I didn’t know if this had made it better or worse, but I felt hurt even though I felt relieved that I could talk to Selina again. Just being able to watch her smile and speak to her would make me happy. Even if the conversation was a quarrel – I had missed it.
But didn’t she really want me?
Me, Calvin, Chun and Aaron sat at a table in the cafeteria, when the girls walked towards us. They also had another girl with them; a cute girl who looked very happy and cheery.
“Hey!” Ella said, and sat down next to Chun.
“Let me present; this is Wu Ying Jie,” Hebe said, and the other three sat down too. Selina sat next to me.
“You can call me Gui Gui!” the new girl said and smiled. Calvin looked interested at her (but then obviously decided that she was not his type, and turned to Hebe), and Aaron looked at her with a bit annoyance. He had always looked down at people who was too cheery, except for me, Calvin and Chun, because he thought it was childish – being infected by that was his biggest nightmare.
I looked in my bag, and noticed that I had forgotten my lunchbox. Calvin seemed to have the same problem, and Chun was already done eating his own. He got a desperate look on his face when he also noticed that he couldn’t eat my lunchbox as usual.
“Who’s going with me to buy food in the canteen?” I asked, and Chun and Calvin followed me, leaving Aaron alone with all the girls – time for solo-lecture.
We took some trashes and some plates. The food in the canteen literally looked like mud. The canteen woman stared me down.
“What’s on the menu?” I asked. There used to be a lot of different, nice things, but Thursday was home-made food. The worst day in the week.
“Lasagna,” she said, and put a big portion on my plate.
“What’s the ingredients?” Calvin asked, and looked disapproving at the so-called food.
“Dirt, water and rotten tomatoes, tasted with spit and grass,” I answered. The canteen woman skewered her eyes through me.
“I can add some more spit if you want,” she said coldly.
“No thanks, I think I’ll take some salad… Chun, you can have my portion,” I said.
“Wow, thanks! It doesn’t look THAT bad…”
“Chun, you would eat the trays,” Calvin said, and walked with me to the salad bar, where we took some new plates.
When we sat down again, there were silent around the table. Aaron and Gui Gui sent evil gazes to each other – someone had obviously disturbed someone in his solo-lecture of the day.
“What is THAT?!” Selina asked when she saw what was on Chun’s plate.
“Mud – today called lasagna,” I answered, and started eating my sad lunch.
“Why are you eating salad?” she now asked me.
“Because I don’t eat mud.”
Calvin looked sad too.
“Hey, I don’t think she added grass or spit at all – this tastes good!” Chun exclaimed.
I decided to check my mobile phone, as I hadn’t done that since yesterday. There was a message on my answering machine. From Selina Ren.
“You called me yesterday?” I asked her surprised. She blushed.
“It’s nothing, just delete the message!” she said.
“Then I’ll sure hear it…” I smirked.
I listened to the message.
“Hey Show. I just felt bad for… not talking to you in school or something? But it’s your own fault… Anyway, I’m going to meet with Jiro now… He has been really nice to me, even nicer than you, and I don’t have to pay for it in a bizarre way…”
I didn’t know whether to smile or cry, so I decided to tease Selina.
“Oh, you felt bad for not talking to me? How cute… and Jiro was soooo nice, he even lied to you, and you didn’t even have to pay him for it?” I said. She looked furious. Gui Gui smiled still insisted on keeping quiet in her silent war with Aaron, but Hebe and Ella was curious.
“I didn’t mean all that! Why didn’t you delete it as I told you?!” she started yelling.
“You regret it?” I was actually a bit hurt. “You don’t think I treat you right? It’s my own fault?!” I knew I shouldn’t get angry in front of the others, but I couldn’t just let this pass.
“No! I mean… I’ve forgotten Jiro, okay?! I would just wish you would forget all those other girls too! By the way, nice answering machine…”
“Why did you think I hi…” I couldn’t say “hired you” in front of the others. “It’s them chasing me, you remember?”
She looked like she did, and blushed – I had won.
“Wow, your relationship has grown since your Japan-journey,” Aaron said. “Your quarrels are now arguments.”
I flexed my jaw-muscles and started eating salad with much more force.
