Chapter 6.

“Eat”

“...”

“Stop being so childish and eat something!” Ordered Kira, pushing a plate of Spaghetti towards Yoshi. Her brother sighed, then with very little enthusiasm, chased some pasta around his plate with a fork.

It was the day after his ’forced kiss’ from Melody, and Yoshi had spent the day seemingly operating on autopilot. Melody had walked to school with him. He had been hoping that she’d be embarrassed about what happened and act as if nothing happened. Instead she had done something much worse. She acted as if it had meant something.

On the way to school, she had clasped his hand in an iron grip, and held on al the way there. At lunch they ate together like the usually did, but instead of just sitting there an chatting like just a friend, she was practically sitting in his lap and feeding him tiny bits of sandwich.

He’d wanted her stop, and knew he should have told her to. But he just didn’t seem to have the energy. He felt washed out and acted as if he didn’t really care anymore.

At registration he’d noticed Justin’s seat was empty, and asked Melody where he was. Melody had said that it didn’t matter any, Justin wasn’t coming back and he shouldn’t be bothered. For some reason this made Yoshi feel worse than he already did.

Yoshi swallowed down a mouthful of spaghetti, it tasted okay, but eating it made him feel like there was a ball of damp cardboard sitting in his stomach. Reluctantly he ate a few more bites, then placed the fork neatly beside the plate.

“I’m done”

“No you’re not!” Corrected his Sister “Mum’ll go spare if she finds out you’re not eating. Knowing her she’ll probably jump to conclusions and think you’ve turned into an anorexic. Now eat”

Yoshi picked up the fork, but didn’t do anything else. “I’m not hungry”

Kira gave an exasperated sigh. “For god’s sake Yoshi, cheer up! So what if Melody kissed you, it’s not the end of the world”

Yoshi looked down at the floor “Well Justin must think it is, he wasn’t at school...”

“I don’t care about that” said Kira “All I’m bothered about at the moment is you. I can’t have my little brother moping around the house like some lovesick teenage girl...”

“Hey!” Cut in Yoshi “don’t call me ...”

“Teenage girl? Oops teenage boy then” corrected Kira.

“ I didn’t mean that, I meant you shouldn’t call me Lovesick!” Protested Yoshi “ I’m not lovesick I’m...depressed”

“Sure about that?”

There was a short embarrassing silences whilst Yoshi ran possibilities through his mind.

What the heck is she thinking? I’m not lovesick over anyone. It’s not like I liked Justin...okay maybe a little, but definitely not like that. He may be crazy but once you get used to that he could be okay to hangout with. In fact, he was kinda cute...

Yoshi felt himself start to blush, and desperately tried to calm down. The last thing he wanted was to show Kira she was bothering him, and that would result in a round of teasing. Unfortunately Kira noticed and giggled.

“Don’t get the wrong idea, Kira. There is no way in hell that I’m starting to like Justin, even a tiny bit, in that way. No way, now how” He tried to emphasise his point by slamming his hand down onto the desk. “I am not bothered about what he saw, or what he thinks....at all”

Kira grinned “Well if you’re not bothered and you don’t care about him, why are you acting like you are?”

“Well I-I-I...” Flustered Yoshi, before trailing of into an embarrassed silence.

His sister giggled some more, then looked at her watch “There's something I wanna watch starting soon, so I’ll have to let you work through your emotional issues by yourself” She stood up to leave the kitchen “Oh and by the way” she added knowingly “If you want them, there is a pair of binoculars in the garage”

“What?” Said Yoshi, somewhat confused “what am I supposed to do with those”

“You’ll work it out eventually...”

“Humph” Yoshi sat back in his chair and sulked some more. What the heck was he supposed to do now? For some reason that thought sounded familiar, and he realised that he’d thinking it more and more lately. He never knew what he was supposed to do or say. Not like Justin. Justin seemed to have no problem with most difficult situations. He just bulldozed through them, taking the most Yoshi related rout possible as he did so. Doing or saying whatever was on his mind.

Yoshi sighed. Damn, what if he’d unintentionally really hurt him? That would explain why he hadn’t been at school, which just made him feel worse.

Finally is dawned on Yoshi. There was only one thing to do now, and that was go see Justin and apologise or talk to him or do whatever had to be done to sort this miss out.

He suddenly realised what the Binoculars were for.

-----

“This had got to be the dumbest thing I’ve done in my entire life!”

He could hardly believe what he was doing or even why he was doing it, but Yoshi found himself sitting in a tree outside Justin’s house, with a pair of military style binoculars slung around his neck.

