Heartbreak Club | s.yx ✓

Chapter 14

‘Akira,’ Yaxuan said as he walked over to me at lunch time. I hadn’t gotten my lunch yet, I was still standing in line patiently.

‘Oh hey,’ I answered Yaxuan, feeling slightly guilty over the fact that his photo had been stolen by Roy and I was partly responsible for what happened.

‘Did you leave early yesterday because you were mad I went to the bathroom?’

I face palmed, glad that no one heard it because of the din that was in the cafeteria. ‘No, I just had something to do…I’m really sorry.’

His face relaxed into a smile. ‘It’s fine, I was kind of bothered, I thought I disappointed you.’

‘No of course not,’ I chuckled awkwardly.

Yaxuan looked at the line in front of me then back at me. ‘Wanna go have lunch at a restaurant?’

I didn’t know whether I wanted to go with him or not, but it probably wouldn’t cause any harm. Besides, it was probably going to be great to have something different from the usual cafeteria food, and of course not forgetting my mission.

‘Sure,’ I nodded.

I placed the tray back on the counter then walked off with Yaxuan. As we walked on, I felt so many eyes on me, but that was expected. Curiously turning around before we left the cafeteria, I saw many eyes looking at me. But two pairs of eyes grabbed my attention the most: Roy’s and Cait’s.

…

This time, Yaxuan didn’t take me to an expensive restaurant. It was actually quite simple, and it convinced me that he was no longer trying to impress me. I was hoping that it was simply because he didn’t know what to do next, not that he had lost interest in me. He had to still be interested in me if I was going to break his heart.

I watched Yaxuan as he bit his thumbnail and read the menu, once again looking so innocent.

‘So Yaxuan, do you treat all other girls you dated like this?’ I suddenly asked him, wanting to know what he was up to at the moment.

‘Like what?’ Yaxuan looked away from the menu and chuckled.

‘Well I,’ I hesitated, trying to find a way to say it without making it seem like I knew about how he works. I didn’t want him to suspect that the girls he had broken up with had given us information. ‘I just heard you like taking girls to expensive restaurants, not this kind of place.’

‘Oh,’ he nodded, ‘I do that when I’m trying to get the girl and all, relationship stuff. But with a friend, I’d rather go somewhere simple where we can end up talking and enjoying ourselves. Rather than worrying about all the fancy mumbo-jumbo.’

Did Yaxuan just call me a friend? I didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing. ‘Friend?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess I’m over trying to get you to be my girlfriend because a friend is more valuable than that. Everyone I met simply liked me, and I kind of realized that it was fake if it was that instant. But you didn’t like me, so I think it’s worth it regarding you as a friend.’

Before I could answer, the waiter showed up. We made our orders of fast food and waited for him.

Sometimes I couldn’t view this Yaxuan I was sitting with and the Yaxuan I had been told about as one person.

I felt guilty for what I was about to do next, but the faster Roy could figure out what mystery he was thinking about continuously, the faster he would leave me alone. 

‘So why do you like this restaurant out of all fast food restaurants?’ I asked him, grabbing my burger to take a large bite out of it.

‘When me and my sister snuck out of the house to just have a taste of the normal life, this was the place we used to come hang out. It was the nearest to our house.’ Yaxuan smiled at the memory. ‘It’s amazing that it still hasn’t closed after all that time.’

I was glad he had steered the story in that direction, because I had to ask about Vivi for my brother. ‘So it must have been really painful when she disappeared.’

‘Died,’ Yaxuan corrected almost immediately, the smile disappearing from his face. ‘Her body was never found but it’s been too long. We could have seen her somewhere, heard about her somewhere, just…anything. But there hasn’t been any updates ever since then.’

I stayed silent a while, not knowing what to say. I wasn’t very good at handling emotional situations like this. I haven’t been through losing a close family member, so I was scared of sounding insensitive. ‘Do you remember what happened that day?’

This question was farfetched because there was a possibility that Yaxuan would lash out on me like he did before. But I guess I was willing to take the risk and ask anyway.

Yaxuan looked at me, not a single trace of anger in his eyes. ‘Yeah I remember. It’s probably a day I’ll never forget and it’s engraved in my memory too. We were hanging out at a national park, and now I wish we never went there even though I was always excited for those trips.’ he looked down. ‘Our mom had went off to answer another call just like she usually did, and me and Vivi were left alone with the animals. Then all the sudden I felt someone grab me, and I could hear Vivi screaming really loudly. One man had a firm grip on me and the other had a firm grip on Vivi.’

Listening to the story made me feel bad about kids experiencing that. It would even be traumatizing for me at this age, so I couldn’t imagine how traumatizing it must have been for them.

‘We tried to struggle but you know, we were kids. It’s a bit blurry to me how I ended up in the trunk of the car, but they threw us in there, and we were screaming and banging to get out. But through the struggles, I could hear my mom barely audible…probably a distance away from the car. Begging and crying.’

Yaxuan now had a glint of tears in his eyes as he explained the story, and I could understand why he was so emotional.

‘I’m sorry,’ Yaxuan apologized as if his emotional reaction was an offence. He lightly rubbed the edge of his eye to keep his tears from rolling out. ‘Yeah then before I knew it, they opened the trunk and pulled me out, slammed it back on Vivi. Then I was thrown at my mother who was standing a distance away and she hugged me. Yeah…that’s how the day went.’

‘Wait what?’ I asked with a confused face. ‘Why’d they let you go and not Vivi?’

‘I wish I knew.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, let’s eat, the food is getting cold.’ he changed the subject as he grabbed a chicken wing.

With how he reacted last time, I knew it would be a bad idea to persist. Besides, it was probably the most appropriate thing to do. The issue was his private life.

‘Yaxuan, why did you tell me all this?’ I finally asked after a while. It was something that was continually boggling my mind.

He smiled. ‘Because you asked.’

‘Last time I asked you exploded.’

‘Yeah this time I wouldn’t explode on you, you’re my friend now.’ he assured me.

I gave him a small smile in response and continued to eat. I was wondering if it was going to be appropriate for me to share this information with Roy, it seemed to be exactly what he was looking for.

But with the way Yaxuan had described it, it was an issue that was probably so private that he would only tell his “friend”, which was defined more intimately by Yaxuan. But if I didn’t tell Roy, he would keep bothering me about it.

I didn’t know what to do, but I would have to make a decision quickly.