Wizard of Oz || Zuo Hang✓

Thirty

During lunch time the next day, Vicky was surprised by her three classmates who had walked towards her table. She wasn't sitting with Zuo, he was too busy trying to understand what had actually happened. She didn't know how he was going to do that, but he wouldn't be convinced either way.

Yanni looked up at the three who never talked to her. 'May I help you?' she asked as she put her plastic fork down.

'Why'd you do what you did?' Zhixin asked immediately. 'How could you create a fake app just to dig Yanni's secrets? That's so cold.'

Vicky chuckled. 'What makes you think it's me?'

'You're a compuer genius and the one who is more likely to do it.' Xinhao shrugged. 'Now, why'd you really do it? Yanni just wants to know.'

Vicky shook her head. 'Now that's where you got it wrong. You think I'd do that? I don't care about Yanni, she's insignificant to me. You should ask the other computer genius.'

'Zuo wouldn't do that.' Yanni immediately defended him.

'Oh really? Then I guess you don't know him. Just ask him.' Vicky picked up her fork once again and started to eat.

'Maybe we really should ask Zuo,' Zhixin suggested. 'Never really liked that guy anyway.'

'It's not about who you don't like Zhixin,' Xinhao corrected then turned back to Vicky. 'Well fine, if we find out that you're lying about Zuo, we're going to mess you up badly.'

'Yeah.' Vicky nodded confidently.

The confidence almost made Xinhao sure that it was Zuo, but he just couldn't believe it.

...

Zuo read the school story of Yanni in the newspaper, and he was trying to understand how the writer knew so much detail. It was as if she had read the messages Yanni had sent him, could she have? He was soon going to talk to her and understand why she sent such messages. He stood facing the classroom window during that lunch time, and he turned around when he heard footsteps walking into the classroom.

Zuo shut the newspaper when he noticed the three of them, and was surprised when they kept walking towards him. 'Hi?' he asked them unsurely.

'Are you the one who created a chatbot app just to collect Yanni's secrets?' Xinhao asked immediately.

'What?' Zuo asked with a trembling voice.

'You heard him, why'd you do something so despicable?' Zhixin was the second one to ask.

Yanni watched the scene, knowing that Zuo would deny the accusation and confirm her hunch – that it wasn't Zuo who had done it. But when Zuo didn't say anything, Yanni started to feel restless.

'You really did it?' Yanni finally spoke. 'Please tell me you didn't.'

Zuo stayed quiet and his eyes landed on the floor.

'How could you do such a thing!? I trusted you!' Yanni cried.

'Trusted me?' Zuo asked in shock. 'You weren't even friendly to me, how can you say that?' he didn't expect himself to be very honest, but he found words coming out of his mouth.

'I wasn't your friend but I trusted you because you had been my good friend when we were kids. And you chose to dig my secrets and expose them? And pretend to be some nice chatbot so you could get to me?' she felt tears coming out of her eyes: she felt betrayed and disappointed at the same time.

'That's not what happened,' Zuo answered lowly.

'Well looks like it.' Xinhao answered. 'So you decided to revenge to her because she wasn't your friend anymore?'

'It's not like that.' Zuo shook his head immediately. 'I didn't want to revenge to anyone...'

'It doesn't matter, I'm leaving soon anyway, you already know that.' Yanni shrugged her shoulders as tears came out of her eyes. 'Thanks for making my last days of school a living hell Zuo, I really appreciate it.'

Yanni started to walk away with the boys, but Zuo couldn't let her go just like that. He felt bad about it, but worse still, he felt hurt that the girl he liked was viewing him like a villain.

'Wait, didn't you say you would like a guy who acted like Prince Charming? I am Prince Charming after all, aren't I?' Zuo spoke up.

Both Zhixin and Xinhao were surprised by his statement, but they didn't particularly say anything.

'yeah I would like a guy like that,' Yanni said as she turned around, 'but I forgot to mention one more quality of a guy which I value way more than all of that: honesty.'

With that, Yanni walked out of the classroom.

'Yanni! Wait!' Zuo shouted and started to run after Yanni. But Zhixin was quick to stop him, grabbing him before he could get out of the door.

'She doesn't want to talk to you and you let her down, that was so terrible of you Zuo.' Zhixin pushed him, almost making him fall onto the floor. 'I could just punch you right now but it's not even worth it.'

After he had regained his balance from the push, Zuo watched as Zhixin and Xinhao walked out of the classroom. He felt so many feelings he thought he'd never felt before, and before he knew it, his eyes started to get wet. She was leaving, and she would leave with the notion that he was a terrible person. All he wanted to do was to love her, but turned out, he had a wrong idea of how love went.