The Lovers

Hi, my name is Nana.

And this - here - is my girlfriend Mina.

She's a bit of a crybaby and can get annoyingly cute at times, but that's… well, just cute.

We are as different as we can be. I love sports and computer games, and she sucks at both. I mean like real bad. This is quite unfortunate because that limits what we can do on our dates. It seems lately all we've been doing is going shopping, watching movies, eating sweets at new dessert cafes, and flirting.

Oh wait, we've been to an aquarium recently too, so I guess it wasn't all so bad. It brings a smile to my face whenever I recall how excited Mina got when we went into the Turtle Room where they had like 10 different kinds of turtles. She was squeaking like a little kid and that was really cute.

We are in the same class in our third year of high school. On the one hand, I'm of course happy to be able to see her all the time throughout the whole day. On the other hand, though, I wonder if it would have been better for us to be in different classes. It's not that I want my own space. Far from it. I love being with her as much as possible. But I've never been comfortable being under the attention of so many people, but her being so clingy to me in the class at every chance means that everyone's always looking and cringing at this odd couple of a super cute girl and a slob.

But oh well, after all, it was me that worked my ass off to get in the same class as Mina, who effortlessly walked into the class where only the top 30 students from the previous end-of-the-year exam were allowed to enter, and our school had over 200 students in my year alone so that was quite a feat. I barely managed to make the cut though as I just about edged it at the last exam to finish in 30th place in my year. That truly was hard as hell and I wouldn't have managed it if any one of the many guesses and random answer picks I did in the exam didn't work out.

What this meant though is that every day at school I was struggling in classes. It felt like everyone but me understood everything the teacher said. Everyone but me could solve the equations in time. Everyone but me knew what some old hack of a poet from a few centuries ago meant with his cryptic symbolisms and wordplay. There was one upside to it though. Everyone here was weak, frail, and clumsy in sports so during the physical education classes I felt like I could take on the whole class and win. That's what you get for spending all the time in cram schools and never kicking a ball, suckers.

Perhaps though, I shouldn't be so critical considering that Mina is the worst of them all. She falls over every time she does anything remotely sporty like a newborn kitten. She's so frail that it feels like she will get blown away if I sneeze in her direction.

But she has a beautiful smile,

And she is my girlfriend.

 ***

Hi! My name is Mina, and this - here - is my girlfriend Nana. She always looks so tough and cool but in the heart, she is very sweet and kind.

We share so many things in common. We both love sports and computer games. I'll admit I'm not as good as her but that's only because I got into them much later in my life than her, but on my good days I can still beat her in her own games - it hasn't happened yet but I'm sure I'm really close to doing that, maybe even this weekend?

Lately, though, Nana has been changing a little and that makes me worried a bit. She does not want to play games at her home anymore. I sometimes worry that she no longer wants me to come over to her place. Instead, she has been taking me to shopping, cinema, and dessert cafes, and it seems all we do these days is flirting. Oh, she did take me to an aquarium recently. That was so cruel. The creature that I am most scared of in this whole world is turtles, yet she took me to a frigging turtle room!! I got so freaked out but all she did was look at me with a smile. How could she? I said before that she is kind but sometimes I wonder if she secretly enjoys making me suffer.

She is a very smart girl though and I'm so proud of her. She went from being almost at the bottom of the class in our first year to getting into the top 30 in the whole year! All she did was just study a little and voila, she did it. How easily she achieved this makes me a little jealous, to be honest. What's more, although I also managed to make it to this class I find the academic level here really challenging. I have to concentrate so much during classes I feel so exhausted after every lesson. But Nana always looks so calm and aloof in the classes. How does she do that? Is she really a genius?

I am so glad we are in the same class though. During every break, we spend time together and she has become so clingy to me this year that it's really sweet. I think she secretly also enjoys being seen together with me all the time, it's like announcing to the whole world every day that we are lovers. It's embarrassing but I like it.

I hope we can have a good year this year and get to do all and everything that lovers do.

Because after all,

We are lovers.