Lily bleakly opened her eyes to the annoying sound of her alarm clock. She thought setting an annoying sound would help her cause of waking up early but obviously years of getting up late got the better of her. She pressed "Delete alarm" on her phone and with a groan, turned on to her other side. Sleepily she tried to come back to the present world.

What day is it today? Is there anything interesting? Do I have to go somewhere?

Wait a minute... SCHOOL! VACATIONS ARE OVER!

Her eyes shot open. It was already 7:30.

What on earth? I closed my eyes for like 5 minutes after the first alarm at 6! Life is so unfaaaair! She screamed in her head and scrambled off the bed.

"Why can't I just wake up naked and see a hot guy beside me who will be some rich company's CEO who will never be able to forget me and then will try to pursue me and then I will have his baby which he will have no idea about but after 5 years we will meet again and he will know I am his child's mother and then we will get married?" Lily asked her friend, Caitlyn who was generously applying lip balm in front of a new make-up mirror that she had purchased at a thrift store. "Because dear Lily" she said, putting her mirror and lipbalm into a new makeup pouch she bought from the same thrift store, "YOUR LIFE IS NOT A MANHUA!" She smiled at Lily. Lily made a face. "Why don't you set up your home at the thrift store?" she commented as everyone stood up to greet the teacher who had just entered class with a male student.

Who is that new guy? Transfer student? Oh my God, is this a manga? I cannot believe it. Oh no, he is hot too. This is like a manga!

"Good morning, class" the teacher interrupted Lily's chain of thoughts. "This is Samuel. He is a transfer student and I hope you all will help him out settle in here."

Lily could hear the girls whispering and she was sure it was about his looks because duh. "If he is good at everything including basketball and music, he is your guy straight outta manga" whispered Caitlyn from the back. "I need to be the female lead for that" sighed Lily.

The teacher asked Samuel to sit anywhere he liked.

There were three benches empty: right in front of Lily, one in the first row and one in the far end corner.

If this was a manga, the guy would sit right in front of the girl, laughed Lily in her head.

Samuel sat in the first row.

Wait, why am I feeling so disappointed? Lily was surprised. I obviously did not expect him to sit in front of me!

It was time for the class duties to be announced.

"Bet it's going to be you and Samuel" Caitlyn whispered again from behind.

"Gosh Caitlyn, will you stop, it only happens in ma.."

"Lily and Samuel".

"Huh?"

"You both are on class duty for today. Help him, will you?" Having said so, the teacher walked away asking students who had doubts regarding the lesson to meet her in her office.

Samuel turned around to look at Lily.

Lily's heart was beating a tad bit faster as she tried twice to smile at him and ended up looking constipated.

Samuel turned his head away.

It was really not going to be like in a manga, right?

Lily was excited. She was excited to know about Samuel. Was he the ideal good at everything kind of guy? Was he good at academics? Was he wicked? Oh! Was he a vampire?!

"Why are you smiling to yourself?"

Lily got startled and snapped back to reality. Samuel was standing there with a duster.

Be anything but a fangirl, Lily told herself. You don't want to blush all the time like those irritating manga girls, she reprimanded herself.

"You clean the board. I'll clear out the desks and the dustbin. Does that sound okay to you?" Lily asked.

Samuel shrugged in response.

The cool, egoistic guy, she noted. He is hot and he knows it and he expects every girl to fall for him I guess. I will be the one who does not, she promised herself.

Lily set to work around the desks and straightened them. She threw all the bits of paper from the desks into the dustbin and cleared it out. She also got the mop for the floor. Samuel was still wiping the board.

The hell? Is he a snail?

"Samuel, don't forget to clean the board dusters after you're done with the board", she said. Samuel did not respond. He was clearly irritated.

Lily smiled to herself. He is not used to being treated this way, hahaha.

After Lily was done with her duty, she noticed that Samuel was done and about to leave with his backpack. "We have to give in the key together" she told him. His face was unresponsive but he complied with her on her way to submitting the key.

As they were about to leave, it started raining.

Honestly? Do we have to share an umbrella now?

She took out her umbrella from her backpack. Samuel was peering out and looking at the sky and gauging the rain. "Do you want to..." Lily had begun.

Before she could complete Samuel had taken a sprint towards his bike. Lily watched as he hopped onto it and rode away.

"Wow, so much for a romantic moment" she sighed.

