"Hey you, come here!" yell Emma, the senior.
Aulia took a glance at the source of the voice. There is no smile coming from her lips. Her glance was also very sharp. There is no fear nor bashfulness towards her seniors. It also looks very clear that Emma gritted her teeth and clenched her fist tighter. Aulia's expression always made her senior angry.
Because of her cold demeanor, Aulia was always called arrogant by her seniors at the school. Sharp glance always given by Aulia to everyone including her senior in Senior High School. Her classmates also were not surprised when the senior called Aulia. They also did not like her because of her sharp glance that Aulia give looks like about to fight them,
Aulia was coming as cold and calm. There is no tense nor fear shown on her face. The seniors are always wondering about her expression. Is it because of her habit?
They asked Aulia to come out of the school, to go to the building behind the school building, and confronted her. Aulia stands at the west end of the hall with three of her seniors. The two of them are girls and the other one is a boy. The two girls look so pissed except the boy, Victor. Victor just follows the request of the others to confront Aulia. He doesn't want to intervene with the problem.
"Don't be so arrogant, you're new!" shouted one of the girls. She points her finger to Aulia. All of the faces of the new students look so tense because of the seniors' shown emotions.
Aulia just stayed silent. She doesn't answer nor stop what she is doing. Her eyes darted to the left and she smiled. Her smile belittles the seniors. Her action made the senior angrier.
"You..." Emma growled. She no longer can hold the anger.
"Do you really want to get on our nerves?" Emma shouted again. She cannot believe that she will meet this junior. Emma also thinks that there is something wrong with Aulia.
"Why?" Aulia said, sharply. Her response made her senior much angrier.
"You are new! Don't be so arrogant! You have always been against us since your first day! We are your seniors! You should have respected us!" said Emma. Her anger climbs higher and higher from the way Aulia answers her questions. She has been very annoyed with Aulia since the first day she came.
No fear on Aulia's face. There is no smile on her face. Aulia keeps her composure. Threat after threat keeps coming to her but that doesn't make her afraid. Meanwhile, her expression changed, and she looked down upon her seniors. With that, she put on her earphones that she holds.
Her action makes her senior angrier. No longer able to hold her anger, she is pulling and throwing the earphones that Aulia tried to put on. Victor tried to hold her hand. Before Victor can reach for Emma's hand, Aulia is able to catch her hand first.
Emma keeps trying to push her hand but Aulia squeezes it harder.
"Do whatever you want! There is no use for me to go to school." Aulia threw Emma's hand and let her hand go. Her hand and elbow felt so hurt because of what Aulia's doing. It feels like the joint on her elbow is about to break, very painful. Aulia turned to the door and left them.
Victor was shocked by how Aulia confronted Emma. He notices Emma's hand. There is a bruise on her hand because of what Aulia did and Victor is still looking at her. The girl with brown hair just walked like nothing happened while listening to music. Who knows what kind of music that she listened to. The way Aulia responds to what happened just makes the others full of shock and they don't know what to do to her.
***
After school ends that day, she doesn't want to return to where she lives. She looked elsewhere so as not to see his grandfather's face at home. But, she needs to fill her stomach as it's grumbling as she has not eaten anything since this morning. Reminded of a place, she went to a fast food restaurant. She chose a burger and a bottle of water, walking towards where she was taking shelter as usual.
Not far from the place where she lived, there is a small forest with big trees that are hundreds of years old. She climbed the tree and sat on one of the branches, enjoying the food that she brought.
She leaned against a tree trunk and put his earphones back on. The piano instrumental song sounded in her ears again. Star Fantasia by VK. The sound of the piano continued to accompany the silence of her heart. Together with comfort, she also closed her eyes. She began to be carried away by the atmosphere that was brought by the song.
And suddenly,
"HEY YOU!" a boy shouted very loudly. Aulia woke up from the pleasure she was in and suddenly removed one of the earphones in her left ear. Seeing a familiar face, her adrenaline increases. A man who had attacked him this afternoon quietly followed her. Aulia tried to control the urge to kick that man. She glanced in another direction and put on the earphones again. She is back enjoying the music.
"What do you want?" said Aulia.
"Then what are you doing? Sleeping here?" Victor ignored the question from Aulia.
"Answer my question first!" Aulia snapped even louder.
"How grumpy. Are you not afraid of falling if you are sleeping here?"
Ughh... what's wrong with this person? He tried to confront me at school now he pretends to know me. The discomfort feels much greater. The longer the man was around, the more she wanted to leave this place. She held her bag which had been on her lap and climbed down from the tree. This was the first time someone had disturbed her peace. She stepped on tree branch after branch, one by one, and jumped down onto the grass.
***
The response that Aulia gave when she was confronted was different from the others. Victor was surprised by this woman. When his friends forced him to join in confronting Aulia, because he just didn't want to be bothered, he just followed suit. He thought that Emma would hurt Aulia with her hands, so he rushed to stop her. Unexpectedly, Aulia dared to fight Emma by herself.
'Do whatever you want! There is no use for me to go to school'. The words Aulia said to Emma still lingered on Victor's mind. Without knowing the reason why his friends confronted Aulia, he has to listen to those words. This makes him think, 'Is she really desperate and depressed with her life?'
While walking home, he saw a brown-haired girl who had just come out of the shop where Victor usually bought food when he didn't want to wait too long. Because this man was still curious about the girl, he rushed to buy one of the food and secretly followed her from a distance and watched the girl enjoy her food and put her earphones back on. Then, Aulia closed her eyes.
Victor was worried that Aulia would fall asleep and fall from that height. Or does she want to end her life? Worry grew even more because he thought about this. Does her life not have hope anymore? He remembered the words Aulia said when they confronted her. Question after question lingered in his head. What's wrong with her? It's not even my problem. But why is she doing it? Does she have no friends? How about her family? Does she have no siblings? Is she not even close to her family? Victor wants to know more about her. But all these questions just make him more worried. He tried to distract Aulia so she wouldn't fall asleep. Unfortunately, shen only responded for a moment and left him to be back to her comfort again. Victor hasn't given up trying to distract Aulia. Then he climbed the tree. One by one, he climbed the tree branches to reach the height where Aulia was. He sits on the big trunk near where Aulia sits.
Aulia moved her legs and jumped to a lower tree branch. She got off slowly and ran somewhere. Victor started to question himself. Did I do something wrong to her? Is it because I confronted her this afternoon? As he cannot understand her anymore, Victor went back down and went home.
His house was located not far from where he is now. The house has a black roof with a design that looks too modern for the people who live in Colmar. It is not normal for them because the buildings in their area always have authentic designs to maintain the traditions and culture of their ancestors. The city in the Alsace region is known as a fairytale-old city because it was the inspiration for the story of Beauty and the Beast.
Victor opened the door to the house and walked into his room. He put the bag he was carrying and sat down to enjoy the food he bought before following Aulia to climb the tree. The look on the girl's indifferent face was still in his mind.
"Why am I thinking about it? How stupid," said Victor to himself.
***