Are you mad at me?

How do you know if a girl is mad at you? Because I’ve been trying to find that out for two weeks now and I’ve come up short.

Naturally, you may be wondering – why do I think she’s mad at me? Well, couple reasons.

First off, she started avoiding me. It wasn’t all that obvious at first, I just thought she was busy. She’d leave the class when the bell rang and return only when it was about to ring again. But one day, I was out by the door when she was making her way back. She spotted my resting scowl, I spotted her trembling lip and watched her make a quick U-turn, then break into a mad dash. Moments later, she entered the classroom through the other door, all a sweat and a flush and that pretty much cemented it.

Then it was the little things. She’d stare at me during class, then furrow her brow and look away whenever I returned eye contact. During gym class, she’d hit me with everything from errant shuttlecocks to bone-shattering dodgeballs. We were even put on cleaning duty together once and she almost fainted at the news. When we were wiping the board, our arms touched, and she squirmed. And when I went to the bathroom at the end of the day, I came back to find the classroom scrubbed clean, my bag by the bin and a note on my desk reading, “I hope you’re happy.” Polite verbal form. Acid on my crotch would’ve been less painful.

By now, you’re probably asking why I only think that she’s mad at me. You see, while all of this was happening at school, when we got home it’s like a switch flipped inside her head.

Hinata (Sun, 16/4, 20:17): Do you like mochi?

When I saw that text, I fell off the sofa. By the time Anna came downstairs to check on me, I was already back on my feet, pacing around the kitchen and muttering to myself like a schizophrenic, “Do I like mochi?”

The answer is yes, I love it. Only I was so busy parsing the meaning for the rest of the night that by the time I went to bed, it had slipped from my mind that I left her on read. So, when I found a pack of chocolate mochi inside my desk, I couldn’t help thinking they were laced with laxatives. I didn’t even touch them and spent the rest of the day, dodging her glares.

Hinata (Tue, 18/4, 07:23): You looked a bit pale the other day
Hinata: Are you not eating well?

I choked on my breakfast sandwich. Then Anna laughed at me for a solid minute, mostly at her own joke (something about gag reflexes and being bisexual), partly at how long it took me to type out a simple reply.

Me (Tue, 18/4, 07:45): I’m fine

But was I? Come lunch break, a girl said the nurse wanted to see me. She sounded concerned and so did the nurse when I stepped into her office and appeared to be, in her words, ostensibly normal. A routine check-up later, I returned to class to find three salmon nigiri wrapped on my seat, carefully arranged on a restaurant napkin.

Now, was it a mistake to offer them to Daisuke? Possibly. Because Hinata couldn’t have possibly known that I was allergic. And when I caught her glancing at me, she looked genuinely hurt. And not because her plan to poison me had failed.

Hinata (Fri, 21/7, 18:48): sent you a video

It was a clip of a kitten meeting a hedgehog for the first time and – it broke me. I loved everything about it. How the kitten kept getting poked as it sniffed and swatted at the little grumpy ball. How the soundtrack was an ukulele cover of Newman’s “You Got a Friend in Me”. How the video ended with a shot of them all tuckered out, curled one next to one another.

I chuckled, then sighed, then chuckled again, for so long and hard, I thought something might’ve finally broken inside of me. But then I looked up a little and saw Hinata was online. And I imagined her looking at her phone, just like me, sitting in her bed, just like me and I felt like I had to ask –

Me (18:59): They’re kinda like us, right?

Read right away. Dot-dot-dots the next second. This time with a reply.

Hinata (19:00): Which one are you? (o･ω･o)
Me: Well, you’ve got the mask and the catlike disposition so…
Hinata: What can I say? I’m a sucker for chin scritches
Me: And fish
Hinata: And climbing to high places
Me: And landing on your feet
Hinata: And scratching
Me: And mischief
Hinata: …
Hinata (19:08): I’m sorry

Three days later and I haven’t received another text from her. She hasn’t been online since either.

Which is why now, after a weekend spent pondering where the hell did I possibly go wrong, I’m super anxious to even walk to school. And it’s not because I’ve been followed by four dudes instead of the usual two, nor is it because my obviously bugged phone has restarted itself a hundred times since yesterday. Rather – I’m sure Hinata hates me now and I don’t want to think about it.

But it’s hard not to do that, when I find her sitting alone by the front gate. Eyes downcast, hands folded over her skirt, watching the ants pass by her feet like a broken porcelain doll.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” she replies, avoiding my gaze just like I avoid hers. I carry on across the courtyard. She follows right by my side.

And there she stays, a little quiet bug, as we go through the motions together. Putting on our school shoes, climbing up the stairs, crossing the corridors on towards another day where we don’t really know how to interact with each other, what to do or what to even say. And as we approach the class, our footsteps slow, because we’ve had two weeks of uncertainty and we don’t want another moment now.

She stops first, then grabs my shirt and stops me as well.

“Luca?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you – are you mad at me?”

And when I hear her say that, clear and crystal and brimming with sadness, it hits me. I’m an idiot.

“What? No… Why would you even think that?” I turn around, just as she sniffles back her tears and exhales a lifetime’s worth of relief.

“Thank goodness. With all the people following you around, and having to see Kisaki every day – and me – I just – “

“I don’t mind seeing you,” I cut her off, then cut that train of thought before I can blurt out that –

“Me neither. I kinda – missed talking to you.”

I chuckle, “So did I.” and a mousy smile spreads our lips, growing broader and brighter as we both look up from the floor. And, seeing each other happy for the first time in a while, brings a new shade of blush on our cheeks. But whereas I feel all warm and tingly on the inside, she starts shrinking into herself, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“In that case,” she mumbles, “how about we make up for all the time we’ve lost?”

“What do you mean?”

Hinata checks behind her, then up the hallways, twice over before she’s confident that we’re all alone. Before she can lift herself on her tiptoes and whisper in my ear, “Meet me at Makuhari Park today around 5. Go home first. Change into something nice.”

Taken by the sudden warmth of her breath against my skin, I freeze. Just enough for her to laugh, hold my gaze for a second as she retreats, then walk right past me. And as soon as my heartbeat returns to normal, I turn around and almost shout, “Wait, why?”

But she’s already gone, vanished into thin air with only the echoes of her distant humming floating in the air.

I – I just don’t get her, man.