Chapter 2
Every Girl Needs a Guy Best Friend
“Hello, and welcome to Starbucks! How may I help you?” the female cashier cheerfully chirped upon seeing Zitao walk up to the register, obviously showing her interest in him. The boy, on the other hand, was completely oblivious to her and even found her attitude a little annoying and mentally rolled his eyes.
It was Thursday, which in Lee Tianshi’s and Huang Zitao’s world could only mean one thing: after school Starbucks. Ever since that fateful day when both of them had been treated to a Starbucks by their Dads, both of them had developed a strange addiction for that certain café and up until this day, they always tended use up at least one fourth of their allowance on those weekly outings.
Today, of course, was no different: while Zitao was ordering, Tianshi was intently staring at the pastries lines up there behind the glass, deciding which one they wanted to eat today because they always also got a dessert to share with each other whenever they came.
“Uh… I want a Grande Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino for Zitao and-”
“A Tall White Hot Chocolate with whole milk instead of 2% for Tianshi, am I right?” a voice completed the boy’s order. The boy blinked, surprised, but when he looked up and saw the person who was now talking to him, he felt more relieved.
“Zhoumi-gege!”
“Hi, kiddo, long time no see,” he said and waved at him. Then he turned to the cashier, telling her that he was going to take over for now.
“Well, it was you who went on vacation the last few weeks. Because of that, we actually had to ask for our usual drinks when we’ve been coming here for more than 4 years straight, Ge!”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t try to be all smart with me when I just saved you from that girl over there.”
“What girl?”
“Please, Zitao! That cashier was eyeing you like you were the only pray in a million miles!! What if Tianshi sees?”
“And I already told you, it’s not like that between us…”
“Just keep telling yourself that, boy.”
Zitao was just thinking up of a comeback to what Zhoumi had just said, when Tianshi beat him to it.
“Gege~ you’re back!! We missed you,” she exclaimed and hugged the guy through the counter, not caring that every other customer was looking at her weirdly, especially the ones in the back of the line who were already tired of waiting for their turn.
“Well, at least someone appreciates my being here,” Zhoumi mocked as he felt the glares that Zitao was sending him, only infuriating the boy more.
“Huh?”
“Oh, nothing, Tianshi. I mean, I missed you guys too. So, what’s for dessert today?”
“Cheesecake brownie~!”
“Aright~ Then I’ll have everything for you two ready to go in a sec,” Zhoumin confirmed as he received the payment and finished punching in the numbers on the register.
“Thanks, Gege. See you next week?”
“You know where to find me.”
So while Zitao waited for the drinks to be made, Tianshi took the brownie and the two spoons that Zhoumi handed her and when to sit at their usual table. The girl made herself comfortable and took a bite of the pastry, savoring how delicious it was. But since she didn’t want to risk eating it all by herself, she took out her phone and texted her Oppa. After all, she hadn’t heard from him in a few days.
No new messages.
Tianshi sighed, feeling a little upset over her Oppa’s disappearance, but as soon Zitao placed the hot chocolate in front of her, it immediately turned into a smile. Soon enough, they finished the brownie but the girl was still has her gaze on the glass counter.
“Hey, I don’t know about you, Zizi, but that thing looks really good. I’m going to get one for us, I think it’s new and that’s why we haven’t tried it yet. Look after my stuff, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Zitao nodded and continued to sip his Frappuccino while he patiently waited for her to come back. Suddenly something beeped and out of pure curiosity, the boy couldn’t help but search for the origin of the sound, which turned out to be none other than the very same cellphone Tianshi had placed on the table when he brought her the drink. Zitao knew better than to pry into someone else’s business, especially a girl’s; but as the screen kept lighting up with more new messages, he started fearing that something might’ve been genuinely wrong and that was why Tianshi kept getting so many messages.
So almost instinctively and knowing that his best friend probably wouldn’t mind, the boy grabbed said phone and intended to unlock it to see what all the noise was about when it suddenly asked for a four number password. Zitao blinked confusedly at the screen; Tianshi had never placed a password on either her phone or her laptop, so why had she done so now? Desperately, he tried punching in random numbers: Tianshi’s birthday, her birth year, her parent’s birthday, and every other date or number he could think of that was important to Tianshi, but ultimately getting no result. In the meantime, the phone hadn’t stopped beeping for even one second. So just as Zitao was giving up, he happened to catch a glimpse the name of the person who had been sending all the texts: ‘Oppa’ it read.
Zitao was then even more confused because he knew that Tianshi didn’t call anyone ‘Oppa’. The girl hated being different from all the other students because of her Korean half, so she hardly showed her immense affection towards it outside of her family. The fact that she was calling someone ‘Oppa’ openly and actually writing in Korean with someone that wasn’t her family suddenly made Zitao feel like an outsider.
“Zizi?! What are you doing?”
When he head Tianshi’s scream, Zitao jumped, almost dropping the phone from his hands (‘almost’ because he quickly caught it in the air with his inhumane reflexes).
“I-I-I-… I mean, y-you’re phone… I was just t-trying to see who it was…” he stuttered as he tried to explain the situation. To tell the truth, the boy was startled that Tianshi even cared so much about him looking into her phone. They had never had secrets between them since they basically shared everything with each other, so it was weird for him to see Tianshi get all worked up about something as trivial as this. The only conclusion the boy could get to was that maybe his best friend was trying to hiding something from him.
“Look, just give it here.”
Obediently, or mostly just shocked, Zitao did as told, handing over the device immediately. Tianshi then entered in the numbers and smiled as she read the endless amount of messages sent by her Oppa, apologizing about how he hadn’t replied to her earlier messages because he had an appointment with his roommate that lasted longer than expected. The other messages were just random scribbles asking if ‘Tiannie’ was still mad at him.
