “Sounds easy enough,” I shrugged.

            “First day, I’m going to go easy on you,” our teacher called from her place at the front of the class, as if she’d heard us.  She smirked wickedly.  “Don’t get used to it.”

            “Way to pop our bubble,” Ryosuke mumbled.  I laughed.

            “Ok.  First, wash lettuce.  Slice eggs.  Wash or slice?” I asked, holding up a bowl of eggs in one hand and a bag of lettuce in the other.

            “Um, wash please?” he answered, reaching for the lettuce.

            I nodded and handed it over to him.  This would be super simple, I thought as I pulled the already shelled eggs out of the bowl.  I picked up the only knife our teacher gave the sets of partners to use.  A ginormous butcher knife.

            The first egg I managed to cut up nicely and rather quickly.  I clearly got cocky because I figured that I could go faster with the second egg.

            And I just ended up slicing into my finger.

            I gasped and then groaned.  “Ow, ow, ow!”  I ground my teeth together to keep the swear words in my mouth and clutched at the hand of my now bleeding finger.

            “Are you ok?  What…whoa!” Ryosuke yelped. 

            “Ow…” I moaned.  That really hurt.  I cradled my injured finger to catch the blood that was oozing from the slice.  “Owie, Ryosuke, could you ask the teacher for a band-aid please?”  I was so focused on keeping my blood from dripping onto the classroom floor, it took me a second to realize he hadn’t answered me.

            And that a crowd was forming around our table.

            “Ryosuke?” I called, looking around when I couldn’t see him out of the corner of my eyes.

            “Get the nurse!” another student yelled.

            It’s just a cut.  It’s not that…oh.  I’d found Ryosuke.  He was on the floor.

            Out cold.

            Ryosuke was really lucky he’s a cute guy.  Not only did he pass out at the sight of the little blood on my finger, but when he passed out, he bonked his head on the stool on his way down.  If he wasn’t so cute and, from what I saw in the two minutes we talked before he passed out cold, he was really nice.

            Which is why I accompanied his unconscious self to the hospital.  Where I finally got a band-aid for my poor forgotten finger.

            I sat back in the chair next to his bed at the hospital after I stepped out of his room to call my parents at work to tell them what happened and that was why I’d be late coming home.  Not that it mattered too much.  As high priced Tokyo lawyers, neither one of them would be home early either. 

            Back to Ryosuke.  No concussion, but when he did wake up, he was going to have one killer headache.

            It was only a few minutes before I saw him stir a little.  He moaned and tried to push himself up a bit higher on his pillow.  I sat upright and bolted forward to help him.

            “Ow,” he groaned after I’d helped him get comfortable on his pillow.  His eyes fluttered open and they darted around the room, confusion clouding his features before they landed on me.  He smiled tiredly.  “Are we in a hospital?” he wondered.

            “Yes,” I answered.  Holding up my bandaged finger, I continued to answer his unasked question, “I cut my finger.  Blood dripped out.  You hit the floor.  Bonked your head.  The school called your parents to tell them where you are, but it’s rush hour right now, so it might be a while before they can get here.”

            “You stayed with me?” he asked curiously.

            “Yes,” I laughed.  “It was kind of my fault you knocked yourself out.”

            He chuckled.  “How…”

            “Nice of me?” I teased.

            “Actually, I was going to say how embarrassing or perhaps how awkward,” he admitted.  “But ok yeah, let’s go with nice of you.  Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.”

            We spent the next couple of hours talking and getting to know each other a bit.  He was really funny.  Our conversations were easy.  They came naturally.  It felt like we’d known each other for years rather than had just met today.  He was an awesome person.  I got that feeling from him.  I thought about him all night.  Replaying our conversations in my head and still giggling.  I couldn’t wait until I saw him at school the next day.

            Except, it wasn’t the same when I did see him.

            I stalked the halls looking for where his locker would be.  I was hoping to catch him there before first period started.  On my second go around, luck was on my side, and I saw him.  Taking books out of his locker.  Looking all cute in his school uniform.

            I hurried up next to him and bounced up onto my tip toes a couple times.

            “Ryosuke!” I greeted him happily.  “Hi!”

            He didn’t look at me right away.  In fact, he finished organizing his books around in his locker before he even looked at me.

            “Hey,” he said before slamming his locker shut and walking away.  What parallel universe did I enter?  This is clearly Ryosuke’s evil, mean twin.

            Blinking out of my daze, I rushed after him.  “Ryosuke?”  He just kept walking.  Even though he wasn’t that tall, his legs were much longer than mine and I had to truck it to keep up with him.  “Ryosuke?  What’s wrong?”  He turned the corner to head toward his classroom.  I lunged forward and caught his arm.  The only thing that made him actually stop and look at me.  I blinked at him.  Eyes wide with confusion.

            His face was cold.  Nothing like it had been yesterday.  But his eyes.  There was something in them.  His eyes were dark.  Sad.

            “Stop.  I have to go to class,” he said coolly.  With one last gaze at me with those liquid brown eyes of his, he took off again, but I couldn’t get my legs to move so that I could follow him.

            I didn’t see him the rest of that day and I had the entire long, painfully long, weekend to think about what could possibly cause that change in him.  Granted, I didn’t know him well.  I only felt like I did.  No, that wasn’t true.  I did know him.  We talked for hours at the hospital that day.  I understood him and he totally got me.

            So then what happened?  What changed?  His eyes.  The answer had to have been in his eyes.  I just didn’t know what it was.

            He wasn’t in school again on Monday.

            Or any other day for that matter.

            The hours turned to days, days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and the months went by.  Eventually, Ryosuke’s image dulled in my mind’s eye.  I didn’t even have a photo of him.  My friends didn’t know him.  No one said anything.  I didn’t know what happened to him.  It was like he just disappeared.

