"What do you want?" she asked with irritation evident in her voice.
She clearly wasn't happy to see him.
She never was.
Jesse sucked in a deep breath. He wasn't especially in the mood for this today.
"Sorry, is Taiwo in? You can send for him."
At least that way, he wouldn't have to deal with her. However...
"No, he isn't in," she said sharply. "What do you want?"
His eyebrow twitched as he struggled to keep up his false smile. He hadn't even spent a minute in conversation with her, and he already wanted it to be done and over, and himself to be as far away as he possibly could.
Her personality always turned hostile whenever she interacted with Jesse for some reason he couldn't tell — they had been good friends growing up together, until they turned twelve two years ago, and then, her behaviour slowly began to take a turn for the worse.
Whatever he had done to offend her and make their relationship as friends to turn so sour, he had not a single clue.
It was like a mirror version of herself had taken her place in the real world, exhibiting all of her positive characteristics in the exact opposite form to what they originally were.
The thought almost made a humourless chuckle escaped Jesse's lips.
Although her behaviour towards him had become ugly, physically, she was far from anything resembling that word.
Her eyes were long-lashed and beautiful, she had a lustrous shade of dark skin, a cute button nose, and lovely, plump lips that could make any boy go crazy with passionate desire. She was as beautiful as always, and Jesse especially loved the way her school pinafore would cling slightly to her body, accentuating her curves when he saw her leaving for school in the mornings.
Of course, high school uniforms weren't indecent and were made to be slightly baggy, but she was just so curvaceous and well... endowed that it couldn't be hidden, baggy uniforms or not.
One side of her braids was neatly tucked behind her ear in the cute style she always wore. Some tendrils escaped, framing her face like black satin. They were disheveled, but there was still a strange and wonderful allure to their dishevelment.
She was just the kind of person who couldn't seem to look ugly no matter what. You could cover her entirely in mud and grime, and Jesse was convinced she would still look to die for.
Her elder brother — Taiwo — was the same.
The two siblings were fraternal twins, and despite being unidentical, Taiwo did not lag behind his sister in the looks department at all.
He was extremely handsome, tall and long-limbed like an athlete, and although he was only fourteen, he was already sprouting a beard and had well-defined muscles.
It almost made Jesse envious looking at him sometimes, and at times, made him think, "Why wasn't I born with looks like this?"
He doubted Taiwo had his troubles with the opposite gender at all. He was sure Taiwo didn't woo girls, the girls would do the wooing themselves — fighting eachother for his attention while at it.
What made their physical appearance so weird and so much of a big surprise was the fact that their parents looked like God grew tired and decided to half-ass things halfway through their creation process.
Well... maybe the children he gave them was his belated apology.
"Hello?? I'm talking to you Sola!"
"Oh, sorry." Jesse apologized. He had zoned out for a while there.
'As if she doesn't already hate me enough, I just had to go and stare at her for so long like some creep.'
Jesse could feel the heat crawl up his neck. He was so embarrassed.
He cleared his throat and spoke, "I just want to buy fufu, 600 Naira own."
Without another word, she closed the door with an unnecessary amount of force and went back inside. Jesse stared at the sticker on the door as he waited. He could hear the muffled voices coming from inside the room that carried through the wood.
That was definitely Taiwo in there she was talking to.
'Seriously, just what is her problem? If she hates me so much, why didn't she just let me talk to Taiwo instead?'
Eventually, she opened it again, and this time, with a small nylon bag dangling from her fingers. Jesse handed her the money and reached for the nylon containing the fufu. But when he did, their fingers brushed ever so slightly.
The contact lasted less than a second, but made her flinch as though she hadn't just made contact with another human being, but instead, stuck her hand in fire and got scalded terribly by it.
'Was that reaction really necessary? Do I really irritate her that much?'
Nevertheless, trying to be as much of a friendly neighbour as he could, he decided to at least make an attempt at showing some basic courtesy.
"Thank—"
But before he could finish his sentence, though, Kehinde slammed the door right in his face.
Jesse stood there for a few seconds, staring at the peeling paint on the doorframe, stunned completely. The fufu's warmth seeped through the nylon into his palms as he held onto it.
He could still hear the muffled voices coming from within — Taiwo was howling wildly with laughter for some reason, and Kehinde's voice sounded even sharper and more heated than it had been during their short exchange.
She seemed extremely pissed off, and Taiwo seemed to think it was the most hilarious thing in the world from what he could infer.
Eventually, he just sighed somberly. 'Great... that went perfectly well...'
At the very least, he'd made someone laugh.
The way Kehinde treated him still kind of hurt a lot, though. He would mend things if he could, but the way things kept spiraling out of control and taking a turn for the worse, he wasn't sure that would be possible.
At least, not any time soon.
Sighing once again and shaking his head dejectedly, Jesse turned away and left for Mama Nkechi's door.
When he was just halfway there, he stopped in his tracks.
'Wait...'
Now that he thought of it, Kehinde had definitely heard the sounds when his mother was smacking him around earlier like a piñata.
Jesse facepalmed himself out of pure embarrassment. He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole in that instant.
That was definitely not the sort of thing you wanted a cute girl to know.
"Oh god... why me?"