Heartbreak Club | s.yx ✓

Chapter 21

'How do you conduct an investigation?' Yaxuan whispered to me in the library. He had followed me to the library claiming he wanted to study as well, and insisted that we sat together. But sitting with him, I noticed that he wasn't studying. All he was doing writing down some non-school related notes in a notepad.

'What? Is that part of musicology?' I whispered back to him.

'Not really,' he put his pen down. 'But it's really important. How do you conduct an investigation?'

'I'll tell you later.' I answered him and looked back at the book I was reading. I really needed to study because I had a test coming up soon, but Yaxuan probably didn't have any reason to seriously study at this moment.

Yaxuan looked at me silently before he spoke again. 'But it's important.'

'Well how important could it be?'

I could already see some of the students who were sitting near us stealing glances at us and even glaring because our whispers were probably disturbing the silent atmosphere.

'Call me crazy but I want to investigate on Vivi's disappearance.'

I didn't know whether he was serious or not, so I looked at him silently for a moment. 'Really?'

'Yeah, there's so many questions but no answers. And if no one wants to give me the answers, then I'm just gonna have to get the answers myself. And when I get the answers, maybe I can finally lay everything to rest and feel better.'

'Yaxuan that's...that's great but you're just...Yaxuan. The cops once tried to conduct an investigation and failed, what makes you think you'll be able to find the answers? You have no training in investigations.'

He nodded. 'I know that. But maybe the police weren't able to find out the truth because they didn't have their heart in it, they didn't care. But I do.'

Before I could respond, a pair of girls came over and sat opposite us. They had their books, but with the way they were looking at Yaxuan, it was clear that they weren't there to study. The girls didn't say anything to Yaxuan, but they giggled in a way to seek his attention and gave him flirty glimpses.

Yaxuan looked at them as if the predator had found a new prey.

For some reason, I felt angry. And it seemed I wasn't angry because I didn't want these girl's hearts to be broken, I was probably angry because I was jealous. No, I wasn't jealous, I tried to shake the thoughts away.

'Well go ahead,' I told Yaxuan.

'What?' he turned to me.

'Go ahead and ask one of them out, or both of them, then break their hearts.' I said in an irritated tone.

'What? I didn't say I was going to do that.' he rubbed his forehead. 'I have more important stuff to focus on right now, like the investigation.'

'So if you weren't investigating anything you'd do it?'

'Why do you seem so mad at me?'

In fact, I also didn't understand completely why I was very mad at him. If I was indeed mad because I was jealous, then I was clearly the one with the problem here. The only reason I was hanging out with Yaxuan was because of the Heartbreak Club, and I had no right to get jealous over anything.

Now feeling a mixture of shame and exasperation, I closed my books and got up from my chair. I was too ashamed of myself to continue to talk to him.

'Akira, wait, where are you going?' Yaxuan asked me as he got up from his seat as well.

'I just need a little space, that's all.' I said then walked back to the shelves and returned my books where I had found them. Once I finished putting the books back. Once I turned around, I saw Yaxuan standing behind me.

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.' he apologized, even though I knew he probably didn't know what he had done wrong.

I forced a smile. 'I know, I just need a little...space. Is that okay?'

He slowly nodded. 'I guess.'

...

That afternoon after classes, I was once again making my way to the hostel. I didn't want to make the mistake of developing actual feelings for Yaxuan, so it was best for me to spend a little time away from him. If I continued to spend time with him every day, there was a possibility that I would get attached to him.

As I continued to walk, my cellphone rang. I checked the caller ID, it was Roy. I still didn't feel like answering it because I was mad at him, so I placed it back in my pocket and let it ring. When my cellphone rang again, I sighed and decided to answer it.

'What?' I asked the moment I had picked it up.

'Come on, that's not the way to greet your favorite brother in the world.' he answered me with a chuckle.

I rolled my eyes. 'What do you want?'

'Well I was just trying to check if you're still mad at me or not. Look, I know I kinda messed up but at least I didn't explain everything to the public. I'm sorry okay?'

I didn't feel like forgiving Roy just yet, but that probably wouldn't change a thing. What had happened already happened and there was nothing I could do about it. 'It's cool I guess.'

'And he didn't suspect a thing right?' Roy continued.

'Where are you anyway?' I asked him after I heard the bustle of cars and people on the cellphone.

'I'm here to meet someone...they said they really loved my article so...'

'Oh geez, there you go again. It's always about your article which you got out of manipulation.' I almost felt like hanging up on him.

'You have no idea how I...' Roy stopped his sentence midway.

'How you what?'

'How I...' he stopped again. 'sorry, there's someone coming my direction and he seems a bit creepy...well...several of them...'

'Oh they're probably fans of your article too.' I said in annoyance.

'I doubt if they read the news,' Roy answered me then started talking to someone else who was probably there with him. 'May I help you?'

I still kept the cellphone on my ear as I waited for Roy to finish his conversation with the supposed people, and I heard a muffled response come from them.

I didn't hear anything else, only the loud sound of the phone probably crashing to the ground.

'Hello?' I asked through the phone before I removed it from my ear to check if the call was still in progress. I looked at the seconds of the call then placed the cellphone back to my ear. 'Hello? Roy?'

The beep of a call ending greeted me on the other side. At first I was scared, whatever had happened didn't seem to be normal. I almost called him back when I remembered how sneaky and silly Roy could be. He pranked me so many times and made me feel like an idiot.

Sometimes he would film it and show his friends, I was definitely over that. Besides, it made sense that he would prank me right now, just to make me forgive him because I would be worried about him.

'Nice try Roy,' I said to myself and put my cellphone back in my pocket.

But come to think of it, would Roy drop his phone just for a prank? It probably didn't seem likely, but I didn't want to overthink something that had the makings of being a prank. I shook the thoughts away and decided to think about something else.