Love-Hate

"I like you! Please go out with me!" Len placed his hand on his chest, striking a pose with a confident smile. His eyes sparkled with genuineness.

"No!" Rin shouted, sticking her tongue out at the boy next to her.

She hates it when Len keeps bringing up this "joke." The two had always been bullies to each other in this friendship. Although it's really just Len making weird comments and Rin dissing him for it.

Two of them noticed each other when they entered middle school, but it was not until the second year that they finally got to really know each other by being in the same class.

They like to joke around on a daily basis, but Len loved to make jokes about Rin being adorable or wish she could just be his girlfriend. Rin usually just rejected him to end the joke, however, his confession joke is appearing in the conversations even more often recently, and those "jokes" are also becoming more straight forward.

Rin could reject him with another joke in the beginning, but her mind is getting confused due to his confessions lately.

"I mean it, it's definitely not a joke!" Len emphasizes his words to make her believe in him.

"Then try tell me what do you like about me?" Rin tried to keep a straight face. Her expression is saying that she is not expecting a serious answer, while her eyes were looking at the views outside the window, afraid that she could not be able to keep up her face if they locked eyes.

"You're super cute, and too cute to a point that I'm afraid if I didn't confess my feelings to you first, other people will all rush to you before me!" His eyes were still sparkling with light of excitement as he explains to her, but the girl next to him was not buying it.

"What kind of shallow reason was that..."

She knew he was not serious about it, just poking her heart for fun. If she really fell for him for this stupid daily joke of his, then she is an even bigger clown than him.

"How was that shallow?! Those are my honest words! I think you're cute when you smile, pouted, even when you were throwing your tiny fists against my shoulder when you were angry. You know, when you're next to a super adorable creature for the most of the time, it would be inhuman of me to not confess my feelings!"

"Even when I'm angry? If you're not a pervert then just you're just trying to pick a fight with me. But it seem more likely that you're just a pervert to me."

"Rin is so mean to me......"

"There goes the idiot lovebirds again."

One of their classmates made an announcement in the class while enjoy the show from the very beginning. However, no one really cared.

That's right, all the conversations they had were all happening in the classroom full of people. Other students were shy or surprised towards their interaction at first, then slowly turning into a normal thing quickly. They might even feel weird if the two didn't bicker for a day.

"We're not a couple!" Rin exclaimed loudly.

"Hehe." While Len was just laughing like he was the happiest person in the world.

"Why the heck are you laughing!" Rin yelled at him out of exasperation.

"I laugh because I like you."

At this moment, Len was smiling at Rin very differently from how he was a few sentences ago, unlike the usual shiny smile, his gentle and warming smile was the one that puts Rin out of words.

Rin and Len were arranged to sit next to each other when they got into a same class. As a rookie in romantic relationship, the daily confessions and the occasional gentleness are bad for the her and her stupid heart. She believes that maybe Len was doing this because he knew this about her.