Chapter 7 [we won't]

I peer into the classroom. No one still.
It's 6.58am in the morning, I am squatting beside the window, and Joseph is sitting on the grass, leaning against the wall. Again.

Joseph hasn't given up on his plan yet and now that he has "done his research", he says he's more confident that L.Y will appear. Though I see no link in the two.

"I don't want to wait anymore." I tell him, and turn to walk away.

"She'll be here soon. Trust me." He says while pulling me back.

I know. I have a feeling L.Y will show up too. But as the seconds ticked by, I grow more and more uneasy, and I have a swelling feeling that something is going to happen. I can't bear to witness what that will be. I want to escape from here.

"I'm leaving." I say and turn away, when I heard it, a sound, from the classroom. I turn back to look at Joseph. He heard it too.
Too late to escape now. Plus my curiosity gets the better of me, and the desire to find out L.Y's identity is burning my other thoughts to nothingness. I tell myself I’m going to regret this repeatedly in my head, but my body is acting against my will.
Joseph and I peek into the classroom. There is a girl. She's standing at my desk, bending slightly to slot something into one of my textbooks under my desk. Her short hair is covering her side profile, hiding her face from us.

"Come on, show us the face." I can hear Joseph mumbling.

That girl stands up straight after a few seconds, I think she's done slotting. She looks around, as if checking whether anyone saw what she did. And then she uses her right hand to bring her short hair to the back of her ears.
And we see it. Her face. Very familiar. I know that face.
I know who L.Y is.

"She's not bad looking." Joseph says after L.Y walks out of the classroom.

"Yah. She's very pretty." I say. And I try to recall her face from all the other times I see her.

"Hmmm. I don't think I see her before. Our batch? You know her?" He asks.

"Yah, our batch. I know her." In fact, I see her quite often.

L.Y is Amelia Ng from class 3-2. She's in the same CCA as me. I see her every Saturday.
Amelia's very pretty. Short hair, big eyes, and a sunshine personality. She's a girl that many guys fall for in choir. I'm really stunned to find out that she's L.Y. What does she see in me?

"You like her?" Joseph asks.

I have to admit, I was quite smitten by her when I joined the choir.

"You like her?" Joseph asks again, louder, when I didn't respond to his previous.

"Maybe I"ll like her." I say, although that came out unintended. I am still a little bewildered about what just happened and I'm not thinking clearly.

Silence.

I turn to look at Joseph. He's looking at me, blankly. But within that blankness, I feel I can see some emotions.
It's like silence. Silence though doesn't have a sound, you can hear happiness or sadness from it.
There seems to be a little sadness, a little anger, and a little disbelief in his eyes.
However, it is that little sadness, more than the anger and the disbelief, which pierces me the hardest.
He look at me some more, and then turns and walks away. I pull him, but he loosens my grip and walks away without turning back. And he is out of sight.
What happened? What did I do or say wrong?

In class, Joseph is exceptionally quiet. Like the calm before any storm.
I already figured out why he reacted that way earlier. How can I be so stupid to not realize sooner?
How can I, when those emotions are so familiar to me? Whenever I walk along the corridors with him. Whenever I'm one of those many cheering for him on the soccer field.
I must tell him that he has nothing to fear.

I blame myself for not being able to figure this out at that very moment. I blame myself for letting Joseph go through this fear that I hated.

I try many a times to make eye contact with Joseph during lessons, but he has his face buried in his arms on his desk and looking at the other direction. I want to talk to him very much at that instant, so many things that are going through my head I want to tell him. I am waiting for the recess bell to ring. The seconds pass like minutes, and the minutes pass like hours. After what seem like eternity, the bell for recess sounds. I turn to Joseph and I find his seat empty.

I walk to the canteen, feeling heavy within. Walking to the canteen without him around seems unfamiliar. Joseph and I always have our recesses together. Since the day we became friends during primary 3. Together, just the 2 of us.
Our classmates like to tease us about this, then and even now, calling us unpleasant names. We were angry initially but we grew out of that anger, because we realize that they do not understand anything at all.
What's wrong with just the 2 of us eating together?
What's wrong with just the 2 of us hanging out together after school?
What's wrong with us coming to school together and going home together?
What's wrong with us waiting for each other after our CCAs?
These people do not understand the bond and the dependence Joseph and I established during these 7 years. We only have each other for these 7 years. And these people come and stain this relationship Joseph and I share. They know nothing. And that's why they are, and will always remain, mere classmates.

I can sense a surge of anger rising. I don't know why. But I start to feel that it's partly these stupid people's fault that things have developed into this state.

Maybe I just want to find a target to vent my anger.

He's not in the canteen. I actually want to return to class when I pass by the ice-cream stall. I buy a Panapop and decide to find him, wherever he is. I go to the sick bay, he's not there. I search the toilets, he's not there. I go to the soccer field, he's not there. I hold on to the Panapop all this while and am determined to seek him out.

Then it dawn on me. Surely he is there.

I run across the soccer field, heading towards the corner of the school compound to the lab building and run up the stairs. I reach the top floor and I walk across the corridor.

The view over the parapet is the best one you can find in school. It overlooks the whole school compound and the wind is the strongest up here. I can see even the crests of the tallest trees swaying in the wind.
Joseph and I like to come here when we're feeling down.
The last time he came was when he lost an interschool soccer match which he told me he'll win.

I see Joseph at the other end of the corridor. He's sitting down with his back leaning against the parapet wall. He sees me, and smiles. Not the beaming smile he usually gives, but one that looks as if it took him lots of effort to muster.

I walk to him wanting to pass him the Panapop. But I know it's already melted in the wrapping, and thus I try to slide it into my pockets instead.
He sees that, takes it from me and holds it. He gives me another weak smile.

And it feels like we're just trying to hold on to whatever that is already lost.

All the words that I want to tell him very much vanish. Or they couldn't find the courage to come out from my lips. We are barely a metre away from each other, but I feel that the distance between us at that moment is very far apart, and if I really mutter the words out, they will resound to me in echoes.
I sit down beside him and we both keep silent for quite some time.

"Do you think we will grow sick of the people around us eventually?" He asks.

A familiar question. I think I asked myself this before.
I think eventually we will, but that should be after many many things have happened.

"No. We won't." I answer, contrary to what I truly think.

"You think so?" He asks again.

"Definitely we won't." I say.

We remain there for a few periods after recess. Not speaking, not doing anything. Just to sit beside each other.

Though I'm sitting still, I somehow feel that Joseph's presence is inching away.
I somehow feel that I'm going to lose this important friend.
Only friend.


~End of Chapter 7~