Chapter 5

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SLEEP WITH Aaron Cho? I would rather die. I would rather be buried alive without my paintbrushes or my acrylic paints. Heck, I would prefer to eat that overly sweet grape jam that everyone pretends to like. I would prefer to hug a snake or kiss a hyena. Who could ever dream of a vulgarity such as that?

And though I said I would do all those things instead, I still thought about such vulgarity. Of course, Chaitra was to be blamed for putting such thoughts in my head.
It caused me to be unable to focus on the portrait I was painting. The painting was supposed to be a daisy but it looked like a flower that was not yet discovered. And it became more and more disfigured as I added more white paint.

"This looks terrible," I grumbled to myself. I wished I hadn't gone to the bakery. What should I do now that I couldn't focus on painting? Should I daydream about the one who roamed my mind? Or watch a show? Listen to some music? All in hopes of finding some inspiration.

But I ended up choosing neither, instead, I went on my phone. Maybe it was time to utilize my detective skills. Why not search for Aaron on Instagram? Honestly, sometimes I blew my mind at my level of smartness.

I opened the app and tapped the search engine, thinking of what I could type in to find him. Perhaps his name? That was a good start. I typed in Aaron Cho and none of the results that popped up was him.

Maybe I could see if Chaitra followed anyone from high school that I could find to find him.

So, I typed in chaitrathewise_ and found her—such an odd and unfit username for her but whatever. The advice she gave me wasn't wise at all, as it led me to do something this risky. After minutes of searching through her following, I found Brandon, a guy who was quite close to the one I was searching for. In fact, he was the one who allowed Aaron and me to have interactions of some sort. Until we became acquainted enough to date.

Brandon's page was mostly filled with pictures of buildings and architectural drawings. There was nothing wrong with that, as I mostly post my drawings with a little of me in them. But now I needed one thing and one thing only. And that was to find Aaron's page.

I scrolled and scrolled, and then I spotted a picture—an old building in the background, a human male posing with hands in the classic peace sign. Then I looked down at the caption and it read, "Dude insists for me to stop taking pics of buildings so he stepped in one. It worked. I stopped taking pics of buildings, only for that day though." Then an @ sign caught my eyes. That's when I nearly galloped off my bed with excitement. Finally! My search was fruitful! Beside the @ sign was the username aaronliving and I pressed it as if I had just won the lottery.

His page was much brighter and more colourful than his friend's black and dismal one. The most recent picture was one of the vitamins he bought, posted a day ago. It garnered 3, 670 hearts.

Under it, a caption read, "Vitamins are good for heartbreaks." I rolled my eyes and sniffled a laugh. I was so pathetic, that's what was cracking me up. But I continued scrolling anyway, I had become pathetic from the moment I had met him at the pharmacy. I got even more pathetic when I agreed to his request.

I passed pictures after pictures, trying not to heart them accidentally. There was one with him smiling with a camera held at his eye, another with that same beanie on his head, standing before a background with the sky and wall giving an illusion to have met. Then, the one eliciting the most curiosity from me was a picture of him and a girl.

They were both laughing and her hand was in his while they giggled away. Her blonde hair was all over, making the photo slightly blurred. I swiped. In the next picture he was shirtless, running towards the water, his hair the only thing I could see to bring me some recognition. The final picture was one with two drinks on a transparent table, with tiny umbrellas and two long straws within them.

That post was two days before I got to Lockley. Interesting, so I read the caption.

"Beach days are the best." It said.

There was no @ beside the sentence or any tagging of the person in the picture. I was tempted to go on a search for the girl in the picture, but that would prove me to be obsessed. So, I locked my phone and put it down.

Then almost immediately, a notification came from Instagram.

A follow from aaronliving. Are you freaking kidding me? I began to browse over my photos, looking if they were of good quality. I nearly died on my bed, right there and then. I opened the messaging app and texted Chaitra about what just happened. Maybe I needed to get a hold of myself. I didn't understand what was wrong with me. I acted like a girl that had a crush.

Around five seconds later a message pinged in from Chaitra.

"Don't follow him back until tomorrow."

I wasn't that dumb. Of course, I wouldn't.

It was time for the player to be played.

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Author's note:

Thank you for reading! And have a delightful day! Hit that vote button before you go!