Chapter 9: Ms. Tomboy and Her Admirer

"Khob khun na, Pa," Fourth waved at Gun as he got off the car and held the door open for his twin, Love. "We'll take a cab home today, in case P'Pond and P'Joong are late."

"Why don't you take the test and get a license instead?" His Pa Gun asked him, shaking his head at his youngest son. "You're just too spoilt."

Fourth just gave him a sheepish smile as Love waved at her father through the window. "Bye bye, Pa! See you in the evening! Best of luck for your shoot."

"Bye bye ja!" Pa Gun waved at his youngest children before driving off to the studio where him and his husband were invited for a photoshoot for a new brand together.

Normally, Gun liked to focus on his cooking channel and his restaurant, but today his husband had gotten him to agree for the shoot. It has been ages since he had been to a photoshoot and he was worried that he had lost form. So he hurried off to the venue, after dropping off the young ones to University.

Fourth and Love walked up the cafeteria first thing, to have breakfast since their Pa had to rush off to work this morning and none of the siblings had wanted their father to trouble himself by making breakfast for the whole family. So everyone had opted to have breakfast at the University cafeteria instead.

P'Joong and P'Pond were already off, both of them having morning classes and club activities. And while Fourth's classes started in half an hour, Love still had time to kill.

"Um…Love…when does your classes end today?" Fourth asked her, not taking his eyes off of his phone.

Love narrowed her eyes at her brother. "Around five. Why? You're not planning on ditching me are you?"

"As if you've never ditched me before?" Fourth shot back, pointing towards the vast playground at their back with his spoon full of rice. "The instant you see the women's team playing basketball, you rush over to take photos! You completely forget you even have brothers!"

"I do not!" Love complained, looking morally offended.

"Do too." Fourth stuck out his tongue at her. "Last time, P'Pond and I had to wait for almost an hour for you to show up at the parking lot! You had forgotten that we were waiting!"

"That was one time!" She insisted. "And besides, you're just salty because you didn't get to hang out with that doctor of yours!"

"Don't make this about me!" Fourth narrowed his eyes at his twin. "At least I can 'hang out' with my doctor. All you do is sneak around the bushes and take pictures of her like some crazy stalker!"

Love held back her fist in a gesture as if she wanted to punch Fourth, but he took his plate and danced right out of the bench, sticking her tongue out at her as he went to stand next to a man who had been standing at the periphery and watching their interacting with amusement.

"Oh! P'Gemini!" Love looked at her twin's boyfriend before looking at Fourth with narrowed eyes. "You think you can get away that easily? Just wait till you get home!"

Gemini wrapped an arm around Fourth's shoulders before waving at her as the couple moved further inside the cafeteria so as not to be spotted easily. Love sighed, having to sit alone while eating her meal, but she was happy for her brother…as happy as a single girl in a one-sided, unrequited love can be.

Out of the four of them, she was the only one who knew about Fourth's lover. Call it twintuition maybe, but she had had a hunch about them since high school. Fourth couldn't keep a secret to save his life, so the fact that her brother had been able to keep this a secret for so long was a fact that astounded her on the daily.

Love had just finished her breakfast of omelet rice when a timer went off on her phone. 

Jumping up from her seat, she gulped down her soda as fast as she could, letting the cool liquid help her jittering nerves as she went to place her plates away before she was rushing out of the cafeteria and down the road towards the basketball court where the women's team was having their practice.

She took out her handy-dandy camera, that she had spent all her saving on, and came to stand right outside the fence, looking around the court for the familiar tall figure with the long black hair that she adored.

It seemed like she had calculated her timing a bit wrong today, because the game had already begun and the women were already running across the court, dribbling the ball in their hands as they tried to score a basket.

Love held the camera to her eyes and looked through the lens at the woman right at the centre, trying to block her opponent from scoring.

Milk Pansa Vosbein, 3rd year senior from the Faculty of Engineering.

She stood out among everyone else, or was that just Love? Because no matter where she was, she could find out P'Milk in a crowd of a thousand people easily.

Her delicate features would indicate a woman with docile temperament, but that could not be further from the truth. Even though she was a bit on the skinny side, P'Milk was a very strong player that others in her faculty feared. Not only because she was in the women's basketball team, but also because she was the head Hazer and the first woman in the last seven years to get that title. Which is why, she was more popularly known as Ms. Tomboy in her Faculty.

Love liked everything about P'Milk. Her long hair that reached her mid-back and that she liked to pull up into a ponytail on top of her head. Her plump pink lips, her sharp nose, that little mole on her left cheek, and her slightly uptilted eyes. She was her perfect role-model, the perfect everything.

If only P'Milk knew she even existed…

Love let out a soft sigh as she adjusted her camera and clicked another picture of the woman that she had admired for the last few months after entering University.

By now, she had thousands of pictures of P'Milk that she kept in a hidden folder in her laptop. And every day, that collection grew bigger and bigger, just like the feelings inside her heart.

But just as she was about to click another picture…the ball came flying her way and hit the fence hard, causing the metal to make a rattling sound while in turn led Love to let out a startled shriek as she stumbled to the ground, falling hard on her bum, the camera falling out of her hands.

"Nong! Nong! Are you okay? Did you get hurt?"

A few women from the court came running towards her, along with their coach, and Love realized belatedly, only after the woman was crouching down in front of her…that it was none other than P'Milk.

Her eyes widened in horror as her cheeks turned tomato red, but before anything else, Love grappled for her fallen camera and clutched it to her chest so that P'Milk or anyone else wouldn't be able to see the images in it.

"Are you okay?" P'View, another one of P'Milk's teammates asked her as she looked around the area. "Did you get hurt?"

"N-no." Love answered with a stutter. "I-I'm good. I'm a-all good."

"Are you sure about that?" P'Milk narrowed her eyes at her face, bringing her face closer so she could look at Love better. "You seem a bit pale."

How can she be pale when she was sure she looked like an overripe tomato? Love thought to herself, but looking at P'Milk's fierce eyes, she wasn't able to utter a single word.

"Girls," the coach called the team to attention. "We need to get back to the game. View, take her to the infirmary in case she got hurt. The rest of you, follow me."

"Yes, Ajarn." The rest of the women agreed as they went back to the court one by one and P'View went to pick her up…however, someone else beat her to it.

"I'll take her to the infirmary, Ajarn." P'Milk told the coach. "I need to use the restroom as well, so I'll take a short break."

The coach merely shrugged her approval and turned away as P'View followed behind her without another word.

P'Milk then placed an arm around Love's shoulders, making her eyes widen as tingles danced across her skin as she helped her back up to her feet.

But just as Love's feet touched the ground, most of her weight supported by P'Milk's strong presence next to her…pain shot up through her ankle, making Love wince out in pain.

And that was when Love realized that she had sprained her ankle while falling down.

Great! What a great first impression to make on P'Milk!