Chapter 1: Him.

"Can you take this back to your class and distribute it?"

"Yes ma'am." I answered. How could I not agree, right?

The hallway bustled like it always has since I joined over a year ago. It felt like time passed by in a second and I'm already in my last year of high school. It means that I'm burdened with more expectations which I, of course, won't be fulfilling.

I never have.

Entering my classroom, I call out to the class monitor, hurriedly shoving those notes into her arms for her to distribute.

"Kris, last notes for history. Sorry."

I apologised because this was probably the fourth time she was distributing notes in a day but it couldn't be helped. Final exams were burning the buttocks of everyone. Well, ALMOST everyone.

I exit the classroom to bask in the final ten minutes of the lunch break. I sit on the marble seat in front of the classroom and look at the students. They were brimming with life, joy, expectations and many other things I wasn't.

Sometimes….actually, many times- it felt unfair but 'life' is supposed to be unfair, right?

I see them running around on the ground with their friends. Few girls walking in pairs, probably the best friends' duo; a word which I was also once associated with. Probably four or five months ago.

"RUE! I've been searching everywhere." The voice wasn't loud but with the horrendous closeness between the voice and my left ear, I think I lost a few 'ear particles'.

"Ceres."

I greeted my friend. Her bangs swayed as she made herself comfortable on the seat while she offered me some chocolate. We didn't speak but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It felt nice; the silence amidst this chaos served as an anchor. I felt gratitude every time I shared such moments with her.

Slowly, the crowd increased as students trickled into the hallway with the lunch time ending soon and in that very crowd, within the very chaos I despised, I saw 'him'.

The storm of my calm sea and the tumor in my mind.

"Him".