Show started conversing with Aaron, while I struggled not to blush (too much).

“So, how come it is you and the charming Miss Yang taking part in our party, and not your parents?” Show asked.

“My father had a mi… business to do, so he unfortunately didn’t have time to go. Rainie here then agreed to go with me,” Aaron answered. Was Rainie his girlfriend? I never heard he had one…

“Miss Wu, will you please hand me the sauce?”

I looked up. Aaron looked at me. I immediately blushed and gave him the sauce.

“I’m sorry to hear he was too busy. Is Miss Yang a friend of your family?” Alien took part in the conversation.

“Yes, and a very dear one. Her mother, Mrs. Yang, is my mother’s best friends since childhood.”

Once again, I was surprised by Aaron’s behaved way of talking. I fell deeper in love for every word he said, and with the same speed became more incapable of talking myself.

“Gui Gui, are you okay? Do you have a fever?” When Alien talked to me and touched my red cheek, I could feel everyone staring at me.

If he would just not touch me…

He suddenly took his hand away like he had gotten burned. He looked surprised at me.

I could feel the silver ring getting hot around my finger again. Could it get any worse?

“I… I just need some air,” I quickly said, and got up.

To my surprise, Alien said he’d go with me, and I let him follow me outside.

I was thinking about Aaron. If just Amber, Angela and Albee could see him here – behaving like a gentleman. But they were probably out partying and getting wasted without their parents knowing.

Alien also started talking about Aaron.

“…never thought he could be like this. But I guess he has to, I mean, to keep his father’s reputation. Not that it I really that worth keeping…”

I didn’t listen to the rest of his talking. It was just his arguments against Aaron over and over again. The same arguments that everyone, even my best friend, kept telling me.

When the ring had cooled down, I sat down on a bench. Alien sat down next to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked again. I nodded.

He laid his hand on my forehead to check my temperature.

“You’re still warm.”

I didn’t answer. I looked at his hand. He had a small burn on it.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I… don’t really know. It just happened, right before, when I checked your temperature indoors. But your cheek couldn’t possibly be that hot…” he mumbled thoughtfully.

I started staring absent-minded at my ring.

“Gui Gui, have you ever thought about your future?” he suddenly asked. I looked at him.

“Well, I might want to be a…”

“Not that kind of future,” he shook his head, “I’m not talking about any job. I meant; have you thought about your marriage?”

Even though my parents daily asked me this question, I got shocked from hearing it from Alien.

“W-what? N-no, I…”

“Gui Gui, I’ve never said anything about this to you before. But I’ve been admiring you for years now; your nature, your beauty, your sweetness, your jolliness.”

I couldn’t say anything. I became more and more confused.

“I know you might not love me as I love you right now, but that could change, if… if you’re willing to give me a chance?” He looked hopefully into my eyes.

“I… what do you mean?”

“I’m sorry to be so straightforward, but I have to. You are the perfect girl for me. And I can offer you anything you need. Our parents are good friends and would approve of it. I’m going to inherit my father’s business, which means a bright future. We’re from the same society and understand each other. We’re nearly the same age, and in a few years, I’ll have finished my education. You will never need anything. I can’t see my future without you by my side.”

I couldn’t keep the eye contact, and looked away. This just wasn’t happening. Not now…

“Wu Ying Jie, will you marry me?”

It was like his words kept repeating themselves inside my head. I closed my eyes to clear my thoughts.

Alien was proposing. I couldn’t believe it. We had never been more than friends, and now he suddenly… said he had liked me all the time?

I he had just spoken up earlier. Now it all came like a huge shock.

I imagined myself as his bride. I knew he would treat me like a princess. I could see all the plusses about it. All that he had mentioned was true, except for two…

Could he offer me anything I’d need?

What did I need? I hadn’t thought that far. An evil voice in my head told me that I needed Aaron. I pushed it away.

And could I ever be able to love Alien?

I was in doubt; we had been friends for so long. I actually found it really hard to imagine myself as his wife. That would be an unanswered question, and I felt that it was a lot to gamble.

“Alien, I… I think I should thank you. No one has ever said so many compliments to me at once. But…” I took a deep breath and thought about my words.

“I need… time. Time to think. I mean, it’s a big decision, right? I need time to think it through. Will you give me that?” I looked him in the eyes.

