Meg
The first day in a new school is harder than I imagined. I am disoriented in the break time, and I have no idea which classroom should I go in the next 5 minutes. The noises in the hallway beams to me from every angle. The slashing on the locker, voices of strangers, running steps, and the unbearable light from people making out on the hallway, I feel like this is not a place where I can handle it myself. I open my own locker and snatch out the textbooks I need for the next class and the map of the campus and rush to the stairs. I take a cursory glance of my phone and put it back to my pocket because, firstly, I don't have time to stare at it, and secondly I'll bump into people if I continue to stare at it, lastly, because I'm going to be late!
"Excuse me!" I yell as I knock to students coming down from the second floor. "Excuse me. Sorry." I say trying to go against the crowd. My breathe quickens and the grip on my backpack and books tightens from nervousness and panic.
"Watch out! Girl!" Someone speaks with annoyance when I crash into him. "I'm sorry. I'm new to the school." I try to defense myself. I do not dare to look up at him. He is tall and fit. Not like Yuzu fit, but like muscular fit. "Be careful next time, girl." His voice frowns. It does frowns. "Sorry." I whisper under my shrinking shoulder.
Up the stairs, inhale and exhale, up the stairs, to the second floor. Finally, after feeling like having tons of bruises on my shoulder and forehead, I take a right turn and open the door. DING! The bell ran off. Pheww, I'm just on time.
"Meg? I assume?" The tall Canadian blonde teacher with blue eyes behind his glasses asks me.
It takes me a while to regain my breathe and answer his question. "Yes. I'm Meg. The new girl." I swallow my saliva and take a deep breathe again after having a "run" in the stairways.
"Please take a seat." He orders.
My eyes drift in the classroom until I see a empty seat and I head toward it. The seat is on the 2nd row of the seat and right in front of the black board. I hang my backpack on the hook on the left side of the desk and tie my flimsy, messy hair( probably resulted from all the bumping) into a clean pony tail. My curious eyes ambles in the classroom. There are piles of books and novels on the teacher's front desks. Notebooks, Newspapers, handwritings of the rules of this classroom, and many many many scrape paper all over the wall of the classroom. I wonder what they are for. I focus back to myself. The textbooks lay peacefully on the desk and I sit up straight. Ready.
"Very well, welcome to the first class of Literature this semester." The teacher started. "I'm Joe Robins. This semester we will be learning the most inspiring stories and analyze the meanings behind every stories." Joe paces peripatetically while he speaks to the whole class.
"Rule number one for this classroom: Be on time. I'm very impressed that Meg," I look up from the desk, worrying if I did something wrong. " our new student, did not get lost in the infamous labyrinth campus." Joe continues. A big stone was let down from my chest.
As he goes on and on about the rules and the expectation he got for this advance class to be successful and every single one of us can be erudite and savvy in the future, the girl next to be whispers at me. "Hey," the girl with brownish curly hair and shining eyes hisses at me. I did not dare to speak a word because I'm really close Mr. Robins. But my eyes meet her secretness.
"I'm Ciel. Nice to meet you." She winks.
"Meg." I smile.
"If you need any help, I'll be there."
"That's very nice. Thank you."
Truly, having a person who can walk in the hallway without getting bumped beside me feels like swimming in the coolest and lightest blue ocean.
"Please turn to page 369, we'll be reading "The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant" today." Mr. Robins says with his around 60 years old voice. "Before starting going into to story itself, I want all of you to think about one thing. Have you ever have a crush, any kind, can be a secret admiration or a summer fling before."
Instantly, Yuzu's name pop up in my mind. Yuzu is my first crush and only one.
"If you don't, it's fine. Keep finding and one day you'll find one." Mr. Robins continues. "I have many but I still haven't find one that last for the rest of my life." He says in a rather joyful voice than a sad one. The class broke into a flash of laughters.
"This story is about a summer fling that the narrator has when he was having his vacation at a cottage next to the river. He has a crush on the girl called Sheila Mant, but in the end, he found out that she is just a person with good looks."
"It is natural for teenagers like you all to like another person. It's part of growing up. Although having experience is important but lets not be considered as a vase. Beautiful or Handsome on the outside but empty and void in the inside."
A vase. The noun lingers in my mind even after the lesson.
-----------------------------
"How's your day?" Nam suddenly appears behind my locker's door when I close it at the end of the day. My body jumps backward when I see him without any precautions. "Nam! You scared me."
"Hahah." He laughs at my reaction. I guess after a whole day of paying attention at everything, seeing Nam is a big relief for me. "The first day of school is tiring and a little confusing." I answer him. "Im feeling relieved right now."
