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Mon Numero Un
By Li Lin

Chapter 4: First Glance

Melvin watched in bemusement as his date folded her arms and leant against the wall lazily. Her face was a picture of annoyance as she glanced at her wristwatch. He smirked. For someone who was not keen on this date, she was five minutes early, and dressed very prettily too. She fingered her silver necklace as she began tapping her foot impatiently. A couple of shops away, a small group of girls were giggling and spying on her as well. He approached her silently, stopping right beside the oblivious girl.

“That’s a nice shirt,” he began, taking in the simple white shirt with an arrow pointing to her right. The word at the other end of the arrow read, ‘Sucker’. She looked down at her shirt before looking up at him incredulously, straightening and pulling at her black skirt. He grinned and moved to stand on her left. “I’m not late, am I?”

She opened her mouth to snap that yes, he was very late and he made her wait for almost an hour before she remembered that she was the one who had been extra early. His expression was a picture of smugness and triumph as he looked at her scowl. Disgruntled, she said curtly, “No.”

“Good,” he replied simply. “What would you like for dinner?”

She looked around at the shops and shrugged, “I don’t know. Food?”

“Sure, I was going to drag you to one of the department stores and suggest that we eat clothes for dinner,” his voice dripped with sarcasm. She grinned, perhaps she could get used to this guy. “Are you up for some pizza?”

She shrugged and they made their way to the restaurant. One pizza later, they were chomping on honey-glazed drumsticks and engaged in a friendly conversation. She found out that he had an older brother and he liked Simple Plan and One Republic amongst many other bands. He wanted to learn how to play the guitar and he lived with his father and brother in an apartment. He found out that she had an older sister as well and that she was a big fan of Avril Lavigne. She liked reading a lot and she lived with her sister and mother in a house up on Emeril Street.

“You can sure eat,” he laughed when she polished off the last drumstick and cleaned her fingers on a napkin. “I’m glad you’re not one of those girls who would rather starve themselves than have a good meal.”

She grinned and nodded, “I have a large appetite when I’m hungry. I’m hardly ever hungry though, but I’d die without good food.”

A few tables away, the gaggle of girls were eyeing the couple suspiciously. Ella hissed, “They look like they’re having a lot of fun. But do you think that’s just a ploy to make us think they’re on good terms?”

Amanda rolled her eyes, “I think Rayne looks like she’s enjoying the date and I still don’t see why we’re doing this.” She received a glare from the other three girls at the table and leaned back in her chair irritably.

Back at the other table, the other two teenagers were getting ready to leave. Rayne glanced at her watch and began reluctantly, “Look, I know this is supposed to be a proper date with movies and all that shit but could we just count the dinner as our date? I still have a couple of assignments undone and I need to rush home now.”

“That’s fine by me,” he replied, despite the disappointment weighing in his heart. He had rather enjoyed her company. She smiled gratefully and they left the mall, still carrying on their conversation.

Rayne gestured to the right, “Well, I’m going in this direction so I guess I’ll see you in school.” He lifted his hand in a small wave and she smiled before turning to leave.

“Hey! Wait up,” he caught up with her and grinned impishly. “I said it was fine if we cut short this date but this means you owe me another date.”

Just as he had expected, she rolled her eyes instead of agreeing. Instead, she returned a grin that was just as cheeky, “We’ll see, won’t we?”

And she was walking away.

Ryan made his way towards the girl sitting in one corner of the library in deep concentration, a frown creasing her forehead. He slid into the seat across from her and waited for her to acknowledge his presence. When it looked like she was not about to glance up from her textbook anytime soon, he finally rose from his seat and leaned forwards, successfully casting a shadow across the words. Rayne snapped her head upwards and felt the top of her head collide with a hard chin.

“Ow!”

“Damn!”

Silent curses fell from their lips as they glowered at each other for all of two seconds before Ryan broke the silence. He stopped rubbing his chin and leaned forwards once more, placing his fingertips together. Rayne raised an eyebrow at his pose enquiringly, impatiently waiting for him to speak. She hated being disrupted when she was doing something productive (in this case, studying) and it was one weakness her friends used to irk her all the time.

‘Patience of a saint, but don’t get on her bad side.’ They would joke.

