"Did you decide on something?"
"I want to sing!"
"I want to dance!"
"We can be an idol group!"
"I'll do poetry recitation."
"We can put up a play!"
Clap. Clap. Clap. The class settled down and focused on Nadia, standing behind the teacher's desk with a stack of papers in her hand.
"I'm sure you all have great ideas, but, do not forget to register by 21st, okay? Participation is important for extra credit!" She announced and handed out a bunch of papers to the front seat of each row. "Take one and pass," she said and walked back to her own seat.
The black and white form on her desk read: Summer Festival Cultural Event Registration, Primary Edition.
"Will you participate?" Her deskmate asked as she took a seat.
"I will, yes! I am very excited!"
"But we would need a convincing show to pass the preliminary round and then we can get official permission to go out and practice with the festival crew!! How exciting is that?! We get to represent our school!!"
"Have you thought of anything?" Nadia asked, staring at the numerous blank spaces on the form.
"My friends and I will do choir singing," her deskmate replied. "Maybe singing the national anthem will get us a place!"
Nadia smiled and turned to face Ryker. To her surprise, their eyes met instantly. She smiled and walked over to his desk, "Do you have anything in mind?" She asked.
"Not at all," Ryker shrugged, "I could care less."
"Hey! Don't say that! This is important to me," Nadia insisted as she stomped her fist on his desk. The gesture gained his attention and he leaned forward to look at the crispy form with intensly furrowed brows.
"I show great support to my source of food," Ryker nodded, brows pressed together and eyes meandering, "Your problems are my problems. Tell me, have you thought of something?"
"That is literally what I asked you!" Nadia cried out loud and plopped herself on the empty seat beside him. Since their class had an odd number of students, Ryker did not have a deskmate.
"We should research," Ryker suggested wisely drooping over his desk, "Magazines, Newspaper, TV shows, we can point out the trends, what the people like these days—"
"—But I don't want to do something that everyone else likes. I want to do something that I like!" Nadia cut in.
Ryker scrunched his nose and shook his head, "I respect your wishes, but must you be so cringe about it?" He tsked.
Ignoring Ryker's evident disdain towards her thought process, Nadia asked, "Come to my home after school? I'll make sandwiches and we can research."
Ryker's dark eyes widened ever so slightly, betraying the surprise his poker face tried to retain. A simple yes or not question had his mind jogging, leaping, racing through a three course obstacle set. Clearly, he was a virgin at friendships and the mere thought of being at someone else's home other than the welcoming walls of his room had him grappling at his wit's end.
"Will you? Mum made excellent pickles, you can taste them. Oh, I can show you my Ben Ten card collection!!" Nadia wondered out loud, incentivising his visit.
"I love Ben Ten," Ryker mumbled and heaved a sigh, "I'll ask and let you know after school ends. Will you wait for me?" He turned to look her in the eye and asked.
"Of course, always! Goes without question," Nadia puffed as the bell rang, indicating the start of a new period. "I'll be on the playground," she said and got up to leave for her seat.
Ryker leaned back in his seat and contemplated for the rest of the day.
Nadia had brought him crispy fried chicken for lunch, after an ardrous meal prepping at dawn and did not find it appreciative of Ryker to have disappeared into thin air as soon as the bell rang. On the school grounds, in the cafeteria, peeking over the gates of the restricted section with narrowed eyes — Nadia searched everywhere for him. The worry of him being kidnapped again crossed her mind on more than one occasion, propelling her to stand outside the Teacher's office, wondering if she should report the matter.
"But what if he's just around somewhere, stealing someone else's food? Then what? I'll just be setting him up! He'll be scolded, I cannot do that. But what if he has been kidnapped for real? How could he be kidnapped from school though? I thought Mr. Antonio became a good person...does he have some other friends to play with? No body talks to him though, he's always pulling a scowl. Is he lost? No, he is smart— I'll give him credit there. Then what? Oh I did not check the Nurse's office maybe he fell sick!"
After a quick mumble session, Nadia ran from the Teacher's office to the Nurse's and found it equally empty. Though, further investigation was hindered by the bell marking the end of lunch.
