Chapter 14b ~ It's not a phase

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"What do you mean who am I?!! I'm your best friend!" Chara shouted out,running out of patience with Rei's shenanigans ,she ran her hand through her hair, messing up the short brunette bob. "Oohhh yes, I remember now" Rei said nervously,she didn't actually remember anything but felt it was best to play along as this person seemed quite upset.

"How could I forget,I'm sorry okay?" She continued and put her hand out for a handshake, Chara looked at her hand and just ignored it and put her hand on her waist and started tapping her foot rapidly. "Oh no handshake then" Rei commented nervously and put her hand down . Before she could do anything else she got smothered by a hug from Chara,"don't do that again dude...ette" Chara said as she hugged Rei who just stood there awkwardly,not returning the hug. Rei chuckled nervously and then turned and mouthed to Arloh "what's going on?" She whispered nervously. Arloh shrugged, also confused about everything.

"Okay so she's fine let's get out of here, I want to go to my hammock" Trisha said with a yawn, breaking the awkward silence that was setting in. "She has a hammock in school?" Chara asked ,rather confused by the sudden announcement. "Yeah I have one out back between the trees" Trisha replied casually "come on guys lets get out of here" she added and made her way out the infirmary stretching and yawning, Jerry just shrugged and repeated after Trisha "yeah guys lets get out of here". As everyone headed to the exit of the room , Chara still felt a way she couldn't explain as she observed Rei who still had her eyes glued to Arloh,*what's going on between those two all of a sudden? And what did Arloh mean asking if she was having another episode? What episode?* Chara thought to herself , something felt off, she remembered that Rei had confirmed she was at Arloh's place that Friday, but she hated even the idea of it being true and didn't remember what happened , but now all of a sudden she remembers again and is friendly with Arloh? It was strange to Chara.

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The group made their way outside the building following Trisha's lead,they were soon going to go their separate ways and do whatever they did during their lunch break but Arloh was feeling a bit uncomfortable with how Rei kept staring at him. Chara was talking to Rei about some TV show which Rei had no clue about and just nodded or hummed in response while still staring at Arloh. "Hey!!, do you want to eat him?" Chara asked, again annoyed with Rei oogling Arloh. "What? No...you guys can do that here?" Rei said widening her eyes at Chara. "No!!.wait what do you mean ..do that here?" Chara asked and ran her hand through her hair in frustration. "Okay guys I think Rei is still out of sorts ,why don't I take her back to the nurse to make sure .. okay?" Arloh said stepping in as he noticed the two were not getting along as they usually do at all. "He...she's fine, just a bit weird today.. right?" Chara insisted and turned to Rei for confirmation . Rei looked at Chara then at Arloh,then at Chara then at Arloh again..."umm ..no! I'm not fine" she said and latches into Arloh's arm ,almost knocking him over.

Chara facepalmed and shook her head , "I don't know what this is about but you two have fun , I'll see you later" she said and left the two alone ,following Jerry and Trisha who hadn't stopped walking the whole time and were already far ahead of the others. "Your friend seems annoyed" Arloh said as he tried to pry Rei off his arm, but her grip was like a blackhole. "I don't even know that person" Rei said with a blank face and looked up at Arloh "so where are we going?" she asked beaming a smile. "We are taking you back to the....." Arloh's voice trailed off as he noticed some familiar faces walking past on the opposite side of the courtyard .

One of them looked up and made eye contact with Arloh and the others followed suit and immediately their faces showed hostility until they recognised who he was with ,"what are you looking at?" Rei asked as she peeked over to see what Arloh was staring at. "Who are those , your friends?" She asked Arloh who was still just staring at them rather cautiously,he put his arm up slightly sort of shielding Rei from them, then once they recognised the girl Arloh was with they immediately became terrified and ran off . "What was that about?" Rei asked cluelessly as she started to reach into Arloh's chest pocket curious about the pen he had in there, Arloh casually smacked away her arm and asked "you don't remember those three?"

"Hmmm, not sure I've seen them before " Rei said and followed up with a question "what's that ?" Pointing at the pen sticking out of his pocket.

