A subtle vibration came from my thigh as I was attending a lecture. I pulled my phone out of my pocket only to see a notification with Hannah's name flashed across the screen.
[Hannah] : What time does your class end?
[Ryan] : About fifteen minutes more. Why?
[Hannah] : My class ended and I was wondering if you wanna go back home together. I'm a little bit scared after the announcement.
[Ryan] : Sure, but I'm planning to have some burger before going back, you want to join? Is okay if you don't want to, I know you have a strict diet.
[Hannah] : I would love to! I haven't had a burger for quite a while.
[Ryan] : Is a deal then, I will see you at the entrance.
[Hannah] : *Insert a rabbit with OK hand emoji*
-30 minutes later-
Coming out of the entrance of the university, I turned my head left and right before settling down on a girl with a pink hair bun that stood out amongst the crowd. She wore an over-long sleeve shirt with skinny jeans to pair with, standing beside a pillar, looking anxious.
"Hannah," I called out while jogging toward her. "Sorry that I made you wait longer than expected. The lecturer extended the class for a couple more minutes to provide us details for our next midterm exam."
"Oh, there's nothing to be sorry about."—Sarah waved her hands in denial—"My class just ended not long ago." All the anxiousness on her face disappeared when I arrived. I guessed she was still worried about Tyler coming after her but I doubt he would be that brazen to assault another student in front of the security guard standing guard in the main entrance.
As both of us walked out of the university, I could feel the piercing gaze of other students, especially male students. Their envious eyes filled with hatred, how dare I, a normal schmuck just like them, dare to taint the surrounding air of their idol. If they were to know that not only did I talk and walk with her but I'm living with her under the same roof. They would've thrown me into the ocean with a cinderblock tied to my legs.
It didn't take long before we had arrived at the fast food restaurant near the university where me and Dylan both had burgers yesterday.
Carrying a tray of food from the counter, I headed toward the small table beside the glass panel. Hannah was sitting there, waiting for me.
Setting the tray on the table vertically, I assigned my chicken burger and fries to the side of the tray nearest to me while placing the fish burger and another fries on the other side which I had ordered for Hannah. Both of our drinks were set in the middle of the tray.
At first we were just sitting there, eating our own food and minding our own business but slowly, we started to warm up to each other as I made the first move, we shared laughter and for a moment it felt like we were back to the old days when we were still high schoolers. Both me and Hannah had been in the same school from kindergarten to university, we had always been best friends but suddenly for unknown reason she had been avoiding me like a plague.
"Say, Hannah. If you don't mind me asking…what happened between us? We had always been so close but…."
"Er, uh, erm," Hannah smiles faded and was replaced with a troubled face, averting her gaze from mine.
"If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to." I immediately regretted my decision, everything was going smoothly but I just had to ruin it all, asking this stupid question that could have been avoided.
"Do you remember our high school prom?" Hannah asked, trying to provoke my memory.
"Eh? Yeah I do. It was rough, I couldn't find any partner until the day before the prom but Alex offered to be my partner although she had already graduated. Why?"
"Why didn't you ask me to be your partner?"
"Erm, I thought you already had one. There had always been rumor about you dating the football captain and even if you guys aren't a thing, I'm sure there's a lot of other students who were asking you out, why would I even bother-"
"How would you know if you didn't ask?" Hannah cut me off abruptly, resting her chin on the palm of her hand, looking out of the glass.
Eh? What did she mean by that? Did she want me to invite her or is she angry because I went out with Alex instead of her? That's the reason she had been mad at me for a full year? I sipped on the straw on my drinks in silence, sweating bullets, not knowing how to answer her questions.
----
"Are you still mad?"
"Who said I'm mad?"
Both of us walked down the street to our home after exiting the subway station. Hannah walked in front of me as I followed behind, cocking my head to the side trying to steal a look of her face but to no avail. Not being able to see her face, I couldn't be sure if she's still mad through her monotone voice.
Suddenly, a low but high pitched cry sounded out from the other side of the road. Intrigue, both me and Hannah followed the voice and quickly found ourselves in the alley between two buildings. Moving toward a carton box sitting beside the wall where cries were coming out from, we found a small, calico kitty was inside, meowing incessantly when it saw us. The box had blankets and plastic containers, one with water and another one was empty.
"This cute little baby is hungry!" Hannah speaks in an exaggerated tone, making a baby talk voice while petting the cat on the head. She took off her school bag and placed it against the wall, unzipped it and pulled out a mini sachet with a cat picture printed on it.
Peeling off the top edge of the sachet, she kneeled beside the box and squeezed out a white meat paste in noodle shape from the small opening, feeding it to the kitty. The kitty was scared at first but braving its heart, it gave the snack a little lick and its eyes immediately widened in delight. The calico grabbed onto the sachet with both of its front paws, licking and meowing at the same time. I stood at the side, smiling the whole time while watching their interaction.
The calico, after finishing eating the paste, crawled out of the box and snuggled its body against Hannah's leg and mine, melting both of our hearts.
"You always do this huh?" I asked Hannah, I peered inside of her bag to find that she had a couple more of the same cat snacks.
"Whenever I see a cat."
"Why not adopt one?"
"As much as I wanted to, I didn't want to burden mom with further expenses. Raising a cat is not cheap, you know? And half of the day I'm not even at home, I'm either studying or training in university. It would be all alone in the house." Hannah said sadly while raising the cat up, rubbing her nose against it's. The kitty purred loudly in response.
I made no move to reply, despite wanting to help but I didn't even have enough money to move out of the house, not to mention the expensive university fee. The only reason I was able to barely hold on was because of the partial student loan that I will need to pay back after graduation.
----
In the alley, a small pale girl wearing a worn out gown was peeking out of a corner at the two humans beside a box, interacting with a small furry creature that she didn't know what it was. Her eyes shined when she saw the dark haired human, it was the same human that made her fall on her knee in the apartment that night. She had been searching for him for a long time but unlike the last time, she did not pounce on him immediately.
She did not know what she did wrong for feeding on the EGS cells from the humans nor did she understand the hostility shown by the two female humans in the convenience store, she fighting them was simply her way of defending herself from the attacker. But it was after the fight that she figured that her actions may have enraged the humans.
She decided to hide behind the wall to observe the situation, watching with pensive eyes how the furry little monster interacted with both the humans.
After a couple more minutes, the little girl seemed to have made up her mind on something. She squeezed her eyes closed with both of her hands clenched into fist. Her body started to tremble and shrunk rapidly, the sleeves of her gown slipped off of her shoulder and her gown and wrist tag dropped to the floor with her now nowhere in sight.
A small rustle came from the white gown on the floor before a small head popped up, it was the little girl but now in the size on par to a small kitten. She spun her body to wrap herself in the gown like a small ball, leaving only her head and limb on the outside.
Fully prepared, she creeped toward the unzipped bag, however, she suddenly halted her steps. She turned her head back to find that she had forgotten to take her wrist tag, she hurriedly went back to fetch it before making her way to the bag, dragging the wrist tag against the concrete floor.
It didn't take long before the miniature girl had successfully reached the bag without alerting both humans who had their attention on the flurry monster. Although the opening of the bag was beyond her reach due to her current height, with a small leap, she was able to jump into the unzipped bag and hid in it until the bag was zipped closed. She could feel a tremor inside the bag every time the pink-haired human took a step while carrying the bag on her shoulder.
Note : I'm basically a slave for my turtle. No write. No money. No money? No snack. No snack? Get snap.
>If you are interested in advance chapter, you can find it in my : pat*reon.*com/Kinksman (erase the *)