"I didn't ask him anything yesterday. I couldn't. He didn't look like he wanted a conversation" Lily complained to Caitlyn.

"So nothing happened between you two?" Caitlyn was disappointed. "I came to school just for knowing about this. I was going to take a day off"

"Hello? This is not a manga. And you could have texted."

"Gotta blame you in some way."

"Honestly, all that stuff happens in manga and nothing is going to happen between us. I mean we are not going to have any other encounter anyway."

During gym class, it was discovered that Samuel did play basketball and he was extremely good at it.

"Check that box: hot new guy is good at basketball. Now we have to wait to see his academic results and we will have a prince," Caitlyn laughed.

Lily was surprised. But, so what? A lot of boys played basketball anyway.

Samuel's performance during gym had gained him some fame and there were girls who were actually trying to go up and talk to him. "What? This actually happens?!" Lily asked, open-mouthed to Caitlyn.

"Manga isn't based on nothing," Caitlyn laughed.

As expected, Samuel wasn't very keen on entertaining them. He talked to them politely.

He had also gotten two friends from the basketball team.

"So just in case you don't know Lily, Derek is Samuel's friend now and all of us know that.." Caitlyn began.

"...that Derek has a crush.. on me." Lily slowly completed.

"Now you know what's going to happen." Caitlyn replied as they both turned to look at the Samuel, Derek and their third friend, Zen, laughing about something in the corridor right outside the class.

Derek will talk about Lily which will make Samuel take notice of her.

Lily wanted this to happen.

Did she have a crush on him?

So basically Derek has a crush on me for almost a year now. He has never confessed to me but he looks at me a lot and has made it pretty obvious in a lot of ways. The whole school probably knows about it but I can always use the defence of not knowing anything. I didn't like Derek. Not like I disliked him but obviously I will not say yes to someone easily available to me. I will like the guy who does not like me; who does not care about me.

"So Derek will obviously bring me up in some conversation of theirs and then Samuel will start to notice me and then..." Lily said aloud.

"Wow you got a whole storyline sketched," Caitlyn commented while playing Homescape on her phone.

"Huh.. I am just saying," Lily said, rolling her eyes but a little embarrassed inside.

Lunch break got over and the next class started. Samuel walked in with Derek. Zen was in another classroom.

Lily noticed some girls staring at Samuel. This made her want to not stare.

He must be getting it so easy, she thought, I will not even look at you!

She took out the notebooks for the class and started revising last day's notes.

"Lily."

She looked up.

It was Derek.

Of course, she thought.

Samuel was not with him.

"Can I borrow your homework?" Derek asked, a little fidgety, a little nervous.

Lily handed him the notebook without a word which made Derek even more nervous.

"Please don't mind," he added.

"I am not." Lily said.

Derek smiled, nodded and took the copy back to his seat which was next to Samuel.

Lily was curious as to whether Samuel would see her notebook but he did not. He just enquired whose it was and that was it.

Yeah well I don't care, Lily thought.

After a week of trying to gauge if there was any chance of whether Samuel might just like Lily, she gave up all hope. He did not show any interest in her or any other girl and only hung out with Derek and Zen. He acted so aloof that it pissed Lily off. She knew her anger had no base but she was pissed off anyway. She kept this information to herself so that Caitlyn wouldn't make fun of her.

It was Samuel and Lily's turn again for class duty. Class duty teams never changed unless one was absent.

Lily rolled her eyes.

Why with that egoistic guy, she complained in her head.

As soon as it was time for the cleaning duty, Lily did not even wait for Samuel. She cleaned the board, checked the desks for trash, cleaned out the trash bin and was about to mop the floor when Samuel walked in.

For the first time, Lily saw an expression on him: of surprise.

"You have done almost everything?"

"Yes, you were late and I have errands after school."

"I can mop the floor."

"I'm almost done. You can go home."

Lily could see that Samuel looked a little guilty.

"I didn't mean to be late."

"I don't care." Lily continued mopping the floor.

After she was done, she took the keys and went to the staffroom to hand over the keys.

As she was leaving, she saw Samuel unlocking his bike. They had eye contact but without reacting, Lily turned her head and walked towards her usual direction.

What am I even pissed at him for, she wondered; maybe tomorrow he will apologize or something.

Maybe this is the start of those manga moments: girl ignored popular guy and he is surprised. So he tries to get her attention.

Oh well, we'll see tomorrow. Lily couldn't help but get excited.