"It's a pen Rei" Arloh answered as he pulled it out for her to have a better "but thats not important, those three guys are the ones who kidnapped you on Friday, don't you remember them? Won't you make a report?" He continued,refusing to move on from the topic.

"Friday....Friday" Rei thought to herself and suddenly gasped..."it's the boys who tried to kill me.....I think" she said uncertain of what they actually tried to do . "Kill you?" Arloh asked raising his eyebrow sharply.

"Hmm no I don't know actually but I beat them up, are they okay?I was just scared to suddenly be with strangers and they looked hostile" Rei asked now concerned for the wellbeing of the trio. Arloh stopped walking which made Rei do the same and he turned to face her ,"you're concerned for them? Do you know who they are?" ,Rei just shook her head queitly in response.

"Those three are some of Reuben's boys, Dan ,fly and skitz." He explained as Rei just stared blankly. "Dan is their leader ,he and fly are in our class ,and skitz is in the lower grade . I'm surprised they still show up to school after what they tried to do" He said looking in the direction they went as serious as could be.

"Bahahahaha!!!" Rei bursted out in laughter.

"What? What's funny?" Arloh shocked by her sudden outburst ,asked in concern.

"Their names are fly? And skitz? His parents named him fly?" She asked still finding it very funny and holding back laughter.

"Those are nicknames, but yes they chose the worst ones" Arloh replied also finding it funny now that she mentioned it and let out a chuckle.

"Look still be careful with them, I think they are scared of you, given how they ran off, you'd barely meet them since they are hardly ever in class and I doubt they'd try anything anymore but they could want to get back at you so be careful" Arloh explained and slowly pushed away Rei's head as she attempted to rest it on his shoulder. "Why are you so clingy? You called me a donkey when I literally only walked in front of you this morning going into the classroom, now you're acting weird again" Arloh said scratching his head at the contrast in behaviour.

"I did?I don't remember that, I would never call you that" Rei said and reached out for a hug which Arloh blocked by placing his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"You conveniently just forget things huh" he commented and turned to keep walking.." are you sure you're not a different person at times?" He asked ,refering to something like a split personality disorder or so. But Rei reacted a bit tense to that comment. "What?!!! No no, why would you think that?" She exclaimed ,suddenly seeming a bit disheveled and started looking around biting her finger nail.

"Woah calm down, I was just thinking maybe you're bipolar or something, sorry if it felt offensive" Arloh apologized ,scratching his shoulder.

"No you didn't do anything wrong, that just made me scared for some reason, I panicked because I really don't understand either,what if I really am a different person?" Rei asked finally taking a more serious tone in her speech for the first time in their conversation so far.

"Are you?" Arloh asked lowering his voice and looking into her eyes. "No .." Rei said shaking her head "..no that's not possible.." she brushed it off and switched to a wide smile again, "so where are you taking me?" .

"Back to the nurse, but first let's get some lunch" Arloh said , accepting his fate with a sigh as Rei latched into his left arm again. "Hurray lunch!!!." She said excited and then went silent for a bit. "Don't do it "Arloh said ,knowing what was coming next when she did the 'thinking face'.

"What's lunch?" The question jabbed Arloh like a punch in the face.

"Oh my goodness I have to explain lunch now?"

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Chara was hanging out with Jerry and Trisha who had taken her to where they hung out at break, Trisha was fast asleep in her hammock leaving Chara with Jerry for company. The two were in a rather heated game of cards, Jerry had won four of the last five rounds and Chara was determined to win this time. "Ha! No chance you lose" Jerry bloated as he threw down his last card for the win . "Uggh you sweat, I never stood a chance, I don't want to play anymore, I'm going to look for Rei" Chara said standing up from the grass and dusting off her skirt.

"Wait." Jerry called out and got up to follow Chara. "Can I talk to you a bit?"

"About what?" Chara asked, in a hurry to leave.

"I think you should let your friend be for now"Jerry said , relaxing his voice.

"What do you mean?" Chara asked crossing her arms .

"Look we have been in the same school for some time now and our paths have never really crossed until now so I don't know enough about you .."he said ,swiping at a bug which decided to hover around now. "..but from what I've seen , I think your friendship with Rei may be holding you back"

"What do you mean by that?" Chara asked ,squinting her eyes and taking a defensive tone.