With slumped shoulders and a muddled head, Nadia made her way back to class and found Ryker slumped in his chair, at the very back, with a notebook covering his face.
Though her nostrils exhaled a sigh of relief, her thundering heart betrayed the calm facade she had been enforcing upon herself. The last person to disappear on her never returned and Nadia wouldn't wish that on her friend.
She stomped her way to his desk and kicked his chair with as much strength as her hungry stomach could muster. The chair swung sideways and Ryker almost tumbled down, like the notebook, but was saved by his quick reflexes.
"Oh, there you are! I was—"
"Yes, here I am! Always have been, cannot say the same about you though! How can you disappear on me, you evil gremlin! At least tell me about it first!! I wouldn't have woken up at four to make you chicken then if you don't wanna be friends anymore!" Nadia bellowed, slammed the lunchbox on top of his desk and stomped back to her desk.
Other classmates shuffled inside and chatter rose, blurring her fumes as she smiled at her deskmate whilst Ryker sat and stared at the back of her head, like always.
"You were worried about me," he mumbled and an upturned smile greeted his face. He stared at the lunchbox throughout the period, urging to open it up and devour its contents but he waited until their next break so that he could share it with Nadia.
As if trying her best to be petty and evade Ryker, Nadia surrounded herself with menial tasks like solving a word problem on the classroom board with a crowd of students around her — because she was doing it wrong and everyone else was chipping in with their opinions.
Ryker sat and stared, hungrily, as she laughed over something said by a classmate and clapped over something said by the other. Eventually, Nadia's deskmate dragged Bernie from their seat and demanded they solve it for the class.
"You're all so hopeless," Bernie muttered, picked up the chalk and began solving the problem. The chalk, which previously scratched and squeaked in everyone else's hands, moved like butter on a hot pan in his hands.
Mesmerised, they stood and stared, admiring Berine's dainty handwriting working its way across the board.
Even though she was in the centre of the hubdub, Nadia turned around to search for Ryker and her eyes found his instantly, at the back of the class, staring. She spotted her lunchbox with his hands over it, gripping the lid so tight one might think someone had been planning to snatch it from him. She couldn't help but smile.
"Excuse me, make way," Nadia used her manners to get out of the inner circle and pranced all the way back. "Did you eat?" She asked, eyes pointing at her lunchbox.
"I was waiting for you," Ryker mumbled.
"I was just being silly," Nadia said, eyes evading contact as her fingers played with the hem of her uniform skirt.
"I was getting permission, to go to your home for...um, research," Ryker said, awkwardly patting the lunchbox.
"Oh," Nadia blurted, "I guess we can still eat it. I packed it in a mini casserole, it'll be warm, open open," she grinned and took the empty seat beside him.
Albeit the long wait, the food was warm as they sat beside eachother and ate in silence. Bernie solved the question and was being applauded by the rest of the class. The bell rang again, Nadia stuffed two more pieces of chicken in her already stuffed mouth and got up.
"I'll wait for you after school," she said through the barriers of food and skipped back to her seat.
A singular piece of chicken remained in the lunchbox as Ryker turned the lid to close it. He wondered how the distance was so easy to close yet so easy to maintain — one minute they would be eating together and the next, he would be staring at the back of her head again.
Distance principled Ryker's life all throughout his short-lived existence. His home was large enough to create distances, his feelings were small enough to retain distances, his walls were high enough to make him an outcast at school and in all honesty, Ryker preferred the distance.
That is, until, Nadia gave him a taste of closeness. To Ryker, it was unfathomable how two people could sit so close to eachother and not suffocate in the proximity. How the omnipresent eyes could not gnaw at him, for once, he did not have to mind himself and cower in fear of being taunted, hit or worse, compared.
How could there exist a pure closeness, so warm that he wished to latch on than retreat? Surely, a facade if not sorcery?
Maybe that was why he kept staring at the back of her unruly head, as if to deliberately look for cues to expose her. But the more he looked, the more he was drawn into the warmth of her headbobs and the pencils tucked in between tight hair strands.
Everyday, he woke up and wondered how long this would last.
