Anima

by Jae Choguk

you gather?”

  “I got a special contact number?” I said unsure if that was good enough to report. “The man said he would call within the week to tell me the location of the ‘camp’.”

  Jeremy snapped his head up, and exchanged weird looks with Mr. Zander.

  “What? Did I not do as well as you or something?” I felt myself getting flustered.

  “That’s not it at all,” Mr. Z intervened “We are just surprised that you got something so crucial so fast!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They are calling within the week to tell us where the camp is! That was the whole point of today! This mission might go faster than expected.” Jeremy looked suspicious, and a little annoyed that I did better than he did.

  “Okay, so what? We wait for their call, and go where they tell us to?” I saw Jeremy rolls his eyes, so I assumed wrong I guess.

  “Close, we will trace his call and see where the actual location is. It’s possible they are giving us false information to see if we are spies, which we are.”

  “Gotcha’, so we wait then?”

  “For now let’s stay under the radar so they don’t suspect anything, and we’ll work from there. So stay in the hotel.”

  “Race you!” I called to Jeremy as we reached the hotel’s pool. He rolled his eyes like I was childish and I counted.

  “One…Two…” then I jumped in without counting to three. He called out, but I couldn’t laugh unless I wanted a mouth full of chlorine. I reached the other end of the pool and wiped my face. When I looked up my mouth dropped.

  “First you cheat and then you have the nerve to lose?” Jeremy asked looking down at me from the pool’s edge. I grimaced and he offered his arm to pull me out. I grabbed it and he lifted me up, just to drop me again. I coughed out water and wiped my face again.

  “Really?” I slammed my hand against the water and splashed him. He was too busy laughing to notice it though. I lost my anger seeing him laugh like that, without a care in the world. I smiled involuntarily and reached my arm up again.

  “Now can you stop laughing long enough to pull me up?” He was still chuckling when he went to grab my arm again. This time I yanked his arm and pulled him in.

  “Don’t think you’re going to get away with that.” He said as he came up for air. I lost my smile and swam away. There was no one else in the pool, and the lifeguard was busy sleeping, so if I died here, nobody would know. He caught up to me easily and pulled me under. I coughed and tried to grab onto him, but he swam out of the way.

  “Get your ass back here!” I yelled, laughing and coughing at the same time. He was laughing a lot, so I decided I would catch him off guard. I pretended I was still struggling to catch my breath and crept up quietly behind him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him under. Once he came up for water, he was ready for revenge, but I was already towards the edge of the pool. Somehow he caught up and spun me around, pressing me against the edge.

  “Watch yourself Puss in Boots! You never know when I might get you back.” I snorted, but then I grew aware of how close we were. I felt my face flush and he gave a devil smile. He pressed himself closer and I felt my whole body go up in flames. He laughed and stepped back from me. I snapped out of my trance and splashed him with water again. I pulled myself out of the pool, feeling heavier than normal and pressed my hand to my face.

  “It’s just exertion from all the swimming.” I told myself as I wrapped up in a towel. I could still hear the quiet chuckle from behind me and turned around. When I did he had a strange look on his face, but I was too flustered to read into it. His face was guarded again, ice walls shooting up.

  I promised I would break them, so I walked over to him and smiled when I saw him tense up. It was better than having no effect on him at all. I wrung out my hair and glared at him.

  “Invade my bubble again, and I won’t hold back.” I threatened, knowing this was the best way for him to go back to his usual over-confident self.

  “It didn’t seem like you wanted to hold back though.” He said, the ice starting to melt in his blue eyes.

  I just smiled and ruffled his wet, black hair, then pulled his neck bringing his forehead to mine. “Well if that was true, I wouldn’t have let you just back up like that.” He was so surprised by that comment that he had to take a step back. I laughed and raised my eyebrow before walking away. I could almost see his mouth gaping open as I walked out of the room.

  “Ready for day two?” Mr. Zander asked the next day, noticing the weird atmosphere between us. I nodded my head, not sure how to recover from yesterday. Feelings like that are never good on assignments, especially one as important as this. By ‘feelings like that’ I mean my heart beating at a faster rate than normal, and feeling anxious or nervous. I had to be alert at all times, and with Jeremy it was harder to do that. I could tell he was a little awkward now around, making me almost regret saying that stupid flirty line. I say almost, because his face was so priceless, that I don’t think I could ever recreate it.

