Isagani kept his promise.
After that eventful afternoon and honoring Yumi's request, Isagani did not initiate any excessive physical contact.
But having no indulgent physical contact didn't mean alienation or time to be far from each other; in contrast, the boy was now comparable to the girl's little shadow. It was like he was afraid that a second blink would cause his sense of presence to decrease in the lady's heart.
Whenever and wherever he got a chance to brush off his existence to the lady, he would surely seize it.
Every break of dawn she could spot him in front of their house. He would then jog with her along the path to the school vicinity and when it was about an hour before class he would run back home by himself to prepare for school.
He would always look for her every noon and would force her to trash any idea of using her lunch break to train a little more. He would drag her out of the court and let her sit on the bench to eat lunch with him.
When she was in the locker room and tidying up to go home, he would snatch the comb from her numb hands to neatly brush her sweaty hair for her after training. A lot of times, he would skip the comb and directly use his fingers to gather every strand of her hair. His tips would graze through her scalp making her shudder and feel a sparse current that traveled from her roots down to her shoulder.
He even acquired a habit of leaning down on the side of her head to talk, more like a whisper, closer to her ear.
What was more baffling was he once just appeared after her training and handed her two large paper bags.
"Do not op--" Before he could warn her, the girl had already taken out the bundle of colorful bras.
Like a hot potato, she hurriedly shook the stuff away from her and now the undergarments were lying in the middle of the gym corridor; thankfully not a ghost was present at that moment.
"Isagani!" She exclaimed with gritted teeth. " Did your brain turn completely green now?! Good! You're a fearless, smelly boy. Did you find life so boring that you want us both to have a party in the guidance office?"
The boy leisurely stepped towards the garment, picked it up and hid it back in the paper bag, "I didn't intend you to open it here."
He glanced at the lady's chest area which was immediately covered by her arm. He looked up and saw her funny look, "Stop wearing those baby bras. These are the types your age should wear, you know."
He pointed at the other bag, "That one is a sports bra. It'll give you proper support, and your breasts won't hurt anymore when you run. Wear it during your training."
That day they bickered for over an hour about whether the boy should take it back or not. After a long argument, the girl was threatened with keeping the undergarments or having the lad give her breast massages every day after her training if she didn't wear them. She unwillingly took it home and hid it in her closet.
He would wipe off rice from her lips with his thumb, pick the lashes that lay on her cheeks, he would tie her untangled shoelace, pull her towards safety whenever she was too tired to mind the road to home, would even secretly lift her backpack with his right palm to lessen the burden of her shoulders.
If she hadn't known better she would suspect that the boy was filming his own romantic Korean drama and was so absorbed in his male lead role.
She did not mind a few occurrences, but he seemed addicted.
Is this the famous love bombing but friends edition?
What's with this main protagonist's aura?
She could not really keep up!
She talked it out with him a lot of times when she called it enough, but the boy had his own ideas. She was not used to this kind of attention. Above all, she wanted to take away her mind from their last two clandestine encounters. She wanted and badly needed to cleanse her mind; him being constantly around her was not helping and these occasional little touches were like a tease, making her restless and absent-minded during practice games.
Even her coach started to notice her abnormality and lectured her for an hour about focus and single-mindedness.
She just bowed her head and took it all because she knew that she had been really out of it these past few days. She could not afford to be in this state when the national games were only weeks away.
She looked at the unbothered bastard who was currently licking popsicles that she did not know when and where he got.
"Gani, are you deliberate?" She narrowed her eyes to study his reaction.
"Deliberate." He stated as a matter of fact. "It turns out you're not numb and dumb. My affections were not thrown into an unfeeling doll." He smirked while still licking.
"You!" Thunderclap came into her. Her eyes rounded in disbelief and incomprehension.
Isagani stood still and looked straight into her doubtful eyes, "I like you."
She panicked for a second but her expression returned to normal when she realized something, "Don't think that I would allow you to do that thing again. You won't fool anyone." She snickered.
After their two intimate activities, she visited the nearest coin computer shop in their school and opened a new world.
She learned that their massaging was not actually massaging and her pee at that time was not actually a pee. Her heart never stopped racing while looking at this blush-inducing information on the net. Half of it was the fear of someone discovering the contents on her screen and half of it was shyness whenever she read something that would make her recall what they had done.
