II

No… That's not it. I didn't mean to harm you.

"My stomach- it hurts! Do something!" Her deformed face dragged onto me, her trembling arms wrapped around my slender neck. Which would break first, her arms, or my neck?

Then something slimy slipped out from the gap. It sloshed around on the floor. A long string of red fell out.

"DO SOMETHING RIKAAA!" Her gasps were deformed, low howls and roars. Then the mirror breaks. The pieces fall off hurtling towards her face.

Squelch.

She couldn't scream anymore. What a relief.

"What are you doing?" Someone spoke. It's the quiet boy in class, the one with medium messy hair who sit's diagonal to my back. It's not hard to tell apart voices, once the face and the voice connects, they're linked together forever.

"Cleaning duty." I say.

"By staring at the broom?"

"Will it fly to you if you stare long enough?"

"Will it start cleaning for you too?"

For a quiet kid, he talked a lot.

"No. But if you want to see, I can make an arrangement." I replied and he listened.

By 5:30 pm most kids would have left the facility. By 6:00 pm most teachers would have left the facility. By 6:30 pm, only people like me were left, sulking in the science labs in hopes a broomstick heeds to my command.

"Haha. You're funny." The boy laughed. And he walked closer.

Was it humour, or the sense of belonging that formed bonds between humans? Why is it so difficult to explain yet so natural as it unfolds?

"I was at the cafeteria earlier," He smiled in my peripheral vision, "I fell asleep so I missed my ride home."

"Ah." Did he want me to drive him home? It could be done if he sat in my bicycle basket.

"I'm going to the rooftop, do you want to come with me?" I finally let my gaze shift from the broom and onto the snowy weather outside.

"… Why?"

"Because. It's snowing." He smiled again, this time I realised his teeth were very neat, sitting nicely next to each other in a uniform line.

"Here I'll lead the way." He proceeded to drag me by my wrists until we were standing behind the exit doors. "You have the key. Hurry."

I did have the key. All janitors needed it to lock the doors at the end of their shift.

"Why would I open it? There's a snowstorm coming."

The boy wasn't shy today. He looked the most excited in the hallway lights.

"That's the point! The view will be ruined when the snowstorm hits. We need to go now." So I opened the doors for him. His face instantly changed to a tint of pink. "Brr. It's quite cold today, my whole body's going numb!"

We sat at the rooftop in the snow for some time. Until he stood up and walked over to the edge. The boy was pretty, he was born for all eyes to be on him, for him to shine.

"Do you believe in the goddess?"

I shook my head, religion was a taboo in the family. Modern technology was naturally superior.

The boy smiled, "I believe the goddess blesses each of us with magic and makes us special."

It was difficult to tell where the conversation was headed but I was in no mood to argue.

"What are you blessed with?"

He hesitated a bit, like a pitiful boy considering if he should give away his last cookie.

"I'm lucky."

"Hm? How so?"

"For example if I do this," then the boy leaned over the edge, his hair flowing gently in the breeze, a few specks of white landed on his uniform and then… there was no and then.

He looked frail, like a powerless snow flake in a snowstorm.

Could I have saved him? Probably. Did I? No.

He wasn't special nor blessed. Because gods and goddesses don't exist.