Prelude 1 - For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part 4

The next day was not much different from the day before. More useless gossip and baseless rumors. Rain still persisted as if it was the middle of winter.

The only thrilling news that day was the fact that Mrs. Grace had taken a day off, meaning no literature class that day. Everyone was beyond ecstatic to hear that, and Zachary did not mind as well. As long as it meant an extra hour of freedom, then he was all for it. But it wasn't just Mrs. Grace who took the day off that day, there were several other teachers and students who did not show up, most likely due to the heavy rain. The school could have easily let this day off considering any work was barely being done, but a school is a school, they would do anything to not let students out of their sight.

Nevertheless, it did not take long, the day was over in a blip.

There was no rush for Zachary this time, however. He packed his things at a slower pace than usual, to ensure that everyone would leave ahead of him and he would be able to leisurely walk through the hallways without the unnecessary crowds. No one paid attention to him so there was no harm in that.

Walking through the hallways, free of the sense of urgency, he was able to make it to the entrance with minimal effort (and without someone or two pushing him twice). Before stepping outside, he glanced over to his left, to the bathrooms, where a girl had passed out the day before.

It was empty and quiet. No soul in sight. Seeing it like this made Zachary question the oddity of the situation and when exactly did he get used to witnessing that scene several times. However, he decided to not press further over the matter as it was a waste of energy. He needed that wasted energy for other fundamental things.

Around this time, especially with the weather outside, the drama club would take this chance to practice for their play that was set for the end of that year. Unlike normal occasions, the club that year aimed for something that was neither a direct play of an existing drama or a made-up story by one of the students. Instead, they twisted the curve and aimed to make a modernized adaptation of "Othello," one of the many dramas by the Bard of Avon himself, William Shakespeare. Quite a hefty and bizarre topic but not entirely out of the question for the drama club.

The club once reached out to Zachary, so naturally, he knew about what they had planned, but he wanted nothing to do with them. Tragedies were out of his area of expertise after all.

As much as he preferred rain, he did not account for it to happen again so soon — two days in a row was certainly a rarity. It was merely the start of Fall. So for the rain to happen so suddenly was unexpected, to say the least. That wouldn't have been the case if Zachary had listened to any of the forecasts that morning, and the day before. Everyone besides him seemed to have prepared for the occasion, as most students walked out with umbrellas in hand, sheltering themselves from the rain so easily.

「Nothing's ever easy, huh.」

His mind wavered to shift the blame on his mother, who couldn't bother to warn him about the weather changing. But then again, he didn't get the chance to encounter her that morning. His mother had no particular job to occupy herself with that would keep her from seeing her son before he left for school. In a world without her husband and a family that turned her down for years, however, she had other matters to attend to.

Despite his distaste for that, he wished for normality in his life, in his mother's life. Something that wouldn't make this ever so mundane life a page out of Orwell's book.

And so, he stood out there, waiting for God's blessing to rain down on him and forge a safe path for him to leave. He watched and gazed afar. One droplet after the other, rapidly increasing and decreasing at the same pace, a perfect balance of the chaos the rain imbued.

"Dit nud plottupp cerd uk zolo, pniz ug zint."

A muffled voice… once again. There was still faint noise in the surroundings, as students walked by and left. But this voice was much closer than the others.

It was then that he noticed her.

"Pe ug waxank te skaxalo up umflorraxa?"

A girl standing by his side, looking into his eyes with the most innocent gaze in her crystal clear eyes. She wasn't much shorter than him, but it was enough to have her look up at him. Her attire was very much like his, excluding the skirt she wore and the jacket she lacked, so it was indeed a student from the school. A student that was not in his class. Zachary knew everyone in his class, despite rarely talking or listening to them. Outside of that, he knew nobody.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Zachary could see it.

A clear face; a clear bright face with no faults, no noise. Her sapphire eyes were dazzling with sparkles of chastity and made a perfect contrast to her brown hair that was wrapped up in a ponytail. She bore no ill intent. Zachary could sense it.

"C-Can you hear me?" The girl uttered.

His eyes lit. His ears opened.

Something bizarre was happening, and it wasn't particularly unpleasant.

The will to listen; the will to see, they all rushed back to Zachary like a chance meeting with a very dear old friend. A saving grace, the girl was. That was the only thing he could think about at that moment. Her presence was fantastical, almost illusory. It was as if the princess from a fairy tale came to rescue, not the prince, but the lowly peasant no one accounted for.

But even so, he still had his doubts to the depths.

"Were you… were you talking to me?" He pointed a finger at himself.

"Duh. Who else would I be talking to? You're the only one here."

Rid of the muffled noise and of the words that clouded his eyes, Zachary could hear the girl's soothing voice echoing in his ears. It was the first time for an outsider to break through his shell so easily. Such an action was well enough to make a deaf person drop to tears.

Feeling the normality he wished for seep into his life in a sudden manner, his alarms went off. The girl broke his shield, but what was next? What could possibly entice a girl from his school to interact with the black sheep he was? And he wasn't one to hide feelings or embarrassment aside, he felt nothing after all. If he were to be blunt, he was going to be exactly that.

"The hell do you want?" He blatantly asked, his dead eyes not averting her gaze, building up a barrier of hostility to keep her away.

