Mango-licious

"Hey, I'm back."

That's strange. The house felt so quiet as if no one was home. I looked at my wristwatch to check the time.

The hour hand was pointed at six while the minute hand was pointed at five so that means it is 6:25pm now.

I shouted once more just in case no one heard me when I called out earlier.

"Hello...anyone home?"

I took off my shoes and walked into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator to put the slice of cake I bought earlier on my way home.

The card displayed on the cake fridge was printed with "Mango Paradise". I thought she might like it since she loves eating cakes.

I should say she's a cake junkie. Any type of cakes just suits her tastes as long as it's cakes.

Just like its namesake, the cake is coated with mango puree mixed with fresh cream. In between the layer of sponge cake, there are layers of the mango puree cream with slices of mango.

She will surely love it. I only bought one slice since no one at home eats it. I am not a cake lover and neither is Micky nor her cousin brother.

Micky and I each rented rooms from her cousin brother. There are four rooms in the apartment. That means each of us has a room to ourselves.

Naturally, her cousin brother, Dan, has the master room to himself while the three of us each uses the remaining rooms. The rest of the three rooms are almost equal in size.

I set down my bag on the floor next to the couch and switched on the television, surfing through the channels to find something interesting to watch.

Another twenty minutes had passed by before I heard the lock on the door unlocking itself. Dan walked in through the door followed by Ling.

"Hey, you guys are back. I thought you, Ling, should be back earlier than all of us since your school was let out earlier compared to mine.'

"I had a bad day so don't talk about it."

On a closer inspection, Ling does look like she had braved through a difficult day. She looked pretty worn out.

Just then, Micky walked out of his bedroom rubbing the sleepiness away frm his eyes.

"Morning, everyone. Looks like everyone's home. What's for dinner?"

"Micky, you are actually home?!!"

"Of course I am home. Where would I be if I'm not home?"

"How come when I shouted just now, you didn't answer me?"

"I guess I might have fallen asleep when you came back."

"Micky, it's not morning and there's nothing for dinner. Alright?" Ling frowned.

"Hey, cool it, girl. It's just for fun. Looks like no one appreciated my humor."

"Ha...ha. It's not funny and I'm not in the mood for fun now."

She stormed into her room and slammed the door shut with such force that I am worried the door would fall out of its hinges in no time.

"What's wrong with her, Dan?" Micky and I spoke at the same time.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know. When I found her sitting alone in the park, she already had black clouds hanging over her head."

"Wow...that sounds like a very bad day to me."

"Come on, guys, shower up and let's go out for dinner. I don't think that grumpy little cousin of mine would want any dinner tonight."

All of us rushed to the bathroom together. We just loved to fight over who uses the bathroom first. It's a common thing in the house.

Ling will always win us over with the excuse that she's the only girl in the house so that makes her the first person who gets to use the bathroom first.

Argument will start between her and Dan.

"I'm the owner of the house so I get to use the bathroom first."

"Yes, you are the owner but you promised mom and dad that you will take care of me."

"Yeah, so what? I promised your parents to take care of you but that exclude letting you use the bathroom first."

"Uh uh...that includes letting me use the bathroom first."

"Get on with the argument. I'm using it first." Either Micky or I will walk into the bathroom allowing Ling and Dan to continue with their fight.

"Hey! Come out this second, Micky (Junsu)." They will start pounding on the door to get us to come out of the bathroom but we just ignored it.

We were done with showering. Micky and Dan were wearing their shoes. I walked over to her door and knocked.

"Go away. I'm busy now."

"Do you want to come to dinner with us, Ling?"

"No. Just go enjoy your dinner. I'm not in the mood to eat."

"Okay. Bye."

[Ling's POV]

He knocked on the door to ask if I wanted to join them for dinner. I told him to enjoy himself. I'm just not in the mood to eat tonight.

Today was just a truly bad day for me.

I woke up late this morning for school. When the alarm rang, I was already twenty minutes late from the usual time that I woke up.

I must have wound the clock wrongly because I was too sleepy the night before when I got to bed.

I rushed into the bathroom to shower quickly and ate my breakfast a little too hurriedly that I choked on my breakfast.

I got to the bus stop just to look at the disappearing shadow of the bus that I usually board to get to school. I had to wait for another ten minutes before the next bus came.

When I reached the school entrance, I got stopped by the discipline teacher who gave a full ten minutes lecture on my time management with my name printed permanently on her little black book that stores the names of troublemakers.