  “Good, then let’s start!” He clapped his hands together and set up the equipment to listen in, and trace calls. “I love this part.” Mr. Z says excitedly.

  “Why?’ I asked lifting my eyebrow suspiciously.

  “Humans are so interesting, that’s why! Especially girls and their drama, I didn’t realize how much can happen in such a short period of time!”

  “You’re telling me.” I muttered under my breath, even though I know they could all hear it; the perks of an Anima I guess. They both smiled at that, catching onto my sarcasm. Sometimes I felt like they could tell what I was thinking too. I shivered and went to help set up.

  “Anything out of the blue happen yet?” I asked, walking up to Jeremy who was very focused on his current phone call. He suddenly looked a little pink in the cheeks, and I looked at him with confusion. I sat next to him on the couch and listened into his headphones.

  “I didn’t realize I could go through so many tampons in a day!” some girl about my age said dramatically. I snorted, and then covered my mouth with my hand.

  “Hah, I don’t have that problem; my periods are usually light, although my cramps are horrible. Why is that so contradicting?” another girl exclaimed.

  “Are yours scented?” She responded excitedly.

  This time I laughed so hard at Jeremy’s expression that I fell onto my side. I didn’t seem to realize that I ended up in his lap until I was wiping tears out of my eyes. I froze; hand suspended in mid-air and looked up at him.

  “Ah...” That was all I said before he put his head extremely close to mine. I held my breath and waited for him to smack me or knock me off. Then he suddenly smiled and grabbed my head between his hands. At first I thought he was going snap my neck, but then he suddenly kissed me. On my forehead that is, and my jaw dropped open. He smiled my favorite smile; his evil, quirky, childish smile. It was full of life, and not love, but something close. Then he butted his head against mine and I rolled onto the ground.

  “Ouch, that hurt you know!” I yelped from the floor, rubbing my forehead. He didn’t hear though and kept laughing until he clutched his side.

  “Revenge for yesterday!” He said when he caught his breath again.

  “You must not understand that I give everything back ten times more.” I said before launching myself at him. He caught me mid-air and pinned me down on floor under him. Luckily Mr. Zander had stepped out a while for business, so I didn’t have to worry about him seeing it, but I still felt like someone could walk in any second. Although, that worry was pushed in the back of my mind as I looked at Jeremy. Nobody has unnerved me like this before and I didn’t like it. I suddenly stopped smiling as I saw Jeremy’s face change; I knew that look by now. It was when his walls shot up, but in this case it was because we knew someone was watching. I tried to get up but he pushed me down, flattening his body against mine. I held my breath, and hoped he couldn’t hear my erratic heartbeat.

  He was shielding
my body, but I didn’t know from what. He was so used to people protecting him, that he seemed to want to protect someone else for a change. I felt my heart break for him, and I don’t like the feeling of pity for people. It messes up my other feelings for tem. For example, do I like Jeremy or is it just out of pity that I always seem to want to be with him?

  There was a phone call and I looked at him expectantly with a silent message like “You goin’ to get that?” he rolled his eyes seeming to get the message and I smirked. The feeling that someone was watching disappeared and he slowly got up. Mr. Z was still gone, so this was all on us for now.

  “Hello?” I answered as Jeremy went to work on tracing the call. Once he nodded that it was ready I went back into serious mode.

  “Is this Lydia Norman?” A man’s voice replied on the line. It was the guy from before.

  “Yes sir.” I replied monotone, not wanting to give anything away from the tone in my voice. I still felt anxious, and a buzz of excitement was just waiting to be let out, but I kept my voice as calm as possible.

  “We have the location for you to start your training with us, if you’re still interested that is.”

  “Yes, of course, what time?”

  “Next Friday, at 5.” I listened as he told me the location, and looked at Jeremy to see if it meant anything. Jeremy nodded that he got the location of where the call was from, and I held up the piece of