Chapter Forty Four: Ravioli and Heart Palpitations
~~~
If there was one thing Eva hated more than being stuck on killer dino island, almost drowning, or Kenji's smug little face on their near-daily trips to the penthouse, it's using the latrines. Because the latrines were a deep hole into the ground surrounded on all four sides by plastic (non see through) sheets that were nailed into the ground but barely holding on. There was toilet paper, but that's where the homely indoor plumbing stopped, and the constant squatting and burning of thighs started. Yeah, the latrines weren't very enjoyable at all. Indoor plumbing was probably the thing Eva missed the most about life back home the most.
So when something jumped out in front of her as she came out of the latrines, Eva struck. She guessed dinosaur. She guessed wrong.
Kenji crashed into the ground, holding his nose, which was bleeding profusely.
"What the fuck?"
"I could say the same to you!" Kenji shouted as he sat up, glaring at her.
"Why would you scare me?!"
"Why would you punch me?!"
"Because you scared me!" Regardless, Eva offered her hand, which Kenji still took with his non bloody hand. "Please tell me you're okay."
"No thanks to you."
"I love you, but that was definitely your fault."
Kenji's ears grew pink as Eva blushed, realizing what she said.
"I also love Brooklynn. It's the pink hair. Yaz is so pretty. Women crush Wednesday everyday." Kenji and Eva awkwardly stared at each other, before Eva cleared her throat and took his non bloody hand, dragging him back to camp. "I'm sorry, by the way."
Kenji mumbled a thanks, before walking up the slide, using his free hand to keep from falling off either side. Eva climbed the ladder and met him at the top, immediately leaving to dig through their lack of medical supplies for something to wipe up the blood with. She soaked it under the shower head, then headed back to Kenji. She pulled him onto the bench seat, then tilted his chin up to her level.
"You're an idiot," she said as she began to clean his lip.
"Only for you."
Eva huffed in laughter, continuing to wipe at his lip, her free hand never leaving his chin.
"Note to self," he continued, "never scare Eva. She punches hard. It hurts."
"You know I'd never hurt you intentionally, Kenj," she told him. Then, she froze. "Is this the first time in how many years knowing each other you tried to scare me?"
"Huh," he paused, then gasped. "Ooh, maybe, the first time I scared you, you punched me and it gave me a concussion and I forgot about it."
Eva chuckled, and returned to cleaning his face. "Yeah, okay." If she focused on cleaning his face, she wouldn't have to look at his cute little puppy dog eyes, and she wouldn't become distracted with them. Because if she was distracted with them, Kenji would definitely know something is up, and there's no way she could tell Kenji she had started to develop feelings for him... again.
"Um, what happened to you?" Sammy said from behind Eva, confusion evident in her face.
"It's my fault," Kenji said, his eyes flirting behind Eva, before staring back up at her.
"I punched him."
Sammy gasped, "Eva!"
"It's my fault!"
"It was an accident!" They yelled at the same time.
Yaz chuckled, entering the conversation. "Hey Eva, I'm going on a run. Care to join?"
"Really?" Eva grinned. "I'd love to! Give me like—" she held up her hand, her fingers spread apart, "five minutes!"
"You got it."
Yaz walked around the table and took a seat on the other side of the bench Kenji sat on.
Eva went back to rubbing the now-dried blood off Kenji's face, doing her best to be soft with it. She didn't want to hurt his pretty little face with his pretty little features.
She looked away from him to Yaz, who was staring at her and smirking.
What? she mouthed.
Later, Yaz mouthed back.
Eva turned back to Kenji. "You're fine, Kenj. Try not to walk into my fist in the future."
"What if I want you cleaning my face again? You do it so soft, like a little sloth."
"Did you just call me slow?"
"No, sloths are cute," he defended.
Yaz asked with a grin, "Did you just call Eva cute?"
"M-maybe?"
"Oh please," Eva said, brushing it off. "We already know I'm hot."
"Your words, not mine," Kenji said.
"Actually, I remember this one time at Rutherford in the library—"
Kenji sprung to his feet and slapped his hand over Eva's mouth. "I don't know what you're about to say, but don't say it."
Eva licked his hand, causing him to pull it away and glare at her. "What, scared I'll give Yaz and Sammy incriminating evidence that I'm the hottest person you've met?"
"What happens in Rutherford stays in Rutherford."
