Entry Four(HER)

Jen
Saturday,17th June

I learnt something new today.

Best friends is just a glorified term for backstabbers.

Guess what my best friends did for me today? Oh, nothing much.

Just locked me out of my dorm after my bath and shoving me the reponsibility of asking the males to join us for our steamboat dinner and forcing me to request for raw fish and cabbage from the canteen.

Raw fish.

And to top it off, I was underdressed. As in, I was wearing the kind of clothes you only wear at home. The kind you only wear outside if you're planning to commit suicide after that. I mean, I was wearing shorts and an oversized SAVE THE BEAVERS shirt. I don't even like beavers!

But that's not the point.

It all started when Ai Sha decided to bring this steamboat thing to campus. It's a Chinese method of cooking. You have this metal bowl with a circular tube coming out from the middle, and underneath the bowl is a heater to heat up the steamboat. It's a soup dish, and you add raw foods like fish and cabbage into it. When it's cooked, you eat it with rice.

Anyway, the four of us decided to have steamboat for dinner tonight, and, let me make this clear: nobody mentioned that we were going to invite the males. So, innoncently, I agreed to be the first person to bathe in the afternoon. There aren't any classes on Saturdays, so I was planning to spend the whole day in my dorm.

I had washed my hair, and so, even though I had a towel hanging around my shoulders, my shirt was wet. And I had my bag of used clothes swinging in my hand. Believe or not, I actually had a good feeling about today.

Woman's intuition my foot.

I sauntered up to the dorm door, and knocked. I don't bring my keys to the bathroom, so I'm used to somebody opening the door for me.

Oh, they opened the door, alright. And snatched my bag of clothes before slamming the door in my face.

"The people have voted," Sasha's voice shouted through the door, "and Jen has been chosen as the lucky gal to invite the boys to our steamboat dinner!"

"WHAT?!"

"Room 6B, Jen," Ai Sha's voice said helpfully, "Trent, Michael and Ryan should be in."

I slammed my palm on the door. "Let me in!"

"It's good exposure, Jen," Wendy said.

"To what?" I screamed. The dorm door beside mine opened, and a girl stuck her head out.

"Excuse me," she said, "but please keep your voice down."

"Sorry," I said, heat rising in my cheeks. The dorm door closed.

"Oh, and could you go get raw fish and cabbage from the canteen, too?" Sasha asked sweetly from the other side of the door.

If looks could kill, my dorm door would be fried.

But it wasn't like I was given a choice. Grumpily, I made my way to the boys' dorms. My slippers were soaking wet from the showers, and my hair was a complete mess. It was a good thing most students went home on the weekends, including Samantha. If she ever hears of this...

I reached Room 6B fairly unscathed by weird looks and verbal abuse. I sighed wearily and knocked on the door.

And permanently destroyed my sense of smell.

No, seriously. Have you ever been to a small compacted area inhabited by three untidy, stinking males? For one thing, it stinks. Not in, dung stinky, but sweat-mucus-no-ventilation stinky. I'm still emotionally scarred.

The Jerk opened the door. He looked surprised to see me, but I was more distracted by what was going on behind him. Music was blasting from two black speakers, and Ryan was shooting hoops through a basketball hoop attached to the wall.

"Puppy," Michael opened the door wider, "we were just... Talking about you."

Gee thanks. Feels great to know I'm being talked about behind my back by males.

Trent appeared behind Michael. "Hello Jen. What's up?"

I suddenly felt more self-conscious about how I must've looked. I had suddenly turned up in front of them, pratically dripping wet, with nothing more that an invitation.

"Ah... Ai Sha wants to invite you to a steamboat dinner at our dorm." It's pretty amazing what your mouth can manage to say when you're brain isn't functioning.

Trent brightened up. "Chinese food? Excellent. We'll be there."

Michael gave him a subtle look that I couldn't read.

"Of course we'll be there," he echoed Trent, "you girls already got everything prepared?"

I remembered that I had to go get raw fish and cabbage from the canteen and groaned inwardly.

"No," I bit my lip in irritation, "I have to run over to the canteen to get some raw food."

"Ah." Trent glanced at Michael, and cleared his throat.

"I would love to help you, but I have to go down to the General House for some administrative stuff. But I'm sure Michael would love to help you."

What?

"What?" Michael hissed at Trent. Trent responded by shoving Michael out of the room.

"Have fun!" Trent said promptly, and shut the door.

Well. That's one thing I have in common with The Jerk.

We stared at each other in silence for about a minute before he straightened and sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"What do we need to get?" He asked, beginning to take long strides down the corridor.

"Um, fish. And cabbage."

He wrinkled his nose. "Raw fish."

"Yeah. Tell me about it."

We continued walking in silence towards the canteen.

I chanced a glance at him. He was staring straight ahead, hands shoved into his pants pockets. It felt weird that he wasn't using the opportunity to make fun of me. He was just really silent and thoughtful. But it wasn't awkward or uncomfortable or anything, just weird.

"Trent thinks I like you."

Definately weird.

"What?!"

"So he's trying to be all heroic and sacrificial and force me to spend time with you. Don't take it to heart," Michael was delibrately avoiding my stare, "he's just like that."

"Like that." I repeated disbelievingly.

"Yeah. We both know it's totally ridiculous and he's making a complete fool of himself, but will he listen?"

"Listen."

"Exactly."

I wasn't going to be the one pointing out that my mind wasn't really processing what Michael was telling me, so I left it at that.

We headed for the canteen after that, and managed to obtain raw foods without getting too many weird looks from other people.

After that though, I admit I was quite at a loss as to what to do next. The steamboat wasn't supposed to start until an hour later, and I had no idea where to put the raw stuff. Furthermore, I couldn't exactly take Michael to my dorm.

While I was busy worrying over this, he grabbed the bag of raw stuff and headed for the General House.

"I need to take a bath anyway," he called over his shoulder, "so I'll toss this into the fridge in the General House on the way back. We'll be over in about an hour."

Well. That went well.

So I'm back here in my dorm, with my backstabbers hovering around me while I pretend to be fuming mad to make them guilty.

The steamboat dinner better be smooth sailing.