Chapter 2

.:.Monday.:.

Hiiya everyone! First off I want to thank Taki @ Artsy Asian Crew again for the amazing poster and background, it captures the essence for my story! Taki, whether you know it or not, you have in fact just helped me- nah, I'll save it for a later chapter ;]
So yea, here we have chapter 2...so hope you like it! <3
[Comment for it brings a huge smile upon the authors face :D]

"Talking"
'Gui Gui's Thoughts'

- - - - -

I sigh anxiously as I started at the clock, three minutes left. I looked at Ms. Cherry, who stood before the class talking and pounding her fist in her palm animatedly. Today’s lesson, sculpting, that’s all I know due to the fact that I haven’t been paying attention for the past hour and twenty-seven minutes.

I turn my gaze back to the clock, after having my fill of staring at the ceiling, one minute and thirty seconds left. I sigh again and attract the attention of a few of my classmates as they give me a weird look. Today I have opted for the seat at the back of the class, the one nearest the door, so everyone including Ms. Cherry, have been throwing me peculiar stares during the entire class period. I have brushed them all off.

My feet are playing a beat on the floor; my head is swaying from side to side… I’m too fidgety in my chair for I can’t wait to see Aaron again.

‘Wait, hear him play I mean, yea… that’s it! Plus I can’t wait to put my plan into motion.‘

I know there’s a smirk on my face and I’m chuckling soundlessly as I think this. More reasons for the class and Ms. Cherry to think I’m crazy.

My thoughts are lost to me as the bell rings and I grab my bag, which I’ve had ready since half an hour ago, and rushed out the door. As I raced down the hallway about to turn right, Ya Tou’s yell reached my ears.

“Gui Gui! Where are you going?” she’s still at the door having just stepped out of the classroom.

“Can’t talk, tell you later!” I hurriedly reply and not even thinking of waiting for her response I continue to the auditorium. I make it to the back door and enter even quieter than last Friday.

‘Strange, he’s not playing yet,’ I shake the thought off and open my bag as quietly as I could and grabbed Aaron’s music sheet before pushing the curtain aside and hiding the papers behind my back quick as a flash.

I felt such an overwhelming wave of disappointment when I noticed he wasn’t there, that I felt tears pool in my eyes. I blinked them away as I put the sheet music on the floor, near the edge of the stage, and put my bag over it. I then proceeded to walk toward the piano.

I sat down on the bench and stared at the ivory keys. I played a few notes before letting my hands just crash against them, making such an ugly sound. The echo haunting me as I let my head hang low, sinking further and further in my own self caused depression.

‘I had been so sure that I could convince him to change his mind… and I really wanted to paint him!’ I sighted pitifully and let my eyes close, hanging my head even lower, that I felt my forehead brush the keys.

“If you’re just going to bang the keys then get out.”

My eyes widened and I turned around on the bench and stared up at Aaron with a big smile on my face.

“Aaron!” I exclaimed and then grinned at him.

He looked down at me and said, “You know my name.”

It was a statement not a question, “Uh, yea. My friend told me,” I replied sheepishly.

‘Oh great, now he probably thinks I’m a stalker. Well, I suppose he doesn’t have a good impression of me because of what happened last Friday anyway… great going Gui,’ I think.

He gives the piano a pointed look and I quickly get off the bench muttering an ‘I’m sorry’ under my breath, as he sits down.

As he shuffles through his bag and pulls out a music book he says, “What are you doing here Ying Jie? I told you last Friday that I didn’t want to be painted. Much less by you.”

“Gui Gui,” I instantly reply.

He raises an eyebrow at me and I explain, “I prefer to go by Gui Gui.”

He makes a ‘hm’ noise at the base of his throat and I continue happily, “I wanted to hear you play again.” Half true.

He glances at me quickly before putting his bag down and finally looks at me, “I don’t like having an audience,” he says coldly.

‘Then why are you a pianist? What does he take me for… stupid?’

As I take in a breath to voice my thoughts, he goes on, “with people like you.”

I scowl, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He cuts me off again and says, “Noisy.”

I let out a huff hoping to be able to finally finish or at least start a sentence, before exclaiming in indignation, “I can be quiet!”

He gives me a pointed look before turning back to the piano and looking through his book. I heard him mutter something under his breath as he looked, when I suddenly remembered his sheet music I have hidden under my bag on the stage floor.

As he continues looking for it, I walk over to my bag and pick up the music sheets under it and hurriedly hide them behind my back.

I walked a few paces forward and then I took it out and waved it in his direction and as he tries to grab for it I pull it out of his immediate reach.

While chuckling softly I say, “If you really want this back… you’ll let me paint you!”

He merely glares at me with those enticing and compelling eyes of his. He kept glaring at me and a stare down battle ensued. My smirk and cocky stance against his glare with his arms crossed over his chest. I can’t exactly say just how long we stayed like that but he soon stopped glaring at me and turned back to his expressionless self.

“You stole it.”

I felt my jaw drop and I replied in an irritated fashion, “I may like to consider myself a ghost who likes to play pranks and trick people but I am no thief!”

“Then why are my music sheets in your possession?”

“You dropped it here. “ I said plainly.

He rolled his eyes at me and replied, “I don’t drop things.”

“Last Friday, when you completely blew off my idea of painting you, you quickly tried to pack up your stuff but you dropped your book and you gathered the papers together like a maniac, in your need to get away from me and then you rushed out of the auditorium. “

I shook the papers in my hand for emphasis and finished my story, “and here it is!”

