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It was February 14th -- Valentine's Day.
The desire to simply roll over in bed and sleep the day away was almost overwhelming; if her mother wasn't a doctor, she might have feigned illness and done just that. She positively loathed Valentine’s Day as it posed as yet another reminder that she was the only single girl in her circle of friends. The last thing she wanted was to be an audience to her friends as they discussed their plans for the night and acted shamelessly lovey-dovey with their sweethearts... Who decided it would be fun to practice a Western holiday at school, anyway? Wasn’t it bad enough that everyone would be celebrating White Day in just a month? She frowned dismally, pulling the covers up over her head as if to hide herself from the coming day. ‘If I could skip school just once...’
Unfortunately, she was the most pathetic actress in the world and she had no real excuse to stay home, so she reluctantly climbed out of bed and prepared to greet the day. Maybe things wouldn't be as terrible as she feared.
‘Yeah. Right. Keep telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll even start to believe it.’
When she arrived at Juuban High, she found that things were even worse than she had anticipated; the entire school seemed to be caught up in the spirit of Valentine's Day. Everywhere she looked, couples were walking hand in hand, exchanging gifts, and stealing kisses whenever they no one was looking. Even the teacher were feeling festive, it seemed, as all the classroom doors were covered with red, pink, and white decorations. (All doors with the exception of Mrs. Won, who was a mean, humorless woman content to make her students as miserable as possible. Poor Mr. Won...)
She sighed sadly, wishing that she had someone to share the day with, and opened her locker.
And found herself looking at a small, unmarked pink envelope laying on top of her textbooks.
Puzzled, she reached out, picked it up, and pulled out a cute little card with a simple heart design on the front. A valentine. Her heart skipped a beat. Who on earth would want to send her a valentine...? She wasted no time in opening it and reading it's contents.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.1
~ Your Secret Admirer ~
By the time she'd finished reading the card, she was blushing as she'd never blushed before. No one had ever written a poem for her before, much less a love poem... It was all terribly romantic! And to think this gifted poets affections were pointed in her direction... It was like something straight out of those romance novels she kept hidden under the mattress of her bed!
And then a thought struck her: what if the valentine wasn't meant for her at all? What if whoever had put it there had accidentally made a mistake and slipped it into the wrong locker? Or what if it wasn't a mistake at all, but some cruel joke? Aside from her small circle of friends, all the other students at this school disliked her with a passion because she came from a rich family and she was so much more intelligent than most. It wouldn't be the first time someone had tried to make a fool of her, and certainly wouldn't be the last.
Well, so much for someone liking her. She should've known it was impossible.
"Ami!" her best friend, Usagi, called from down the hall, out of breath from her usual sprint to school. "Why are you just standing there? The warning bell has already sounded!"
Shaking herself out of her stupor, she looked up to find that Usagi was right; the hall was rapidly emptying of students... She was going to be late!
"Come on!" Usagi cried, grabbing her arm. "If we don't hurry, we'll get detention -- and I have plans for after school!"
Ami didn't have plans, but there was no way she wanted a detention marring her perfect record!
They broke a speed record that day.
Happily, nothing too awful happened during first hour their first hour grammar and speech class (aside from a pop quiz on the parts of speech, which Usagi was still loudly complaining about on the way to homeroom), and for that she was glad. She was almost cheerful -- she was sure she'd done well on that test.
And then, as she attempted to help Makoto and Usagi with their Algebra homework (after scolding them for not doing it the night before), Miss Yuukimura brought forth a bag full of carnations of every color and began to deliver them to their respected recipients. The student council had been taking orders all last week... It was a tradition for boyfriends to buy them for their girlfriends, and vice versa. Naturally she wouldn't be getting one.
She hated to admit it, but she was rather jealous as she watched Makoto and Usagi giggled and blushed when they received their own carnations (both red, for love) and read the notes that came with them. Until Miss Yuukimura set a pretty ice-blue carnation down in front of her, that is.
She slowly picked up the carnation, surprise plain on her face.
"Who's it from Ami?!" Usagi squealed enthusiastically.
"I don't know..." she murmured in reply.
"Well, then read the note!" Makoto exclaimed.
Hesitantly, she did just that.
And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.2
~ Your Secret Admirer ~
Her heart was pounding loudly in her chest as she read the poem. The valentine she'd found in her locker wasn't a mistake after all! She felt as if she were floating, she was so happy. Someone liked her! She was on cloud nine until the bell rang, failing to notice the knowing look Usagi and Makoto exchanged when she failed to respond to their teasing.
