I Am Right Here

Chapter Three-Kyou

“Ooh! A letter!” Saru’s crooning voice crept over my shoulder.

I scowled and shoved the letter back into my locker. “Letter?” I felt confident that I did a really good imitation of his voice. “What letter? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you think I didn’t just see you put the letter back in your locker?”

“No.” I slammed my locker shut. “Maybe you were hallucinating.”

“Come on, man,” he nudged my shoulder. “Let me see it.”

“See what?”

“The letter.” An evil grin made its way onto his face.

I shot him a glare. What was with this guy? I was much too tired to keep lying to him forever. Saru was just the kind of guy that wouldn’t leave you alone.

“Whoever sent that letter probably only wanted me and not some creepy monkey to see it. It’s none of your business.”

He jerked his head over his shoulder to toss his hair across his forehead. He ignored my insult towards him. “Oh? And what do you suppose is in that letter?”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I lifted the door open only about an inch or two, enough so I could fit my hand into it to reach for my lunch.

“Someone’s confident that it’s a love letter.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I rolled my eyes as I reopened my locker. “It could be a letter from the principal telling me that my bleached hair is against the rules for dress code or something.”

I reached into my locker, grabbed the letter into a fist, and stuffed it into the pocket of my pants. I knew that my thoughts told me that I wished the letter was anything but a love letter. It didn’t matter if I got in trouble with what I decided to do with my hair.

“Liar,” Saru sang in sing-song. “What’s wrong with a love letter? Aren’t those things good?”

No. Not to me.

“Look,” I threw the locker door shut. “I’m just not looking for a girlfriend right now, okay?”

I held my lunch in one hand, and the other hand was stuffed into the pocket. My hand clutched the crumpled envelope. When I turned to leave the row of lockers, Saru followed after me.

“Okay, that’s weird, man. Loads of guys would love having loads of choices in girlfriends. And you haven’t even said yes to even one of the thousands that asked you.”

“Don’t exaggerate. I didn’t have thousands asking for me.”

A thousand girls trying to be my girlfriend would have driven me insane.

“And the whole girlfriend thing with everyone seems the same, y’ know? I mean you don’t have to be someone’s girlfriend to like someone.”

“Yeah, but you’ll be more likely to find the one you’ll marry in the future. Do you want to die alone?”

I wrinkled my eyebrows. “Future? Marry? Dude, we’re only in the second year of high school!”

“So?”

I thought the subject would change somehow if I answered his question with another question.

“Did you ever notice that whenever you get a love letter, they’re all the same?”

“The same?”

“Yeah. I mean, they all say ‘Please meet me at this place at this time.’.”