"Okay, Mr. VIP." Eva mouthed gibberish at Yaz, and Kenji gasped, slapping his hand over her mouth again. Eva giggled in response.
~~~
Yaz tore through the jungle like a woman on a mission, but she also seemed so carefree with it, seeing as they weren't being chased by dinosaurs. Eva didn't have to put up much of a fight to match her pace; years of running cross country, running in lacrosse, and running from hungry dinosaurs put her into pretty good shape.
Yaz slowed down slightly and looked over her shoulder to Eva. Although, Eva was focused on the ground, her mind flooded with old memories of her and Kenji: all those nights spent locked away in the library, either due to research projects or studying together, accidentally passing out, and waking up locked inside; Mrs. Doche pairing Kenji and Eva together for every chemistry project they ever had; that time Eva nailed Kenji in the head with a fig bar at lunch, then had to pretend she didn't mean to throw that, watching as chaos engulfed the lunch room as a battle royale food fight began. She would never tell him she started that one, of course. She was sure getting hit by a flying fig bar, then engulfed into a huge food fight isn't the way anyone wants their day to go.
Eva was so lost in her own mind, she hadn't realized both her and Yaz had stopped running, until Yaz was snapping her fingers in front of her face to get her attention.
"Huh? Uh.... uh huh?" Eva didn't know what Yaz said, but hoped it wasn't a question.
"What's on your mind?" Yaz asked. "You're more spacey than usual."
"Oh, um..."
"And don't say nothing, because it's obviously not nothing."
"Oh. Well, I, uh..." Eva bit her lip, staring down at Yaz. "Okay, Yaz, I need to tell you something, and I need you to promise not to tell anyone else— even Sammy."
"What did you do?"
Eva looked taken back. "I didn't do anything."
"What about Brooklynn?" she questioned, her arms crossing over her chest.
Eva tucked a lock of long hair behind her ear. "Well, I don't really want to tell anyone, and you are better than no one, so it's you."
"Interesting..." She gestured with her hands, "Continue. I'm intrigued."
"Okay, um, well... Have you ever looked at Sammy and thought, 'Wow, Sammy is hot, and she's funny, and she knows how to make me smile which is crazy, and I might be totally in love with her but this isn't something I can ever tell her, so now, it's like, who do I tell now'?"
Yaz stared at Eva, her jaw dropped in shock. "You like Sammy?"
"No," Eva shook her head. "This is about Kenji, I— I think I might be in... love? With him? That's crazy, right? Like, it's just a stupid little school girl crush, right? There's no possible way I could actually like Kenji. I mean, he's Kenji, y'know? He's Kenji. Yeah, I can't like him. But then I think of his stupid smile and I get stupid butterflies, and..." Eva continued to ramble, not even bothering to notice if Yaz was still listening.
The brunette was watching her carefully and grinning. "Well, I could have told you that."
"And I— what do you mean?"
"Your feelings for Kenji? Dude, have you seen the way you look at him?"
"Like he's an idiot?"
"Like you're in love, dummy."
"Oh god—"
"Don't worry, he's too stuck in his own little world to tell."
Eva released the breath she was holding in.
"You should tell him."
"Tell Kenji? Absolutely not. That sounds like the exact opposite of what I should do."
"Eh, I tried."
"Yaz, what do I do?" Eva begged.
Yaz raised an eyebrow at her, as if she didn't just tell Eva exactly what to do. "How sure are you that you really like him?"
"You just said I look at him like I'm in love," Eva said.
"Yeah, but what do I know?"
Eva took a deep breath, then continued once again. "Well, it started a few weeks ago, I think. I just couldn't stop thinking about him touching me, and, like, I want him to. Really bad. I dream about it. Is that bad? That's probably bad. And oh my god, I want to kiss him so bad, like, that's all I think about—" Eva pulled at her hair, sprinkling loose pieces onto the jungle floor. "And I think about—"
""Okay, I'm gonna shut down you and your horny little brain. You gotta tell him," she stated plainly.
"How?" Eva whispered. She looked around the forest, which had begun to grow dark as the sun began to set. They would have to get back to camp soon.
"I... don't know. I never really fessed up to boys I liked back home. Brooklynn might have ideas, but she's probably never confessed to anyone she likes, either. We should tell Sammy. Sammy knows this kind of stuff," Yaz pushed.
