A LITTLE TOUCH OF ROSE - EPISODE 22

???? Rosita’s standpoint ????

I never knew how exciting my life had been since the guys and girls befriended me until they left. It had been the worse week of my entire stay in Japan. It was Thursday already, and I couldn’t just sit for Friday to come so I could meet them again. After what Zedekiah promised mom and then threatened me to agree to, because he said and I quote, “I will not let her continue to worry over you when you are right here. At least, if you don’t show yourself to her, meet her so she’ll be happy this year,” then he looked at the floor and murmured, “plus, it would make you happy too,”

Don’t know what his deal is, but it surely made my heart thump more than it should. Things are getting weird between us because Zedekiah have been acting strange. On the other hand, there’s Sora. She was in school during the week and I couldn’t help the smug look she was giving me, like she knew something I didn’t and had the upper hand to something I didn’t. It was weird, but again, everything had been weird.

I miss Meena.

I miss Yuki, even if I don’t know her much.

I miss Odin.

I want to kiss Darra’s cute cheeks.

I miss Hime’s openness.

I miss Sachie’s teasing smirk.

I miss Sarah’s loud squeals.

Miss Moca’s shy smile.

Miss Titi’s giggling.

And miss Lenny’s enthusiasm and she always calling me Oneesan.

I really wish they were back, really. And I couldn’t wait to meet them again the next day.

“Rosita Sugimoto, since the guys aren’t in school, come take their score sheets on their behalf,” Endou-sensei said with a frown. I knew why she was frowning. Let’s just say we wrote a lot of rubbish in the story.

I blame Zedekiah.

“You three got an F,” She said when I got to her, making the class titter. “What kind of story is this?” She shouted, finally snapping as she waved the sheet.

Okay, here’s the truth. After Odin reviewed the story, Zed and I changed it to the ending we wanted. He changed it first and thought I wouldn’t know, but then I changed it before submitting it.

“The best,” I winked at her. She used the folded newspapers in her hand to hit my head, which didn’t hurt at all.

“The hero dumped the heroine after all their challenges together and she committed suicide by throwing herself off a building and having bits of her splatter here and there!” She shouted.

I raised my hands defensively. “Don’t blame me, blame that dick head,” I said, “he named the heroine after me,”

“And you named the antagonist after him,” she said unimpressively, “and her ghost rose up, ripped his manhood off, shoved it down his throat, removed his heart, ripped out his gullet and split him in half before feeding him to giant flesh eating bunnies! Bunnies don’t eat flesh!”

“Aha!” I said, “but they are not ordinary bunnies, they are ghost bunnies from the underworld. Zedekiah caused the breakup so that’s why the heroine took his life too. End of story.” I said proudly. She hit me again.

“I know you two did this behind Odin’s back, so you both get F’s while he gets an A!”

I gasped and then squealed, “an F! Ha! Zedekiah’s mother would kill him. Ha ha ha ha!” I laughed like a villain.

“Your parents would kill you too,”

I shrugged, “daddy? We are quarrelling so he wouldn’t know anyways. And mom, she’ll be so proud of me… Wait, uh oh,” I said with fear as I remembered what happened when Bloom came home with an F. Mom sat her down, tied her to a wooden chair, taped her eyes open and forced her to watch an educational channel for twelve hours. Then, she screamed two hours of scolding into her ears, followed by three of motherly advice and then punished her by making her do all the chores for a week.

I am so screwed.

“Heh heh, can I retake it?” I asked nervously. She smirked and pushed my failure into my hands.

“Good luck with your mom,”

“But…but… She’ll skin me and use it to prepare food for me to eat,” I cried, “Sensei, you can’t do this to an only child,”

“You have a sister…”

“Irrelevant,”

“That’s your punishment…”

“What if we rewrite it?” I pleaded as I followed her out of the class.

“So you can give me a more horrific version of Zombie apocalypse? No, thank you.”

“Sensei,” I pleaded with a childish whimper, “please?”

“Go to your next class, Rosita,” she laughed before waving me off and walking away. I stood there in the hallway, staring after her in confusion.

Is it so bad to be afraid of mom?

After staring at nothing for minutes, I decided to just forge a test and give myself an A, problem solved. I went to my next class which was the one Zedekiah and I were doing together. The teacher opted to reading his out since he wasn’t around like the others.