“Damn this is stupid” he peered through the binoculars and tried to see into the house. Sitting in a nice dry, warm and most importantly, safe kitchen, his plan had seemed perfect. But in practice, as he sat in a damp, dangerous and probably rotting tree, and was trying to not fall to his death, it just seemed plain stupid.

There is an old cliche that says in order to catch a thief you should think like one. In a similar way Yoshi had decided that the only way to make things up with his stalker was to act like one.

He tried to work out which window belonged to Justin’s room, and curse himself for not paying more attention when he’d visited. There were three upstairs windows visible from where he sat. Yoshi eliminated the one on the left right away, since he could make out the blurry outline of Melody, dressed in a pink bathrobe and singing into her hairbrush, standing behind it. The window on the right was framed by floral drapes, making Yoshi almost certain that the room must have belonged to Justin’s parents or sister. This only left the central window as a possibility. Carefully Yoshi edged along one of the sturdier looking branches, in an attempt to get a better view.

Once again Yoshi glanced through the binoculars for signs of life. On closer inspection he was unable to tell what lay beyond the glass. The room was much too dimly lit for that. It was time for phases two of his plan. Earlier he had scooped up a handful of gravel from the driveway. Now he removed it from his pocket and threw a few pebbles towards the glass.

After half a minute or so, Justin appeared behind the window looking puzzled. He glanced around a few times before opening the window.

“Hey! Over here” Yoshi yelled, wildly waving the binoculars to attract attention.

Justin looked startled “Yoshi, what the hell are you doing in that tree? You’ll break your neck!”

“Funny story really hehehe” he laughed unconvincingly “I just thought I’d come over here and apologise for the whole Melody thing...didn’t mean anything, she forced it and I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea...” Yoshi realised he was babbling and trailed off into an uneasy silence.

Justin took advantage of the pause to work out what the heck was going on. Yoshi was in a tree, throwing gravel at his window to get his attention and waving a pair of binoculars at him. This was really weird, he decided, it was more like something that he’d do to Yoshi, not the other way around....

Justin face palmed, realising how much of a pest he must have been in the last few weeks, before turning his attention back to the situation at hand.

“That's what I’d hoped” he grinned “But for a little while had my doubts... I’ve had to put up with Twenty-four hours of Melody bragging about it, and she can sound pretty convincing when she wants”

“Cool” Yoshi felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders, whilst the dread-knot in his stomach uncurled.

“Anything else? Or are you going to sit there all day?” Justin asked impatiently “it’s a bit dangerous for that though, I still have the bruises from the last time I fell out of it. Funny story...I was trying to get back into the house without anyone realising and a whole branch gave way...” He noticed Yoshi’s expression changing to one of utter fear “Of course that probably won’t happen to you”

“Yeah well I...” For the second time that night Yoshi felt himself blush scarlet. There was no easy way to say this but it had to be said. “I want you to...” he forced himself to look up and make eye-contact with Justin to show he was being serious “I want you to keep being my stalker”

“Really!" Justin clapped his hands together in a gesture of utter glee. Then he remembered Kira’s advice about not going overboard, and regained his composure “I mean this is sudden. I thought you wanted me to leave you alone”

“Yeah well I...” Damn blushing; though Yoshi, even in this light Justin would be able to see it. So much for subtlety! He’d just have to come right out and say it “ it’s like this. I...miss you when you’re not around. Are you satisfied?”

“Very” said Justin smugly “I knew you were starting to like me”

“Well don’t get to happy, I like you a bit. Not love” he emphasised. “I like you enough to do something this dumb-ass stupid, but not enough to send you flowers or poetry”

“Never mind, there's still time...” Justin said wishfully “Anyway I get hay fever, so the no flowers thing is fine by me”

“Good”

“Great”

“Err...” Yoshi realised he was still in a highly precarious situation and the tree wasn’t getting any less rotten. In fact it had started to creek worryingly “A little help here?”

----

A few minutes later and Justin had made his way down stairs and retrieved a rickety stepladder from the garden shed. A few minutes after that, Yoshi was safely down from the tree and recovering from his ‘brush with death’, by sitting on the lawn.

“So if you hadn’t totally given up on me why weren't you at school?” Asked Yoshi angrily “you had me worried for nothing! I thought you’d cracked and spiralled into depression. Maybe wrote some angst Goth poetry and tried to slit your wrists”

“Ahh school, about that...”Justin remembered his agreement with Melody. The letter from his old school was still in his pocket, all he had to do was sign it and send it back to say he would be returning there...