“Of course, Gui Gui. I’ll give you everything.”

The rest of the evening was like wandering in a fog.

Alien asked me to dance the first dance with him. I couldn’t say no.

Then I had to dance with Show. And then, to my fear, with Aaron, as we were only six people at the same age.

Alien hadn’t talked much. Or maybe I just didn’t listen. Couldn’t.

The chat with Show while dancing had been jolly and had managed to chase my thoughts away. For some time.

But the conversation with Aaron while dancing had been directly painful.

He had seemed like he could have spent his evening in a thousand better ways than attending the party, and like he wasted his time by dancing with me. I was clearer to me than ever how different our societies were, and it hurt.

I think Genie could feel that I was troubled, but didn’t say anything until the next morning when she came to visit.

We sat in my room and ate some cookies.

“Gui Gui, you didn’t seem all well last night. What happened? I mean, it’s predictable that you got shy when Aaron arrived, but when you came back from the trip with Alien you seemed directly ill, and it didn’t get better…”

“Genie, how should I say this? I’m so confused. No, it’s better to tell it straight.” I took a deep breath.

“When I went outside with Alien to get some fresh air – you remember that, right? Oh yes, you just mentioned it – he said… a lot of things.”

Genie looked anxiously at me as I trembled a bit.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“He… oh Genie, he proposed!” I hid my face in my hands.

“What?!” Genie looked like as if I had just thrown a water balloon at her head. “He… he asked you to marry him?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “He has never hinted anything like that before, and now suddenly…”

I told her everything about our conversation. She gaped when I had finished.

“But how will you answer him?” she asked seriously.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, “I really don’t know…”

I didn’t tell my parents about Alien’s proposal; they would just force me to marry him immediately. I didn’t tell anyone else than Genie.

But I knew Alien had told Show. Actually, I knew that he had discussed it with Show before asking me.

Other than that, Alien didn’t talk about his offer, and when there were other people around – which there was most of the time – he pretended like everything was as before. He was only a bit more attentive and caring towards me.

Aaron also acted like we had never attended the same party, and I decided to ignore it as well.

All this was quite relieving, but my life didn’t get easier.

I had now abandoned to get the silver ring off my finger. It simply wasn’t possible.

But it was only the first strange thing to happen to me in an endless row of weird happenings.

At Monday, Jiro had shouted at me when I walked by him, Aaron and the rest of their group on my way home. I had gotten irritated and had wished for him to stop, and then his school bag suddenly started burning. It wasn’t even a hot day, and the bag had no reason to light up in fire. But his attention got distracted so I could run home.

At Tuesday, it was even stranger. We had a test in Math class, and I was really stressed the last ten minutes, because I had kept thinking about Alien’s proposal and Aaron’s eyes. Something that prevented me from doing the test. But when I was stressing the last minutes, a cold breeze suddenly went through the room. I looked around to see that everyone had frozen. The clock was frozen too. When I had finished the test, everything went back to normal, and no one else seemed to have noticed it.

Things like these kept happening the rest of the week, including papers flying all around the classroom without the slightest wind, a guy getting continuously hit by a football when he tried to steal my money in the schoolyard, Jiro (again) getting a plate of food thrown on his face by no one, just out of sudden, and most importantly; whenever Alien touched me and I wished for him to let go, it was like he got burned. Just like it had happened at the party.

At Friday, I told Genie that I was afraid I had gone crazy. She had witnessed several of the incidents, and tried to calm me down by blaming it on coincidences, but I was panicking more and more.

I also kept meeting Rainie everywhere since the party. Not that she had gotten friendlier, but that didn’t keep her from talking to me. Actually, she seemed coldly interested in the weird things that kept happening to me. But I also kept speculating about her relation to Aaron.

Just when Genie and I finished our ballet training, someone called me.

“Hi, you’re talking to Wu Ying Jie,” I answered the phone.

“Hello, Wu Ying Jie. I need to speak to you.” I didn’t recognize the voice.

***

Hi again *waves*

Fast enough? :B

Alien proposed to Gui Gui – how will she answer?

Who is the mysterious person calling her?

And what about all the weird things that happen to her?

Please please please leave a comment :]

- Blitz