Chapter 1

As the raindrops slowly started to fall on the window pane where my head rested, I started to feel a cold chill pass through my temple. This certain day was the shittiest of many similar melancholy weeks. The world truly is cruel to lazy people like me.

As I wonder upon the thought of sleeping an extra 5 minutes, my mind finally races toward an escaping thought.

(Today’s Sunday, she’ll definitely be there again.)

Yup, there goes my chance of having a normal Sunday, I was about to watch the 34the episode of Boruto. But I suppose lady luck had better adventures awaiting me.

I get ready to go to the public library. I lost count of how many Sundays I have wasted going to that forsaken place. This present habit started about 3 months ago, when I decided to kill some time and for want of solace thought no better place to hit other than the library. As I entered the library, I noticed the newly renovated bookshelves and benches. Seems to be a nice touch.

I pick up a book called ‘101 Facts that definitely won’t make your day brighter’. Of course the real title was something else, but thats what I remember. Then after I read the fact that hippo’s milk is pink(really?), I saw this girl come and sit across the table from me.

“Mornin’. Did you sleep well yesterday?”

I was just 2 seconds from answering, but thankfully I noticed the earphones sticking under from the black hoodie that mystery girl was wearing. It hid her face pretty well too. She didn’t seem to be tall too.

“Yes, I’m on the course of that you sent, uhun, but I -”

She kept talking and I continued with my book. I did see that she was reading some book called,”A Thousand Splendid Suns”. As if it wasn’t hot enough already.

I did finish my book, I believe the last fact was that the world’s largest oxbow river is river Ob in Russia.

( Hmm, my life seems more fulfilled now that I know these useful facts or so I thought. )

Apparently the heat got to Ms .1000 Suns, and she removed her hood and undid her zip. I noticed that she wasn’t speaking to anyone anymore.

As I looked(more like creepily stared) at her, her eyes suddenly caught mine.

(Shit, caught in the deed.)

She had puppy eyes and long curly hair. Looked nice on her.

“Hey babe, what are you reading?”

A guy who was dressed like the lead guitarist of a flop punk band said from behind her. He rested his hand on her shoulder and yanked the book from her.

“Thousand sun bullshit. Why don’t ya come with me and I’ll show you some real fun.”

She was visibly trembling as if somehow wanting to tell the guy to remove his hand. It was as if her voice just wasn’t coming out.

“N-no, no I, I don-n’t -”

As she said this with trembling breaths the guy took her hand and was just about to pull her away.

Now, I am no hero, but as a concerned average teen citizen, and the sight of a damsel in distress, I couldn’t stay quiet. I stood up from my chair, walked across to the other side to said villain of our story and said,”Hey man, she said no, why don’t you leave her alone.”

He let go of her hand.

“And what if I don’t?”

“You do know who I am, right?”

“Oh no, I don’t, so please enlighten me.”

“The name’s Jake, they call me Piranha around here.”

He did flinch for a second.

“Oh yeah, then maybe they ought to call you sardine from now one.”

I pulled up my left hand sleeve and showed him my tattoo of a snake coiled around a knife. His face suddenly went lifeless.

“Listen man, I’m so-sorry, please leave me man. I promise you won’t ever see me again.”

“I’m gonna count to 5, you better get lost till-”

He had of course ran away before I finished.

“-then.”

Sunny girl was trembling as if somebody had run over her. I returned to my seat. I was half expecting her to say anything, but she didn’t.

Anyways I started another book called,”How to survive in the wilds(Dummy Version)”.

(Great, another useful book.)

I absorbed myself in the book and had just learned how you can drink your own piss to survive.

(Gross.)

“H-hey, t-thanks for, um, helping me out there.”

She said so while standing right beside my chair. I stood up, towering over her by at least 4 inches.

“No prob, I just can’t stand bastards like that.”

Her cheeks were bright red, and she was looking down towards her feet.

“I-I wanted to, un, tell you something.”

She motioned me to bring my head down. I thought she wanted to whisper something.

She got on tiptoes and kissed my cheek.

“Thanks.”

She rushed away from me and raced towards the door. And I standing there like a dumbass began to smile.

(What a sweet girl. Maybe playing hero has it’s perks too.)

Later I was about to find out that there are a lot of perks to it. Anyway after that I would consecutively go to the library to the same table every Sunday. It took a while for her to open up, but she eventually started opening up to me. Her name was Kat, short for Katherine. Apparently she was super shy even with me and had troubles sometime to speak her mind to a person. The punk was from her school and was disturbing her for quite some time. But he didn’t disturb her anymore. As to the tattoo that’s another story for another time.

As I would go to the library each Sunday she would smile a bit, and blush crimson saying,”Mornin’ Jake.”

And I would casually reply,”Good morning to you, Kat.”

After that we would talk about anything, she would tell me about the story of the book that she was reading and I would just smile like a fool.

As I was visiting the library each Sunday, I decided to get a part time job there as an assistant librarian. All I had to do was manage a shift of 5 hours every weekday, and full days on Saturday and Sunday. The job was boring enough but I just had to sit there and would occasionally watch some anime as well. At least I got paid for it.

Jumping back to the present, I was walking fast to the library with an umbrella, the rain was not giving up just yet. As I entered the library I noticed that there were not a lot of people there today.

Of course without any doubt I knew Kat would be there at least. By my luck, she wasn’t there.

(Hmm, she must be busy with something.)

I sat down behind the librarian’s desk and started watching Boruto. After watching a few episodes I started reading random books. This went on till it was dusk and the sun had almost set.

“Hey, sorry I wasn’t able to make it today.”, she said standing in front of the desk, dripping wet from head to toe. She was breathing hard almost as she had ran over here.

“It’s no biggy. Why don’t you sit down and remove your hoodie, you might catch a cold.”

“Sorry, but I gotta go home. Maybe next Sunday?”

“Sure.”

She turned around and started walking towards the door.

“Hey Kat, wait, you don’t have an umbrella do you, let me drop you home, my shift just got over.”

I locked up the library, left the key in the designated place and joined up with her.

She didn’t say anything but didn’t have to too. I hesitantly wrapped my arm around her while walking. She welcomed the heat and rested her head on my chest. No words were spoken in the entire walk. It felt good, no words were actually needed.

It took us about 20 minutes to.reach her home.

“Thanks a lot Jake.”

“No prob.”, I said blushing like a fool.

“You now maybe we should hook up sometime.”

“You don’t know slang, do you? I think you mean hang out, hook up means to have sex.”

“Oh,” she blushed and looked somewhere else.

She entered her house and from inside said,”Then maybe we should hook up some time later.Goodnight Jake.”

She closed the door.

(For sure, Kat, for sure.)

She indeed turned out to be the sweet devil herself.

The rain eventually stopped sometime at night.

I got worried when she didn’t come the next Sunday. This wasn’t like her at all. I decided to stop by her house in the evening.

Knock, Knock.

I knocked on her door. About 5 minutes later she opened the door, she was wearing a white T-shirt and pink jams.