“So I know Zedekiah Grimshaw made the right decision when he decided to leap into a stage and keep the spotlight on him. He is born for the spotlight, born to achieve great records, and even though I still hate him, I know his name would be written in one of the world’s music god history. I only wish that he could learn to see himself more than he sees other.” I ended my well written essay–if I do say so myself.

“Very good, Rosita, go to your seat,” I happily skipped to my seat. He started reading out what Zedekiah wrote, my likes, dislikes, my love for worms!

I’ll kill him.

Unlike me who wrote the correct ones, he changed everything about me, humiliated me even when he wasn’t there. I was bristling with rage as the teacher read it, laughing at everything he read out. But when it got to the essay, my anger jumped out of the window and committed suicide. With each word he read out, I was stunned by how nice he sounded, how well he wrote about me. And by the time it got to the conclusion, I was fighting the urge to cry.

It was the first time he actually said or wrote something nice about me.

“Rosita is born to be what she knows she is, even if I don’t know it. But if I’m ever to guess what she should be aside from what she is, I’ll say journalist for she can unravel every mystery, uncover every secret, no matter how dangerous and life threatening it is, and at the end, she would still come out victorious. She has a victory flag on her head, a computer situated in her brain, and the right smile and attitude to earn anything she puts her mind into. I believe the witch can do more for herself if she learns to stop carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and the responsibility of her family. To make more friends, be more open and learn to be herself more, just like she is now in Gempire High. I’m not writing anymore nice things again, go to hell.”

For the rest of the school day, I was quiet and numb. It’s not like what he said was a big deal, but it was the first generous thing he had ever said to me since I knew him. I admit that I always wanted him to say something generous to me. He did a generous thing when he didn’t actually throw me into a pool, followed me to an arcade and had fun while it lasted. Coming to Japan had proven more useful than I ever imagined it would be.

“Neesan,” I snapped out of it when Sakura shouted. She had been shaking me frantically. “Did you die just now? Where did your mind go to?”

“Something,” I murmured. My eyes fell on Jace or what was that his name? The one whose video I uploaded.

I wasn’t that cruel. I blocked out every one that wasn’t in the school from seeing it, and then made sure it wasn’t downloaded, shared, or commented on. I also scrambled it so if any tried to use video recording, it wouldn’t show and above us, I set a virus so if any manage to get pass the walls I created, their phone or system would blow up. That way, the video never left the school site, never got to any media and was deleted an hour after uploading it.

I still hold him an apology.

“Wait here,” I said to her and rushed towards him. I pushed pass the shrieking girls, slipped through his bodyguards and came behind him.

“Hey! How did you slip pass?” One shouted. I looked at him over my shoulder and winked.

“James, bra boy, need to talk to you,” I said, turning my head back to stunned Jace, “tell your muscle men–wait, they don’t have any–to back off,” I ordered. He waved his guards off. “Okay, I came to apologise for what I did,”

“Seriously?” He asked quizzically.

“Shouldn’t I?”

“Y… N… I don’t know, I did sign a card for you,” he said softly.

“I know, but that video was private,”

“And yet you protected me by making sure it didn’t leak out,” I raised a brow at him, “that video, it didn’t go viral, no one else than the students saw it and it couldn’t be shared. You protected my image your way, and still got what you want. I owe you a thank you,”

Wow, he’s modest.

“Or a hand of friendship?” I asked, stretching my hand to him. I had no idea what I was doing but I was doing it. “Call it a truce?” His teammate took my hand and shook it for him as he laughed.

“Truce, I’m Dean, and his name is Jake, not James.”

“Nice to meet you Jeans,”

“I said Dean,” he laughed.

“Jeans it is,” I said cheekily, causing them all to laugh. They were five.

“So, you coming to Lucky Seven’s pool party? You being their friend and all?” Jake asked as he separated our hands.

“They threw the party for me,” I said under my breath, “of course I would be there! Wouldn’t want to miss seeing you boys in your little baby underpants,” I teased.

“Oooh, challenge, I’m in,” Dean said happily. The others hooted in agreement too. Maybe it was what Zed wrote in his essay pushing me to be more friendly, or maybe it was because I was bored. But one thing I knew was that walking up to them, offering them my hand of friendship and then swapping numbers, I certainly liked it.

