Chapter 6: Reunion

“Ah, she’s definitely angry…” Theo muttered to himself, as he instinctively flinched.

He could clearly see the fire burning within her eyes. It was hot and overbearing. He felt like a matador facing off against a raging bull, except the red cape was with the bull instead of with him.

Shirley’s emotions had gone way beyond the boiling point.

Two hours. That was how long she had spent waiting, staring fixedly at his silhouette and engraving in each minor detail, all the while a frightening sense of uncertainty swirled within her heart. Was he real? Was any of this actually real?

By this point, Shirley could not even bare to trust herself. Reality and imagination collided. They melted into one another, coalescing into something new, something ugly. Before she could stop herself, she was already standing, walking towards the source of all of her fears and anxieties.

Her face flushed red, it took on a shade comparable to the scarlet luster of her hair. Steam practically oozed out of the pores of her skin and even her balled up fists contained a slight tinge of pink.

She cut a path across the classroom, mindlessly charging towards him. In the process, she knocked down a few chairs and caused a fair bit of commotion within the crowd. The surrounding students stared at her in shock.

What happened? The quiet, timid girl with a tendency for tardiness… was that really still her? Why was she acting like a middle-aged old drunkard who had just lost all of his money gambling on slots?

“Shirley—” Theo opened his mouth to speak, but he was immediately interrupted by a loud smack.

Shirley stomped her foot down and slammed her palms against the surface of his desk. A harsh noise reverberated throughout the room, thoroughly stunning not just him, but everyone inside. Even Mr. Hong, who already had one foot out the door, suddenly turned around and glanced back at the duo.

For a moment, they were the center of attention.

“You… you… you!” Shirley had trouble articulating the thoughts that swirled around in her head. She was panting, clearly out of breath, as her chest heaved up and down. It was as if she had just sprinted an entire marathon. Her vivid hair looked like the incarnation of fire.

She brought her face up close to his and subconsciously gnashed her teeth.

Theo instinctively leaned back, but his eyes were drawn to her lips. It was the first time he had noticed this, but Shirley had very full lips. Red, yet she wore no lipstick. A slight gloss glistened the surface. Was it sweat or saliva?

From this distance, he could feel her breath on the tip of his nose. He moved his gaze to meet hers. Bright, burning blue irises. It was the type of blue that resembled the sky. He stared at her for a short while, before he once again, shifted his gaze.

This time, he looked around his surroundings. Everyone was staring, the entire room populated by curious eyes and surprised faces.

He inwardly sighed.

After a few seconds of tense silence, Shirley eventually calmed down enough to realize that the two of them weren’t alone. As her eyes flickered, she parted her lips to speak, but abruptly stopped. Almost immediately, she noticed all the attention that she had unwittingly drawn. Theo did not think it was possible for her face to grow any redder, but he was wrong.

She moved her jaw up and down, yet no sounds came out. At the same time, her gaze rapidly shifted from Theo to the crowd, and then back again. She began to panic. Of course, she panicked.

Sweat dripped down her cheeks, while her shoulders uncontrollably trembled.

Eventually, she cracked. Shirley grabbed onto his arm and tugged, silently indicating towards the door.

Unfortunately, Theo was oblivious. He had gone back to staring at her vivid blue eyes.

She shifted in place for a moment, before she eventually bit her bottom lip and leaned forward. She stood on the tips of her toes, while her lips almost pressed against his ear. She breathed out a shaky whisper, “C-come with me, please…” The warm puff of air snapped Theo out from his daze and sent an electrifying shiver down his spine.

His body reflexively tensed up, while a warm feeling flooded his chest.

Seeing as how he was still frozen in place, Shirley assumed that Theo acted unresponsive on purpose. She pursed her lips and stared hatefully at his absentminded face.

She grabbed his hand and clenched down until her knuckles turned white. “H-hurry up already, every-everyone is watching us…” She whispered again through gritted teeth, as she vigorously pulled forward.

This time, Theo did not resist. He practically fell out of his seat, and just barely managed to stay on his feet. As his chair clattered to the floor, Shirly quickly dragged him out of the room.

The unwitting spectators stood dumbfounded, still reeling from the shock.

After a few seconds of silence, a burst of noise suddenly filled the classroom. From the scene that had just taken place, the busybody students began to weave together a somewhat plausible, yet largely incoherent story involving the two main characters.

In fact, many different stories and iterations popped up during the short five minutes after the two had left. They all tried to answer two important questions; who was that male student and why was the quiet girl so angry?

In the end, they reached a consensus. The super quiet girl that barely spoke a single word in class actually managed to bag herself a boyfriend. This boyfriend also happened to be in the same class as her, and clearly just as quiet, since nobody actually remembered him ever being a part of the class. Of course, that was just the backstory. As for the event that they had all just witnessed, it was an obvious rough patch in their relationship.

An argument that had escalated beyond their control. It eventually culminated into the classroom confrontation that they had all just witnessed.

As for what happens next, opinions diverged. Some thought that the couple might break up after this, while even more believed that their relationship would only grow stronger after today’s incident. Regardless, the imaginations of these students worked especially hard today.

