For the first thirty minutes he doesn't talk, listening to his music quietly.
The seats are wide and spacious, each with more than enough leg space and its own in-built table, so there's no chance of any accidental contact, which I'm praising the gods for. (If this were a Regular bus, I would have bumped into him at least four times by now.)
Despite the significant amount of space between us, I still press myself uncomfortably to the side, so that my shoulder is touching the window, and sit on the edge of the seat, avoiding leaning back on the black leather chair. My back is starting to hurt in this weird position, but I don't bother about that, because I'm nervous enough just sitting beside him that I can't think about anything else.
I check my phone for the umpteenth time in the last ten minutes, even though there's nothing to see because I'd cleared all my messages and social media a while ago, then shut it off again. I want to remain preoccupied — or at least look preoccupied — so he doesn't sense how flustered I am right now. I'm really contemplating shattering the window and jumping out of the coach to get myself out of this deathly awkward situation next to this handsome yet deadly boy.
"Do you have constipation?" The sudden voice beside me causes me to start.
"Huh?" I ask, bewildered at his sudden question. Sterling's removed one earphone and stares at me blankly.
"You've been squirming to the side since we got on the coach. Do you have weird bowel movements or something? I won't judge."
I blink a few times, dumbstruck. "E-Excuse me?" I stammer. "No."
"Then why don't you sit straight like a normal person? You're gonna get a back ache or something."
I open and close my mouth a few times like a fish out of water, but find myself tongue-tied, looking back front and cocking my head to the side.
I quickly turn my head again, about to give him a piece of my mind, but I realize that he's already put his earphone back in and gone back to being still.
I shift slowly in my seat, sitting up straight and leaning all the way back. The chair is actually really comfortable, although the headrest is too high up for me, as usual. I sink down into the black leather and stare out the window pensively, twiddling with my eyebrows like I do whenever I feel disconcerted.
"Did you bring it?" he asks out of the blue.
I turn and face him again. "The mosquito repellant?"
He nods.
"Yeah, it's in my bag."
"Good," he responds flatly.
"You can... hear me over your music?" I inquire gingerly.
"Yes," he answers instantly, looking at me deadpan for a second.
Then he pulls one earphone from his ear, reaches over and fits it in mine. It happens too quickly for me to react, so I just stare at him in shock. His hand lingers next to my ear, much closer than I'm comfortable with, my quickened heartbeat proof of that. He simply stares at me intently, leaned in towards me, watching my expression.
It takes me a while to snap out of my state of frozen reverie. I swallow and shift my gaze from those grey eyes of his to his nose instead, to ease some of the tension.
I focus my attention on listening to the song coming from the earphone in my ear, but when I do, I just frown.
It's... nothing. There's no sound coming out out from the speakers. At all. I look back up at Sterling's face, my own frowning deeply in confusion. Has he been listening to silence this whole time?
"I personally don't know how to appreciate this genre," I say slowly.
"It's a classic," he plays along with my sarcasm.
"Well I'm more into indie. Call me uncultured, but ballads of silence aren't really my thing."
"What an unrefined barbarian you are."
"Imperfect behavior can be difficult to shake off," I quip back cynically, echoing my favorite blonde friend.
"Ah, the words of my dear aggravatingly ignorant sister."
"She's... a special girl."
"She forgot the second part to that famous quote though," he says, leaning in closer. "Imperfect behavior can be difficult to shake off, but Perfect behavior is even trickier to get rid of; Its doubly stubborn, and ten times more intolerable." He gleams, a spark of mischief in his eye.
A small smile grows on my features. "I like that quote. Who's it by?"
"My all-time favorite lyricist. You'll never be able to find him through any search engine though. He goes by an alias, S.N."
"S.N.? Does that stand for something?"
"You'll have to find out yourself," he answers easily, retracting his hand and shifting back to his original position. I frown. What a tease.
"Let me tell you something else."
I look to him intently.
"My earphones aren't plugged in."
