_Chapter 19–1~ Messed Up_

"Just take the goddamn–"

"Reina! Calm down!" Daichi tugged on my arms to pull me back. "Down girl! Down!"

I growled in response, not in the right state of mind to listen. My glare was fixed on the frightened girl in front of us. "She knocked down and stepped on two cupcakes and doesn't even want to pay for it?"

Daichi groaned. "Say it in simple terms so she can understand. Yelling at her won't help."

"Why do I have to spell it out for her? It's common sense! I worked hard on those cupcakes and she thinks she can pass our stand, disrespect me by stepping on them, then walk away without even an "apology fund"?"

My glare grew more hostile and I lunged at her for the second time. Daichi immediately held me back.

"Pay for two more on top of the ones you dropped!" I shouted regardless.

The girl whimpered, trembling in utmost fright. "B-but I can't–"

"Don't you dare say you don't have money! I saw you stuffing your mouth with some mitarashi dango from the booth over."

"I-I do!" she squealed, throwing her arms over her face to protect herself. "B-but I can't eat your cupcakes!"

I gasped. "Are you calling my cupcakes disgusting?" I rotated Daichi's way. "She called my cupcakes disgusting."

Training a you're-dead-to-me look on my face, I reached for my earlobes. "Daichi, hold my earrings, this chick is–"

Daichi bonked me on the top of the head. I yelped.

"Ow!"

Glaring at me, Daichi sidestepped and approached the girl. "I apologize for her behaviour. She's a little... crazy sometimes."

I socked his arm, resisting the urge to snap something.

"I said sometimes," he defended. He faced the girl. "Look, don't worry about paying. Take one for free."

The student who clearly attended Seisein Academy—which I knew by looking at her blazer—had tears streaming down her cheeks. Upon Daichi's intervention and him extending a new cupcake forward, she sniffled, playing the perfect act of a victim. "A-actually, if they're free can I not take?"

Offended, I felt ready to attack her again. Daichi blocked me off.

"Why?" he asked. "I wouldn't turn down free cupcakes. And I can actually vouch to say that they're really delicious despite how they look."

The girl snuffled once more, hanging her head low. "Um, I-I have Celiac disease..."

"Cece-what?" I echoed from behind. "Lies! She's lying to us, Daichi! Grab her–"

"Oh, then don't worry about it," Daichi cut me off, smiling. "I hope you enjoy the other booths."

I gaped as the girl scurried away from us. "Hey! What are you doing? She's escaping–"

Daichi rounded to scowl at me. I flinched in response, my eyelids shooting up.

"Reina!" He rose his voice, something I'd never expected from him. "Are you an idiot?"

My mouth opened without hesitation. "Yes?"

Daichi's face scrunched up sourly and spun around. I followed his gaze to see that all the surrounding people and booths were keeping a wary eye on us, as if convinced we were dangerous. Every passing student steered clear of our booth as well, avoiding eye contact entirely. A premonition began to gnaw at the pit of my stomach.

"They all totally think we're psychos," Daichi murmured.

I let out a sigh, eyeing the table in front of me. From the eighty cupcakes I made, only three were missing – one being the one the girl dropped and the other because Daichi and I got hungry and decided to pay for ourselves. Regardless, my entire outburst now clearly didn't help our situation. I had messed up, like always.

"It's... because nobody stopped by here for two hours now," I said in defence, falling into a seat. "They all simply pass by while all the other booths at least have a few people. And the ones who did come either asked for directions or had second thoughts once they saw the state of them..."

"I get it, you're frustrated," he said. "Not to mention, there are people going on and on about ice cream from another booth."

"I'm sick of it."

"I know." He sympathetically smiled. "But, you still shouldn't attack other people."

A frown spread across my face. "I wasn't going to 'attack' her."

He stared at me incredulously. "You were growling at her like a wild animal and told me to 'hold your earrings.'"

I shrugged and pointed to them. "I'm not even wearing earrings. Truthfully, I was going to say "hold my hair tie!" but it didn't sound as intimidating, y'know?"

Daichi snorted, I turned to see him stifling a laugh.

"Hey," I said, pursing my lips.

"Why don't you take a break?" he suggested, meeting my eyes. "I'll be fine here myself. Just go figure out what those other two are doing and report back. We'll decide what to do from there."

"Good idea." I ascended to my feet and spared him one last glance. "Don't eat them."

He stiffened, almost as if he was hoping I wouldn't figure out his ulterior motive.

"Uh," he said, guiltily. "Of course not, ha ha."

I narrowed my eyes at him but his discomfort didn't wane. Shaking my head, I walked off at that. He better not do so. It would be extremely embarrassing if the person running the booth was the one to pay for all the funds.

As I twisted around the corner to where Miyabi and Ryu's stand was I was startled to find that they, and their table, had disappeared. I waited a good while because I hadn't want to come out of hiding, but nevertheless, they didn't reappear. Perplexed, I walked out and into the open space. Did I get the location wrong?

"Boo!"

I jolted as two hands seized my shoulders, letting out a piercing scream. I jerked backwards, palm at my chest, only to find myself staring at the face of a zombie. I screamed again.

Instead of swooping down to eat my brains, the zombie broke out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. The familiar guffaw invoked mortification through me.

"Hey!" I cried, flushing red.

"Sheep is so funny!" Miyabi howled, arms over his stomach.

He reached behind his head, yanked apart the string and slipped the mask off. His brown eyes met mine, twinkling with amusement.

"Hey, Sheep, are you embarrassed because you got scared?"