She also read forums about teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and precautions for teenage girls like her against horny and full-of-lies boys.
One line struck her the most. They said that boys full of libido would say anything to bed a girl. They would say words that they actually did not mean, like "I like you" or worse, "I love you."
She's not the naïve Yumi before.
Sure, if she were completely honest about it, she did enjoy his touch, but above all that excitement was the desire to protect herself and their friendship. She did not want to end up abandoned like her mother.
Isagani frowned when he heard her accusation, but he could not blame her. Their steps were really messed up. He just hoped that time and his actions would be the best proof that he was serious about wanting to be with her.
"I really like you and I wanna properly chase you." The popsicle in his hand melted and slid down the stick; his eyes still darted at her, "Give me a chance to prove myself to you... and about sex, I won't touch you unless you want me to."
Her cheeks blushed and her heart pounded hard against her chest. She stammered while talking back, "W-Who would want you to t-touch me?! Dream on!" She sprinted into the street towards her home without looking back and heard him yell, "Okay! I'll take it as a yes. I'll work hard, Yumi!"
She turned and yelled back, "Who wants you to chase? I didn't tell you to chase!"
"Oh, so we're an item now? Good. Much better!
"No! That's not what I mean." Frustration appeared on her face.
"Oh, so you don't like me." His lips pursed and her eyes flashed sadness.
"No! No! Of course, I like you--"
"Okay! You've said it!"
Isagani beamed from ear to ear and glided to the other street. He understood that the girl was shy, so he didn't stimulate her more and let her process on her own.
She wanted to retort back when she realized that she'd been tricked. But thinking that talking with this goblin boy was like talking to a parrot, she just turned forward and strided home.
When she entered their doorway, she consciously lightened her feet while climbing the stairs to not disturb the old one's nap.
She spotted Grandma Cruz on her favorite rattan rocking chair and tip-toed her way. She watched her grandma's face for a minute and quietly placed her pointing finger across the elder's nostril.
After checking, she picked up the fallen blanket, tucked it on the other side and went to her room to freshen up.
Isagani kept his promise.
After that eventful afternoon and honoring Yumi's request, Isagani did not initiate any excessive physical contact.
But having no indulgent physical contact didn't mean alienation or time to be far from each other; in contrast, the boy was now comparable to the girl's little shadow. It was like he was afraid that a second blink would cause his sense of presence to decrease in the lady's heart.
Whenever and wherever he got a chance to brush off his existence to the lady, he would surely seize it.
Every break of dawn she could spot him in front of their house. He would then jog with her along the path to the school vicinity and when it was about an hour before class he would run back home by himself to prepare for school.
He would always look for her every noon and would force her to trash any idea of using her lunch break to train a little more. He would drag her out of the court and let her sit on the bench to eat lunch with him.
When she was in the locker room and tidying up to go home, he would snatch the comb from her numb hands to neatly brush her sweaty hair for her after training. A lot of times, he would skip the comb and directly use his fingers to gather every strand of her hair. His tips would graze through her scalp making her shudder and feel a sparse current that traveled from her roots down to her shoulder.
He even acquired a habit of leaning down on the side of her head to talk, more like a whisper, closer to her ear.
What was more baffling was he once just appeared after her training and handed her two large paper bags.
"Do not op--" Before he could warn her, the girl had already taken out the bundle of colorful bras.
Like a hot potato, she hurriedly shook the stuff away from her and now the undergarments were lying in the middle of the gym corridor; thankfully not a ghost was present at that moment.
"Isagani!" She exclaimed with gritted teeth. " Did your brain turn completely green now?! Good! You're a fearless, smelly boy. Did you find life so boring that you want us both to have a party in the guidance office?"
The boy leisurely stepped towards the garment, picked it up and hid it back in the paper bag, "I didn't intend you to open it here."
He glanced at the lady's chest area which was immediately covered by her arm. He looked up and saw her funny look, "Stop wearing those baby bras. These are the types your age should wear, you know."
He pointed at the other bag, "That one is a sports bra. It'll give you proper support, and your breasts won't hurt anymore when you run. Wear it during your training."