Zedekiah’s standpoint

Let me give you a valuable piece of advice, one that will save you from mistakes and regret, one that would keep you away from trouble and save your life and heart; never make a decision while angry or depressed.

I have felt regret a lot of times, dealt with depression, guilt, sadness, but none like the one I faced after making the biggest mistake of my life. I wanted her out of my head, needed her out of my mind and so I foolishly went on to do what I should never have done.

I slept with Sora.

It wasn’t part of the plan, it was never part of the plan. All I wanted to do was just try her and then leave, but somehow, I woke up in her bed. I got drunk, I got horny, poured my frustration on her, and ended up with a heartache and a load of regret and guilt on my head. The depression and sadness came back in seven folds. The guilt was threatening to break me apart. Regretful because I did something foolish, should never have gone on with that date or even took a sip from the wine she gave me, knowing how sly she was. I should never have let her kiss me, never should have let myself follow her home, never should have undress her and myself, never should have even woken up that day.

I knew the result of my action would come to me later, Sora would use it against me. I just had to be ready to whether face blackmail, or a whole new level of obsession. Probably both.

Now, guilt. I was feeling guilty because I used her, I hurt my own feelings and principles because I was being a coward. Guilty because if there was ever a chance for Rosita to look at me, it was gone, forgotten. Once Sora knows I like her which she probably do because I moaned her name throughout, she would tell her what we did and Rosita would never look my way or even decide to give me a chance. I felt guilty because I had broken my own heart more than it already was.

The regret and guilt brought about the sadness and depression because I would never be with her, she would never accept me. We were done for life. The only thing I could do now was continue to ignore everything by working harder.

I looked at my phone as the screen lit up, Sora was calling me. She hadn’t stop since what happened on Wednesday, hadn’t stopped sending me text messages or chatting me up. The new level of obsession was beginning.

I tucked the phone into the pocket of my swim shorts. Odin pulled me to the party, even though I didn’t want to go. He knew what I did, but chose to pretend like he didn’t so he wouldn’t add to my depression. I needed to speak to my mother. Even though she was a psychopath and talkative, she would know what to do. The only disadvantage was that my father would get to hear it and once he hears it, her father and the twins’ father would hear it. Which means the twins are likely to find out and then Tenny would run his mouth to Rosita.

On second thought, maybe it’s best I keep my mouth shut.

“Onii-san!!!” I cringed from Yuki’s loud screech. I turned in time to see her fling herself to me, not Odin. I wasn’t expecting it, but I caught her, the force pushing us back but not enough to make me fall.

“Hey! Are you crazy?” I yelled in English.

“Yes, don’t you know that already?” She asked cheerfully.

“Yuki,” Darra called jealously, tapping his left foot on the ground. “What did I tell you about letting other men hold you by the waist?” She looked down at my hands around her waist, and a small red blush spread across her cheeks. She quickly wiggled away and bowed weirdly.

“Please forgive me, that position is for Bunny Dumpling only,”

“Bunny what?” I asked confusedly.

“Rosita,” Odin chuckled. I rolled my eyes, stylishly looking for her.

“Senpai, Dumpling is in the pool, I’ll call her out,” she ran to the edge of the pool and bent down. “Rosita-chan, stop trying to find it, you can’t! Get out of the water before you suffocate!”

“Is she still under there?” Meena gasped as she rushed towards to Yuki. “She’s dead! She’s dead!” She wasn’t. Rosita was just very good at swimming and knew how to hold her breath.

I didn’t want to see her face or the guilt would kill me. It felt like I cheated on her when we weren’t even friends.

“Rosi…” Someone burst out through the surface of the water, it splash whipping around. I saw it in slow motion: the victorious but gorgeous smile on her face, the glint in her beautiful but fake silver and gunmetal blue eyes. Her white brows shimmered with droplets of water, just like her hair and lashes. Literally making her look like a diamond haired mermaid breaking out of the surface of an ocean.

My heart lost control. It new beat slammed into my ears so loud it was almost painful.

Something is wrong with my universe.

Something is wrong with fate.

Is this karma?

Rosita laughed as she waved a tiny thing, like some kind of mini pearl. “You were saying?” She asked, curling her lips up to a smirk.

“You found it! You found it!” Yuki shrieked. Rosita swam to the edge and gave her the pearl.