            One year later, I found myself in another home cooking class.

            Another. Damn. Cooking. Class.

            Still live with my parents.  My mom still cooks for us.  I still don’t care about cooking.  And I don’t even remember a flipping thing I learned from last year’s stupid home cooking class.  Plus!  Plus, this time, Yumi – or any of my friends for that matter – weren’t in this period’s home cooking class!  So now it’s just me.  Me. Cooking.

            This time though, just thinking about being in a home cooking class not only made me angry, it made me sad.  It also stupidly reminded me of Ryosuke.

            I felt my blood boil thinking of him.  More than when I looked at the ingredients and supplies in front of me at my cooking station.

            Yamada Ryosuke.  I’d wring your neck if I could get my hands on you.  On your smooth, white skin.  That handsome face.  His… 

            No!  Don’t like him anymore!  He disappeared!  He was a jerk and then he disappeared!  After we talked for hours!  After I stayed with him!  What a girl.  Who passes out from seeing a little blood?

            I scoffed, but deep down, I was still a little sad.  Even a year later.

            Someone cleared his throat.  I’d been so caught up, grumbling and reminiscing and trying to hate on Ryosuke, I hadn’t noticed that someone suddenly occupied the stool next to mine.

            “Hey,” he said.

            I turned to look at him.  I gasped, inhaling my gum.  Coughing until it went down my throat, I blinked at him.  It couldn’t be.

            “Ryosuke!”

            “Hey,” he repeated shyly.

            A feeling of pure happiness washed over me, but then it passed.  Replaced by anger.  I glared at him.

            “Ryosuke,” I hissed.

            He cringed back a little.  “Shika, I understand that you must be upset with me…”

            “Upset?!  Upset with you?!” I shouted.  The teacher hadn’t arrived yet, but a few other students who were sitting at their own stations, began to stare.  “Damn right I’m upset with you!”  I heard the whispering from a couple of girls sitting behind me.  I groaned inwardly and lowered my voice.  “You disappeared!”

            “I know, but I-”

            “You were a jerk to me and then you disappeared!”

            “Right, but-”

            “I stayed with you for an hour while you were passed out in the hospital!  I went with you to the hospital after you passed out, like a girl might I add, and banged your head!  You knocked yourself out!” I growled.  “A drop of blood and you fainted!”

            “Also true.  Just let me-”

            “We talked for hours.  I thought we hit it off, but then you were a jerk to me.”  I lowered my gaze, sadly.

            When I looked up to meet his eyes again, he looked sad himself.  Regretful.

            “Well?  Don’t you have anything to say to me?” I demanded.

            “I’ve been trying…” he mumbled under his breath.

            “I’m finished,” I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest.  “You may speak. Now.”

            He sighed and his eyes bore into mine.  “The day I met you, that night when I went home, I found out my father was offered a contract job in Seoul.  My family and I were going to move out of Tokyo.  That weekend,” he confessed.  I felt my mouth drop open a little.  “It was for a year and it was a really great opportunity for him, so he had to take it and we had to move that weekend.  My dad’s company sent guys over to pack up all our stuff in about five hours.  Everything was going so quickly.  The next day, after we talked at the hospital, I saw you and all those weird feelings came back to me.  I really liked you.  Even after only a short time.”  He laughed lightly, a little embarrassed and looked down at his hands in his lap. 

            “I liked you, Shika, but I was leaving.  I wanted to talk to you.  I wanted to ask you out.  I wanted to spend more time with you, talking and laughing.  I wanted to have fun with you some more, but I was getting ready to move.  I couldn’t do anything.”

            “You liked me?” I whispered.  So it wasn’t just me.  He felt what I’d felt that day.

            “Yes, very much!” he blurted out, eyes wide.  His cheeks flushed pink.  “But what could I do?  I was leaving.  I knew you had to feel the same thing for me.  When you came up to my locker that morning, you had that look on your face.  I knew you liked me, too.  I knew you felt the connection we had.”

            “So you were a royal jerk?”

            He scoffed and shrugged, shaking his head.  “I don’t know.  I think I just thought it would be easier for you if your last memory of me was of me being a royal jerk.  Then you’d just forget all about me.  I wasn’t sure if we’d come back to Tokyo after my dad’s contract was up in Seoul.  There was a chance we could move to another city, so I couldn’t tell you, just in case we did move again.”

            I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t put together a sentence.  So it was sadness I saw in his eyes that last day.

            “I thought, too, that it might be easier for me.  If I thought you hated me, I figured the feelings would go away…” his voice trailed off.  He brought his eyes back up to meet mine.  “But they didn’t!  Whatever connection we had, it’s still there.  For me.  I understand if whatever you felt has faded, but-”

            “I began to forget what you looked like,” I told him quietly.

            He smiled, ruefully and nodded.

            “But those bizarre feelings never wavered,” I added.

            His face lit up.  “Really?!”

            I nodded, shyly.  His eyes darted around the room quickly before he leaned closer to me and pecked me on the cheek.  I felt my face grow warm.

            “You know,” he began, settling back into his seat.  “First project in class is making dessert with a partner.  We can pick our own partners though.  Want to be partners?”  He grinned sweetly.  I nodded and reached across the table to get the paper with the directions on it.

            “Strawberry cake,” I read, looking up at him.  “Step one, chop up two cups of strawberries.”

            Nervousness flashed through his face as he eyed the butcher knife sitting on the table with the rest of our supplies.  “How about I use the knife this time?”

            I giggled.  “I’ll wash the strawberries first then,” I told him.  Then smiling teasingly, I added, “Try to be careful.  Wouldn’t want you cutting yourself and bleeding all over the place now, would we?”

For: Sherry

By: ZoE aka ret097