That day they bickered for over an hour about whether the boy should take it back or not. After a long argument, the girl was threatened with keeping the undergarments or having the lad give her breast massages every day after her training if she didn't wear them. She unwillingly took it home and hid it in her closet.
He would wipe off rice from her lips with his thumb, pick the lashes that lay on her cheeks, he would tie her untangled shoelace, pull her towards safety whenever she was too tired to mind the road to home, would even secretly lift her backpack with his right palm to lessen the burden of her shoulders.
If she hadn't known better she would suspect that the boy was filming his own romantic Korean drama and was so absorbed in his male lead role.
She did not mind a few occurrences, but he seemed addicted.
Is this the famous love bombing but friends edition?
What's with this main protagonist's aura?
She could not really keep up!
She talked it out with him a lot of times when she called it enough, but the boy had his own ideas. She was not used to this kind of attention. Above all, she wanted to take away her mind from their last two clandestine encounters. She wanted and badly needed to cleanse her mind; him being constantly around her was not helping and these occasional little touches were like a tease, making her restless and absent-minded during practice games.
Even her coach started to notice her abnormality and lectured her for an hour about focus and single-mindedness.
She just bowed her head and took it all because she knew that she had been really out of it these past few days. She could not afford to be in this state when the national games were only weeks away.
She looked at the unbothered bastard who was currently licking popsicles that she did not know when and where he got.
"Gani, are you deliberate?" She narrowed her eyes to study his reaction.
"Deliberate." He stated as a matter of fact. "It turns out you're not numb and dumb. My affections were not thrown into an unfeeling doll." He smirked while still licking.
"You!" Thunderclap came into her. Her eyes rounded in disbelief and incomprehension.
Isagani stood still and looked straight into her doubtful eyes, "I like you."
She panicked for a second but her expression returned to normal when she realized something, "Don't think that I would allow you to do that thing again. You won't fool anyone." She snickered.
After their two intimate activities, she visited the nearest coin computer shop in their school and opened a new world.
She learned that their massaging was not actually massaging and her pee at that time was not actually a pee. Her heart never stopped racing while looking at this blush-inducing information on the net. Half of it was the fear of someone discovering the contents on her screen and half of it was shyness whenever she read something that would make her recall what they had done.
She also read forums about teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and precautions for teenage girls like her against horny and full-of-lies boys.
One line struck her the most. They said that boys full of libido would say anything to bed a girl. They would say words that they actually did not mean, like "I like you" or worse, "I love you."
She's not the naïve Yumi before.
Sure, if she were completely honest about it, she did enjoy his touch, but above all that excitement was the desire to protect herself and their friendship. She did not want to end up abandoned like her mother.
Isagani frowned when he heard her accusation, but he could not blame her. Their steps were really messed up. He just hoped that time and his actions would be the best proof that he was serious about wanting to be with her.
"I really like you and I wanna properly chase you." The popsicle in his hand melted and slid down the stick; his eyes still darted at her, "Give me a chance to prove myself to you... and about sex, I won't touch you unless you want me to."
Her cheeks blushed and her heart pounded hard against her chest. She stammered while talking back, "W-Who would want you to t-touch me?! Dream on!" She sprinted into the street towards her home without looking back and heard him yell, "Okay! I'll take it as a yes. I'll work hard, Yumi!"
She turned and yelled back, "Who wants you to chase? I didn't tell you to chase!"
"Oh, so we're an item now? Good. Much better!
"No! That's not what I mean." Frustration appeared on her face.
"Oh, so you don't like me." His lips pursed and her eyes flashed sadness.
"No! No! Of course, I like you--"
"Okay! You've said it!"
Isagani beamed from ear to ear and glided to the other street. He understood that the girl was shy, so he didn't stimulate her more and let her process on her own.
She wanted to retort back when she realized that she'd been tricked. But thinking that talking with this goblin boy was like talking to a parrot, she just turned forward and strided home.
When she entered their doorway, she consciously lightened her feet while climbing the stairs to not disturb the old one's nap.
She spotted Grandma Cruz on her favorite rattan rocking chair and tip-toed her way. She watched her grandma's face for a minute and quietly placed her pointing finger across the elder's nostril.
After checking, she picked up the fallen blanket, tucked it on the other side and went to her room to freshen up.