However at that moment, Melody (as if she was purposely trying to make things awkward) opened her bedroom window to see where all the noise was coming from, and was less than happy when she discovered the source.

“Justin! What the hell are you doing? Get away from Yoshi!” She commanded. Then she turned her attention to Yoshi “ Yoshi, get away from Justin before he tries anything freaky”

“He’s not your property, you know” Yelled Justin “and I wasn’t doing anything freaky...yet”

“Justin!” She warned. “ Remember what we agreed...step away from the boy!”

“Err...” Justin pulled the letter out of his pocket “I guess Yoshi is wondering what this is all about, right?”

Yoshi nodded.

“I’ll tell you, but promise you won’t get mad when I do” Justin continued.

“Wait...”Yoshi suddenly looked very worried “is there something I should be mad about?”

“I said Promise”

“Promise”

“Okay, it’s like this” He unfolded the piece of paper “ Melody and me made a bet. The first one to kiss you got to keep you...”

“What!” Yelled Yoshi, unable to decide if he was supposed to be shocked or disgusted. “ Wasn’t anyone going to ask me how I felt about that? Are you crazy?” He stood up and prepared to something violent.

Justin shielded his face with his face defensively and yelled “please don’t hit me. Remember what you said, no getting mad, right?”

“Sorry” Yoshi sat back down.

“Gawd, this is taking to long” complained Melody “Anyway that isn’t the whole story. We also decided that if Justin lost he had to go back to boarding school. And since he did...You really should say Goodbye while you have the chance, Yoshi” She stuck her tongue out at Justin.

Everyone looked at Justin, waiting to see what he’d say next. Instead he held up the letter and ripped it into tiny shreds.

“What! No Fair” Melody screeched “you can’t go back on a bet”

“Says the girl who tried to cheat in the first place”

“Right that is it! Stay right where you are Justin. I’m coming down, and then I’m going to kick your teeth in” She slammed the window shut with such a force that a crack appeared in the glass.

“What now?” Asked Yoshi, sounding confused. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on or why. To tell the truth he’d been confused since the first morning he met Justin. But in the last few minutes something had happened. He was still confused but he had stopped caring why.

“I could stay and fight” suggested Justin “I’m the youngest, so that could balance out the trouble I’ll get into for hitting a girl. Or...”

“Or what?”

“We run!”

They ran.

- - - -

“So, what do you wanna do now?” Yoshi asked. It had took several minutes, but they had finally got out of Melody's ‘Rage Range’. She’d probably cool down eventually, but neither of them wanted to go back and find out if she had yet.

Justin shrugged Nonchalantly. “Guess we could go back to your house or something, it’s not like I haven’t stayed the night before...”

“Stop right there!” Warned Yoshi “Turn that into an innuendo and you are dead”

“What?” Justin tried to fake innocence “ I’d bee sleeping on the sofa...unless you want me to sleep some where else”

Yoshi rolled his eyes, and shoved Justin to the other side of the pavement.

“Sofa” he said definitely “Let’s go”

They started walking in what was probably the direction of Yoshi’s home. Getting away from Melody had been difficult, and they had ended up in a street neither of them had seen before.

At the moment Justin was practically skipping with glee, whilst Yoshi slouched along beside him and trying to make his aching brain comprehend what was going on.

I’m definitely not in love...I can’t be, can I? But I don’t hate him, or lust after him or anything so what the heck is this all about? He shrugged. He didn’t know the answer to the any of it, so why even bother trying to understand?

Maybe I’m in ‘like’... That was the only thing that seemed to come close to what it felt like. Great, I’m in ‘like’ with this guy, what’s Kira going to say about that? Yoshi laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny” asked Justin, sounding puzzled.

“Doesn’t matter”

A few minutes later Justin turned back to Yoshi and asked “do you realise you’re holding my hand?”

“I assure you that it isn't intentional” Yoshi replied. Justin couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.

“Whatever. But if we’re going to play it like that, I hope you understand that if I kiss you it won’t be intentional” Justin replied jokingly.

“What! Here? Now? You can’t be serious, what if someone sees?” Yelled Yoshi.

Or at least, that was what he would have yelled if Justin gave him chance too.

He didn’t.

---------

END

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1) And we are finished. Despite this story having some faults (There are things I wish I had/hadn’t done, and areas that really needed more time/thought before being posted), I am still very proud of the fact I finally managed to finish a proper story (with chapters and not script format!) after almost a year and a half of being a user.

2) Thank you to all that have reviewed me.

3) Sorry this took a while. The universe has conspired to keep me away from the computer this week (okay, I admit it. I’ve been playing Final Fantasy VI)