Me Tarzan, You Jane

Just two weeks after my break-up, my younger brother’s best friend shamelessly asked me out to see Skyfall. (I say “shamelessly” but I know by the parched throat and lurching heartbeat that I must have been anticipating this all along. Probably as far back as our camping trip in August when he sneaked across the entire campsite in super-duper stealth mode to launch a water grenade at my feet.)

My younger brother’s best friend is a half-white/half-Mexican hybrid with dark hair, a goofy smile and viciously mesmerizing green eyes. All the younger girls gaze dreamily at him, as if he is the corporeal incarnation of Adonis in the flesh. They trip over themselves just to suck in the same filthy air as him. Don’t they know? This guy wears the lamest t-shirts, worships Batman, and pees in the bushes at the crickets.

When one of these nymph-like creatures sauntered up to him one night to tell him how beautiful she thought his eyes were, he struggled to reply to that. The girl had reduced him to a gushing, blubbering doofus.

Afterward, when he sidled over to talk to me, I pretended to shield my eyes.

“Don’t look at me!” I shouted.

Nervous laughter. “What?”

“Don’t look at me with those beautiful, green eyes!”

This caused a look of chagrin and an eye roll from him. I doubled over with laughter, crying, “Joke! Joke!”

“Lame,” he’d said, storming away.

After each such episode, where I played tormentor to his tormentee, I would coax him with a bowl of popcorn or a slice of pizza or half a Snickers bar as a token offering of repentance, which he would snatch up with a scowl that drove me dizzy with glee.

He was barely twenty-three at the time, and I had already turned twenty-seven three months before. I was talking to my brother when he approached us, elbowing my brother in the ribs. My brother punched him in the chest. They wrestled a bit, while I sighed in dismay.

“I know you can’t keep your hands off each other,” I said, “but don’t leave a cute girl hanging.”

After they retired from their bromancing ritual, he turned to me with a grin and said, “Taken 2?”

I blinked in surprise and glanced quickly at my younger brother, who was busy admiring the lint on his left shoulder.

“What?” I said.

“Double Oh?” he said.

I grimaced.

His face fell and he walked away then, attaching himself to the elbow of another girl. He did not talk to me for the rest of the night. Later that night, after much pacing, hair-tugging and hyper-ventilating in front of the bedroom mirror in my underwear, I mustered up the courage to text him.

Mimi: Were u serious?

Five minutes later, he texted back.

Younger Brother’s Best Friend: Yeah.

We back and forth’ed until midnight, but none of it was going through my head. The only words that would come to mind were: Oh, crap, oh, crap, oh crap.

Just the other day he sent me a link to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEex6rA-g6s

“What are you trying to tell me?” I cried.

“Ay oh Ay oh Ay-Ay-Ay-Ay-OH,” he said.

I shouted, “I don’t understand a word of your Thai!”

He shouted back,”That part’s pretty universal!”

A million hugs goes to any guy who’s sweet enough to fan the flames of my fangirly desires, even if I know that deep-down inside he thinks it’s pretty lame.

Anyway, lots of goodies this time. Thanks so much to our new staff – Mangiwi, Kiwango, Gazechic, samisweet, stellar, Aria, and hoi – for helping us get these out! Also much love to the older staff members – Lilanar, Stiletto, vanille, arcticbeetle, otaku_mel, Kelpie, Kumomi, and Miwa – as well. Don’t tell me you thought I forgot you? 🙁

& (and) Volume 1, CH.5.5: I always suspected Shiro was doing the creeper on Kaoru, but I never knew this was the reason why! Pretty adorable. (For a creeper.)

Ane no Kekkon Volume 1, CH.2: This chapter has taught me that you can definitely outrun a 40-year-old man in heels, but be prepared for something far, far worse.

Balancing Toy Volume 1, CH.5: I’m really glad that Haru is spending more time with Bonta and Towa and getting some freedom from Papa Seiji. Just the other day, they were sleeping in the same room, on the same futon, counting sheep. At fifteen?! I think I stopped conversing with my dad at that age. (Okay, now maybe I’m the dysfunctional one.)

Futago Volume 4, CH.18: Yukari has totally won my respect this time around. If it was me, I’d be bawling my eyes out then and there. Or at least aim a swift kick at the guy’s nuts, if only for consolation.

Natsuyuki Rendezvous Volume 3, Ch.12: Rokka confesses her feelings…for her dead husband?!

Natsuyuki Rendezvous Volume 3, Ch.13: Still inhabiting Hazuki’s body, Shimao’s ghost decides to take Rokka on a vacation date.

Otoko no Issho Volume 1, Ch.3: Tsugumi really needs to get herself a metal door, or at least an underwear and bra set made of interlocking electric wires.

Teketeke Rendezvous Volume 1, Ch.4: Everything epic about George Asakura is showcased in this chapter. She had my sides ripping from laughter. Also, (I know I’ll sound like a perverted old lady but) props has to be given for gifting me with the sexiest 2D Megane Danshi in a heck long while. Hu hu hu.