“Jason called me,” Rayne’s face softened at the mention of his name. The poor guy. After the rain had stopped last afternoon, he insisted that they went home instead of sitting with him. His gratitude did not go unnoticed, but they understood his need to have time alone and concurred. It was also understood that he would not be in school this morning but it had been completely impossible to contact him. She motioned for her best friend to continue. “He’s busy seeing to his mother’s funeral arrangements with his dad and he won’t be in school for the next few days. He says the funeral is going to be held for only one day tomorrow because his mother would prefer a simple one.”

Rayne pursed her lips thoughtfully, “So he’ll be back in school on Thursday?”

Ryan shrugged, leaning back into his seat, “That’s what he says, but he sounded pretty strained. I doubt he’ll be back so soon.”

She nodded understandingly - the only thing they could do as his friends was to offer him moral support. She was about to look back down at her textbook when there was a low thump and Ryan crashed his head onto the table, letting loose a low groan. Reaching over, she ruffled his hair lightly, saying teasingly, “What’s wrong? Relationship problems? Friendship problems? Come, tell Aunty Rayne your troubles.”

He smirked as he looked up at her from under his long fringe, “Aunty Rayne huh? Never knew you aged so quickly. Nah, it’s just that right now, Jason is our star point guard and with him in this state, I’m not sure if he would still want to play in Saturday’s game.”

“Well, he never said that he didn’t want to go either, did he?” Rayne pointed out. “Do you guys have another point guard? Uh, whatever that is.”

He gave her a bemused glance, “We are all able to play in the different positions. The big difference is that Jason is the best for that and without him, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to do as well. A point guard plays a pretty big part in the game.”

She grimaced in response, “I think… You need to have a good talk with him. Don’t fret too much, the game is not until three more days away.”

“I can’t not fret,” he said simply, getting to his feet. “I’m the team captain.”

With that as a parting shot, he gave her a small smile and left the library. She smiled to herself wryly before glancing at her watch. Shit, Physics! She cringed as she slammed her book shut and dumped her pencil case into her bag. I’m so dead.

-

Thursday morning saw Rayne climbing out of bed lazily and dragging herself into the bathroom. As she washed up, she began to mentally list down her agenda for the day. Finish up my homework, do the laundry, clean up the living room… Ever since her mother’s traumatic incident with Charlie-the-ragdoll (courtesy of Viper), her days were spent in an on-and-off state of health. Some days she would be perfectly fine, happily cleaning the house and doing her new part-time job writing articles for a magazine. On other ‘bad’ days, she would hardly able to do the household chores for more than an hour before being hit by a dizzy spell. Since her sister was still somewhere far away most possibly pursuing a career as a kickass, ball-busting businesswoman, it was her job to look after the house and their mother.

As she walked into the kitchen to grab breakfast, she paused at the initially cluttered living room. Peering into the kitchen, she shouted tentatively, “Mom?”

“Rayne, darling, I’ve made some buttered toast. Come and have some before you set off for school,” her mother’s pleasant voice came floating back. Rayne grinned; it looked like it was one of her mother’s ‘good’ days. She sat at the dining table where her mother was biting into a piece of toast. Emily Lachey was lucky to escape without a scar on her scalp. Her luscious red hair was cut into a longish bob floating just above her shoulders. She was thinner than before, but her eyes sparkled with life. Rayne was silently thankful for her mother’s brand new attitude towards life instead of wasting her life away pining after guys who were not worth her attention.

“Bye, Mom. Thanks for the toast today,” Rayne dusted the crumbs from her fingers and got up, bending over to peck her mother on the cheek. “I’ll be back after school to do the laundry.”

“Don’t bother!” She heard as she walked out the door. The next sentence spread a wide smile across her face. “I’ll do it when I’m done with breakfast.”

Just as she stepped off her house’s driveway, somebody pulled up next to the curb. The tinted windows were rolled down and Amanda’s face came into view, “Hop in, pretty girl.”

Her day was starting to look really good.

As she slid into the passenger seat, she glanced at her best friend, “Whose car is this?”

“Mine!” Rayne’s half-shriek was loud enough to make Amanda cringe.

“Since when did you get a car?!”

“Yesterday. Went home and saw this spanking new baby sitting in the open garage. My father said it was my birthday present in advance. I can pick you up every morning instead of meeting you at the bus-stop now,” Amanda took her eyes off the road for one second to stick her tongue out at Rayne. “You should really just drive to school. It’s not like your mother forbids you to go near her car.”