We walk to the front door of the school through the long hallway. "Are you going to the rink now?" I ask Nam.
"Yeah. Going to eat in the cricket club as well. You're coming?"
"Can I?" I turn my head to him. "I'm a stranger. I thought that the club is only for private usage."
"Meg, come on, you have been waiting for Yuzu outside the rink since the summer. Everyone in the rink knows you already. You're not a stranger." Nam explains while he swings his schoolbag onto his shoulders. "It's okay to come inside sometimes, you know, to hang out. I believe Yuzu will be happy as well."
I blush a little because Nam said it in a way as if he knows everything about Yuzu and me even when I didn't say anything to him before.
"Will Orser be okay with it?"
"Yeah." Nam shrugs.
I look up to the sky to look for an answer. The aquatic sky is smudged with the color of autumn and evening. Cottons in the sky are soft and near to touch, but as I reach out to feel, I catch nothing. I want to feel the reality.
"Okay, sure, I'll go with you." I answer Nam.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stepping across the invisible line that I usually stay outside the club is stepping out the comfort zone for me. The automatic doors open when Nam reaches the doors ahead of me and a woosh of coldness rushes toward my face. I suddenly realize that a leggings and a T-shirt might not be the best outfit to have inside the club. Entering the doors, I immediately sense an astonished eyesight on me.
"Wow, Nam!" a gentle, warm, and elegant voice exclaims behind the counter."See who you bring inside!"
"Hi, Mia, this is Meg." Nam waves once to greet her. "I persuaded her to come inside when we met after school."
"Meg, what a lovely name! I'm Mia, nice to meet you." Her hand extends out from the counter.
I quickly reach my hand out shake her hand. "Nice to meet you too, Mia." I say, without forgetting to add a gentle smile behind my sentence.
Nam looks at the clock on the counter and suddenly screams. He says that he'll be late for training session if he don't start eating in the restaurant in the club, and he left, leaving me alone with Mia. Obviously, I don't know what to do next. Should I talk to Mia, or should I just find a seat to sit down?? Fortunately, Mia starts to talk.
"You finally come inside." Mia starts. "I can see you standing outside since the summer."
I chuckle a bit. "Nam told me that almost everyone knows me now."
"Yes, indeed!" Mia nods her head. "We all know that there is a girl who always waits for Yuzu. At first, I thought you were a fan of him."
"Well, specifically, I am his fan..."
"But a special fan." Mia continued my sentence. "I've been working here before Yuzu entered the club, and I have never seen him walking with a girl to here or to leave here."
"Well, that's because-" I try to explain but Mia stops my words.
"Shhh, you don't have to explain. I understand." She smiles back at me.
I blush fully fervently that I think I might be having a fever or something. Perhaps there's even some steam coming out of my face.
Mia kindly points at the seats that are facing the rink with the glass in between. I guess she's telling me to sit there and watch training sessions and observe.
I look at Mia and give her my thankfulness and walk to a seat that is right next to the glass window.
I put my school bag next to the seat next to mine and sit down. I lean my head to the glass to rest. The chilliness of the rink radiates through the glass and cools my forehead gradually. I ponder what will be Yuzu's reaction seeing me here watching him training. Will he be amazed? Or will he be upset that my action is opposite to what I say before about not coming into the club? My thoughts are all swirling like the wheel in my Macbook Pro, not knowing when to stop and when to get an answer.
The ice is right next to me but it seems like I can't feel the excitement of the skaters jumping and polishing their skills. I really know nothing about skating. I know little about my school and how things roll in the western society. I feel like an ignorant little girl who just follows everything everyone is doing.
While I space out in the coldness of the glass, I see a black figure skating by the window and stopped his blade just when he disappears at the periphery of my eyesight. Without a doubt, he must be Yuzu. He skated back to the front of my eyesight. Because the chair that I'm sitting on is very low, I have to raise my head up in an angle more than 45 degrees to see the face of him. Looking at him through my lashes, his face has all the expression of surprise and excitement. Instead of letting me to stand up from my chair, Yuzu kneels down to be equal in height with me. I wave my hand at him and grin at him; since I know that he can't hear me through the glass, I don't talk. Yuzu's eyebrows are high above his eyes and his eyes are bright with energy. He tries to talk to me but, as I imagined, I can't hear a sound of his voice. As he speaks, I read his lips and try to decipher his message. We're like playing a detective game while I'm Sherlock Holmes and he's the mystery I'm try to solve. When he finishes his sentence and see me without a reaction, he seems to notice that I can't hear a thing, so he tried to use his hands to deliver his message.