“I think I’ve forgotten to introduce myself to you guys!” Gui Gui suddenly said, addressed to me, Chun and Calvin.
“I’m an exchange student, and I’ll be here for three months! I think I’m very lucky to be in the same class as Selina, Hebe and Ella, and they were sure right when they said it was exciting to be with you at lunch… Even though SOME of the company could be better,” she said, the last directed to Aaron.
“Just because some persons unfortunately aren’t as clever as others.” Aaron looked offended.
Calvin decided to ease the mood around the table.
“Hey, why don’t we hold a party this weekend?” he asked. “To welcome Gui Gui, celebrate the current relationships and those things…”
“Good idea!” I really meant it. “We can hold it in my house! I can get the gardener to buy beer for us, he have done it before and is not against it.”
“Great! Is there food too?” Chun asked.
“As many snacks we can eat!” I really started to look forward to this. “Everyone at this table is invited!”
“Everyone?” Aaron asked with a doubting look at Gui Gui, who smiled happily. “But… You should know I only drink vintage wine.”
“Of course,” I laughed. “I can lend some from my parents; they always get it as gifts.”
It was decided to be hold Saturday night.

I made my cellar ready and asked the gardener to go buy some beer for us. My parents were out of the house, and would only come back at Monday, so we could be as loud as we wanted. One of the maids was sent after snacks and food, and some others were in the kitchen making what I had told them to.
Aaron came as the first, and we had fun choosing vintage wine until the others arrived, first the girls in one group, then Chun and Calvin.
“I love your cellar! SNACKS!” Chun exclaimed, and started eating – no, swallow the snacks.
“Hey, calm down, we also want some!” Calvin said, and dragged Chun away.
“Beer arrived!” I said, and carried in the boxes.
“And wine,” Aaron said. The girls looked disapproving at the beer.
“I won’t drink,” Selina said. Hebe and Gui Gui nodded in agree, but to everyone’s surprise, Ella took a bottle right away.
“What’s the problem? We’re here to have fun!” she said, and said down next to Chun on one of the big couches. Gui Gui looked like she was in doubt.
“I’ll keep to the vintage wine then – do you have vintage ’49?” she said, and Aaron looked surprised at her.
“Yup – here you are,” I said, and gave her a bottle and a glass. She sat down next to Aaron and drank from the glass.
“You have good taste in wine,” he said.
“Oh yes, it’s one of my hobbies, but it can’t beat hunting in the fall,” she said relaxed. Aaron now looked very interested.
“I hunt too. What kind of weapon do you use?” he asked, and then the conversation continued. Aaron had found his equal.
I took a bottle of beer and tried to give one to Selina. She disapproved it.
“Come on, Sel, this is a special occasion!”
“It is against my principles,” she said, and looked disgusted at me, as I swallowed the half bottle in one take.
“And mine…” Hebe said which caught Calvin’s attention.
The doorbell rang.
“It must be Alien! He wasn’t in school at Thursday, but I told him to come,” I said, and ran upstairs to open the door. It was him, and we walked back to the cellar (after he hugged me). He also hugged Selina when he came down, and I introduced him to Gui Gui, who nearly didn’t notice, because she and Aaron was talking.
“Do you also read the dictionary? Wow, I thought I was the only one!” she said to Aaron, who smiled.
“I’ve read it twice, but some words can still surprise my friends… Just like when we introduced Calvin to the word ‘’…” he said, and drank some more wine.
The cakes were carried in by some of the maids.
“Which kinds are they?” Selina asked.
“They are very pretty!” Hebe exclaimed.
Chun attacked the cakes, but Hebe, Selina and Ella were also pretty fast.
“This tastes good!” Selina said.
“I knew you would like it!” I said.
“You didn’t even make it yourself.”
“Whatever? It is a very hard job to be the planning brain behind it all,” I said, and took on an innocent puppy-face when I looked at her. At this point, she wasn’t different from others – she couldn’t resist it.
“Then we say that…” she said.
“I brought some movies!” Alien said.
“What kind of movies?” Calvin asked.
“NORMAL movies, Calvin – the girls shall watch them too…” I said, and turned my eyes.

