No Spoon, No Ice Cream

Saye tried to open the door to my room but she frowned when she saw that it didn't budge. 

"Guys?" she called and rapped the door. 

Ethan turned his head around to look at the door. Kai and I however, didn't move. He didn't allow me to. My heart was thumping in my chest, wondering what Kai would say now.

Ethan walked over to the door and unlocked it before prying it open a little. Saye leaned forward to look inside the small gap but Ethan covered it and shook his head, closing his eyes. 

"What is it?" Saye whispered and Ethan stepped out of the room by opening the door a little bit more and closed the door again when he was outside. He held Saye's wrist and led her out of that hallway. 

"What's going on inside?" Saye asked in confusion, but she seemed to get the general idea. She was smiling on the inside, satisfied that I had done it so fast. 

"Ashe likes Kai…" Ethan whispered back as he gave her a bowl of ice cream. Saye took it and grabbed the spoons from the kitchen rack and put one in his bowl. 

"Really?" Saye licked her spoon.

Ethan nodded and led her out of the kitchen to the garden outside. They found a spot by the flowers and sat down, the breeze in their rosy faces.

"How did you know that Ashe likes him?" 

Ethan took a spoonful of ice cream and looked at the girl next to him before explaining the whole 'Test' thing. Saye frowned when she heard that my heart had actually sped up at Kai's name. But she let it go for now and tried to eat her ice cream.

But she was still quite dazed and her spoon slipped, falling into the flower fields. 

"Ah!" She put her bowl aside and fished out the spoon, but it was all covered in mud. She wrinkled her face and threw the spoon to the side. "All that ice cream…" she pouted, taking back the bowl in her hands.

Ethan leaned over and laughed. He scooped the ice cream from Saye's bowl with his own spoon and ate it. 

"No! That's my ice cream!" she shouted at him and swatted his arm but he was already diving for the next spoon. 

"How can you eat ice cream without a spoon, oh wise one?" he giggled and took another spoonful. Saye frowned and sat silently and watched him eat. 

After a few moments of silence, Ethan started to feel guilty for hogging it all up. He smiled sadly and scooped another roll of ice cream from Saye's bowl and extended his spoon to Saye's mouth. 

"Open wide!" 

She pursed her lips, "How can I eat from that spoon? You used it."

He raised his eyebrows and retreated the spoon, "Fine. I'll eat it myself then."

He put the spoon in his mouth and took that in too. Saye sighed and placed her head on her hand and watched him eat. After a while, she couldn't take it anymore. 

"Okay, give me too."

"You can't eat from this spoon, right?"

"Just give it to me."

Ethan smiled slyly and took one more spoonful and leaned over to feed her. She opened her mouth slightly but he stopped and laughed.

"What? Why aren't you giving it?"

He tilted his head and smiled, "Say please."

"Argh…" She pounced for the spoon and tried to bite it but Ethan was too fast and withdrew it like lightning. "Say please!"

Saye folded her arms and let out a breath. She had never said please for as long as she could remember. Why should she say it now? 

'I have a reputation to uphold,' she thought, 'As a daughter of the Trenner family why should I say please to a guy like him? For god's sake it's just ice cream. But it's such a nice ice cream…still! I can't say please. I would—'

"Please," Saye said anyway, narrowing her eyes at Ethan. He smirked and extended his last spoon of ice cream to her obediently. Before she could take a bite, however, another head popped in and licked the spoon bare. 

"Mhmm!!��� he said standing up straight. Ethan and Saye looked up in shock and saw Romeo smiling cheekily, cheerier than ever. "I didn't know we had such good ice cream here! Thanks for the bite, Ethan!"

"You little punk…" Ethan snarled, throwing the spoon inside his bowl and getting up. Saye saw him get ready for a fight and she held him back, "Ethan. It's okay. We can just go back and get more."

"But still…"

She squeezed his arm and silently told him that it was okay. Ethan sighed and punched Romeo on the shoulder before walking away, feeling sad that a chance with Saye was ruined because of the wrong timing.

Romeo on the other hand, didn't have a clue. "Uh, Saye. Did I do something?" He scratched his head, wondering why Ethan was angry over such a small thing. Saye laughed nervously and waved her hand, "Nothing…it's nothing! Are Lucas and Jae-suk awake?"

Romeo nodded his head, "The last thing I remember is cleaning the toilets…how did I end up in bed, though?"

Saye thought back to what I had said before. "You hit your head on the sink accidentally and passed out. That's why."

Romeo was still confused, "Then why are Luca and Jae-suk sleeping together?"

"Uh…" Saye looked around in helplessness, before she got an idea. "Together? They're sleeping together?" she asked him.

Romeo nodded, "Yeah, with arms and legs on top of each other. You want to see?"

Saye smiled and nodded, "Take me!" and she followed Romeo to Luca's room where they both were. 

…

The only sounds in the room were the slow breaths of Kai's and mine. A few birds from the forest chirped outside our window which put us both in a trance. It was as if we were in zero gravity. Floating with no sense of direction. Standing with nothing to say. A few seconds passed.

Kai spoke first. 

"Is…is it true?"

I bit my cheek and closed my eyes before opening them again. "I think so. You saw it for yourself."

"But…but why? Why me?"

I frowned, "Why not you?"

He looked away and tugged his earlobes, "I mean, there's Adrien who's much better. Then there's Romeo who is funnier. Luca who is happier around people…and Jae-suk who is super loyal. Out of all of them, why me?" 

"Should there be a reason for me to like you? Can I not like you just because you are you and not anyone else?"

He shook his head, "That's not what I meant." He finally met my eyes. "You are not the person to go around liking people just like that. You are logical and think things through. You barely know me for a week and now this happens. This isn't you. What are you doing right now?" 

Oh god. He caught me good. And so did Adrien last time. I could see our plans failing. These boys weren't what I expected them to be. They had actually noticed me, something nobody ever did the past 16 years of my life.

And the very feeling of being noticed by someone was…thrilling. I didn't want to let that feeling go. I wanted them to notice me more, care for me more and tell me that I mattered. 

I smiled, and decided to capture that feeling, "I'm being truthful," I lied. "But I understand where you're coming from. So we can stay friends if you want…but I'd like to know you better. What you like, what you don't like. Whether you like animals or prefer winters over summers. I want to know. Just like my curiosity for deciphering codes…I'm curious about you. And it's the first time I'm curious about a human. Is that okay with you, Ad-"

I choked on my words and looked away. My heart beat…it sped up. I shut my eyes close and told it to slow down. Who was I kidding? Of course I had thought of Kai when Ethan had said Adrien during the Heartbeat Test. And I had thought of Adrien when Ethan had said Kai. 

I looked up at Kai and smiled again, "Is that okay with you, Kai?"

He was silent for a while and I feared what his answer would be. But he smiled too and nodded, "I'd like to know you too, Ashe Hermann."

His eyes showed happiness and I knew the first part of our plan had finally taken off. I was happy too. Happy because I had said all the right things, but I was also unhappy at the same time. 

Because I had said all those right things...to the wrong person.