“I’ll wait till I get over my fear of driving, thank you very much,” Rayne replied, studying the shiny dashboard.

“Darling, you passed your driving test with flying colors on the first try, remember? It took me two tries and here I sit driving this sexy car,” Amanda rolled her eyes in mild exasperation. Rayne opened her mouth to protest. “And not that crap about crashing into a lamppost the first time you drove again. It was an accident.”

She saw the look on her friend’s face, “And it won’t happen again. And we’ve reached school. C’mon, let’s go.”

As they left the car and ascended the steps to the school, they made their way towards a small gaggle of guys sitting at the side amongst other students. Rayne stifled a laugh when she saw a disgruntled Ed desperately trying to escape Luke’s chokehold and the helpless shrug Ryan sent her. Bryant beamed at Amanda cheerfully. The latter returned a quick smile and turned away hastily before he could start another conversation with her, directing a question to the other guys instead, “Where’s Jason? He’s supposed to be back in school today, isn’t he?”

Five heads looked expectantly towards the basketball captain. Ryan shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat, “Ah… Guys. I meant to tell you guys this during practice today but since ‘Manda brought it up...”

He trailed off and seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, furrowing his brows and crossing his arms. He wondered how he was going to put the things he wanted to say into words while ten eyes continued staring at him.

“Right,” he spoke again, uncrossing his arms to meet the gazes of the waiting people. “Jason called me last night and he still sounded pretty uptight. He won’t be in school today. And, he also told me that he wasn’t sure if he still wanted to play against Brownstone High this weekend.” Five sharp intakes of breath. “I mean, I understand perfectly because he thinks he won’t be in the right state of mind plus the fact that he would have only trained one day in the whole week. And that is if we assume he’s coming to school tomorrow.” Five collective sighs. “I told him that it’s ultimately his decision but guys, we’ll need to train our substitute point guard harder for this couple of days. He’s good, but not as good as Jason.” Three grunts of agreement. “One more thing, can one of you girls bring his homework to him this afternoon? We have practice.”

“I’ll do it,” Rayne offered, slightly dazed by her best friend’s long speech. She gestured to Amanda. “Her baby sister’s finally home from their grandparents’ place today.”

“Not quite a baby, actually,” Amanda commented wryly. “Not unless you call a ridiculously adorable four-year-old ‘baby’. Yeah, I’m not available this afternoon so I guess Rayne’ll have to do it.”

“About the team problem, captain…” Ed began slowly, having escaped from his teammate’s chokehold sometime during the speech. “I’m with you. It’s his choice, we shouldn’t force him to play this weekend.”

“His head won’t be in the game anyway,” Luke nodded thoughtfully.

Bryant remained silent before speaking up again enthusiastically, “Let’s make him some cookies to cheer him up!”

“Is there… Something you want to tell us, Bryant?” Luke asked hesitantly. Bryant looked at him in confusion.

“Something regarding your preferences,” Ryan added with a worried glance. “And your… hobbies.”

“Huh?” Came Bryant’s intelligent answer.

“What they’re trying to ask is,” Ed deadpanned. “Are you gay?”

“What!” The horrified exclamation clearly proved their suspicions wrong. “No! I mean, Amanda likes cookies!”

Silence.

Muffled laughter. Two blushing faces.

Rayne shook her head, Here comes Rayne Lachey to save the day. “There goes the bell, people. Stop laughing at them and let’s get going!”

-

Rayne shifted uncomfortably as her bag pressed its weight on her tortured shoulders. She was about to raise her hand to knock on the door again when it opened a crack. Out stared Jason with rings around his eyes so dark that he could have given a panda a run for its money. Upon realizing that it was his friend, he stepped back and opened the door wider for her to enter.

“Are you okay?” She asked in concern, shrugging off her backpack and leaning closer to peer at the dark circles under his eyes. He turned his head away slightly with a tight smile, brushing her concern away subtly. “Oh, ‘Manda isn’t free to come with me so I trudged here alone. How’ve you been? I can always hide away your homework and you can pretend you didn’t get them.”

“I’m alright,” he said finally, giving his living room a cursory glance. It was cluttered and uninviting. He gave her a sheepish smile and a helpless shrug. “I’ve been alright. Sorry about the mess, we haven’t had time to clear up.”