I trace the cord back to his pocket, which is empty. My eyes narrow in puzzlement. He removes the plug to show me evidently that it isn't attached to any device.
"I don't even have music on my phone," he states matter-of-factly, grinning at my perplexed expression. Finally he discloses the answer to all the question marks in my head, "I just put my earphones in so I don't have to talk to people. They assume I'm listening to music, and don't bother me."
"Ahh..." I respond dumbly, suddenly feeling stupid. "That's a good tactic."
I go quiet for a moment, pondering upon my next words carefully.
"So you didn't feel like talking... to me?"
"That's not it." He seems to weigh his words, appearing almost uncomfortable, unusual for his imperturbable character. "You... didn't seem like you wanted to talk to me, so I was trying to be considerate."
"O-Oh." I'm the one that feels uncomfortable now. "Why the change in tactic then?"
"I decided to screw consideration." His light eyes are bearing, with an unreadable intensity, into mine, while his lip curls deviously. "Because I wanted to talk to you."
I'm temporarily jarred into silence. I honestly don't know what to think. On one hand, he's somebody who doesn't concern himself with other's thoughts or feelings and does things as he pleases. On the other, this bully who wouldn't bother giving anyone the time of day breaks out of character and makes an effort to communicate with someone even if it goes against his own better judgment. Because he wanted to talk to that person. To me. What's that supposed to mean?
There's an air of tension between us, and the awkward silence is burning in my ears. I can't think up my own response right now, but I recall someone else's words to try to avert the topic and ease the tension.
"You just revealed one of your secrets to me. That's no fun," I say lightly, forcing a smile on my face.
Sterling looks at me curiously, with an amused expression. Then he breaks out in that big beam of his that normally only makes an appearance when he's causing me grief. He starts cracking up, fighting back his laughter, and pursing his lips together to hold it in as he glances at me from the side.
What's so funny?
He finally composes himself, and clears his throat a few times, speaking in his usual leveled tone, "Don't worry, I've got more than enough secrets to go around."
He continues as he eases back in his seat, "For every five secrets, I'll tell you one voluntarily, and you have to find out the other four on your own."
I look wide-eyed at him. What did he just say?
Sterling lies back on his headrest, and turns his head towards me.
"Now that I've told you mine, you tell me one of yours."
That took me by surprise. My heart beats loudly in my chest.
"Well, I'm really dreading this camp," I reply noncommittally.
"That's not a secret. It's a fact that we share. Tell me something else."
"I'm... adopted."
"Please, half the world is aware of that."
He leans his weight on the armrest between us and tilts his head.
"I want to know something unique, something you generally don't tell other people, so it's a piece of information that you divulge exclusively to me." That small smirk he pulls makes me nervous as much as his words.
I could think up a thousand things I don't tell other people about myself, but except for the things that have already been exposed on television two years ago, I'm not inclined to let more of them out. If he's someone whose bent on trying to dig them out, then I'd better cut off all ties here—
"For example... is there anything you don't eat?"
That wasn't what I was expecting.
"I don't like sweet stuff," I answer after a pause.
"Good, now I know one of your secrets."
I'm confused, but relieved at the same time. I guess that's all he wanted to know: what I don't like to eat. He seems satisfied by that simple answer, as he shifts back in his chair, reclines back and closes his eyes.
"I-Is that counted as a secret?" I ask in disbelief.
"Well, is it something a lot of people know?" he asks without opening his eyes.
"I... guess not."
"Then it's a secret," he says frankly, "A secret isn't just the huge things that you try to bury deep in the ground to prevent other people from discovering; It's the little ones that you keep hidden from the surface, which accumulate into different pieces making up the puzzle that is your identity."
With that said, he turns away from me, and announces, "I'm gonna sleep for the rest of the journey. Wake me up when we arrive."
I'm left deliberating those strange words of his. They're actually... wise, and insightful; much more than I expected of a Perfect pretty-boy thug. I guess there's much more to him than meets the eye.
I find myself itching to find out those four other secrets. But that thought alone scares the living daylights out of me.