“You two look so absolutely perfect together!” Riko commented.

“Me and him?! NO WAY!” Erika answered in frustration.

“Why is your reaction so big?” Riko was curious. It was very unusual for Erika to behave this way in school. Erika always put in a lot of efforts to maintain her image as a gentle ideal girl.

“Never mind. We shall talk about this later. That annoying guy is here.” Erika snorted and returned to work.

As Nino walked into the class, he had a pleasant smile which brightened the classroom. Many female classmates were mesmerized by him. As he neared Erika, he found it a little harder to maintain his smile. He felt the urge to grin at her but yet also frown at her.

“Morning, class leader!”He was trying his best to address her as politely as he could.

Erika looked up from her book and gave a lovely smile towards Nino which made the entire class jealous and envious.

“Good to see you all ready for school! Just call me Erika will do.”

The teacher cleared his throat as he realized his class was staring at the beautiful illusion of the prettiest girl and most handsome guy in class smiling at each other.

No one in class was paying attention to him, though he did admit that he cannot take of his eyes off the two charismatic characters as well.

However, none of them seem to realize the hot sparks of fury in their eyes. They were very frustrated with each other, despite the smiles on their faces. Only the two understood each other.

In their minds, they were recalling the scenes from yesterday…

Erika was at the condominium block that she was staying in. As she walked past the security guard on duty, she waved to him in a friendly manner.

“Hi, Uncle Tao! Evening! I suppose your son is working the night shift and buy you dinner as usual!”

The security guard chuckled and nodded, “Miss Toda, thank you for your concern! Anyway, you have a new neighbour who seemed to be of the same age as you. He just moved in just earlier. Hope you have a nice neighbour. Your lift is here! Have a good rest then!”

Erika smiled and stepped into the lift. “A new neighbour?” She wondered to herself about what kind of a new neighbour she would get.

There were only two units on the left and two on the right. Erika stayed on the right side of the floor. Her unit was the most inner unit. As she approached her unit, she could see cardboard boxes outside the unit next to her.

She was trying to walk to her house when one of the boxes hit her.

“Itai!” she let out a yelp.

“Oops! Ah! My games!” Another male voice exclaimed at the same time.

He ran out of his new house to check his precious games which had just fallen out of the box and scattered on the floor.

Erika was irritated by his act.

“Hey, shouldn’t you apologise and check on me first? Not those stupid games!”

“Hey, how dare you call my games stupid? Your own clumsiness had led to yourself being hurt! You are the one who should apologise to me for hurting my baby games!” The new neighbour stood up and spoke with fury in his voice.

As their eyes met each other, they gasped.

“It is you!”

In their minds, they were having the exact same thoughts as well. “Oh no! My image! Hey, he/she is not as nice as he/she was as well!”

“You are such a good actor, aren’t you? Acting as the shy and sweet-smiling Prince?” Erika mocked.

“Well, thank you for the compliment. You aren’t that bad yourself. I can’t help it if the girls want to treat me as their prince. It is not my fault for being such a charmer.” Nino retorted.

“You egoistic jerk who does not know how to apologise for your mistake! You are such a mean person who do not even bother to check on an injured girl! How can a person like you be a prince? I shall tell this to the class.” Erika was mad.

“Hey, hey, hey! You hurt my precious games and caused them to fall. You did not apologise. The way you shouted at me earlier will tarnish your own pretty image of being a gentle and demure Princess too!” Nino was not going to give in.

“You!” Erika wanted to continue arguing. Then she put on a sweet smile on her face and walked towards Nino.

She pinched his cheeks, “You are so cute! How about we make a deal? Let’s just be ourselves at home. In school, both of us need our perfect images.”

He used his fingers to caress her face gently and helped to put some of her hair back into position as well. “Sure thing, sweetheart. But how are you going to compensate for my injured games?”

“Oh.” Erika was enraged within but she kept her composure. “Well, this!”

She stepped on Nino’s foot and quickly entered her own unit.

“Itai! You mad woman!” Nino threw a quick comment as he jumped in pain.

…

Back to the reality, the perfect couple was putting their acting skills to test. They were frequently discussing topics fervently as they tried to outwin each other.

However, to others, they were just like a lovely couple bickering.

In the end, Erika won. However, she did not win with words. Nino had concluded his argument with a weird analogy. Erika could not take it as she laughed hard at his analogy and then pointed to him how weird it was.

Her laugh drew attention to herself. She had had never laughed as heartily in class as she maintained her image.

Even Nino was surprised by the laugh.

In fact, he smiled to himself, “She looks so adorable when she laughs.”

Then Erika noticed the class’s attention. Her face flushed red with embarrassment and she apologized to the class and turned to face Nino.

“So I bet you cannot come up with anything to retort me?” She crossed her arms.

Nino was at a loss of words as he had been staring at Erika intently earlier and was distracted. “I…”

“I win! You lose!” Erika clapped her hands thrice and flashed a triumphant smile.

“Fine! I just gave in to you. That’s all!” Nino grinned mockingly.

His grin infuriated Erika but she knew that the class was watching her and him.

“Well, we shall see then!” she replied nonchalantly and turned to Riko.

Nino watched her for a few more moments before smiling widely to himself. His eyes sparkled with mischief as he started planning his little revenge.

“You two seriously are so cute!” Riko commented dreamily.

“We are seriously at loggerheads. We have been arguing! I nearly lost my precious image just now!” Erika pouted.

“Oh, don’t worry! You are far from losing your image! In fact, I think you just gain more fans earlier. You look absolutely beautiful and adorable!” Riko then pinched her cheeks.

“Riko!” Erika called out as she rubbed her own cheeks.

“I love school! Seriously! With the two of you!” Riko chuckled to herself as she weaved fictional love stories between Erika and Nino.

Erika just turned back to focus on her work, oblivious to the mischief awaiting her.

-

tada! :]

enjoy.

with love,

crunch.