"Don't be upset, I'm not saying you guys are bad friends but I just ..... " He paused trying to find the words to explain better, "...look you never made any friends since you've been in this school except that time you were close with Arloh and Bel, but even then you were never really close to them, not even nearly as close as you are with Rei, so obviously you guys are longtime friends" he continued as Chara said nothing and just listened to him.

"But I think you might be too attached to Rei and that could affect you guy's friendship, she seems to genuinely be having some sort of medical issue right now ,I think you should give her the space just today to recover properly, I also think you guys had a fight and she is acting weird to you ,maybe to get back at you for it? " He asked waiting for an answer from Chara ,who just nodded slightly,before continuing. "Yeah so I don't think you should force it , wait for her to be ready to be on good terms again ,it won't take long, you guys are best friends right?" He added with a shrug.

"But it's not that, she's acting like she doesn't even know me, and is suddenly close with Arloh ,who she hates by the way" Chara argued ,not agreeing completely with Jerry.

"Maybe she and Arloh are freindly now, or maybe she is even into him and wants to spend time with him, you do know she could get into a relationship in the future and not spend as much time with you right? That's what I suspected watching them, I think you should be prepared for that so it doesn't affect your freindship",he said with his hands now in his pocket.

"Hahahaha" Chara laughed out loud.."trust me , I'm hundred percent sure Rei won't date a guy, also our friendship isn't like that , this is just a very new behaviour from hi- her,I'll talk to her and figure out why she is acting strange" .

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"Maybe you are right, I just felt I should say what I thought, we are classmates afterall" Jerry said ,dusting off the grass on his palms. "But.." he added "how about getting back at her today , don't go look for her, hang out with me and Trisha ....when she's awake" .

"Why would I do that?" She asked, raising a brow.

"Well for one, you prove to me that you and Rei have a healthy friendship where you are not dependent on her and also I just think you're cool and want to hangout, you seemed to be having fun earlier with Trisha before she fell asleep...sorry I bored you with the card games" he said and chuckled nervously. Chara thought about it for a bit, was her friendship with Rei actually one that could be affecting them both in their seperate lives? "Nahhhh" she said out loud in response to the thought.

"Oh you don't want to?" Jerry asked, thinking she said no to his offer.

"No" Chara said trying to clarify.

"Oh that's okay then" Jerry said and got down on one knee to pick up the cards.

"No I meant that I will hangout with you guys for today" Chara explained and joined Jerry in picking up the cards. Jerry smiled softly , "well that's nice, but no more cards" .

"I agree" Chara said and the two laughed together.

Suddenly Jerry's phone started to play blaring music and he scrambled to get it out his pocket."Oh my , I forgot to put this thing on silent, that would have been terrible if it happened in class, who's even calling me at this time" he complained as he switched off the phone and put it back in his pocket.

"Isn't that the song 'serpiente maquillada'?" Chara asked, showing serious interest as her face lit up.

"What?...oh that's the name of the song?" Jerry said as he picked up the last fo the cards.

"Of course, from the show las bellezas toxicas, how do you have it as your ring tone if you don't know" Chara said ,squinting at Jerry for answers.

"Oh I've been trying to find out the name for years, see, I love collecting records of old music so I heard this playing in a store once and recorded it but I couldn't get it , never found out the name or where it was from, I really just love the sound of the song" Jerry explained ,arranging the cards and putting them in his pocket.

"Well I really love the show, it's an old drama series , and that's one of the songs for it" Chara explained with enthusiasm.

"Wow I never would've known, I don't really watch series, but because of this song I think I'll check this one out " Jerry said and nodded with a warm smile .

"Ehh just make sure you skip the first episode , it's not important" Chara explained to her new convert.

"Or you could watch it with me and make sure I watch it the right way, our queen of TV series" Jerry said and did an exaggerated bow.

"I'll think about it" Chara said and giggled quietly.

"Okay Trisha you lazy hippo,that's enough let's go somewhere else" jerry shouted as he walked over to wake the sleeping log. Chara thought about it a bit more, she never noticed until Jerry said it, but was she really too attached to Rei? "Nahhhh" she thought out loud again and went to help Jerry wake Trisha up.

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