Laia & The Transferee - Chapter 45

“WHAT YOU’RE MISSING IS MY FIST hitting you in the face,” Laia hisses through her gritted teeth after pulling Niel towards the kitchen, far from the earshot of the couple in the living room. “Where did you go with your idol?”

Niel massages the arm that Laia pulled with a frown. “Why do you always have to resort to violence?”

“That isn’t even violence,” The girl shows her clenched fist making Niel step back. “You’ll see true violence if you won’t answer why you decided to hang out with Amethyst instead of staying here–”

“You literally ran outside to God knows where and out of nowhere for no reason!” Niel rolls his eyes. “Did you honestly think that I would just stand by and let you leave without doing anything? I followed you!”

“Where were you then?” Laia deadpans.

“I ended up being lost,” He continues, his tone sheepish. “I returned back here and Ame came out of the room–”

“Now you’re calling her Ame, too?” Laia couldn’t restrain a scowl appearing on her face.

How do people manage to befriend other people so quickly, anyway?

“Are you jealous?” Niel nudges her in the side, making Laia glare at him and threaten him with her clenched fist again. “Chill! What’s with the bad mood? I thought you already cleared your head after talking to the cute guy–”

“You saw that?” Laia wanted to strangle herself and Niel at the same time.

Great. Niel probably saw much of a flustered fool Laia looked in front of Aiden.

Now the boy had more things to tease Laia about.

Laia can only hope that he wouldn’t tell Keith about it, or Laia will have to suffer from both her coworkers teasing her mercilessly.

Niel grins and even wiggles his eyebrows. “I saw how your eyes literally turned into hearts–”

The girl punches her friend’s shoulder. He yelps and turns to the girl with a betrayed expression. “I was just saying what I saw!”

“You’re being overdramatic,” She punches her own shoulder and raised her eyebrow. “It doesn’t even hurt–”

“You obviously punched your own shoulder with less force!”

Laia was about to defend herself further when Amethyst appears behind them with a smile. “Let’s eat dinner before the food gets cold?”

“Uh, yeah,” Laia awkwardly hides her clenched fist from Amethyst. “Sure,”

“We’ll be right there,” Niel says.

After washing their hands, the two made their way to the dining room where Amethyst and the asshat were already seated.

“Where did you order the food?” Laia asks since she didn’t see the logo of the paper bag containing the food earlier. “And please tell me it’s not spicy–”

“Stop being a wuss,” The asshat says from his seat. He already had food on his plate. “Spicy food is great,”

“Not everyone shares the same preference when it comes to food,” Amethyst reprimands him, even flicking him in the forehead. “Don’t be rude.”

The asshat seemed to have something else to say but shuts his mouth once Amethyst raised the same finger that she used to flick his forehead. She almost enjoyed the sight of him being docile if only she didn’t notice how the asshat snuck his right hand to hold the left hand of the girl beside him.

Gross. Do they really have to flirt in front of Laia?

Or more like inside Laia’s house?

Niel elbows Laia and cocks his head towards the chair in front of Amethyst, urging the girl to take a seat. Laia obliges and sits down, her hand reaching out for a chicken leg among the various parts of the whole chicken in one of the plates.

“Oh, you like chicken drumsticks too? Those are favorite as well!” Amethyst beams with a smile.

Laia awkwardly smiles back. “Yeah,”

“That’s spicy, though,” The asshat notes making Laia turn to him in surprise.

That’s surprisingly considerate of him, Laia thinks as she returns the chicken leg back and opts for the pork ribs that were bought alongside it.

“Is this spicy?” Laia asks no one in particular as she tries her best to check.

The asshat answers for her after drinking from his glass. “That’s not spicy,”

What’s with his sudden kindness?

Laia’s eyes widened as she glances at the asshat, trying to figure out his motives. What if he’s actually lying? What if the chicken leg is not spicy and the pork ribs are spicy all along–

“If you think I’m lying to you then you can just ask Niel,” The asshat deadpans, his tone bored. “Is it really that hard for you to trust someone’s words?”

“Just yours,” Laia couldn’t stop herself from retorting.

She steals a glance at Amethyst who was eating the second chicken drumstick on her plate in silence. Laia hopes she won’t assume that there was something between her boyfriend and the owner of the house she’s currently in.

Not that there was anything in the first place, but people have the tendency to jump to conclusions especially when they’re in relationships.

The asshat snorts. “Sure,”

Laia didn’t respond and instead started eating. She was honestly too tired to deal with the asshat’s crap, how his girlfriend was at the same table as they are, and how everything just seemed awkward overall.

The girl’s eyes drifted towards the clock on the wall of their living room which she could see from her spot. It’s still seven-thirty, huh.

Niel stretches his arms after finishing his meal and turns to Laia. “When is your mother coming home?”

Shit. Laia forgot about her mother!

