Two days later, during professional graphic design I

 

“Girl.”

“What the heck do you want?”

“Here, have this.”

 

You frowned and hesitantly took the weirdly very Japanese-styled lunchbox Eli – yeah, you had decided to finally call him by his name, or, at least, by something that was more of a name than the nickname you had given him – handed you.

 

“What is it?”

“Rice with salted salmon, tamagoyaki, sweet pepper, broccoli…”

“Vegetables.”

“Yeah?”

“And egg.”

“Also. What’s wrong with that?”

“I hate eggs. Same for vegetables.”

 

He rolled his eyes, sighing deeply. “So picky…”

 

You threw the lunchbox back at him and shrugged.

 

“So what? I’m the one who would have to eat that stuff. If you like it, eat it. I don’t care, I won’t eat it.”

“What do you like eating then?”

“Pasta.”

“Just that?”

“Cheese. Chocolate. Popcorn. Salami. Chicken. Turkey. Tomatoes. Soy sauce. Dumplings. Sushi.”

“… apples?”

“I’m allergic to apples. And pears. And pineapples.”

“… wow.”

“And I’m pretty intolerant to lactase. I’m also allergic to pollen, cut grass, hay, dust, cats, dogs…”

“I’m allergic to cats too, but… is there anything you’re not allergic to?”

“Pasta.”

 

The interior face of his hand, more commonly called a palm, violently and noisily met the top of his face, more commonly called a forehead. You chuckled. What a dork. A jerk dork, but a dork.

 

“What.”

“Well…” he sighed. “Pasta. Is your life turning around pasta?”

“Yep. Especially alfredo.”

“Weren’t you intolerant to lactase?”

“Only when taking it directly, like drinking milk. Dude, my life would if I had stomachaches from eating the slightest amount of it.”

“…”

“What.”

“You called me ‘dude’. Unless I haven’t heard right.”

“I did call you ‘dude’. Everyone’s ‘dude’.”

“It’s still an upgrade. I leveled up.”

“You can’t choose where to put upgrade points.”

“What are my stats?”

“0 for ‘cooking’, 0 for ‘friendship’, 0 for ‘smartness’…”

“0 overall then,” he sighed.

“Exactly.”

 

He breathed deeply and sat back on his chair.

 

“I see. Let’s see… then what do I upgrade, if I leveled up from whatever you called me before, to ‘dude’?”

“You have 1 for ‘nickname’. Isn’t that enough? Clearly that’s what leveled up.”

 

He laughed softly, and you actually felt something inside of you twitch a little. That sounded so cu- wait. Nope. Not cute. Nothing about this guy was cute. Nothing at all. He wasn’t cute. He was just annoying as . And cute- NO, NOT CUTE. That guy was NOT cute. You were NOT falling for him in less than a week. You were NOT forgiving him too easily. You were NOT going to forgive him that easily. You were going to hate him until he’d just GTFO without ever coming back. Yep, that’s what you’d do…

 

“Sure, I like that upgrade! I prefer being called ‘dude’. Think you will call me ‘Eli’ someday?”

Only in my deepest inner thoughts. “Nope.”

“I see…” he said softly, his dark eyes looking at you and a faint, tender smile on his lips. “It’s okay I guess. I’m already satisfied to have a new nickname.”

 

Cu- wait, no, this guy was NOT cute. Shut up, heart. Listen to brain a bit more.

 

“I don’t understand you. But sure,” you mumbled.

“Anyway, erm… what could I make for you for lunch tomorrow?”

“What the heck are you talking about? Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“Oh, right. Still, it would probably be useful to work on the logo together, right?”

“Dude, we each have a different logo.”

“Right… then… would you like to go out and do something?”

“Nope. Got homework.”

“How bad can it be? I mean, it will probably be a lot worse towards the end of the session.”

“…”

“Please? C’mon, we have like, what, two things to do for this week?”

 

You stared at him with a ‘are you kidding me’ face.

 

“Three, actually, and two of them are horribly long to do. Drawing a societal ad, or whatever the name of this thing in English is, and finishing a storyboard… you don’t finish this in two minutes. It’ll take me at least six hours for each of them.”

“Six hours for the storyboard? But you don’t need to make it precise…”

“Dude. I’m ing too perfectionist. My storyboard has detailed explanation of everything I’ll be doing, shadows and lights on the drawings and-”

“You got time to spare…”

“I got time to spare away from you.”

“…”

 

He sighed.

 

“Then… can I do anything for you? Anything that would make you happy…”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Sure about that?”

“Yep. Anything.”

“I’d like a good DSLR. With a good lens that is not the kit one because the optical quality on this is baaaad.”

“Canon, Nikon, Sony…?”

“Wait, what? Are you serious?”

“I’m totally serious. But I’ll buy it for you only if you come with me and tell me which one you want.”

“Dude, I was kidding.”

“Well, I wasn’t. Would a good camera make you happy?”

“It would, but you’d be stupid to buy one for me. Considering you’ll leave in two months anyway…”

 

There. With that, you had told him you wanted him gone in two months, or, actually, a bit less than two months. You would less easily go back on your decision not to forgive him, like this. You couldn’t just be like one of those fangirls, tsk.

 

“Still,” he insisted, “what would you like? Just name a camera and a lens and we can go and try to find these at Lozeau?”

“You’re ing crazy, dude. Of course my dream camera will be ing expensive. Same for the dream lens.”

“I don’t care, just tell me what you want.”

“I’m not even experienced enough to be able to take advantage of any good camera’s abilities…”

“I don’t care, I said. Just tell me.”

“…”

“C’mon, just tell me.”

“Let me go to Lozeau and see what they’ve got first.”

“Sure, let’s go after class.”

“I said, let ME go to Lozeau.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t need someone right next to me.”

“…”

“I’ll be nice, I won’t ask you for a Canon EOS 1D X.”

“A what?”

“A professional camera that’s like the Holy Grail of photography… It’s like more expensive than anything I’ve ever had in my entire bank account so far,” you sighed, shivering, remembering the price you had seen on a review.

“Which would mean…?”

“At best, 7 000$ body only, which means, you have to buy the lens on top of buying that baby.”

“.”

“Yep. I won’t ask you for a Canon 5D Mark III either.”

“…?”

“An extremely good camera with amazing image quality. 3 000$ body only.”

“Oh.”

“A 6D would probably be perfect for the price…”

“…”

“… but it’s pretty expensive at, I think, 1 700$ body only. So let’s just go for the cheapest ones that still look pretty good…”

“Which would be?”

“Which would be the reason why I want to go to Lozeau. I want to compare features and prices.”

“Okay.”

 

You sighed and closed your laptop, getting up.

 

“Where are you going?” he asked as you took your money.

“Out of this class. I need food,” you growled, glaring at his lunchbox.

 

“Food I like,” you specified before stepping out of the class and going to the cafeteria. You heard him ran after you, and you sighed when he caught up to you.

 

“Wait,” he said softly. “I’ll be paying for you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Please? You can take whatever you want.”

“I don’t need your financial help.”

“C’mon. I know you like Arizona green tea.”

“… how could you know?”

“Arizona is one of my favorite drinks, and I don’t think anyone could really hate it, so…”

“Lucky guess, then?”

“Really, you like it? I’ll pay a bottle for you, if you don’t want me to pay everything.”

 

You were planning on getting a normal juice bottle, since it was less expensive, but… You shrugged.

 

“Fine.”

 

It was just one bottle of Arizona. Just one.