Memories from Another Time

I Love You

It's been how many weeks of me living a cycle of going to Zairen during their lunch break, fighting with Edward, doing my project. Every single time I would meet Zairen, he would either be with Robin, Medusa, Chelly or almost anybody from his batch. When I run up towards him, he'd either greet me with "Hey shobs", or a hug.

One day when I sat down at their table, Zairen stood up and dragged me saying, "We'll just talk" to his friends. As we went around the campus and reached the hallway, he suddenly said, "Shobs... One of these days you'd fall for me. I've seen this happen a lot of times and I really don't want to hurt you". My heart started to speed up after hearing these words. It made me think of the fact that I have already fallen for him the moment we met.

"Fight me", I started to joke around hoping to change this awkward scene. As I playfully punched him on his right shoulder, he suddenly wrapped his arm around my neck and pushed my head towards his arm with brute force. "I can't breathe", I thought to myself. As my eyes started rolling back, feeling my head go numb, he suddenly let go. The sudden surge of oxygen in my lungs made my chest hurt and made me land on my knees.

I laughed it out while looking at him. He pulled me up, and continued walking back to the canteen, where we left his friends. Out of the blue I mentioned, "I know you don't like people talking behind your back, if they had something to say, you'd prefer it if they just say it. You said this a week ago". He looked at me with a surprised face, mouth open and said, "You remembered all of that? You listen and I like that". I blushed, and as we were walking towards the canteen, I saw Edward staring at me from his classroom. I dragged Zairen hurriedly and said, "I'll be in so much trouble... I can't have other friends asides from Edward. He saw us right now, I am so dead". He looked at me with a troubled look, but was flustered when I started to push him so that we could go faster. When we reached his table, he set an outing for us. "The new movie of No Game No Life is coming out next week, let's all watch it. Shobe you're invited as well", he said. We said our goodbyes as I started to get ready for Edward's attacks.

Everybody in my batch started to go to the school mass. When the rooms were empty, I went back outside of Ed's classroom, I saw him walking slowly towards me. He grabbed my hair and asked, "Why were you hanging out with him and why weren't you in your class?", I teared up from the shock of him grabbing my hair. I was preparing for a punch but got my hair pulled instead. "I no longer need to go to his class", I told him. He pulled my hair and hit it against the wall, "I remembered specifically that I told you that you can't go hang out with anyone unless I say so", he raised his voice. "I'm sorry", I kept on repeating the word until he was finally satisfied.

At night, I rubbed the part on my head where it was painful. I messaged Zairen about how he can't act showy in front of Edward.

"What did he do to you?"

"Mean stuff".

I didn't tell him about the physical violence that he does to me. I haven't even told him about the time he molested me. Zairen and I have only been friends again for a couple of weeks. My phone rang and saw him send me a link. "Here, watch this video and listen to the song", he said with hopes of cheering me up. I clicked the link and was bamboozled to how accurate the song was to how I felt.

I wished him good night afterwards and for the first time, I said, "I love you" to which he responded with, "I love you too".