1. My eggs!
"Suki! Go and buy some eggs from the convenience store for me." Her mother calls out loudly from the kitchen.
The girl opens her eyes, blinking away the remaining sleep from her eyes. It was just the beginning of summer. The season to be lazy all you want. For her, it was rather boring, just sitting at home, munching on snacks without doing anything because of the summer break.
Tanaka Natsuki. Her name; natsuki, literally means 'summer child' but to the irony of life, she wasn't really fond of the heat summer has.
"Yes, mom!" She stands up unwillingly, heading towards the door.
"Don't forget to close the door, we don't want kei to run out on the streets now." Her mom reminds her to be careful. Last time she forgot to close the door, her dog, kei, went out in the rain and had to be bathed again.
"Okay." She yells through now closed door as she steps outside the house.
The birds chirping in the background while the main attraction to her ears is the sound of the ocean waves coming from near her house as well as the rustling of tree leaves when the warm breeze blows past the trees. The sun is shining above her head as the scorching heat is burning her skin but it's bearable.
She threw a hat on her head to stay protected from direct sun rays and made her way to the store. She can see the beautiful shadow patterns made by tree leaves under her feet; one thing she loved to watch in summer.
The streets are almost empty with one or two vehicles passing by now and then, other than that it was a peaceful early summer afternoon. Natsuki walks on the hot pavement road, gazing at the ocean waves that captures her attention as it repeatedly hits the big rocks scattered across the shore making a satisfying sound.
"Oh, Suki! Going to the market?" The aunt from her neighbourhood yells out, peeking her head from the window if her house which faces the street. She must have spotted natsuki walking alone on the road.
"Good afternoon, aunt kimura. Yes, I'm going to buy some eggs. See ya." Suki waves her hand at her, continuing walking down the street.
•~•~•
She steps inside the convenience store as the cool air-conditioned air welcomes her, saving her from the heat.
"Good afternoon." She cheerfully greets the person who was standing at the cash counter when she enters and the bells jingle at her arrival. The cashier greets her back with same enthusiasm.
She quickly goes to the aisle which has eggs and picks out a pack of 6 eggs, now going to the cashier.
"It'd be 200 yen." The cashier says as she rummages through her pocket for her wallet.
But seems like she forgot to bring it with her.
"Is there a problem?" The cashier asks her.
"Uh, I think I forgot my wallet." She says with a troubled look on her face, more like frustrated.
"I'll go back and get it." She mumbles and starts to step back but a hand stops her.
"Let me help." When she hears a voice, she looks up to meet a pair of dark brown eyes.
The voice belonged to a boy probably same age as her but he doesn't look like Japanese. Is he a foreigner? But he is speaking Japanese...?
She is now confused about how to react, so the boy speaks up again. "Don't worry, take this for now." He gestures towards his hand which had the money, assuming-ly 200 yen.
She actually doesn't want to go all the way back to her house and then listen to her mom's nagging for forgetting her wallet and come back again, on top of that the sun was really burning up, therefor she accepts the help from this kind stranger.
"Thank you so much. I'll make sure to repay you." She quickly bows in gratefulness as the stranger smiles and hands her the money. She takes it from him, paying for the eggs.
When she's finally done with the payment, she turns around to properly thank the guy again but to her surprise he's already gone. She wanted to ask his contact information so she could pay him back but he was nowhere to be found.
She sighs, having no other option, she leaves the store, walking back towards her house.
•~•~•
"Huh? What's all this stuff here?" She mumbles as soon as she turns the corner of her neighbourhood. Her house was at the end of the street. while walking down the road she found some boxes laid out on the side of the road.
"Maybe someone's moving in." She thinks to herself, peeking at the boxes when a cute looking furry friend; a dog to be precise, barks at her from a distance which makes her turn around.
At first she thinks it's a cute puppy just like kei, but soon she realised this one wasn't wriggling its tail and looked kind of unhappy for some reason? It was slowly edging towards her, still barking. Now she was rethinking everything.
What if it bites her? Just a thought and she quickly turns around, mentally making a plan which somewhat goes something like this...
'My house is just at the end of the street which is barely 50 steps apart right now. If I start running just now, I can make it before it catches up to me if it decides to chase me, can't I? Let's do this.'
She mentally takes a note to never look back once start to run.
The birds are still chirping peacefully and the ocean is still alive, the wind is still blowing with the sun heating it up but the only thing that doesn't set straight with all these is the loud beating heart of natsuki as she takes a leap towards her house with hope.
She barely takes two big steps when she stumbles on her feet and onto a person who just happened to come out of the house she was standing in front of just now before the furry friend decided to show up.
Thankfully the person was strong enough to hold her steady but her clumsy movements made her trip on nothing which resulted in her totally strangling the person down to the ground with a thud and crack.
Wait, a crack?
"Holy heavens! My eggs!" She speaks up rather loudly, forgetting that she was resting literally on top of someone and also that the words she just said sounded funny in some way.
"Your eggs?" She hears a laugh coming from the person she was resting on and that was it! She realises where she was and quickly stands up, brushing off the dust from her clothes as she did.
"What do you mean by 'your eggs'?" She stands up straight with embarrassment clearly visible on her face.
"You said it yourself, didn't you?" The voice sounded familiar, making her eyes go wide. The person who she stumbled with was no one other than the kind stranger who has helped her just now in the convenience store.
"You?" She says upon realising.
The guy just stood there with a playful expressions before saying, "Yes, me." He grins what looks like a box type smile. She thinks it was cute.
Cute? She blinks her eyes to clear her head.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" The guy says sighing as he dusts his pants off.
"My bad!" Natsuki says which doesn't sound so genuine for some reason.
"Not a pleasant way to apologise but okay." He smiles again but this time the smile makes her blood boil because of how arrogant he looks. He was so gentle at the convenience store just now, how can a person change so much?
Never judge a book by its cover. Maybe don't judge it by the first chapter, too. Who knows what's in stock for you in the upcoming ones?
She is contemplating how to apologise without sounding rude again when the puppy runs past her and jumps onto that guy's hands as he picks it up lovingly.
"His name is yeontan by the way." He says patting the puppy on the head as he starts to wiggle his tail. "Oh, my name is Kim Taehyung. I forgot to mention before. We are just moving in. Nice to meet you...?" The greetings came out as a question when he sees the utter surprise on her face.
She suddenly feels really embarrassed. Firstly, she forgot to bring her wallet and he helped her- not to mention she hasn't paid him back yet -then she got scared of a dog who was probably harmless and stumbled with the person who helped her as well as is moving in to the neighbourhood so they're basically neighbours now.
What a way to have the first meeting! Go natsuki go! The voice in her head speaks up as the embarrassment bottled up inside slowly resurfaces.
"Nice to meet you as well." She bows for solid 2 seconds before taking off towards her house like a flash of light.
"Oh!" That's all that comes out of taehyung's mouth after she is gone.
This is just a first meeting. No one knows what is going to happen in future.
Because;
The summer break has just started.
■□■□
Thank you for reading.
