Rio tried to ignore the pounding headache she was experiencing since seven in the morning. She spent two hours in bed convincing herself to get up to start the day, but at around 9am, she finally admitted defeat as her body ached at random places. She felt her face burning up but was not convinced that it was because of the flu. She blamed the fact that her mind could not forget how Ryosuke wrapped his scarf around her neck and acted as if she was his princess.

She squealed internally before whacking herself back to reality, “Damn it, Rio! He likes Amu. Pull yourself together!”, she thought and didn’t even realise that it was already late morning.

The girl gave herself a few shares of contemplation before hearing the doorbell ring in her shabby apartment. Rio then pulled herself towards the door to see her visitor.

“I brought some soup and photocopied notes from this morning’s lecture”, Yuto beamed a smile to the ungroomed lady in front. Quickly, he saw Rio slam the door in panic, “Hey, Rio-chan. Are you okay?”.

“No… I mean Y-Yes! Why are you here, Yuto-kun? I didn’t even brush my teeth yet!”, Yuto heard her muffled voice opposite the door, making him smile for some reason. Rio, on the other hand fixed her bed hair and cursed her decision to stay in bed until late morning. Who would’ve known a handsome tall guy would knock on her door at this hour?

“Kim-chan told me you’re sick. I don’t have any lectures the rest of the day, so I decided to drop by”, Yuto explained and took a glance at two event tickets he was holding, “… also, I wanted to invite you to the game this Friday”. The young boy looked down and somehow, his voice mellowed as if embarrassed to ask. See, their university has an annual football match where all students are invited to watch. Yuto happened to have two tickets for the game and decided to invite Rio. Is this for a date? Who knows?

Yuto decided to knock two more times and finally heard the door creak open which revealed the girl he wanted to see the most. This time, her hair was tied back and the blanket covering her was gone. She still looked like a sick person, but at least not someone who just committed murder. Rio might think she looked rugged, but the boy found her cute wearing her strawberry printed pyjamas.

“Can I at least come in? I brought soup, after all”

“Sure… but don’t come too close, you might get my cold”

“You’ll be worth it”, he whispered in reply. Luckily, Rio only caught a few words.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just have something to eat”, Yuto gestured and led Rio to the kitchen counter.

“Thank you. You really didn’t have to. I’m sure I’ll be back to normal tomorrow… I haven’t finished my mission, after all”

The young boy titled his head in confusion, “Mission?”.

“Eh? It’s nothing. You were telling me something about game tickets earlier?”, Rio cleared , trying her best to divert the awkward topic.

“Oh yes, here”, Yuto handed her two tickets with the said event and seat numbers, “It’s this Friday. I had an extra one, so I wondered if you wanted to go… providing you feel better, of course”. The boy held his breath and waited patiently for Rio to answer. The girl, on the other hand had her eyes locked on the two tickets. She seemed frozen.

“I guess Yama-chan would want to go with Amu to these kind of events”, Rio’s thoughts were so clouded with Ryosuke, that she forgot that Yuto was in the room and heard her soft mumble.

“Ryosuke likes Amu, huh?”, Yuto whispered and was successful in breaking into Rio’s thoughts, “You like Yamada-kun?”.

Rio felt her eyes widen after realising what she accidentally confessed. She cursed at herself for being careless and wished for the ground to open and swallow her whole. Quickly, she shook her head, hoping to save herself from absolute humiliation. “Eh? No no no! You heard me wrong! I don’t know what I’m talking about… You should never believe a sick person. I just—”, she fumbled nervously with her fingers, obvious that she’s trying to hide something.

She was about to utter more nonsense when she felt Yuto’s sudden touch. The girl was taken by surprise, making her take a step back but the boy gently placed his hand on top of her head as if saying “stay close”. Rio gasped after seeing Yuto’s towering body only a few centimetres away, with his lips touching her forehead.

By now, her temperature had risen so much – enough to boil a potato.

“Y-Yuto-kun?”

“Come with me on Friday, and I’ll make you forget him”, he whispered near her ear with utmost seriousness in his tone.

Yuto may have possessed superpowers since Rio felt her head nod once as if being controlled by his voice. “Good. Now get some rest. I don’t want you to miss our date”, he crouched down to reach Rio’s eye level and beamed the brightest smile. Rio found herself frozen and unable to speak. Next thing she knew is that Yuto was already waving his goodbye.

--

Ryosuke scanned the cafeteria table and mentally noted the number of people sat around it. He gave off a big sigh after being brought upon the news of Rio being off sick. He took a seat next to Kei and listened to his ‘always-amusing’ banters with his girlfriend to feed onto his boredom.

“Football match huh? Isn’t this where they do a ‘kiss cam’?”, Kim raised her eyebrow after seeing six tickets h