Of course, Zitao couldn’t see any of this, and thus his frown only grew as he saw a smiling Tianshi typing back to this so called ‘Oppa’, imagining the worst. It took her a few awkward minutes to finish texting that she wasn’t mad and promptly send the message, not failing to mention how she was with Zitao and how she couldn’t talk right now because of it. She only dared looked back up from her phone once she received an ‘okay’ for a reply, and her eyes were immediately meet by Zitao’s as guilt infiltrated her conscience.
“Zizi, I’m so-”
“Who’s ‘Oppa’?” Zitao interrupted her before she could apologize because, after all, an apology was not what he wanted.
“He… he’s a guy from the university we’re going to in a few months. He’s Korean and when I told him that I was going to that school soon he told me to call him ‘Oppa’ since he’s a sunbae,” Tianshi explained everything as she placed her phone down on the table softly.
“So why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I-I wanted to, really! But I also knew that you were going to get all overprotective of me and tell me to stop talking to strangers, especially online… But, he’s not a bad guy, Zizi, and I really can’t wait to meet him.”
Zitao felt a sharp pain in his heart as he heard Tianshi’s words, but he shook it off, knowing all too well that there was nothing he could do now. He bit his bottom lip as to not show how hurt he actually was, but Tianshi understood it as a sign of displeasure from her best friend.
“Please, Zizi~!! You can come with me to meet him when I do. He already said he’s fine with it!” the girl pleaded. At the sight, Zitao could only nod in agreement, fully giving into Tianshi’s proposal. But he still had one more doubt in his mind that he needed to clear up with her.
“Okay, we’ll go meet this so called ‘Oppa’ of yours… but, just answer me one thing.”
“Sure. Anything!”
“Why did you suddenly put a password on your phone, Tian? Were you really that keen on me not finding out about this ‘Oppa’ guy? Am I really that untrustworthy?”
Tianshi blinked at Zitao’s words. Where in the world was he getting all of this from?
“Of course not, Zizi! And what are you even talking about…? Oh, wait, do you mean this?” she said pointing at the lock screen on her phone and Zitao could only respond with a small nod. “This is here because Appa told me to program it a couple of days ago, didn’t I tell you about it? He said that a lot of phones are being hacked into lately and that if I added this security password, mine would be less targeted or something… Hmm, now that you mention it, I don’t even remember why I had to put it here the first place~” Tianshi shrugged.
“Wait, that’s it? Like, seriously?” Zitao asked in disbelieve. However, all doubts were instantly erased with the girl’s simply response.
“Of course, seriously. Why would I lie to you, Zizi?”
“I don’t know…”
“Look, why don’t I just give you the password and we’ll call it even, huh? Although I’m pretty sure you can guess it on your own~”
“Trust me, I already tried everything,” the boy answered in such a serious tone that made Tianshi stopped laughing and looked at him with wide eyes.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, really, really?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, you’re not even kidding?”
“…didn’t we just go over this, Tian?”
The girl blinked once more, stunned and in complete denial.
“So are you going to tell me or not? Because I already tried every date I could think of in that thing,” Zitao asked as took another sip from his Frappuccino.
Tianshi was still more than a little surprised, but nonetheless grabbed the phone from the younger’s hands and turned the screen towards him before she started to explain.
“When Appa said that the password had to be a four number code that wasn't an actual date, I immediately thought of using a four letter word translated into numbers. It didn’t even take me a minute to figure out which one I wanted to use: ‘Zizi’, which would be ‘9494’ in numbers,” the girl said patiently as she typed in the numbers to demonstrate, only to get a ‘wrong password’ sign again. Zitao looked at her in frustration; he had already had enough of that annoying little red notice. Tianshi, on the other hand, just smiled gently as she continued her explanation. “But Appa told me that I couldn’t use this one because repetitive numbers were too easy to guess, so I had to think of a new number. I stayed there for a while thinking of something easy to remember, just wondering how easy it would be to just have the nickname I gave you in the first place. And that’s what when it hit me, if I call you ‘Zizi’ then you call me-”
“‘Tian’,” Zitao completed and Tianshi eagerly nodded.
“That would be ‘8426’.” The girl entered the numbers and the selca they had taken a few days ago popped up, the image Tianshi used as a background for this week (Yes, because the girl changed it each week with another picture of her and Zitao). “See? I told you it was easy!! Now, let’s eat~”
Tianshi smiled once more at the picture and then proceeded to munch on the white soft cake she had just bought, completely missing how Zitao was blushing at her simple actions. Really, how could he have been so stupid? After all, only Tianshi could come up with something like this that can plaster a smile on his face so quickly. And just like that, all ugly thoughts of Tianshi’s Oppa were removed from his head.
“Anyways, don’t forget that the wedding is this weekend, Zizi~”
“I won’t. You said to meet you at your house at 3:00 pm on Saturday, right?”
“Neh, and my parents will drive us there and back. If we come back too late, though, I think you can just sleep over at my house. Umma and Appa won’t mind.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
~*~
A/N: I feel so bad :( I haven’t updated in forever and I post such a crappy chapter (which is also unedited, by the way, man I feel even worst -.-‘) I’m so sorry!!! This was only supposed to be like an intro to what was supposed to come next… but it just got too long and I decided to post it up as a separate chapter >.<’ Anyways, I have good news, though: the next chapter is already half way done ^^ which means I’ll probably update again by the end of this week~ Yay!! :D So, like always, thank you so much for reading and I hope to see you soon~~!!
Comments