He gave a bitter laugh, “We haven’t really been able to bring ourselves to clear up either, what with her gone and all.”

Rayne stared wordlessly at the open photo albums strewn across the sofa and turned to him, surprising him with a choking hug. He raised one stiff hand and patted her awkwardly on the back, partially wondering how he was supposed to respond, “Thanks?”

“I’ll do it for you.” Rayne unwound her arms from around his neck and looked at him firmly.

“What?” Jason blinked dumbly. “Do my homework? For me?”

“No, you silly boy. I’ll clear up the place for you,” Rayne smiled. “I know your mother used to love keeping the place spanking clean. She’d be happy.”

Jason watched the girl beginning to pick up crumpled newspapers and empty bottles from the floor. He urged himself to clear the place up as well, shutting the photo albums wistfully and stacking them together. While Rayne disappeared into the kitchen, he returned the photo albums to their designated cupboard in the living room. She emerged from the kitchen with a wet cloth and began to wipe down the sticky coffee table. Either he or his father had spilt a drink and did not bother to clean it up. He bit his lip guiltily while she did what he was supposed to do.

Rayne was right. His mother would have been happy to see the place clean. He felt embarrassed for not understanding that sooner, especially when he was her son. She would have wanted so many things. She would have wanted him and his father to be happy above anything else. He swallowed back the lump in his throat and blinked back tears, the sight of his friend helping them to clean the coffee table reminiscent of when his mother would chide him gently for putting his feet on furniture which she had just cleaned.

“Let me do it,” he said suddenly, standing up and taking the cloth firmly. Rayne stared at him in surprised. He smiled at her. “My mother would have liked it.”

She backed away and allowed him to clean up the place instead. He proceeded to clear the wastepaper basket and vacuum the place with her help. When she handed him a glass of water wordlessly, he sank into the couch, “My mother used to complain that I never helped her much with the household chores.”

He laughed bitterly, “She would be happy to know that I’m doing much more today than what I’ve done in my entire life. If she could come back, I would gladly do everything for her. But she can’t.” He turned sad eyes towards Rayne, who sat down beside him on the couch to hold his hand. “You know what? She would have wanted to watch me play at that game. And watch us win.”

Rayne nodded fervently, a smile beginning to spread across her face. He looked at her, “You think so too?”

“Definitely,” she replied confidently. “And the boys would be ecstatic if they knew you were willing to play. They’re quite worried because the substitute isn’t as strong as you.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m going to call Ryan and tell him that I’ll be there for practice tomorrow.”

Rayne beamed, “Now, that’s the spirit!”

A/N:

Well, I’m not too sure how many of you are reading MNU (or even remember it) since I last updated so long ago. The story has been pretty stagnant so far due to several reasons.

1. I have been very, very busy with school.

2. I ran into a roadblock in my life and I was too fucked up to continue writing, especially since the roadblock stole away every bit of my inspiration.

My vacation just ended a week ago, and right after that was my block tests (i.e: Mid-year Examinations) so, now I’m in the mood to write, plus I got a lot of plot bunnies coming up to me begging for attention. Anyway, the point of this Author’s Note is to inform you readers that I decided that Raylin/Viper’s stories will not be included in MNU anymore. Instead, MNU will now be a spin-off, and Raylin/Viper’s story will be the sequel to Hate Me. (: Does it make more sense now?

But take note that MNU and Hate Me’s sequel (which I titled Crossroads, by the way) will be set in different time frames – Crossroads is set a few years later than MNU. My inspiration for MNU has fizzled down to nothing; I do know what I want to write, how I want it to end and how things will progress but the passion… Is just not there anymore. Instead, I’m focusing all my energy on Crossroads which is progressing at an alarming speed because I’ve spent the last two days writing non-stop (like, seriously) and it’s now at Chapter 4 already. ._. It needs much editing however, so I’m going to upload Chapter 1 first and look at how the reviews go.

Therefore, to sum it all up:

1. MNU is now a spin-off and will be put on HIATUS (!!!) – Chapter 4 is up already, though.

2. Crossroads is now the sequel of Hate Me.

If you have been reading Hate Me and hated me for not letting Raylin and Viper end up together, I suggest that you read Crossroads too! (: Thanks for taking time out to read this, have a nice day!