In her book, latecomers are included in her definition of troublemakers. She's just too rigid with her own ways even though you committed the offence for the first time. No one likes her.

The lesson started as usual. The teacher asked us to hand in our homework that she gave yesterday. I rummaged through my bag for the book when I realized that I had left it on my table.

After finishing my homework last night, I had put it on my study table thinking that I will pack it in the morning into my bag.

The teacher stopped at my table with a hand outstretched waiting for me to give her the book. I looked up at her meekly saying that I had left it on my study table at home.

"Are you sure you had forgotten to bring it or did you purposely forget about it?"

She practically shouted out for the enjoyment of the whole class. Everyone turned in their seats to look at me.

At that moment, I had truly wished that the floor would open up and swallow me to save me from embarrassment. Of course I didn't get my wish or else it would look real funny. Just imagine the floor opening up to swallow me.

When the school bell rang to signal the end of school day, I quickly packed my stuff into the bag and walked out of the class.

Little would I know that it would start raining. It got heavier as the second ticked by. I put my hand into the bag to grab my umbrella.

I was rummaging through it furiously that I started to get stares from the students who walked pass me. It's a little embarrassing.

I had to wait inside the school compound for the rain to stop before I could walk to the bus stop to take the bus home.

Thank goodness that this time I didn't miss the bus or else it would take me another ten minutes for the next bus to come this way.

I reached my stop around 4pm. I walked up the stairs to my cousin brother's house. We lived together since my real home is a little too far away from the school I attended.

My cousin brother owned the house and he is living away from his family as well. He had lived in the house alone for over a year before I moved in. Micky and Junsu moved in one month later.

Danny told me that he needed someone to share the house to lighten the burden of financing the loan he borrowed from the bank when he purchased the house.

My cousin's name is Daniel but he preferred to be called Dan. Due to our love of teasing each other silly, I took to calling him Danny. He hates that name. He said that it made him sounded so boyish when he’s not anywhere near the boyish stage anymore.

He's older than me around six years but he’s a fun cousin to be around with. He knows when to play and when to work hard. I can never be like him. I just can’t work hard and play hard.

I stepped in front of the door and put my hands into my skirt pocket to fish out the keys. Just then, I realized that it wasn’t in my pockets and neither was it in my school bag.

I racked my mind to remember where I had put the keys. A few seconds later, I remembered that I had put it on my table next to the homework I’m supposed to hand in today. I smacked my forehead so hard that it hurts.

I took out my phone and checked the battery level just in case it decided to die out on me in the middle of my conversation with Danny.

I called him to ask if he can come home right then because I had left the keys inside the house. He told me that he couldn’t be back till around 6:30pm.

I groaned audibly into the mouthpiece. I hung up and walked my way towards the park. There was nothing for me to do but to wait for Danny to come back.

Now I wondered why it never crossed my mind to call either Junsu or Micky to check if they were home. I guess my mood must be that bad that I can’t even think straight at all.

[Junsu's POV]

We came back from our dinner. The house looked the same as we left it an hour and a half ago.

Micky walked straight to Ling’s room door and rapped on it repeatedly before I heard a reply coming from the other side of her door.

I heard her door being opened slightly.

"What is it now?"

"Don’t you want to eat anything at all?"

"Oh Micky, it's you. Nah, I told you, I don’t feel like eating anything tonight."

"Of course it's me. Who do you think it is?"

"I thought it was Junsu again, bugging me."

I walked towards Micky standing at her room door.

"Do you want to eat the cake that I bought earlier on my way home? If you are not interested, I'll have to give it to someone else."

I grinned at her and I saw some reaction from her. She will just perk up at the mention of cakes. Like I said earlier, she's a cake junkie.

"Really? You bought a cake for me? Thanks a lot"

She pushed us out of the way and ran to the kitchen. Micky and I were laughing at her reaction at the mention of cake.

We sat in front of the television. I clicked on the channel that was airing a drama show. She was munching away at her cake.

"Hey, girl. You sounded real upset earlier. Something bothering you?"

Micky tried to strike up a conversation.

"Yeah, a totally lousy day."

She started to recount on her day's event. It sure sounded like she woke up on the wrong side of the bed with her accounts of what happened to her.

"Girl, are you alright?"

"Why?"

"You are scratching yourself like you are a monkey."

I turned to look at her as well. True to Micky's words, she sure looked like a monkey scratching herself that way.

"I don't know. I felt itchy all over my neck and my wrists."

"Stop scratching yourself. It's getting worse. I think we better get you to the doctor."