The fact that she found a new poem from her secret admirer every time she went to her locker only made her dreamy condition worse -- by the end of the day even her teachers had begun to notice that she was unusually preoccupied, though they never said anything. They'd been young once, too.
When Ami went to her locker at the very end of the day, she was disappointed to discover that no new poem had been slipped inside. Or maybe it had slipped between some of her books? Just as she was about to check to make sure she hadn't overlooked it, someone came up from behind her and cleared his throat. She froze. Was it her admirer? Had he finally decided to make his identity known?
Feigning disinterest, she casually turned around and found herself looking up into the face of Kahyun Mibu, one of the most popular guys in school and, more importantly, her secret crush. (Any girl with eyes could see that Kahyun had the looks to make Adonis, one of the most handsome men in Greek mythology, jealous -- and while Ami was often oblivious when it came to the opposite sex, she was certainly not blind.) Were she any other girl, she might have embarrassed herself by gawking at just how handsome he looked up close. But she was Ami, a master at playing it cool. "Yes?" she said politely.
He flashed her one of his trademark smiles, and Ami found herself on the verge of swooning. "Good afternoon, Ami," he greeted. "I was just wondering if you were doing anything tonight...?"
"No, I haven't made any plans just yet," she replied shyly, wondering if this conversation was going where she thought it was going.
It was.
"Well, we'll have to remedy that, won't we?" he grinned. "How would you like to go out for dinner with me tonight? I have reservations at the Moonlight Interlude..."
Her eyes went wide. So, Kahyun was her secret admirer. And he wanted to he out with her -- to the Moonlight Interlude, one of the fanciest, most exclusive restaurants in the city. "Th-that would be n-nice," she stammered, blushing furiously.
His grin grew wider. "Great! I'll pick you up at seven, then."
She nodded, unable to form words, and stared after him as his walked away. She hadn't moved an inch when Zoi Saito, one of her closest friends, found her a few minutes later. "Hello, Ami-chan!" he greeted. He sounded unnaturally nervous, but Ami was in no condition to notice. "What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost!"
"Kahyun Mibu just asked me out for dinner," she responded happily, pulling herself out of her stupor. "Can you believe it? me! He asked me out!"
"Th-that's great Ami-chan," he said, sounding far from sincere or happy for his friend. Instead he sounded...disappointed? Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), Ami was too caught up in her own little world to perceive his lack of enthusiasm, or the small, unmarked pink envelope he held in his hand...
Ami pensively studied her reflection in her bedroom mirror, wondering if Kahyun would like her new look. Garbed in a knee-length gown of pale-blue lace, blue hair curled into a countless number of perfect ringlets, she looked nothing like the shy little bookworm everyone knew her as.
Still, she couldn't help but feel uneasy about that night. She didn't really know Kahyun, but she still knew enough about him to realize that asking out one of the most unpopular girls in school wasn't really his style. His typical date was a ditzy cheerleader who enjoyed stroking his ego almost as much as he did. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that maybe agreeing to go out with him wasn't such a good idea. Especially since she had so little experience with boys -- none, actually -- while he was considered a "ladies man."
Also, shortly after arriving home she'd realized that there was no way on God's green earth Kahyun could have been her secret admirer; he was just barely passing English!
Unfortunately, it was too late to back out on him now...
She sighed. 'Well, maybe things won't go as terribly as I keep imagining. Maybe he really does like me...'
The doorbell rang and she rushed to answer it.
It was Kahyun, looking dashing in a stylish black tuxedo, a bouquet of red roses in his hand. "Good evening, my lady," he said with a charming smile, holding out the flowers. "These are for you." She melted right there, all fears forgotten.
"Why thank you, kind sir," she flirted, blushing lightly as she accepted his offering.
After putting the roses in water, the couple left for the Moonlight Interlude. There was a distinct lack of conversation on Ami's part on the ride to the restaurant as Kahyun prattled on and on about his sports accomplishments and other such things that Ami really had no interest in. At first, she was thankful for his efforts to fill the silence, but by the time they'd reached the restaurant, she was just plain annoyed; he was simply too full of himself! She had never met anyone so boastful in her entire life!
