The Sun, The Moon, and Their Stars

11 : Walk

Benjamin

Kim didn't come back after Darlynne took her out during morning recess. She's not around throughout Religious Ed. But our teacher there is ancient, so she didn't seem to notice that one of us was missing. Kim returned to her seat right about time for Physics as if nothing happened. Or maybe nothing happened.

But something tells me, and I don't know what it is or where it's from, that something's not quite right. And I want to find out what that is.

I follow her after she swiftly exits the room the moment our teacher officially declared the class dismissed this afternoon. Kim's heading to the old quadrangle, and it looks like she's in a hurry to get to the second floor and toward the Internet Room.

Our school has a separate room for Internet use alone. It's converted from two old classrooms merged as one and has fifty computers dedicated to surfing the internet—strictly for educational purposes, of course.

She's already seated on one unit near the front of the room when I present the personnel at the counter with my Internet usage card and ID, so I can also be assigned a seat.

I open tabs, not looking for anything specific. I open my Friendster and search for Kim's profile. We're not yet friends, obviously. Her profile picture is a smiling brown puppy, and there are no posts. She has seventy friends, mostly students from our batch. I click the add button, hoping she'd notice, considering she's already online right this moment.

I refresh the page, and nothing's changed.

She's still here after thirty minutes. And she hasn't accepted my Friendster request.

I search the movie she mentioned when we rode the Ferris wheel. And I didn't expect Pleasantville to be this drama/romance film in black-and-white that used the changing colors of the characters to symbolize a conversion in their emotional state. The page says the color changes took a lot of CGIs, so the movie currently holds the record for the most computer-generated effects in a film.

After another thirty minutes, I see Kim stand up. Then she retrieves her card from the counter. But I wait until she's heading out of the door before I leave the room as well.

When I reach the foot of the stairs, she's already near the end of the old and semi-dark hallway. This girl walks fast.

"Kim! Wait!"

She stops, turns around, and waits for me to catch up. "Are you...following me?" She doesn't sound anywhere near friendly.

I don't answer. I don't have an answer, in fact. Not one that will not make me look and sound like a stalker, or as what my friend attempted to sing, a creep and a weirdo.

She raises an eyebrow. "What do you want, Benjamin?" she impatiently asks.

"Uhm... What happened earlier when you left with Darlynne? You were gone for the whole of Religious Ed."

She doesn't answer me. Instead, she turns around and starts going along the walkway leading to the gate of the school. I follow her again.

"Kim."

She stops and glares at me. "Nothing of significance to you," she says with a slight shake in her voice.

"Did they do something to you?"

Of course, I know how to put two and two together.

She looks away and continues walking toward the gate.

"Kim."

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" she says without turning around.

"No."