Chasing Hearts

Eight

I walked home after school and Reign was nowhere to be found. He was acting strange in class as well, though, at the same time, he might have been acting normal as well. He had his head down the entire time and faced away from me, but he had done that plenty of times before.

It was the air around him that made me feel there was something wrong, but as we were approaching exam time for the end of the semester, I wanted to focus more in class and not worry about needless things.

I was surprised to see that my door was open to my bedroom when I got home, and I walked in to see Bianca standing in front of the painting I got as a gift from Reign. I wondered if she knew who it was from as she gazed at it.

"Where did you get this?" she asked me.

"It was a gift from a friend, he made it."

She frowned and touched it gently. I refrained from slapping her hand away from it.

"I like it," she said softly, then turned to me. "You should let me have it, as thanks for driving you to and from school all the time."

She had to be joking. She hadn't driven me to school since my first week there.

"Like I said, it was a gift, you can't have it. Now, please get out of my room."

Bianca huffed and stomped her foot, then left. I knew where she was going before the door banged open and my father walked in.

"When I gave you money, it was meant to be spent on school, not for you to buy worthless art!" he screamed.

I saw Bianca behind him, smiling smugly.

"I guess she failed to mention that it was a gift from someone at school, I didn't pay for anything. You can even go to the shop and ask yourself."

This simmered my father's anger, and he looked toward Bianca.

"Is that true?" he asked her.

She stammered. "She never told me that."

My father groaned and shook his head in disappointment.

"Why can't the two of you just get along? Stop all this nonsense, right now." He stormed out of the room and left Bianca gaping after him.

"If you really want to know who gifted me the painting, go ask your unrequited crush," I said to her, then slammed the door in her face.

It felt really good to hear her scream in frustration before she stalked off.

~*~

The next week at school was track and field, and I had yet to hear from Yu Sheng about if he was coming to our school. Reign was still acting weird, but he let me go over to the shop and see Luna for a bit during the week, so I assumed everything was back to normal.

He paid a lot of attention when I suddenly got a text from Yu Sheng, saying he was outside the school gates waiting for me. I got excited and couldn't contain my smile when I read that, and I heard Reign scoff next to me.

"What?" I asked.

"For someone who was adamant about studying, you sure are texting a lot," he muttered and laid his head back down.

I glared at the back of it. "Coming from the guy who sleeps every class. Don't you ever get enough sleep?"

He said nothing to this and didn't even budge, which made me feel like I had struck a nerve. But where, and why? It's obvious that he had been staying at the shop like it was his home, but Ying already confirmed that he doesn't live there.

I was coming to the realization that I had spent quite a bit of time with this guy over the last few weeks, but I didn't really know anything about him other than his name, yet he knew a lot about me and my family issues.

Now, he was acting like it was bad of me to have a life for once, one that he wasn't included in this time. Was that why he was acting so upset? I did know he didn't hang out with anyone else, but he never really said that we were friends or anything.

I sighed to myself and buried my head in my work, trying to distract myself until I was able to see Yu Sheng. Once the bell rang, I jumped out of my seat and packed up my things before Reign could even move. I didn't want to deal with his bad attitude right then.

I rushed to the front gate where he was still waiting. He looked exactly the same as the last time I saw him, except he had grown much taller and broader.

"Yu Sheng!" I cried out and ran toward him.

He met me with a bear hug and lifted me off the ground.

"Han Ma Ri! It's been so long, how are you?"

I chuckled at that name now. It had been such a long time it felt, since I had heard that name out loud.

"What are you doing here? I thought you went to some big fancy sports school, I never thought for a second we would end up in the same place," I said.

"I did, it's in Orlando, not far from here actually. Which is another reason why I'm here." He took off his bag and dug around until he took out a pamphlet with the word Cantebury written in bold letters across the top and admissions underneath.

"What is this?"

He smiled awkwardly and rocked back and forth on his feet.

"It's the school I go to, it's not just a fancy sports school, it's a private art academy."

That caught my attention. "An art school?" I started to flip through the pamphlet and saw he was right, it was an entire school dedicated to the arts, music, sports and literature.

"You're wasting your talent away here, Han Ma Ri. You should consider transferring to our school."