He points at me with his index finger and does a "come here" motion. I think that in that moment, my face is probably having a bewildered expression. I confirm with him by slowly speaking"me, inside?" to him and pointing at myself then pointing in the rink. Yuzu nods with assurance.
For about 30 seconds, I think I'm wondering if I should go in or not. By staying here is a maximum limit for me to being in a place that I should be staying at. If I enter the rink, I wander if I'll cross the line of an observer in the club. But I cannot reject Yuzu's invitation and, plus, he can't come out since he's wearing his skates. Seems like I have no choice. I say okay to Yuzu who's behind the glass, and grab my bag and walk to the door in Yuzu's right.
The air in the rink is colder and dryer then that of in the club, and my legs shake a little while I push the door into the rink. I can see a couple skaters and coaches on the side either warming up or just observing. I try not to make myself too obvious to notice by other skaters so I walk no further than the first column on the side.
The ice is on my right when I enter and Yuzu skates to the edge of the ice.
"You're here!" Yuzu rests his hand on the column while sounding like a boy who sees his Christmas gift under the tree. I don't know why but many times that I feel like Yuzu is still a boy like me who can get excited about things that are really simple. "I thought you said you don't want to come in." He says.
"Yeah," I bit my bottom lip, afraid that he won't be happy that I'm here. "Well, Nam asked me to come, so...." I explain. I can't find words or phrases to add behind that "so", letting the sentence to trails off without a clear conclusion.
"I see." He nods.
"Well, if I'm bothering you, I can just go home. I'm just here to kinda, you know, look around." I try to explain the purpose.
"It's fine!" Yuzu adds one with a eager voice. "You can stay here. You won't bother me at all." He smiles at me gently.
Slowly, I answer him a "okay" with a subtle blush on my face. The worries in my heart that he will dislike my action if coming here disappears like a gust of wind. Good bye, worries!
I look at Yuzu and see him being pretty relaxed.
"Yuzu, you're not having training sessions?" I ask.
"Not yet, I'm warming up. Training session will start in 20 minutes, I have to be ready before that."
"You're as on time as you always are." I look at him in his eyes. "Very well."
Yuzu shifts his eye sight to his right to break out eye contact. I know that expression is when he's shy and a little happy.
"So you're training with Nam as well?" I ask again, trying to bring up another topic.
"Yes. You came with him?"
"Yep. We met each other after school."
"Oh yeah, how's first day of school?" Yuzu asks.
"Tiring and confusing. But I survived the first day. Plus, I met Nam at last, which is a relieve, and then he persuaded me to come to have a look." I explain.
"Persuade?" Yuzu frowns. "So you didn't want to come?"
"Yeah, I originally thought that I will disturb your practices, right? You know what I'm talking about."
"Yes of course. We argued over that last time in the restaurant." Yuzu says. "But I still can't believe that you didn't want to come in to see me training." He murmurs and looks down at his skates.
"Of course I want to see you train!" I defend my fangirl feelings. "But I just don't want to be considered as an outsider or something." I take a step closer to him. Being closer to him adds some speed to my pumping heart, but I want him to know that it's not that I don't want to, but that I shouldn't.
"I see." He answers with his gentle manners. "So you're holding back yourself to come and see me, but in fact you really want to come inside." He says with his mean and sadistic voice that sometimes I can't resist admit that he's right.
"Well...." I reply weakly.
"Am I right?" He questions me again but this time he comes closer to me, his skates touching me foot, to make me blush fully. I think I might explode with this distance with the steaming Yuzu after warming up. His scent wrapped me all around me without even touching me, suffocating me.
"Yes... You're right..." I answer him with my head hiding in the curtains of my hair. And while I blush like a red blooming rose, I can hear Yuzu's cheerful and satisfying giggles.
"Yuzu~!" I protest shyly. "Don't make fun of me!" I have air in my mouth to pretend that I have some power.
"Haha, sorry, Meg, but seeing you like that kinds of makes me happier, knowing that you do want to see me." And this time it's not just a gentle smile, but a wide, full smile that makes his eyes disappear in the folds of his eyelids.
"バカ(Baka) Yuzu." I murmur in my heart and smile to him as well.
----------------------------------------------
I'm terribly sorry for not updating for this long! I really have to rethink the story in my head so that's why it kinda take me some time to finish this chapter... I really like all of your comments and likes! They motivate me a lot for me to keep working and let me know that there are people who really enjoys reading my stories. Anyway, a million thanks and hugs for people who have been following Hana~ I'll work harder!
:D