We watched a movie about a girl who got pregnant at 16 years old – the girls got all dreamy eyes when they saw the (I thought it was ugly) baby. Aaron got bored, so he and Gui Gui sat in a corner to discuss more.
When we started the second movie, I was already pretty drunk – Calvin was too, and started being very direct to Hebe, who looked very uncomfortable.
When Calvin wasn’t pushy on Hebe, she and Selina shared a big cake that they had nearly finished. When Selina claimed that she felt buzzy, I suddenly remembered, through my own unclear thoughts, what was in the cake.
“How can I be drunk when I didn’t even drink beer?” she asked. Hebe also looked dizzy.
“Cognac-cake,” I said, and smirked. “Now that you already are drunk, why don’t you take a bottle?” I continued, and gave them each a bottle of beer.
Aaron and Gui Gui were now laughing very loud, even though “Australia” wasn’t the funniest movie we could see. But they didn’t watch the movie anyway, and hunting had a long time ago become a bit boring to talk about. Aaron was now bursting out a lot of (obviously) very funny stories, and Gui Gui looked like she had forgiven him for offending her earlier. They were both at their 5th bottle of vintage wine.
I had never seen Aaron this way before.
Nothing against me, of course – I was at my 7th bottle of beer, but still.
Selina and Hebe forgot all their principles and drank of the bottles. It looked like it was the first time they had drunk beer like this.
It was a good thing that my parents weren’t home, because we were pretty noisy and laughed and talked and didn’t really pay attention to the movie. At least until the lead couple kissed – I got a sudden urge to copy them. Both me and Selina were pretty drunk when I grasped her around the waist and pulled her close to me, until our lips met. I grasped her tighter, and she kissed back. The magic of beer.
Selina pushed me away and laughed.
“Superficial pighead guy!” she said.
“Self-justifying Miss Innocent!” I yelled back, and kissed her again. I could feel that I had been longing for this, even though my feelings were mostly blinded by the alcohol.
Only Hebe, Calvin and Alien noticed us; Calvin cheered, Hebe looked scared and Alien took away the beer. All their voices got blended in my head.
“Woohoo!”
“No more beer for you guys!”
“Selina, what are you doing?!”
Hebe tried to drag her away, which she succeed in, and Alien dragged me to the toilet to throw some water in my head. I got a bit more clear-minded.
Alien laughed – he and Hebe were probably the most un-drunk persons right now.
“I think you’ve got enough! The clock is more than 2 am, don’t you think it’s time for people to get home?” he asked, still laughing.
“Why that...?” I asked blurred, and looked at my hair in the mirror – it was all messed up.
“Why? Because they have to get home at some time,” he answered.
“Hm.”
We walked into the room with the others again. Aaron and Gui Gui had fell asleep, Gui Gui with her head on Aaron’s shoulder, and Aaron still holding the wine bottle.
“Show, we’ll call a Taxi now!” Chun said. “It has been such a nice night! I’ll take Ella home…”
“Remember to take the opportuni…” And Calvin had fell asleep.
Selina looked like she was a bit more clear-minded now, and Alien asked Hebe if he should help her call a Taxi.
“I don’t really like driving alone so late at night… But okay, thank you…” she said.
“I can go with you, if you want? I can walk home from your house,” Alien said, and called the Taxi.
Selina scratched her back head.
“What happened?” she asked blurred.
“You’re drunk,” I said, just as blurred.
“You are too,” she said, and yawned.
“You’re too drunk to go home by yourself,” I said. “I think Aaron and Gui Gui are going to stay overnight… You can stay too…”
“Okay,” she said. I guessed, if she wasn’t drunk, she would’ve objected the strongest. She fell asleep on the couch.
I was sane enough to open the windows to get some fresh air in, and clean a little. A very little. But then I thought that those three just couldn’t sleep like that.
I made Aaron and Gui Gui lie more comfortable, before I carried Selina to my room. I staggered, due to my condition, but managed to get her on my bed before I fell asleep next to her.

***
Loooong chapter xD
Thanks for all the comments! Please comment ^^,
Many drunk people, Gui Gui appeared xD What will Selina think when she wakes up next to Show…?
- Blitz