Chapter 14:

C’est l’amour

I’m in love with a Chinese Nationalist


I came up to Lei Mei during lunch at school. She was enjoying her lunch, however, I had something better for her to enjoy. I slammed my hand on her desk and looked down at her.

“Lei Mei.” I lifted her chin to look at me.

She didn’t say a word. She looked directly at me.

“You have some food on your lip.”

The classroom was staring directly at us. Everyone was turning red. I don’t blame them. They have to witness me taking a single girl for myself. I too would start to get jealous.

I wiped the food off her lip.

“Aren’t you playing too hard to get now? No need to pretend you don’t like me. I like you myself.”

“Taji. You’re so manly.” called out one of the girls in the background.

“See? They love me. Yet here I am, standing before you.”

I’m feeling good about this. I’ll succeed without a doubt now. I cannot fail in this situation. Her face has been turning red. She is definitely into me.

As I moved closer to Lei Mei’s face, the classroom door blew up and someone came in screaming.

“STOP! RIGHT! THERE!” the shadow from within the smoke called out.

“Who are you? What are you looking for?” I kindly asked.

“Move back from her! She’s my woman!”

“What are you talking about?

“Taji, Taji, Taji. You’re such a fool!”

“How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“Taji, don’t make me upset. You can’t tell that it’s me?”

As the mysterious creature began to step out of the smoke my body started to shiver more and more.

“You’re… you… you… are… KINGO!”

“Well done, bravo bravo. You’re getting increasingly smarter Taji. However, you’re still not a match for ME! HAHA!”

“We’ll see about that!” As I unsheathed my sword from my belt the band kids at the other side of the classroom began playing their instruments.

At first, I wasn’t sure what they were doing but then I realised that they were just playing Eye of the Tiger, which quite honestly, it’s rather fitting for the situation so I’ll let it slide this time.

“Oh? You’re appeaching me? Very well.”

I began to swing my sword around. Showing off to everyone my phenomenal sword skills. Everyone stared at me in awe. Some began to cheer me on. Ah, I love this life. It’s great. I’ll win this easily.

I yelled out “En garde” as I pointed my sword towards Kingo.

“Prepare yourself Taji! Your reign of terror ends here!”

Kingo quickly grabbed something from his pocket.

“AAGHHH”

Ah… it was just a dream. Damnit. What a horrible experience. Horrible horrible horrible experience. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at Kingo for a while now. What the hell is going on in my head?

I don’t want to avoid Kingo since it will probably give the wrong impression but him being right on my head and talking as soon as I got to school isn’t helping.

Class by class, I did my best to avoid Kingo without giving him any wrong ideas and pretended to be sleeping most of the time. Which did indeed work and he stopped talking as much.

All I need to do is find the perfect timing to get Lei Mei to talk to me without anyone being around to distract us.

However, the chance just didn’t happen. I wasted an entire day. Literally, nothing happened other than Kingo bothering me about his binbox one issue. Well, there’s always tomorrow.

Back to school again today. The day is already at a better start. I wasn’t having any weird dreams like I did yesterday.

I think I’ve realised what my issue is. As the old man said, I’m lacking confidence in myself. I’m not making my move properly… but even when I tried to be straight forward Lei Mei still shrugged me off.

Trying anymore after this will be pointless. All the time’s I have attempted to ask Lei Mei to do anything have just ended horribly. My heart has been feeling heavy each time as if I had an anchor dragging me down and only increasing in size with each decline I received.

The burden has only been making my life miserable but do I really want to give up on her? I have to think this through… but no, I need to stop. I should have noticed earlier. This love has evolved into something much more.

I forgot to even try to befriend her. I just wanted to rush my way into her life. Is it love? Or am I just insane?

This will be the final attempt, after this, I might as well just give up. If Lei Mei doesn’t want to know me then I will have to accept it. Let my tears out and let it all out. Overcoming this failure is not something I wanted to imagine but soon may be the reality.

“Lei Mei… Can we talk?”

She ignored me. Fair enough. I don’t blame her anymore. I have been pestering her constantly like a rat.

“If you don’t want to talk that’s fine, I get it. But just hear me out.”

“Fine.” She replied without even looking back at me.

This is more than enough.

“I have been wondering about what I have been doing recently and how I have been acting. I realised that although I have been doing things out of love, it wasn’t coming across as love. It was just me being a stupid idiot. I realise this now. Everything that has happened has only made things more awkward between us.

Not that I wanted to admit this but I’ve just been a shit person. So I wanted to take this time to fix this between us because at the end of the day. I do really think it’s love. I don’t want to throw away these feelings, instead, I want to pass them on to you.

However, unlike last time when I said I’ll fix myself and did nothing of value. I will actually act on it. Rather than avoiding you, I want to start by getting to know you again. Back to square one, what do you think?”

Lei Mei turned around and replied, “Hello. Nice to meet you I’m Lei Mei, a transfer student from China.”

“Hi, I’m Aguni Taji. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Lei. Hope we can get along.”

Finally, I feel like this might actually work. I just need a fresh start. This will be that one shot the old man was talking about. This is the one opportunity. I can’t miss my chance now. It’ll work this time.

“Pleasure to meet you too Mr Aguni,” she replied with a smile.

Maybe she didn’t really hate me or maybe I was forcing her to dislike me. Either way, she’s given me this opportunity. This is the chance to show my real love.

This is love.