Aaron uncrossed his arms and laid them on the piano top and lightly rested his face in his palm as he carelessly said, “So after finding it you decided to blackmail me with it.”

I had been nodding my head along and began repeating, “Yes, then I planned to black- wait! I did not!”

‘Gui Gui is neither a thief nor a blackmail person… if that’s even a word, whatever! This is innocent, I’m not –‘ his voice cut off my trail of thought.

He kept gazing at me, “Yes, you are. The basic meaning of blackmail is to make someone do something they don’t want to do simply because you have something over them.”

I tried replying but my stuttering kept messing me up and he continued, “I hate people like you Gui Gui, they’ll do anything to get what they want, good or bad. Selfish,” he said this in a voice so cold it made me tremble and his eyes. With an expression even worse than nothing, his eyes stared at me maliciously.

My eyes had flashed from the floor to his face when he said the word ‘hate’. By the time he finished his little speech I knew I was crying, I felt my tears lightly flow down my cheeks.

‘Do I want to risk Aaron hating me for a painting… a grade?’

“Alright, alright! Forget it!” I throw down the music sheets on the piano top and say, “I guess I’ll just have to find another subject to paint for my project.”

I looked up at him, with tears still slowly trickling down my face, and barely noticed his expression falter as I stepped back leaving the music sheets, my free tickets, on the piano top.

“I’m sorry I tried to make you do something you didn’t want to do. I’m sorry for bothering you and thanks for your time,” I said regrettably and looking in his eyes before turning around and grabbing my bag.

I walked toward the curtain but before pushing it aside, I turned around to look at him once more before saying, “I don’t want you to hate me Aaron.”

I barely saw him lift his head up to look at me before lightly pushing the curtain aside and stepping through it, letting it fall closed behind me. I hid behind the curtain’s opening and let my shoulders slump and sighed inaudibly in an overly dramatic fashion as I made the sound of footsteps, letting Aaron believe I was walking to the exit when in fact I was waiting for him to speak up.

I wait, wait to see if there’s a change, to see if he’ll give me a chance.

…but all I hear is silence and I begin to wonder if I’ll have to truly find a new subject for this project.

I felt another tear fall from my eye as I took an actual step forward, then another; I could feel my hope diminishing with each step, when his voice shattered the relentless silence, “Alright.”

I froze with my foot hanging an inch above the ground, it was quiet again. I lightly put my foot on the ground and titled my head slightly so I could hear better. Hoping he’d say something again.

It stayed quiet for a while more until I was convinced that all that I heard was a product of my own imagination, when he spoke up again,

“Alright… you can paint me.”

I felt my mouth open and close in disbelief… was my hearing correct? Not giving anymore chance to ponder I push on the curtain and crash into a body.

My bag falls from my shoulder and as I stumble back, he grabs my arm to steady me. I look up at him and then glance at the piano before looking back at him in wonder, “How – you – I?” I kept stuttering before I stopped and saw the smirk on his face.

“I knew you were hiding behind the curtain,” he says slyly. I saw his eyes look me over and stop at my face.
My eyes are lost in his until he brings up his right hand, his left still clutching my arm, and he lightly wipes the trail of moisture, that my tears left, from my face. His hand then caresses my cheek in a feather like touch before he abruptly pulls away and walks a few steps away from me, turning his back.

I stare at his back before shaking my head, choosing to ignore his actions just now and the heat that still lingers on my skin, and I ask, “You’ll let me paint you?” the hope in my voice is painfully obvious.

He looks at me over his shoulder before turning his back again saying, “I don’t like repeating myself,” and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

I felt my heart hammering in my chest and I squealed in delight before rushing up to him and hugging him from behind, millions of ‘thank yous’ falling from my lips.

I felt his body stiffen by my touch and I let him go, a bit reluctantly, and step back. He turns around and rolls his eyes at the huge smile that I know is covering my face.

He walks toward the piano and grabs the sheets from the top and places them on the stand before starting to play.

I watch him and notice how he closes his eyes and I look at the small smile that dances on his lips when he plays. He completely loses himself in his playing and I’m amazed at how flawlessly he plays even with his eyes so delicately shut.

As I sit down on the stage floor and let my eyes drift shut, listening to the same sorrowful piece I heard last Friday, I think about my earlier acting.

‘My performance was flawlessly executed but why is it… that I feel that I portrayed the emotions a little too perfectly?’

- -

Well, thats the end of chapter two!

Here's a preview for chapter three:

.:.Tuesday.:.

“So, not that I’m complaining, but why did you decide to let me paint you?” I ask Aaron from my position on the floor.

He just keeps playing keys until I figure that he’s ignoring me and I just keep listening to his playing when he stops and says,

- -

“Whose this girl I hear that you’ve been hanging out with?” I hear Calvin ask Aaron, I tiptoe a little closer and continue trying to overhear.

Aaron takes a bite of his sandwich and says, “What’s it to you?”

Calvin chuckles, “Well, I haven’t seen or heard about you and a girl since Hebe, so I was just curious.”

I saw Aaron falter for a second before regaining his composure before he glared at Calvin, “Just forget about it.”

‘Hebe? Aaron knows Hebe?’

- -

I dragged Aaron along; he was more than reluctant so it took most of my strength to bring him along with me. We continued down the walkway and I let him go, when I was sure he wouldn’t leave, and I rushed to the fountain and stared into it. I looked back at him to find him standing in the spot I left him and he was staring at me strangely,

“What? Do I have something on my face?”

- -

There's the preview! Hope you guys like it! Look forward too it! oh! and comment ;] Xie xie ni for reading :D

Bai Bai, <3
nitaBonita