She exchanged glances with Niel who seemed to have understood what his friend was trying to relay immediately. The boy turns to the two other people in front of them with an almost business-like smile.

“Apparently Laia’s mother is about to come home and she doesn’t like strangers very much–”

“I’m not a stranger,” The asshat says.

Amethyst turned to the boy beside her, puzzled. “Vincent?”

The asshat continues. “I’ve already met Lopez’s mother a few weeks ago,” He even shrugs to show that he didn’t consider it a big deal when Laia was basically stopping herself to choke him and make him stop talking. “We even ate lunch together,”

“What the fuck?” Niel mouths to Laia who internally facepalms.

Amethyst looked lost. “I didn’t know you were that.. close,”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Laia shook her head aggressively that it hurt after but she continued. “He was just sent on an errand by our teacher to give us our scripts for the play,”

“But did he have to go to your house personally?” Niel whispers to his friend, but it was obvious that Amethyst and the asshat heard it.

“Don’t start something,” Laia hisses. Her eyes drifted towards Amethyst who had an unreadable face which didn’t help cease Laia’s worries at all. “Anyway, what Niel is saying is that my mother wouldn’t really like it if we still had visitors after she returns home from work–”

“Yes, we understand,” Amethyst stands up from her seat, grabs her bag, and pulls the asshat with her. The asshat didn’t look like he wanted to leave his seat but complies. “Thank you so much for taking care of Vincent,”

Laia wanted to say that she basically had no choice on the matter but stopped herself. She opts for shaking her head instead. “It’s not a problem,”

Niel waves goodbye at the girl and started to gather the plates. Laia was about to stop him but Niel stops her friend with a shake of his head. “I can at least handle washing the plates.”

“I’ll do it–”

He narrowed his eyes at her and pushes the girl towards the other guests who were about to leave.

Amethyst smiles again at Laia once she puts her umbrella inside of her bag. “Thank you again,”

Laia doesn’t say anything. It’s not like she didn’t want to, but felt like it would be too repetitive for her to respond with how she responded earlier.

Before making her way inside her car and leaving, Amethyst spares the asshat a single glance, and then she was gone.

To say that Laia was surprised was an understatement. She actually thought that the asshat would ride with his supposed girlfriend who he even held hands with under the table earlier but Amethyst didn’t even seem to consider that possibility.

Was the revelation that the asshat said earlier about how he had lunch with Laia and her mother before and how he already knew Laia’s mother made Amethyst angry?

That’s weird because she shouldn’t be jealous, really.

In contrary to Laia who was surprised at how cold Amethyst seemed, the asshat didn’t look one bit surprised and even seemed to be relieved when the girl’s car disappeared from their view.

He clicks his tongue and ran his fingers through his hair, effectively making it look messier than ever.

Laia leans against the gate. “I thought you would be riding with her,”

“You thought wrong,” The asshat replies.

The girl fought the urge to roll her eyes. Look at him being back to his usual asshole-attitude once his girlfriend was gone and his fever.

Or does he still have a fever?

“Are you talking shit about me inside your mind again?” The asshat glances at Laia with a bored expression.

Laia honestly thinks that the asshat can read minds sometimes. She worries about how much he’s read already.

She hopes he doesn’t know her browser history, though.

Anything but that.

“I still can’t read minds, unfortunately,” The asshat deadpans. Laia scowls when she noticed him taking a cigarette from inside the pocket of his jeans. “What’s with the scowl?”

“Don’t you have a fever or something? You know, from getting sucker-punched?”

“Nah,” He replies, the cigarette in between his two fingers. “It passed already,”

The asshat was about to light his cigarette when Laia pulled it from his grasp, making him look at her with a confused expression.

“Are you in need of a smoke too? I have a pack–”

“I will murder you,” Laia threatens with a withering glare. “Why are you even smoking? Don’t you know just a single cigarette would kill you–”

“Everything we eat and encounter kills us in the end,” The asshat says. “We’re basically just alive to die anytime,”

Laia cringes. What’s with his sudden depressing statements?

“Just smoke,” Laia hands the cigarette back to the asshat but fishes out her handkerchief and covers her nose. “I’d rather have you smoke than speak as if you’re about to die or like how my late uncle who hated the world spoke–”

The asshat laughs. “You have an uncle who hated the world?”

“Yeah,” Laia thinks back to how her uncle launched a whole speech about the life stages of a human being in the middle of their Christmas reunion when Laia was twelve. “He hated living so much until he got married,”

Laia smiles as she remembered how her uncle’s wedding went. Her uncle who hated the beach ended having a beach wedding just to see his wife’s smile.

“Are they still together?” The asshat asks.

The short-haired girl nods. “Uh-huh,”

“That’s good,” The asshat hums. “Good for him.”

The cigarette was left untouched for the rest of the night as faint laughter and their conversations about the most random topics continued.

Niel had to stay inside the house and watch them in silence, though.