Discovering thyself

With the clean air between me and Lei Mei, I actually have been feeling much better. The tension between me and her and my obsessive behaviour completely ruined my mood and atmosphere.

“Hey Lei Mei, can you help me study at the library? I need some help catching up for the physics test.”

“Yes.”

“Okay great. See you after school then?”

“Yes.”

Although we have cleared out the miasma, she is still her old self. I guess she has always been like this. This is something that just makes her, well, her. She doesn’t say much and still fascinates me.

“Hey Kingo, I’m going to study in the library today so go home without me.”

“Huh? Are you okay? Did something happen?” Kingo ran up to me inspecting every part of my head.

“Yes, perfectly fine, why are you asking this?” Is there something on my head? What is he doing touching all over my head?

“You are going to study, like what the hell is wrong with you? You never studied. Are you sure you recovered since yesterday? You still seem a bit out of it.”

“Yeah, I’m fine Kingo. It’s just time to change things now. We will be graduating before we even realise it. Need to prepare for the future.”

“HAHAHAHHA. You’re hilarious Taji.”

“It’s not a joke, I need to figure out what I want to do in the future.”

“HAHA HAHA HAHA.”

“Laugh all you want Kingo but you won’t get far with this attitude.”

“Why have you gotten so stiff, you were fine two days ago, what changed?”

“I changed. I realised I needed to change.”

“But why?”

“Love.”

“HAHAHAHAHA… hahaha… ha… wait you serious?”

“Yeah, it is love.”

“Well, damn, didn’t realise this was a confession Taji… I don't know what to say.”

“Wait what?”

“You’re confessing your love to me, right? Like I never knew you swing like this, I’m a bit flabbergasted I can’t lie.”

“NO NO NO NO! This is not what I meant!”

“Aw, now I’m a bit heartbroken, can we go back to a minute earlier, I felt my heart skip a beat.”

“Kingo, this is about Lei Mei.”

“YOU LIKE LEI MEI?!”

Where the hell has he been this entire time? I feel like he’s just not appearing when he needs to.

“Yes.”

With that, our conversation ended. I’m astounded by how absent-minded Kingo sometimes is. It’s quite amazing honestly.

I got to the library and Lei Mei was already there studying. I’m trying my best to remain self-contained. Don’t be stupid. Don’t act weird. I cannot risk any more mistakes.

“Hey Lei Mei.”

“Greetings. What would you like to go over today?”

“Well, uh, physics, as I mentioned this morning.”

“Yes. Okay.”

“Let’s start with `Atomic, Nuclear and Particle Physics.`”

After we finished studying we ended up having a pretty interesting conversation about the world's nuclear powers, specifically about China and their military strength due to nukes. It was rather interesting. Lei Mei is a very passionate person when it comes to China, which since she's Chinese I can understand. I should have realised that sooner. She’s Chinese so she obviously knows about her country.

Though, she does seem too enthusiastic sometimes. Maybe she's just a Chinese Nationalist. That would explain a lot. All those posters she had, her overall mentality and her views on politics add up.

Thanks to the talk I had with Lei Mei, I have been able to learn a lot. Both in terms of my studies and about her. It seems there is so much more to her that I need to learn about. We need to spend more time together.

Lei Mei left a bit early since she needed to go help at the restaurant, I ended up staying alone to finish off some extra studying. She left me a few notes so it made it much easier. She’s surprisingly a nice person.

Now that I think about it, she has always been nice from the start but I ended up overlooking that. She’s been doing things for me since she started being here, despite never saying much she’s always just been there.

I think this session with her has really helped me understand more about my feelings toward her. Each day I start to feel a more clear emotion toward her.

Ah, all this thinking has resulted in my spending much longer than I should have at the library. I did inform my parents I would be home later since I was studying, I am a little worried that this may be a tad too late for them. Hopefully, they’ll not notice it.

I have been more concealed in my thoughts more recently. Attempting to sort myself out has really changed me a lot, the old man sure is pretty wise. Discovering myself has been quite an interesting adventure. Overcoming my obsessive love for Lei Mei has helped return my life to a stable state.

Tomorrow will be another day to conquer Lei Mei’s heart. I am already a step closer thanks today.

-

Another day of school. The usual classes, the usual break, the usual classes, the usual lunch and so on. During the school day, I haven’t been able to talk much to Lei Mei, after all, she prefers to concentrate on the class and do her work without being interrupted.

I can totally understand this now. Since I’m doing my best to improve grades I have actually been paying attention in class. Lei Mei said that she would help me study every day after school, which is fantastic, I don’t need to stress over finding a good time to talk to her since we have afterschool.

Day 2 of Lei Mei study time.

“What are we going to look over today?” She asked

“Hmm, I was thinking about East Asian geography, do you happen to know much about it?”

“I know a fair amount. Mostly about China though.”

