Money or Him?

The Boy Who Confessed (PART 1)

Time flied fast when you didn’t pay attention to it. Without me realizing, half of the semester had passed and I could see the students in my class getting sloppier in dressing day by day. The girls that were putting on full make-up last year were going to classes with only eyebrows drawn now. Dresses? You wouldn’t be able to find one in my class. The boys that were styling up their hair with gel last year were now attending with bed hair. Is this the curse of the architecture major or is it just my class?

          I trudged my way towards the morning class with dark circle under my eyes, glancing at the people around me. Feeling the ache in my head and the dryness in my eyes, I was sure that my facial expression was one that shouldn’t be found on a human’s face.

          I had been pulling all-nighter for three days and the consequences were killing my head right now. There’s a project that requires us to design an environmental-friendly public facility and I had just finished it the day before the deadline, which was today. Glaring at my drawing tube case that I was dragging behind me, I sighed sullenly while thinking of the pay that was surely cut as I couldn’t work for the last three days.

          Thinking back about it, I was actually quite guilty. I was pushing back the project for working part-time jobs and my occasional laziness were quite severe this month, so I started doing it only when the deadline was nearing.

          “Shouldn’t have been lazy…” I mumbled, closing my eyes when a sudden throbbing went through my left eye.

          Walking into the classroom, I swept my eyes and snorted, seeing the similar poses that most of my classmates were making, slumping over the table. Walking to my best friend who was doing that exact pose, I put my tube onto the table beside hers. I put my hand on my chin while looking at some classmates that were panicking on their table, trying to finish their project before the professor came in.

          “Hey.”

          I turned my eyes to the left, spotting the similar dark circles under my best friend’s eyes.

          “You look ugly.” She snorted.

          Well, I can’t refute her. I had circles under my eyes, hair put up into a messy bun, not a pretty messy bun but a real messy bun, and small pimples across my forehead. Those pimples always broke out when I hadn’t had sleep for a few days and would go away when I had my rest so I wasn’t too worried about those.

          “You too.” I rolled my eyes.

          The one with the most change in this class since the start of my college year would be her. The first day we started college, she was wearing dresses and high-branded bag, face full with make-up and hair styled meticulously. She looked like a celebrity that time. She was still pretty now with only lipstick on but she looked more like a pretty neighbor next door rather than a celebrity.

          “I know I still look pretty bared-face and with dark circles.” She boasted.

          I pulled a disgusting face on her before looking at her drawing tube case with dolphin stickers all over it.

          “Are you done?” I asked her.

          “Of course, I wouldn’t be this relaxed if I weren’t. I almost died this time,” she groaned, “I didn’t have my beauty sleep last night and I haven’t gone to my beauty salon in so long.”

          “Didn’t you say you still look pretty bared-face?” I asked in pity.

          “Maintained bared-face skin and not maintained bared-face skin is different.” She tutted while shaking her index finger. I shook my head and shut up when the professor finally entered the classroom.

                                                                                        #

Finishing all the school work for this month, we were happy about it so we were planning to go to my house to eat hotpot. Calling my boss to let her know that I could start working again, she arranged some extra shifts for me to do tomorrow and the day after.

           I thanked her before turning off the call function.

           “Finally! We are done! I hope I don’t flop on Professor Long Leg’s project. His was the hardest to do.” My best friend complained.

          “Yeah, I hope so. Let’s go to the supermarket now, I didn’t have some of the hotpot ingredients.”

          Walking towards the campus gate, my best friend and I stopped and turned when someone called my name. A man with a backpack was jogging towards me. He stopped when he stood in front of me before looking at me in the eyes.

          “Can I talk to you alone?” He glanced at my best friend and she got the signal.

          “I will wait there.” She pointed somewhere ambiguous.

          Waiting for my best friend to go, I turned my head back to look at the man in front of me. “Can I help you?”

          He took a deep breath before saying, “Be my girlfriend please?”

          I stared at him, surprised, before asking slowly.

         “I’m sorry… Do I know you?”

          I’m pretty sure I had never seen this man and he wasn’t either our major senior or junior.

          “Ah yes, let me repeat that. I’ve taken a liking to you. My name is…” He rubbed the back of his neck and introduced himself.

          … Is this how a confession step should be?