"I was not scared!"

"Yes, you were," he argued. "You screamed twice!"

My bright blush consumed my ears. I fumbled for words for a bit. "Where did you get that stupid mask anyways?"

Miyabi pouted, hugging the thing closer to him. "It's not stupid!"

"Really is. It's not even Halloween."

"Scary things aren't only for Halloween," he remarked, matter-of-factly. "And besides, zombies aren't scary. They're cool."

"You could only say that because they're not real. If they were–"

I stopped abruptly after realizing what I was doing. I was fraternizing with the enemy! I had to prove that I wasn't inferior to him, dammit.

"Sheep?" Miyabi drawled, colour draining from his face. "Um, why are you looking at me like that?"

The scowl that I hadn't noticed I'd been wearing didn't falter. "Why? Are you uncomfortable?"

He vigorously nodded. "St-stop it."

"No."

"Wah! Sheep is gonna give me another nightmare!"

"Good." His words settled in and my hostility vanished. "Wait, another?"

Snuffling, Miyabi rubbed his eyes. "A herd of sheep were chasing after me and you were the one leading them, horns out and everything! You even threw wool at me–"

I cut him off with the wave of my hand. "Stop talking."

"Aww, but you didn't even let me finish!"

I don't even want to hear it.

Right as the words were about to leave my mouth, a chill ran up my spine. All the hairs on the back of my neck rose simultaneously, and I robotically craned my neck upwards only to see the giant standing there, black look aimed directly at me.

"Wh-when did you get here, Iwasaki?" I asked, lips quivering. And why was he glaring at me so hard like that?

"He was there the entire time," Miyabi answered in his stead, boisterous once again.

The entire time...? I warily raked him over. Great.

An awkward silence loomed over the three of us, but it wasn't so bad with the animated voices of the passing students. I was going to use the opportunity to escape back to Daichi but Miyabi cut me off.

"So, what are you doing here, Sheep?"

My body immediately went rigid. "M-me? Oh..."

Ryu's glower still hadn't lifted, making me all the more nervous. I couldn't exactly say I came to spy on them...

"How about you?" I asked instead, fixated on the empty space in front of me. "What happened to your booth? Wasn't it here?"

"Oh, that? We ran out of ice cream," Miyabi responded with a defeated shrug. "We handed our money in to the Student Council so we were wandering around."

My heart had stopped beating. Wait... Ran out? Of ice cream?

They were done?

"You should've seen how packed it was!" Miyabi laughed. "I thought I was going to die, honestly! It was so stressful, right, Iwasaki?"

Ryu glanced elsewhere in response.

Regardless, Miyabi went on, "You so should've teamed up with us, Sheep! How is your booth, by the way? Are you sure you can be here?"

My lips clamped together and I forced a smile. "Uh, yeah. It's fine."

No it isn't. It's a mess.

"That's good," he cheered. "What were you giving out?"

My fingers furled into fists. "C-cupcakes."

My voice cracked. They so noticed I'm lying.

Miyabi merely beamed. "Made by you? Aww, I wanna have some! I'll go buy! Where's your stand?"

He took a step forward. My eyes widened and I snatched his sleeve before he could.

"Whoa," he said, eyes sliding onto me. "What's wrong?"

My lungs caved. It was difficult to breathe. "U-uh... uh..." Work stupid mouth. Just tell them you screwed up. "I... ran out of cupcakes too, actually." No, why are you lying? "You can't have, sorry."

I couldn't dare meet his eyes. Ryu's boring stare from behind wasn't helping. I swallowed back the lump forming in my throat.

"Aww," Miyabi whined again. "I really wanted to eat some."

"You shouldn't," Ryu interjected. "You ate lots of sweets already. Take better care of your health."

"I'm fine." Miyabi extended his lower lip in a pout. "Jeez, it's my body. Leave me alone."

He swivelled around. "Okay."

"Wait, Iwasaki!" Miyabi shouted. "I was kidding. Please don't leave me! I can't live without you!"

Why did they sound like some old married couple?

After begging Ryu to return to his side and getting him to concur, Miyabi released a relieved breath. He wiped a sweat from his brow and faced me.

"Sheep, did you already put everything away?"

I locked up. "W-well..."

"We'll help you then," he said with yet another burst of enthusiasm. Sparing Ryu a pressuring look, he marched around the corner before I could stop him. "Let's go–"

"No!" I hollered, running head first and tackling his side like a bull.

Miyabi flew forward, and so did I. He hit the wall while I crashed into a booth, knocking over the styrofoam boxes and scattering them everywhere. My face collided with something sticky as well and I pulled away to see that I had slammed into takoyaki – loads and loads of it.

Paling, I reeled back. "Oh my God. I'm so sorry–"

My palms connected with what I thought to be the table and jolts of heat shot up my arms. An inhumanly shriek left my mouth and I lurched away from the scorching stove, already feeling myself tearing up from the burn. Through my blurry mission I saw gasping passersby with takoyaki sauce spilt all over them, the people running the booth frenziedly trying to calm them down.

My jaw went slack.

Again.

I had messed up again.

Miyabi and Ryu's wide-eyed stares were easy to spot, and that in itself was the last straw. Cradling my numbed hands and ignoring the frantic yells from teachers and students after me, I raced down the corridors and out of the school building. I mentally berated myself as tears clouded my vision.

I should've known this would happen.

_____________________

Ahh... Misfortune really follows Reina, huh?

Don't forget to vote & comment! Part 2 will be coming later today! <3

—Misty