"I can't help it. I can’t stop the itchiness."

"Dan, we are sending Ling to the clinic." I shouted to Dan.

He walked out from his room and saw his cousin sister scratching herself nonstop.

"Ling, stop scratching. Go on guys. Bring her to the clinic. It's going to get worse if she can't stop scratching herself like a monkey."

He still had the time to make fun of her at times like this. I saw that she was giving him the evil stare.

"Why do I have a jerk for a cousin brother?"

"And why do I have a monkey cousin sister?" He chuckled lightly.

We walked to the nearest clinic and waited to see the doctor. She still continued scratching herself.

Micky and I tried stopping her from scratching herself raw. Her skin around the wrists and neck is almost as red as the tomato now.

Finally the nurse called out her name. I accompanied her into the doctor’s office while Micky stayed behind to wait for us.

[Ling's POV]

"Have a seat, young lady. What’s the matter?"

It turned out that the doctor was someone younger than I imagined him to be. I was expecting an old pleasant, smiling man. The doctor who was sitting in front of me couldn't be any older than Danny.

"I can't stop scratching my wrists and my neck. It's itchy all over like I got bitten by mosquitoes."

"Let me have a look."

A few seconds later, the doctor spoke up.

"Young lady, I think you got yourself an allergy. Are you in anyway allergic to any kind of food?"

"Allergy? You mean food allergy?"

"Yeah, food allergy."

"I'm not sure if I'm allergic to anything."

"What have you eaten just now?"

"A slice of cake, that's all."

"Anything special about the cake?"

"I'm not sure."

Junsu started to speak up. The doctor turned his attention to Junsu.

"She ate a slice of mango cake."

The moment I heard the word "mango", my brain started churning. Now I remembered that I am allergic to mango but that was a long time ago, since I was young.

"Mango?!! You gave me a mango cake and you didn't tell me about it?!!"

I saw Junsu's face turned pale at my tone of voice. Unknowingly, I had raised my voice inside the doctor's office.

"You didn't ask and you were too excited when I said there was a slice of cake in the refrigerator."

"Cool it, both of you. Young man, you should have told your girlfriend here that she's eating a mango cake."

"Girlfriend?!!" Both of us shouted at that doctor's impression.

"He's only my housemate, not my boyfriend."

"Sorry. Anyway, it looks like you are having skin rashes from the mango cake you ate just now. No worries. I'll just give you some ointment to rub on your rashes and some antibiotics to alleviate your itchiness."

"Thank you, doctor."

"You may go now."

The doctor gave a smile. Both of us bowed and said our thanks.

I walked to the registration counter to wait for my medicine and paid for it before walking home again.

On the way home, I didn't talk to either of them. I was too busy trying to stop the itchiness to bother about them.

I heard Micky speaking in a whisper to Junsu.

"What's wrong with her? She seemed so quiet since she walked out of the doctor's office."

"She is allergic to mango and the cake she ate just now was a mango cake."

"So she's mad at you for giving her the mango cake?"

"I don't know. How should I know that she is allergic to mangoes? She never told me before."

"Okay."

I walked into my room and closed the door behind me. I put the bag containing the ointment and the antibiotics that the doctor gave me on the table.

I opened up my wardrobe to search for some clean clothes and took it with me to the bathroom. I thought maybe the hot water might be a way to help me ease the itchiness on my wrists and my neck.

"Hey, are you alright there, my monkey cousin?"

I didn't answer Danny but just walked straight into the bathroom. Just as I was closing the door, I heard him asked Micky and Junsu about it.

"Is she alright? She didn't tell me what's wrong with her but just walked straight into the bathroom."

"I don't know. I guess she must be fuming over the fact that Junsu gave her a mango cake. It seemed like she's allergic to mangoes."

"Oh yeah, she did told me about it before. She said that she can't take mango because it will cause her skin rashes."

"How was I to know that she was allergic to mangoes?" Junsu answered grumpily.

"It's alright, Junsu. It's not your fault. She just had a bad day. The mango incident must have made it worse for her mood."

"Yeah, cheer up, Junsu. She'll be fine in no time."

"Her skin rashes will go away in another few days time and you will have that old cousin sister of mine back."

I turned on the shower at full blast with as much hot water as I could take. It didn't stop my itchiness but at least it lessens the urge to scratch it.

After my hot shower, I walked back to my room to rub the ointment on my wrists and my neck. The ointment had a weird smell to it. I poured myself a cup of lukewarm water to swallow the awful tasting of the antibiotics.

