I Did Not Want To Fall For You

Chapter 37: K&C

Awkward situations were a no for Kamsi but at the moment, she was right in the middle of one and she had no idea how to navigate through it. A lot had happened that day already, from having to deal with Kaito's bossiness and Nonso's mood swings to trying to find a way to solve her jamb center problem without informing her parents and now, she was dealing with C.J. confessing his feelings for her.
"Huh?" She blinked.
C.J. sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"I... I have a... I like you. I had a crush on you in Ss2 but we weren't friends then so it faded but when they made us house couples and we started flowing, I guess it reignited, and well..." he looked her straight in the eye, "now I really like you."
When she didn't say anything but kept looking at him, he continued, "That's why I started avoiding you when we came back from midterm break. I didn't know how to deal with it and I didn't want you to find out. I didn't want to avoid you, you know, I really like you and I value our friendship, it made it even harder to avoid you." He stopped, looking at her pleadingly.
She blew out a breath and regained her composure. Not like Kaito hadn't given her a heads-up about it.
"I don't know what to say," she said, sincerely.
"I know, I know," he said quickly, "I know you don't like me back and I don't want you..."
"Who told you I don't like you back?"
His eyes widened, "you do?"
"What if I do? You would have just kept on avoiding me? Without bothering to find out if I feel the same way? You would regret it later on," she said with a shake of her head, "you act childish sometimes."
"I'm sorry," he apologized, "I just... you don't like me back, right?"
She smiled, "No. I like you as a friend."
He nodded though his countenance fell, "It's better that way because I don't have the intention of acting on my feelings. I don't want to indulge in dating or anything of that sort. I didn't want to hurt you in case you reciprocated the feelings."
She nodded though she felt a pang of hurt. She was happy and sad at the same time. Happy because she felt honoured that someone like C.J. took interest in her, sad because she didn't feel the same way and he would be hurt because of it and even if she did, she had decided long before not to engage in the activities that were supposed to come after. Hearing C.J. say the same thing hurt her because even though he liked her as he claimed, she wasn't enough for him to reconsider his decision. It was a foolish thing to feel sad over.
*
The next day, the entire SS3 set was in chaos. News had spread that their hostels were being searched; the hostels where they had multitudes of contrabands stored. The story was that the wardens of the girls' hostel had caught three of their mates in Dimilang cooking in the dead of the night. One of the girls had panicked and thrown a pot of boiling water at one of the wardens, Miss Folashade. She was currently in the hospital receiving treatment for second-degree burns. The hot water girl, as everyone now called the culprit whose name was Mercy, was on the brink of being suspended along with her partners in crime.
Due to the incident, their principal ordered that all the hostels were to be thoroughly searched for contraband and offenders were to be severely punished. The SS2 students had been called into the hostel already.
And now, she just heard from Toyo and Ejiro that Kaito, Nonso, Michael, Emmanuel, Jude, and Samuel were in a serious trouble of their own. They had been caught with electronics and the teacher who caught them, Miss Precious, wasn't taking it easy on them. Nonso and Samuel's phone had been seized, Kaito's bluetooth receiver, along with a music box, a headset, and a condom.
"A condom!" She shouted and placed a hand over her mouth.
She was with Toyo, Kehinde B, Sarah, Ejiro, and Cynthia on the road that ran in front of the classes.
"On Samuel," Toyo clarified and she heaved a sigh of relief, grateful that it wasn't on Kaito or Nonso.
"What is he doing with a condom?" She asked dumbly and the rest of the group gave her looks.
"What do people do with condoms?" Ejiro shot at her.
It wasn't like she didn't know that those things happened in secret but she still found it hard to believe.
"They are knelt in the staff room," Toyo informed them, "Mr. Peter has been hammering them slaps, especially Samuel. You know most teachers are angry about the hot water incident."
"Slaps," she muttered, worried. It had been almost a month since the accident and Nonso was mostly fine but she was worried the slaps would trigger negative symptoms since he suffered a concussion.
"I'm worried about Nonso too," Toyo said, her forehead creased with worry lines.
"And that Mr. Peter of a man would not care even if we tell him," Kehinde B said.
"It's not like they didn't know we use electronics normally," Cynthia said with a roll of her eyes.
"It's because of the hot water incident," Ejiro explained, "teachers are angry. Small mistake and you'll enter their trap so you have to be careful."
"How did they catch them?" She asked.
"They were going to the ICT lab to charge their stuff," Toyo replied, "and you know Tochukwu, always with that Bluetooth in his ear. Mrs Precious with her sharp eyes saw him from the front of the staff room so she called them, no, she ran to them," Toyo laughed and continued, "She ran to meet them. Immediately she seized the Bluetooth, she gave Tochukwu one hot mighty slap."
"I hear am oo, from my class," Kehinde B said, "In fact, my entire class heard it."
"That hard," she frowned.
Nonso and Kaito were respected among most teachers, most being the keyword. Nonso was known for his troublemaking character and he frequently got into trouble back in SS2, he had made some enemies. She was sure the teachers that didn't like him would take advantage of this opportunity to humiliate him. Mr. Peter, an example.
"It was bad," Ejiro shook her head.
"Wahala on top wahala," Sarah sighed, "we still have to worry about our contrabands."
It was hard to not be guilty of possessing contrabands. From the smallest thing like a stick of sweet to big things like electronics and food ingredients. She was seriously worried, not because of her small phone which was currently in her skirt's pocket but because of the foodstuff in her box. It was not going to be hard for a teacher to find it as they were big things; three packs of spaghetti, a dozen packs of noodles, three tins of sardines, two Tomato paste sachets, and food spices. In her room, it was a common practice for them to cook every weekend with Jamilah or Judith's gas cylinder while everyone donated food ingredients. They were going to be in serious trouble.