“Is that mother’s…” Yuki cut Odin off by nodded as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I thought I lost it for good when it fell. Thank you, Dumpling,”

“Anytime,” and then she came out, knocking the remaining senses I had left. I practically forgot how to breathe once her upper body was out of the water. I was only grateful I wasn’t the only one making a complete fool out of myself, even Odin’s jaw dropped.

Why? Call it normal for a girl to wear a bikini, but do you know the one she wore? Especially with her skin glittering from wetness, and the way her white lock stuck to her body, fell over her shoulders and dragged attention to her deep cleavage. Don’t know who chose the bikini but Rosita would never, as in never expose her body.

Why do I say so?

Her tattoos was exposed. The tattoos weren’t permanent, I knew that. But it didn’t change how badass it made her and let’s not forget sexy and incredibly hot. She wasn’t even wearing her glasses this time. This was the most skin I’d seen since I met her.

“Odin, you are not suppose to gawk too,” Meena cried. I snapped my jaw close and turned to look at Odin… Or rather, glare. Meena used her palms to cover his eyes.

“Okay, this is a bad idea, Dumpling, change, now,” Yuki ordered, with her possessive tone. Darra’s face was buried into her chest.

Rosita laughed, “told you not to make me wear this,” she glanced at me briefly, rolled her eyes and strolled towards the house.

“Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow…”

“Stop saying wow!” Alvin shouted at Cedric, “and don’t even think about it,”

Crap! Crap! Crap!

Am I really going to leave her go to them?

Didn’t I agree to keep away?

Something is wrong with my brain.

???? Rosita’s standpoint ????

I’d never felt so naked in my entire life. It was fun to meet my friends again, but then they forced me into the so called bikini. The top was beautiful, I admit. The beads lining the neckline and hem made it more sexy, even the triple strap clasp at the back and the way it dipped down to separate my breasts and yet bring them together to pump them out. I could literally see my own boobs flashing at me. A serious temptation for boys.

Then, the bottom was similar to the top, beaded with strappy bands and fringes. The only problem was that my bums were fully exposed, completely out. I couldn’t strip myself naked because of it, so I refused to walk out looking like that. Hime then got me a micro mini skirt, a red extremely short skirt. If I bend, my bikini panty would show. So the plan was don’t bend.

I have to admit that I look great, hot, but exposed. I would have cleaned off the tattoo, but Romi convinced me that it was hot, so I left it. I regretted it.

The guys came earlier, and I didn’t like the attention. The only reaction I liked was Zedekiah. The way he looked at me made me cautious and yet the need to strike a pose so he would admire me more was strong.

Something is wrong with me.

I would have blamed it on alcohol, but the party hadn’t started so I hadn’t drank anything.

Thankfully, the girls made me wear a rayon sarong skirt and strappy top to cover my body because it was too “distracting” for their boyfriends. I found out Dean was Hime’s boyfriend and Jake, Sachie’s.

The party so far was going great, really. We had drinks, in which I challenged Dean and Jake to a showdown. Alvin joined and said that if he won, I kiss him and let him touch my boobs. I accepted wholeheartedly. I knew how to hold my alcohol. It takes a lot to get me drunk. In the end, the three idiots got so drunk they thought the pool was the moon goddess calling them to come swim with her. And they almost drowned.

Then we played a game, some kind of rhyming game in which I won. We played a lot of games, I lost few, but won most because I’m the queen of games. All thanks to the twins.

Sakura didn’t join us because Isaac had her captured. He openly said he would not tolerate any other hands on her and kept her to his side the whole time. That made the girls shriek that their plan was working. But unlike her, mine wasn’t. Zedekiah disappeared from the beginning of the cool party to the very end. No one knew where he disappeared to, but we knew he was around. At the end of the party, everyone was pretty much wasted, except Odin, Sakura, Isaac and me who chose to be responsible.

We sent everyone home, cleaned up the mess ourselves. By the time we were done, it was too late for Sakura and I to go home, and we couldn’t stay at that particular pool house. Since the guys house was closer, we agreed to stay with them for the night.

Turns out Zedekiah went back home, because he was there, working. And by the look of it, he had been working a whole lot. Even after everyone went to bed, he was still working. I couldn’t sleep, not when he was down there and overworking himself. So I stood up, went down stairs and seized all his phones and laptops.

“Get some sleep, Zed, you need it,” he didn’t argue, didn’t fight me, didn’t insult me.

Something is wrong with Zedekiah.