She considered just calling the whole thing off and having him drive her straight back home, but she decided against it. Maybe he was acting like such a braggart because he was nervous and didn't know what to say...? It was doubtful, but possible. And so Ami kept silent and smiled at him when he glanced in her direction, hoping against hope that things would improve when they reached the Moonlight Interlude.
They didn't. If anything, they got worse.
Ami had never felt more out of place in her life than she did at the Moonlight Interlude. The place was crowded with people she'd only read about in the gossip columns in newspapers and magazines -- the rich, powerful, and well off. She even recognized the faces of a few celebrities, though she couldn't seem to remember their names.
On the upside, she could speak French quite fluently, so when it came time to order she managed not to embarrass herself. And the food tasted wonderful. Other than that, things weren't so great. When Kahyun finally wore out the sports topic, he began to tell her about his trip to the Philippines over winter break, and his planes for spring break, and how his father had already paid of the dean of Harvard to get him accepted (a serious tactical error on his part, as Ami was a strong believer in hard work).
And just when Ami thought her night couldn't be ruined any further, it did.
After desert, Kahyun asked her to dance. Naturally, she agreed in the hope that he'd concentrate on not tripping over his own feet rather than boring her to death.
At first, he was every bit the gentleman, considerate and careful of where he put he put his hands. Then, just as she was beginning to relax, he suddenly swooped in for the kill and pulled her into a kiss. She instinctively opened her mouth to cry out in alarm; she didn't realize her mistake until his tongue was halfway down her throat.
Anger and disgust took hold then, and she forcefully shoved him away and delivered a resounding slap to his cheek. Applause and laughter at Kahyun's expense echoed throughout the room, further bruising Kahyun's ego. He was so angry all he could do was sputter.
"I'll find my own way home," she told him coolly, before turning heel, grabbing her coat, and exiting the Moonlight Interlude. As she made her way home, her earlier depression in connection to the holiday of love returned tenfold stronger. She was a fool, letting herself be played like that... 'I can't believe my first kiss was delivered by the most conceded jerk on the planet!' she thought. 'And he probably only asked me out because he thought I'd be a willing victim to his charm. He probably thought I'd be grateful to him for taking notice of me!'
She was so caught up in her thoughts that she failed to notice the familiar black car trailing along beside her. The driver honked the horn. Startled, Ami looked up and found herself staring into Zoi's caring face.
"Need a lift?" he asked with his usual good-natured smile. She nodded and smiled back, suddenly not feeling so angry and alone. He'd always had a cheering effect on her.
At first there was a strange silence in the car as Zoi drove her home, as neither knew what to say to the other. Finally Ami spoke up.
"I guess you've noticed that my date with Kahyun was a bust," she said.
He nodded. "So, what happened?"
She sighed. "He turned out to be a real creep, that's what happened. He was bragging nonstop for what seemed like an eternity, and then he kissed me!" A dark look flashed across Zoi's face. "He just grabbed me (didn't even have the decency to ask!) and shoved his tongue down my throat! It was awful!" She shook her head at the memory. "Well, I couldn't stand for that... So I slapped him and left."
"You slapped him!" Zoi cried incredulously.
She nodded bashfully. "Probably not the wisest thing I've ever done..."
"He deserved it," he said firmly. He smiled. "I'm proud of you."
"Thanks."
The silence returned for a moment before Zoi took a deep breath and spoke once more. "Ami, there's something I have to tell you..." She looked at him expectantly. "I'm the one who wrote all those poems. I'm your secret admirer. I've been in love with you for some time now..."
Ami was stunned speechless. Zoi was her secret admirer? Zoi loved her?
"But why?!" she exclaimed finally. "I'm nothing special..."
"Nothing special! Ami, you're the most wonderful person I know. You're smart and funny and beautiful... You're much to good for me, but I was hoping that, maybe... you'd give me a chance and go on a date with me..." he said, glancing at her nervously.
Joy filled her heart. He really did like her! She'd never really considered dating him, but now that she thought about it, the idea had promise. They'd always had a certain chemistry between them...
"Of course I'll go on a date with you!" she exclaimed happily.
"You will?!" Zoi said, astonished.
She nodded with a merry smile. "You know, it's not a school night," she said, "and Mom isn't expecting me home 'til later..."
Zoi took the hint. "So, what do you think of a late movie? I think that 'Lord of the Rings' movie is still playing in theaters..."
"I've been meaning to see that!"
And that's how Valentine's Day became one of Ami's favorite holidays.