don't be a fool

Dian wandered into the other half of the forest -- the one he hadn’t been attacked in, that is. He was still recovering, and the walk to the forest was almost painful. He remembered how he had made a fool of himself in the infirmary in front of everyone. He dropped a necessary powder (at least, he thought it was necessary) on the floor. The girl -- Andi -- had to interrupt her co-workers to get more. He felt bad. Guilty, even. He had to do something good to make it up to himself.

He continued to walk through the forest, still disappointed in himself about what had happened in the infirmary.

A few minutes later, he heard a familiar voice saying “Dian?”. He couldn’t quite pinpoint who it was, but he made an educated guess.

”A-andi, right?” he said, walking closer to the voice. Hopefully he wasn’t hallucinating from pain or something like that.

Dian chuckled slightly as she bumped into him on accident. He never really stood next to her yet. She was considerably shorter than him. Maybe half a foot or so? He wasn’t really sure, but it was something like that.

“So...how was the rest of your day?” he asked her with a smile, trying to make small-talk to pierce through the veil of awkwardness surrounding them.

”You sure are great with kids,” Dian remarked jokingly. “And I’m sure that the kid and you would’ve been a great couple,” he added.

She then mentioned what had happened earlier. He was already super embarrassed. To have her mention it again would’ve made him flustered and blush wildly. And he did. “W-why do you care?” he asked her, replying as he was still thinking about what to say. “I just needed to get my mind off the pain, I guess,” he said, coolly.

”Right,” Dian answered sarcastically and smiled. The redness in his cheeks had decreased a bit, and he felt a little more confident.

“I’m sure you could’ve manage it yourself. You didn’t need my help. You didn’t need anyone’s help when tending to me. Weird, huh?” Dian grinned. “I’m here because I can be. Now, my turn. Why are you blushing?”

”I’m blushing because you brought up an embarrassing moment,” Dian answered. It was half-true. As she poked his cheek, his blushed even more (a girl had never made contact with him until, like, today!), but he wasn’t going to reveal that.

“And yes. You were blushing,” Dian poked her cheek back and smiled at her.

”Oh, well, I didn’t know that I was blushing that hard,” he replied, grinning. Sure he did. She was attractive. And she had just put her hand on his face.

She asked how he had gotten the cuts and bruises everywhere. “You really want to know why, do you? Well, you’ll find out sooner or later, but not now,” he smirked. He had made some stupid decisions today, and he didn’t want her to think that he was more stupid than she already thought. For some reason, he didn’t want to lose her company.

Dian tried to avoid the topic, so he just said the first thing that came to his mind: ”You have a cute laugh.” Loser. He had little to no social skills. So of course, he had to apologize right after because he totally needed to.

“Sorry if that was creepy…” At least maybe the topic was successfully avoided?

”Yeah…” Dian agreed and nodded. “So, um, do you want to go somewhere else?” Together? But he couldn’t force himself to let that word out of his mouth.

After a kind of awkward silence, he repeated, “I mean, do you want to go somewhere together or…” Uh oh. Did this mean a date? If she said yes, what was he supposed to do? He internally conflicted right now and just wanted to crawl up a tree and curl up into a fetal position.

”I dunno,” Dian laughed. “I guess, wherever your favorite place would be. Mine is here,” he shrugged and smiled, awaiting her response.

Did she think that this was a date? It wasn’t. He swore to himself in his head, but he still had a smile on the outside. If she did, he didn’t want to tell her. I mean, sure, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but there was something else.

”I’ll be there,” Dian replied, winking. He was oblivious to the fact that she was determining what to do now, and he left her there as he turned on his heel and walked back to his cabin.

What do I really think of her? he thought to himself, frowning and conflicted as he walked away.