Though, each day he wished it would last as long as it could and Nadia's bright smiles and boisterous waves only cemented them more.
"Here, I brought some lollies," Nadia offered as Ryker neared closer to the gate. "A teacher gave them, well she was giving me one but I asked for two. I'm sure she thinks I am greedy now," Nadia snorted and held out a green and orange lollipop.
Ryker picked the green one and Nadia exhaled in relief.
"Good that you like green apple, orange is my favourite. I would be devastated if you took that," she laughed as she unwrapped the lolly and popped it in her mouth.
"Talk about being dramatic," Ryker snorted and pocketed his lolly. "Now what?" He asked as they strolled out of the school gates.
"Now we walk, of course, it'll take about 30 minutes," Nadia informed, bobbing her head, "They really make the best orange lollies."
"Do you always walk home? All by yourself?"
"Mhm, it's fun. A lot of kids go this way, most have bicycles though. Like Bernie, he lives right across my house. Never lets me ride his bike though, evil. There's teachers and oh, did you see Mr. Henry's shop when you were around? It's the best place to get almost everything — food, games, fancy things, you name it. I see older kids always hanging out around Mr. Henry's. Bruno Square is very lively 'cause of him."
"Wow," Ryker mumbled, not knowing what he would do with so much exposition other than feel left out from her happening life.
"Oh look, there goes Bernie!" Nadia exclaimed, pointing at a zooming bicycle that sped past them.
"Bernie is a boy?"
"Unfortunately, yes, I have seen proof. He lives a hard life, I'd give him a pass even if one or two dead bodies suspiciously turn up around him," Nadia said, nonchalantly.
"What?!" Ryker snapped, brows rose and eyes widened to decipher her casual scandalous nature.
Nadia turned to stare at him with disappointed eyes. "Don't you know that story? Alamia was found by St. Bruno and his best friend Alchamis, you know the one who tried to earn money by all means possible and ended up in a not so good place? My mum used to tell it everyday before we moved here, she'd say — 'Being nice gets you a statue like St. Bruno and being conniving gets you loaded with money but lonely and afraid.' She's so dramatic for that."
"You talk so much," Ryker rolled his eyes, "And isn't it nice to have money? Plus, it's not like he did anything bad. Just gambling games," Ryker shrugged.
"But that's just what we know and we're kids, they don't tell everything to us," Nadia shrugged.
"Wah, who knew you had wisdom in that shabby little head of yours," Ryker snorted and as they rounded the corner, St. Bruno's fountain-statue birthed into sight.
"Come, let's run." Nadia pulled the lolly out of her mouth and held his free hand with hers before jumping into a sprint. The streets was bustling with life and experience but the two kids successfully evaded it by jostling through the rush of bodies and panted as Nadia stopped at the front of a house.
The house was small and seemingly comfortable, slotted between two other houses of the row. Whilst the house on the right was white and left was brown, the one in the centre was a sage green with a small black gate and front yard with two white benches and a table placed amidst plants.
"Come in," Nadia gestured as she pulled the key from underneath the table and unlocked the main door. "Mum comes around six or seven sometimes, no need to worry," she said as she took off her shoes in the foyer and entered.
Ryker followed, feeling jittery as he crossed boundary after boundary of comfort and took off his shoes. An immediate wave of discomfort hit him as his sweaty feet touched the cold tiles. He gulped, wondering if his feet smelled or if they would leave works, knowing neither of them to be true, but the consideration still mattered.
"Ohhh, come come, let me show you my room!" Nadia pulled him in, away from the foyer and the bubble of insecurity he had begun to form around himself. She led him into her room, painted green and decorated with dolls, books and barbie posters.
"Sit sit sit," she gestured at the bed and shuffled through the drawers of her study table until she found a deck of cards. "Look! My Ben Ten cards!! They're so new and glossy! We can play! Are you hungry? I can make sandwiches!"
"No no, let's play first!"
For the first time, in a long time, Ryker spent his time like he was a child — wasting away in pure joys of life, laughing and cheating, losing hours and exhausting himself to point he irresponsibly passed out on a stranger's bed, beside an almost stranger — and he left like he was truly home.