I'm not too fond of school dances, but Aika insisted that I go with her so here I am at Elly’s house having her make a dress for me, she’s measuring my size and going through the fabric. “Short or long sleeves,” she says holding up some pink lace fabric and scanning it with her eyes.

  “Long,” I say remembering the scars.

  “And no pink,” I glare at her as she holds a hot pink piece of fabric in front of me, she sticks her tongue out and goes back through her fabric. She grabs some black and red fabric and some star sequels. Perfect.

   When the dress was finished I honestly loved it, the fabric was comfortable, the top of the dress was a corset but it wasn’t too tight on me, the bottom of the dress wasn’t too puffy, and there were silver star sequels starting from my left shoulder going around the dress in a line all the way the bottom of the dress, the end of the dress stopped right below my knees, the top of the dress was black except for a red lace that goes around the collar and one around my waist, the bottom of the dress was black with red lace at the bottom. It was -how do I put it- absolutely stunning? Or maybe gorgeous? 

  Kinkay drove me to pick up Aika, her house is huge but that didn’t really matter when I saw her, my face heated up, she was wearing a black dress that also stopped right below her knees, it had a purple lace that went tightly around her waist, there was purple lace at the bottom of her dress and her hair was curled with star hairpins. Kinkay was the one that insisted we go with stars, it wasn’t a bad idea since I personally love stars, I prefer flowers, daffodils to be exact. We got in the car and Kinkay drove us to the school, on the way there I was mumbling complaints.

  “I can’t believe you talked me into this, I have to deal with annoying cu-”

  “Language” Kinkay cut me off and Aika laughed a bit

  “People,” I said instead.

  “Come on, it’ll be fun, and besides we’re already on our way there, you look beautiful,” Aika said and I blush at the compliment, I’ll admit, I look ok. 

   We got to the school and Kinkay drove off, Aika grabbed my hand and dragged me inside, how rude, we walked into the gymnasium and she still insisted on holding my hand, it felt like everyone was staring at us but there was actually only a few, I couldn’t stand the looks of disgust so I tried to walk out just to be pulled back, she’s strong for how skinny she is. I look at her and how the dress perfectly fits her hourglass figure, I never would’ve guessed since she always wears hoodies. 

   I sit in the back drinking some punch as she walks up to the DJ and then walks back with a smile, oh no, what did she do? I get a bit lost in thought trying to figure out what she did until the song changes, girl in red? A bit cliche but it’s one of the good songs ‘Girls’ is the song. The next thing I know Aika pulls me to my feet putting one of her hands on my waist.

   “Let’s dance,” she says happily. I try to get away.

  “I don’t know how to dance,” truth, I’m terrible

  “I’ll teach you,” she says calmly before placing my hand on her shoulder and hers around my waist, our other hands holding each other we start dancing, everyone was staring but she grabbed my chin making me look back at her.

  “The first key to dancing, don’t look away from your partner,” she says, and I listened, it was like everything disappeared, the room, the people, everything, except for Aika and me. She pulled me closer as we danced, I wasn’t snapped back to reality until the song ended, and when I did, I hated it, everyone was staring at us with disgusted looks and gossiping about what just happened, I walked out of the room and Aika followed, I sat in the hallway and pulled out my phone to call Kinkay.

   “You leaving?” Aika said and by the tone, she seemed upset.

  “It’d be best, maybe Kinkay will take us out,”

  “Ok, that sounds good,” I gave her a small smile and called Kinkay. No answer. I call Elly.

  “Hello?” her voice is shaky as if she had been crying.

  “Hey, I tried calling Kinkay to see if he can pick me up but there was no answer, why does it sound like you’ve been crying?” there’s silence.

  “I was about to call you, but I didn’t want to ruin your night, Kinkay got in a car accident on the way back, they said he might not make it, he took some serious damage,” I feel tears go down my cheek.

  “I want to visit him, come pick me up,” I stand up and run to the front of the school, I hear Aika behind me. I run out the door and tense up when I see that it’s storming, a teenager still scared of storms, and in front of Aika too, I’m so lame. I back up back Into the school and sit on the floor, I feel myself shaking. Aika puts a hand on my shoulder and I calm down a bit. 

   By the time we got to the hospital, Kinkay was already gone, the funeral was this weekend, and his dad didn’t care at all. I’m at the cafe with Aika, Eli, Elly, Ming, and Blossom, it's quiet. 

  “At least he’s with Yooki,” Eli says with a sad smile, Blossom nods, Blossom was Yooki’s older sister's best friend, she's known him since he was born. Ming takes a sip of her coffee and pushes it away.

  “Only Kinkay can make it correct,” she says and laughs slightly.

  “Everyone else that works here sucks,” we all laugh a bit at her comment, she wasn’t wrong.

  “He wouldn’t want us to be sad, just like Yooki didn’t,” Elly says and smiles.

  “How about a checker tattoo,” Eli says happily. we all nod. Kinkay wouldn’t want us to mope around. 

  We got the tattoo on our shoulder, Aika didn’t get the tattoo, she said that she didn’t know him well and that it’d upset her parents, understandable. After that Aika and I went on a walk.

  “You ok?” she asked and grabbed my hand, I nodded quietly. I walk into the woods to an area Kinkay showed me, he told me stories of everything that happened there, only one was sad, but the waterfall was beautiful and I knew Aika would like it, we sat down in the grass and I took a nap.