CHAPTER II:

( friends by chance )

IN THE SUMMER WHEN AROHA TOKI HAD TURNED FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, SHE HAD GOTTEN HER FIRST JOB EVER—WORKING AT HER DAD'S SURF SHOP. She was too anxious to have her first job with unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar environment as she had been homeschooled all her life, so her father, Atama, came up with the idea that she could work for him.

The two of them agreed that he would treat her no different from any of his other employees so she could get an idea of what it was like to be in a professional workspace and earn her share fairly. She worked hard living up to the Toki determinant lifestyle; getting to work on time,

      That same summer she saved a boy from being crushed by an unsecured rack of surfboards he had accidentally run into when aimlessly exploring the shop. Atama had profusely apologized for what could have resulted in a concussion and a few other injuries but the boy had said all was good thanks to his daughter ( whom he couldn't take his eyes off of. )

      From that day on, the boy continuously entered the grounds of Kuhulu Surfs in search of the girl who saved his life, eventually learning her work schedules so he could enter at the perfect time to pester and chat with her. Aroha found him odd at first; excessive flips of his obnoxiously long hair, extreme lack of spacial awareness, clumsiness, hyperactivity, the inability to ever sit still for longer than five minutes, and pick-up lines that fell to her confused ears.

      Yet she decided to keep him around. He was her first real friend and there was no way she would ever deny him.

      Even when summer had long ended and school started back up, he still continued to visit the girl, ultimately earning the fondness of her parents and herself to the point that they had begun to hang out with each other outside of the surf shop ( mainly sticking to activities on the beach per her father's request. )

      Fast forward two years later, the two had gone through so many changes yet also none at all.

The boy experienced an abnormal growth spurt and was now taller than Aroha, he cut his hair, he filled out more, and his jawline and cheekbones defined themselves. On the other hand, he remained restless, and clumsy, and continued to flirt with the oblivious Aroha.

The girl had grown along with him yet she stopped just to where her eye-line met the center of his nose bridge, she allowed her shoulder-length hair to grow to her mid back, and an impulsive piercing lay at her bellybutton ( courtesy of the boy doing it for her ), and she had grown to appreciate the clothing of her culture. Aside from physical attributes, being around the boy had influenced her to be slightly less concerned when it came to talking to strangers ( though she would still ask him to order something for her from time to time ), she grew more inclined to broaden her horizons of where she would hang out, and yet she remained oblivious to the boy continuing to win her heart over.

      Which in the present day, he still made an attempt at making her his.

      There the blond stood—more gawked, at a safe distance from Aroha who was assisting frantic neighbors who had fallen into the grasp of Hurricane Agatha's terror. Messy strands of hickory sprouting from the ponytail she had put her hair into in the earlier hours of the day. John B. had been talking to him to the right of him, but all the boy, JJ, could do was stare at Aroha.

"Dude just ask her if she wants to go already," John B. brought JJ out of his daze with a light smack to the back of his head.

He bit the inside of his cheek, hands shoved into the depths of his cargo shorts pockets, and eyes going from the ground to her and he huffed a quick breath of air watching at how obviously overwhelmed Ro had been becoming with a man raising his voice at her. Wordlessly, JJ strode up to stand behind the very animated and irritated man. The girl hadn't noticed him at all and if she had then she paid no mind to him.

      "Sir, I don't know what happened to your yacht," Aroha asserted, "you told me you left it out because you and your buddies were having a hurricane party and were going to go out on it–"

      "I don't need you to repeat what I just told you!" his gruff voice shouting almost pushed the girl to the point of putting her hands on the man, no matter if she were a violent person or not. "I just want to know where my yacht is!"

      The Māori girl put her head down shaking away the need to lose her customer service voice and shout. "Sir, I don't have a tracker on your eight hundred thousand dollar boat that you lost, I am not the yacht coast guard, and I certainly am not some specially trained boat hunter!" Now the customer service voice was lost. "Please, please please, go find someone who actually is in a crisis and help them or just find someone who gives a damn." His jaw unhinged and dropped at her tone and honest words, anger showing through his flared nostrils and tighter grip on the counter in front of him. He opened his mouth, finger pointed in his face but she cut him off, "Next!"

      He scoffed, ready to shout again but the boy behind him had ushered him aside with his hands on his shoulders. "Hey, man, didn't you hear her say next?" JJ innocently questioned. The man could only shut his mouth and walk away while the teen girl shine a close-lipped smile at him.

      The brown girl sighed slumping and putting her head on the counter. "I hate being rude to people but, my God! That dude has been yelling at me for twenty minutes straight." JJ watched her come back up from having her head down, a boyish grin spread across his lips while watching her adjust her expression to the boy whose life she saved ( she would argue that he would have been fine without her and the worst he would have gotten would have been a concussion but he always disregarded her words. )

      "How about a break?" he queried, hand resting on his cheek while his elbow met the cheap countertop. "We're having a kegger in..." the blond glanced down at the imaginary watch he had on his wrist, "like half an hour?"

      Her head tilted at this, big tightlipped coming to show and he could've sworn his knees were about to buckle. "You are my one true savior." She grabbed his face in her hands and kissed the top of his messy head leaving him with a lopsided smile.

      John B. had watched the two from where JJ had left him. He snorted at the way Aroha still fell oblivious to JJ's boyish crush on the girl, not mistaking the way she kissed him to be the same way she would most likely do to a younger brother. But John B. would continue to listen to the way JJ spoke about the Hawaiian, not even recognizing his actual feelings for her, just because he too fell obvious to how deep his own crush on her had gone.

      But never mind that, they can figure that out later, they had a kegger to get to!