“That’s fine, may come in handy sometime.”

“Haha, if you say so.”

Lei Mei has started becoming easier to talk to. I feel like she’s finally becoming relaxed around me.

All this studying about China’s geography has been really interesting, I cannot lie to myself. Though, I’m not sure if it’s because it’s Lei Mei teaching me or if I'm actually interested in this topic. Maybe both.

Either way, learning more about Lei Mei has been really enjoyable. There’s something about her that just makes everything fun when she’s around. This feeling has been really nice, I feel like I can’t get enough of it.

I try to avoid making it obvious that I want to study more about her and her home by choosing topics in which she is able to involve in a conversation about China in it. Wonder what we can study tomorrow.

-

Day 3 of studying with Lei Mei.

My mood was slightly worse today than it usually was, classes were much more of a drag and I ended up with a headache. Been looking forward to studying with Lei Mei today, hopefully, my mood improves when I get to spend some time with her.

“Hello, Taji. What are we looking over today?”

“How about some history maybe?”

“Sure, anything specific for it?”

“Uh. Not sure, you can choose, I’m not the best at history as a whole so anything will be useful.”

“Hmm, okay. Let’s do some East Asia history, an overview of the majority of it without too much detail, we can go further into detail another time for specific time periods.”

“Yeah, sounds good to me.”

Surprisingly she is very knowledgeable in history. I thought that she only knew stuff relating to China, I probably shouldn’t have doubted her. She is pretty smart after all.

-

Day 4 of studying with Lei Mei.

I was greeted with a pleasant surprise as I got into the classroom. Lei Mei was waiting at my desk, seems like she wants to ask me something.

“Hey, Taji. I can’t stay out late today, mind coming to study at my place today?”

“Oh, yeah sure, right after school?”

“Yes, my parents don’t want me staying in school too late, will be easier to teach you like this and not cause issues for them.”

“Oh yeah, absolutely, I don’t mind at all.”

“Great, see you after school.”

“Thanks, you too.”

Wow, never thought that she would invite me over, even though it’s just for studying. I feel like we have actually made a lot of progress together the past few days.

Now that my mood has been boosted school will go by like a breeze. What a fantastic feeling. I might actually be able to get Lei Mei to like me back now.

After speed-running the entire school day, we were finally able to go home. I found Lei Mei at the lockers and we headed out.

“How did the classes go for you?” I asked her to break the silence.

“They were fine, you?”

“They were great, I’ve been feeling pretty good today so they went like a breeze.”

“Oh, that’s great. Why so happy today?”

“No particular reason. Just a positive day today, haha.”

“Okay… Anyway, thanks for agreeing to study elsewhere today. I wasn’t entirely confident with this but I trust you to be… normal.”

“What do you mean by that? Am I not normal usually?”

“You have been normal the past few days. That’s why I’m willing to trust you. The issue is, you haven’t been normal the entire time before. So I’m not entirely really secure about letting you into my house, however, I can’t dwell on the past that much since you have improved.”

“Ah. Okay, I get it. Thanks for putting your trust in me. I won't disappoint.”

So she still isn’t really fully fine with me. I should have expected that. A bit naive of me to think that she would be willingly doing this stuff after only a few days be being the new me.

We arrived at the Lei residence. Although I have met her parents before, my legs were trembling as if there was an earthquake. I haven’t met Mr Lei since the dinner we had, I don’t really know how to behave around him if he’s home. Mrs Lei is very kind so I won't have much issue getting along with her but today it just feels different.

“Hello, Mrs Lei, Mr Lei.” Damnit. He had to be home. I shouldn’t have expected anything different but the only glimmer of hope I had just got shattered.

“Hello, Taji. Good to see you.” Mrs Lei replied.

“Greetings.” Mr Lei replied as he grabbed to shake my hand. “Haven’t seen much of you. Hope we can get along.”

“Me too Sir.” I shook his hand, however, his grip was extremely strong. I smiled, hoping that he would let go. Instead, we had an intensive 5-minute handshake staring into each other's eyes.

This made things a little awkward for me but Lei Mei eventually decided to save me and dragged me out of there.

Before we even made it to the top of the stairs, her parents started yelling at each other in Chinese. Wonder what they are talking about. Hopefully, I didn’t make a bad impression to her father.

“Sorry about that Taji, father is just… very weary when it comes to inviting people over. Not the biggest fan of it. He was actually quite against inviting you over, mother had to argue for it.”

“Ah, it’s alright. I understand his concern.”

“Shall we get started? What subject are we doing today?”

“You know what’s recently been on my mind?”

“No, I’m not you, I wouldn’t have an idea.”

“OK. Fair enough. But I’ve been thinking about communism recently. This may be a bit random of me but would you mind… teaching me about it?”

Her eyes began to glimmer and a huge smile appeared on her face.

“YES! YES I WILL!”