[Junsu's POV]

The house was feeling a little too quiet without the usual teasing from Dan and Ling. She wasn't speaking too much these few days.

On days when she was feeling lazy from putting on the ointment that the doctor gave her, she will start scratching herself again.

"Hey, monkey cousin, didn't you put on the ointment for your rashes?"

"Stop calling me monkey cousin. I'm not a monkey."

Dan will laugh when she said that.

"You looked like one to me when you started scratching yourself like a monkey."

"Okay...okay. I'll go put it on now. So stop calling me a monkey."

I just smiled at their teasing.

"Micky, can you help me put it on? I'm lazy to dirty my fingers and the ointment has a weird smell to it."

"Oh...you get to keep your hands clean and I get to have my hands dirtied with the ointment?"

He opened the container and put his nose close to the container to smell it.

"Eww...what's that smell?"

"I told you that it's smelly. How can you be so silly to smell it?"

She laughed at Micky's expression.

"Okay...okay. Come quickly. I want to get this over and done with."

He started to rub the ointment on her wrists and her neck. She kept dodging when he started to rub it on her neck.

"Stop moving around, will you? How am I supposed to rub it on your rashes if you keep moving like that?"

"It's ticklish. I can’t help it."

After he was done putting on the ointment, he rushed into the kitchen to wash off the remaining ointment on his fingers.

She took the ointment with her and walked into her room closing the door behind her.

Micky walked out from the kitchen bearing two cups of ice cream. He handed one cup to me and I took it saying my thank you.

"She's still not speaking to you, huh?"

"As you can see, nope."

"Don't worry, she'll get over it soon."

"Hopefully so."

A few days later, it can be seen clearly that the rashes started to disappear. I see this as a golden opportunity to apologize to her in a proper manner.

I bought her favorite chocolate cake as an offering for my apologies. I knocked on her room door that night after our usual dinner.

She has taken to locking herself in her room after dinner time since that day.

"Who's that?"

"It's me, Junsu. Could you open up please?"

I heard the chair being pushed back and her footsteps approaching the door.

"What do you want?"

"I just want to say I'm sorry for the incident."

"Come in then."

She stepped aside waiting for me to walk in. I saw that her computer was on and she was in the middle of a chat. Her book was opened with half finished work in it.

I sat on the edge of her bed waiting for her to settle into the chair in front of me before I spoke up.

"Are you still angry at me?"

"No. I was angry before but my anger just dissipated a few days ago."

"Then why aren't you speaking to me if you are not angry at me anymore?"

"I was waiting for you to apologize to me properly and yet till now, you still hadn’t done so."

I knew this was my best opportunity to apologize.

"Is that the real reason?"

"Yeah, that's the real reason."

I heaved a sigh of relief. Then I heard a laughter coming from her. I looked up.

"What's so funny?"

"You are."

"Me? What about me?"

"Your look and your sigh just now. It just cracked me up."

She continued laughing mercilessly. Her laughter is contagious that I started laughing myself. I must have looked funny when I knocked on her door just now.

"So you are not angry anymore?"

"No, Mr. Long-winded."

"Okay. Come out. I've got something to give you as my token of sincere apology."

"What's that?"

"Come on out and you will know it."

"I hope it's not another slice of mango cake. If it's that, I'm so not eating it. Once is more than enough."

[Ling's POV]

"No, silly. Of course it's not mango cake but your favorite chocolate cake."

He pretended a look of shock and horror at my playful accusation. He pushed me out of the room and guided me towards the dining table. He sat me down on the chair before going into the kitchen.

"Ta-da. Here you go. Your favorite chocolate cake."

He sure knows what I loved to eat. Sure enough, chocolate cake is the best but any type of cakes works fine for me.

"Thanks, Junsu."

"Don't mention it. I'm glad you've forgiven me."

"How could I not forgive my cute housemate? Just remember not to feed me with another mango cake."

"Of course...NOT!!!"

We both laughed. Danny and Micky walked right into the dining area at that moment and looked at us, puzzled by our silly laughter.

"So everything's fine between you and my silly cousin here?"

"Yeah, everything's fine now."

Both of us answered at the same time before collapsing into another bout of laughter.

"I'm glad to have my silly cousin back."

"Yahoo!!! The old Ling is back."

He jumped around happily and hugged me causing me to choke on my chocolate cake.

"Micky, stop it. You made me choke on my favorite cake."

"Oops, sorry."

All of us laughed at his blushing face.