Chapter 12 - XII (2/2)
And here she is now, pedaling as hard and as quick as she could to reach her university before the flag ceremony starts. Laia still had lingering anxiety behind her mind that keeps on telling her to pedal slower, but her pride and stubbornness wouldn't allow the said anxiety to further influence the girl.
Laia arrives at the university breathing heavily and exhausted. She knew she was sweaty as hell from having to wear a raincoat on top of their uniform, but does she really have a choice?
It didn't help that despite the fact that it was raining, it was still hot. It could be like that sometimes, which pisses Laia off. Shouldn't the weather stick to one temperature?
She quickly makes her way to where the flag ceremony was being held and had her day immediately ruined when the asshat stayed true to his words and stood behind Laia, occasionally whispering the most abhorrent of sentences or just pure nonsense.
It took every bit of Laia's patience (which was as thin as a single hair strand) to keep herself from lashing out at the asshat and choking him to death.
When they were finally at the classroom, Laia was immediately greeted by Brie and Jake, who seemed to have skipped the flag ceremony and went straight to their classroom to probably do their thing.
Hopefully not, Laia thinks as she shivers in disgust.
”... anyway, I'm still bummed that I'm not groupmates with my Jakey,” Brie repeats for the umpteenth time as she sat on her usual chair. She urges Laia to sit beside her by patting the chair next to her own. ”And I don't even like my groupmates!”
”I thought you like everyone,” Laia teases, as she sat on the chair beside her friend. Jake sat on the armchair of his girlfriend's chair, and Laia was a little bit terrified that it might break.
Brie narrows her eyes at the girl beside her and whispers, ”Definitely not everyone especially those who would rather talk all day with Sammy than take the report seriously!”
She then wraps her arms around her boyfriend's waist and buries her head on his stomach. ”Ugh, I wanna be groupmates with my Jakey,”
Jake chuckles and ruffles his girlfriend's hair. Laia rolls her eyes at their PDA but says nothing about it and continues the topic at hand. ”Just reprimand them or something if they continue texting or staring at the asshat during your supposedly planning time,”
The only good news about the whole group reporting is that their adviser left her entire period for her students to plan their group report. It may or may not be because she's lazy to discuss other topics. Laia doesn't mind at all, but she does mind having to talk to the asshat more than necessary.
”Why do you keep calling him an asshat? He does have a name you know,” Brie scolds her friend, as she pulls away from her boyfriend but not far enough to remove her arms from looping around his waist.
Laia rolls her eyes. Because he has a bad attitude and Laia doesn't even want to bother saying his name when he calls her by his surname, she wants to say but goes against it. ”Don't mind it,”
Brie was about to say something else when their adviser arrived. She exchanged a brief greeting with the class and everyone then went to their groupings.
Laia internally calmed herself and repeated mantras of ”don't murder the asshat” and ”don't start another fight”.
Unfortunately, the last chair just had to be the one facing the asshat (again) and having to see his annoying grin that mocks Laia at every chance he could get. Laia repeats the two mantras again.
Shane seemed to be her pillar of strength as the girl clapped her hands together and the sound from it effectively ended the awkward situation. Kind of.
”So, uhm, Samuel,” Shane looks at the asshat. The asshat cocks his head to the side.
”Yeah?”
”Are you done with the research?” She asks, taking the paper from yesterday out of her bag and placing it on the table.
The asshat shakes his head. ”Not yet,” He genuinely looked embarrassed for once. Laia is delighted at his reaction. ”The WiFi back home was shitty yesterday. It's also one of the reasons why I wasn't able to respond to the group chat and left your message on seen.”
Laia scowls subtly. Apparently, it wasn't because the asshat was rendered speechless. It was because of his WiFi.
”Disappointed that I didn't respond yesterday to your taunting, Lopez?”
Shane looks away and whispers, ”Oh shit, here they go again,'
The girl rolls her eyes. ”Not really. If you ask me, I was beyond elated to not hear from you for a while. I was this close,” She showed her two fingers about to touch. ”To celebrating. Sadly, I would still be seeing you today so I didn't bother.”
Asshat grins. ”Are you sure that you have enough money for one celebration?”
Laia grits her teeth but forces a smile. ”Oh, more than enough for even about ten celebrations,”
The two stared at each other for a while, neither backing down. Shane's eyes drifted from Laia to Samuel, and she suddenly claps her hands together again loudly, catching both of their attention.
”As much as everyone here,” Shane discreetly tilts her head to the side to imply that everyone was watching again. ”loves watching your arguments, I don't. So how about let's start discussing before you go to war again?”
Their groupmate's words were enough to silence the two for the rest of the period.