"I don't know... Sammy and Kenji are pretty good friends... what if she accidentally lets it slip?"
"Sammy can keep a secret, Eva."
Eva thought it over in her head, and a second later, found herself shaking her head to Yaz. "No. Nope. Better not. Just to be safe."
"If you say so. But you should definitely tell Kenji at some point." Yaz and Eva made eye contact, the latter staring at her with big eyes. "You're never telling him, are you?"
"Not a chance."
~~~
"This is going to look so cute," Sammy said, raking her fingers through Eva's blonde hair.
Eva realized, without a doubt, that she absolutely hated her hair. The length, mostly. It always seemed to get in the way, weigh her down, or make her hotter on Isla Nublar. So she found a pair of scissors and asked Sammy to chop it off.
Eva expected a simple cut, but she had been sitting backwards on the slide for twenty minutes, now, with Sammy behind her, scissors in hand, forever going at her head of hair. She was a bit nervous to see the finished product, but there were also nerves in her stomach that were more excitement than anything. She had had long hair for as long as she can remember— and she had no idea what she would look like with it cut.
But most of her didn't really care. She was excited for something new, even if that meant getting rid of something that had provided her comfort in the past.
The scissors snipped close to her ear, the sound like blissful ASMR.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
"Almost done," Sammy commented, turning Eva's chin down as she focused on the back of her head.
Eva barely nodded, her eyes glued to the wood of the slide as Kenji once again flooded her thoughts.
"— gonna love your hair, I just know it."
She blinked, turning her head slightly to look back at Sammy. "Wait, what?"
Sammy turned her head back around, telling her not to move. "I said Kenji's gonna love your hair."
"Wh-wh-what? Why would you say that?"
The snipping stopped. "Because it's true? Can you turn around? I wanna make sure it's even in front."
Eva nodded and stood. She brushed the loose hair stuck to the slide onto the ground with her foot, then took a seat facing Sammy. Sammy started measuring her hair, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration, as if she didn't just tell Eva the thing she couldn't stop thinking about.
"Is my hair cuter like this?" she asked after a minute. "Short, like this?"
"I think your hair is cute any length," she answered nonchalantly. "But he will definitely notice."
Eva flushed pink, and Sammy grinned.
"I knew it."
"Knew what?" Eva said, acting clueless. She didn't think she could handle it if everyone suddenly knew how she felt about Kenji.
"Okay. Keep your secrets. You're all set, by the way." Sammy brushed her fingers through Eva's bobbed hair, the waves bouncing as she did so. She fluffed her hair, then pulled a few loose pieces of blonde off of her shoulders. "So pretty."
Eva stood up and pulled Sammy into a quick hug. "Thank you."
She pulled back just as Brooklynn shouted from above, the sound of metal hitting metal. As Sammy and Eva climbed to the top of their camp, she held up two metal cans, a few more sitting on the table beside her. "Dinner is served!" she announced.
"Oh, lukewarm ravioli," Eva said as she picked up one of the open cans. "Yummy."
Brooklynn shoved her shoulder. "Would you rather have lukewarm pineapple? A single can of orange soda? The options are very, very limited."
Eva sighed through her nose. "No. I'm fine with ravioli. Thanks for dinner, B."
The pink haired girl smiled lightly. "Yeah, it sucks, but it is what it is."
Eva nodded and took her can and fork, heading to her bed. She wouldn't condone eating in bed, but camp space was limited, and she didn't want to sit crammed into a table with her five friends and Kenji, when all she could think about was him. She carefully sat her can down on the end of her bed, then vaulted into the bunk. She crossed her legs criss-cross applesauce, looking around camp until her gaze fell to Kenji, who was climbing the slide.
He did everything so nonchalant, and when he stretched, his shirt rose slightly and Eva couldn't help but stare him down. He smiled softly, picking up a can of spam, his nose scrunched up as looked at it and shrugged. He mouthed something to Brooklynn and the girl laughed.
Eva bit her lip, staring down at her ravioli, and wondering how it happened. How her view of Kenji changed so drastically. How he suddenly became all she could think about. And she wondered— hoped, in a small part of her heart, that maybe part of him was thinking the same. But that'd be crazy, right? Right. She was content with falling in love with him, even if he didn't feel the same. The capacity of falling for him was enough for her.
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I LOVE THIS CHAPTER SO MUCH
bye, love you all, xxx
- Atha