"Huh?!" The girl tilted her head in confusion.

"I mean, why are you talking to me?"

Still stuck with a bed head and a mean look to his eyes, he was convinced his appearance was threatening to others. That was why everyone stopped approaching him, he believed, and he stopped approaching any stranger, even the few classmates of his.

The girl chuckled, "I was asking you earlier if you wanted to share my umbrella… at least till we reach the station — you take the subway, right?"

"You mean… the tram? Yes, but… but what is it to you?" He averted his gaze and looked at the station that wasn't that far off outside the school.

Since the clinic he frequented was quite the distance away from the school, he would often take the metro. But his house, on the other hand, was easy to reach through the tram system, so he naturally knew all about it.

"The tram is preferable, if I may be frank. It's easily accessible and through your own card as well. No need to look for platforms and such, or face the trouble of going from one station to another. It just drops you to the nearest station to your desired location… and all above ground, of course."

It was then that he halted his speech. He felt as though he said more than he should, even elaborating unnecessary information the girl might— or will definitely find odd.

"Interesting! I never knew that…"

What came out of the girl's mouth wasn't a sign of confusion, it was genuine curiosity. He did not know whether to praise the girl for withstanding his rubbish and responding to it with satisfaction or to ridicule her for feigning interest. There must have been an ulterior motive, he believed so.

"I'm Lauren by the way." She extended her hand outward offering a handshake.

It was truly baffling in his eyes. However, he grabbed her palm and shook it. He knew better than to embarrass her, and himself even more — he was not a dunce after all.

Before he could utter a word of his own, the girl interrupted.

"You're Zach, right?" She said with a bright smile on her face.

"I suppose so…" He uttered, filled with monotony, trying to avoid the conversation she was desperately aiming to ignite.

The fact that she knew of his identity was quite a surprise that almost slipped past him. He had many questions already racking up noise in that little brain of his. Why was he complying with her rather than push her away with his usual grim attitude? There was absolutely nothing to gain from approaching him. She completely dominated the conversation, fully aware of his inept nature, yet she continued on ignoring that he was always to be the blackened sheep cast aside from the group.

But it was then that he decided to not be fiddled with any longer. If he wanted to know the reason behind the girl's approach, rather than asking questions within his mind, he should press on the subject head-on. Because other than that she was the girl before him, he suspected she was someone else as well.

After all, there was no mistaking… the brown hair, the attitude, the persistence, it was all...

"Are you…," he tried to gather his words, "Are you the girl always stalking me?"

Not one for mincing words, he let out the truth in his mind. If he was wrong, he did not care. If she was not the girl, then it would simply be a look of confusion and disgust on her part and she would leave him alone, never to talk to him again, which was a great success for him and the result he wanted the most.

However, the girl smiled.

"What if I am?" She was neither confirming nor denying it. Though her knowledge of that fact, something that only he and the girl would know, only proved the truth of the matter better.

Coming to that revelation, he did not hold back. "Then what in the bloody hell do you want from me? Someone set you up for this?"

"Woah! Hey hey, tone it down. Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. I just saw you had no umbrella, so I thought of lending a helping hand. One good deed a day keeps the bad luck away, isn't that what they say?" Despite the hostile nature of Zachary's questions and his manner of speaking, the girl still kept the friendly attitude on, even laughing at the end. She took a slight step away, not for her own safety but for the fact that she felt she made him uncomfortable. "They weren't kidding about the paranoia, huh."

"Who?" He turned to face her directly, "What are they saying about me?"

"Uh… well, you know… it's just gossip, nothing noteworthy really. I was just trying to—"

"—trying to help…" He chuckled, keeping the smile behind his sarcasm still. "Yes, I know, thank you very much."

「I've had my fair share of those.」

But nothing was more irritating that moment than the fact that she, the girl he avoided for so long, the one he knew was a threat to his comfort, was able to finally break through to him and speak. He could not decipher why she was special, why his mind opened up to her (even with the bits of hostility) when she seemed just like everyone else when he tried to reject her the most.

There was no such thing as a good deed, no selfless act. Every single person was after their individual gain in some manner or form.

"Why are you always after me?" He let out a sigh of defeat and quietly spoke, "Day after day after day, you always try to catch me outside the classroom, always try to talk about something. Why?"

Without another word, the girl pulled out her umbrella and took a step outside. It was just as he had expected, one misstep and he would be left alone. No one would want to bother with the likes of him, with someone who was always bent on living off negativity.

However… reality that day was not in his favor.

The girl did not take another step.

She stood there, right in front of the entrance, for a good minute before turning around and facing Zachary once again. The smile on her face was gone and instead replaced with a rather disappointed and resolved expression. Anything from that meant she had something up her sleeve and that she wasn't planning to leave him alone.

And exactly as he predicted, she let out a helping hand.

Her hand gesture was clearly inviting him to join her under the umbrella, to take shelter together from the rain. Unlike those who passed before, she had the heart to care, the faith to hope, and she wasn't going to leave him for his fate like that.

「Just what do you…」

Before Zachary could finish that thought, she spoke up and rushed to grab his hand. "Oh, come on, stop thinking about it, and let's go. We're gonna miss the tram or whatever."

And just like that, the girl pulled him out of his shell, taking him by her side.