“It must be a lover’s quarrel.” Mr. Hong chuckled wryly to himself as he fondly recalled his own youth indiscretions.

****

Theo silently followed. He stared at the hand holding his arm. It was pale white and delicate. Although her grip had some clamp to it, if he honestly tried, then he could probably free himself quite easily.

A few uneventful minutes passed before the two left the building. They were standing somewhere behind the school’s main building. A desolate place where the grass had grown yellow and the soil had hardened. It was covered by the building’s shadow. No other student in sight.

The sound of distant yelling echoed from somewhere in the direction of the fields. It was probably the soccer players, or maybe baseball? On second thought, it was definitely baseball.

Looking around his surroundings, a crooked smile floated to Theo’s lips.

“Did you bring me out here to confess?” He asked lightly, staring at Shirley’s out of breath figure in the process.

She was hunched over, her chest heaving erratically, while her hands were pressed against her knees. She heard his words and reflexively glanced up. For a second, she showed no reaction, before Shirley suddenly looked away. A visible flush colored her face, although at this point, it was hard to tell whether that blush came from his words or from something else.

After a few seconds, she turned back around and glared at him in anger.

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“You…” Shirley took a deep breath and straightened her back. She took a step forward and reached a hand out towards his face. “… JERK!”

With her sudden shout, she pushed her open palm onto his face. It wasn’t exactly a slap, but more of a vigorous rubbing. She moved her hand roughly against his cheeks, nose, and chin. It was as if she was smearing something invisible all over his face. A few seconds later, a second hand joined in on the chaos.

From his lips, all the way to the tip of his chin, her fingers traced every bump, bend, and contour of his face. He subconsciously sniffed. Her hands smelled faintly of sweat, yet it wasn’t an unpleasant smell.

“You… wait, Shirley, wait. Seriously, wait a second…” He muffled out as he tried to grab hold of her arms. Unfortunately, before he could get any further, his hands were slapped away.

“Be quiet for a minute.” She crisply stated.

He rolled his eyes and looked up at the sky. A bitter sigh leaked out from his lips. He relented to her outrageous demands and allowed her to do as she pleased with his face. She pinched and caressed, pulled and smushed. The whole thing lasted for an unnecessarily long amount of time.

Eventually, her thumb grazed by the mole underneath his left eye. Shirley’s fingers froze. For a long time, she simply stood there, her hands on his face, and her eyes locked to his. In return, Theo stared back. He remained silent and simply waited.

“Are you really Theo?” Her voice quivered. For a moment, a slight trace of happiness tainted her words, but before it could fully materialize, she hurriedly shook her head. “No, you’re not Theo, you can’t be Theo, Theo’s not here…”

“What can I do to convince you otherwise?” Seeing the doubt in her eyes, he helplessly reached for his face. He covered her hands with his, as he stared at Shirley with an imploring gaze.

“That…” She absentmindedly looked up at him. For a moment, she was lost. His dark brown irises really did look a lot like his…

Theo smiled a half smile before he ruthlessly pinched the backside of her hands.

“Ow!” Shirley winced in pain and reflexively tried to pull away. Unfortunately, Theo’s grip was too tight. No matter how hard she struggled, she could not escape.

“That hurt, didn’t it?” He suddenly asked.

“Of course it did, you jerk! Why would you do that?” She angrily yelled back.

“In that case, it proves I’m really here.”

“What?”

“You felt the pain, right? That means you’re not dreaming or anything. I’m here. I’m really here.” He seriously stated as he clenched down on her hands.

Shirley froze. She felt the touch of his skin and stared up at the smile on his face. It was the smile of her childhood friend. Those hazy brown eyes, the rough texture of his palm and the warmth of his existence, they were all him.

“Are you… are you really Theo?”

He was here. He was finally back.

Seven months ago, Theo suddenly went missing.

No warning, no indication, no nothing. It was as if he had just simply vanished into thin air. The only thing that they knew of was that he had been last spotted hiking up Harwick trail, while dressed in his school uniform.

Shirley searched the mountains every Saturday. Even when it was blisteringly hot outside, even when it was raining, even when the ice froze over, she was there, always searching, always hoping. Unfortunately, for all of her efforts, she never did find him.

She thought that tomorrow would be no different. Another Saturday of searching and another day of fruitless effort. What she did not expect was for the man that she had so arduously longed for, to suddenly show up out of the blue like this.

A sudden and unannounced arrival… It was almost identical to the way he had disappeared.

Conflicting emotions swirled in her heart. A part of her felt vexed. All of the effort that she painstakingly poured into every Saturday, all of it was for nothing. Even if she hadn’t tried, even if she simply waited, the end result would have been the same. Yet another part of her, an even larger part of her simply felt happy.

The joy she currently felt could not be described in words.

Theo did not know what sort of thoughts plagued her mind. He let out a genuine smile and said, “Yes, it really is me.”

Upon hearing his simple confirmation, Shirley’s shoulders trembled. She freed herself from his grasp and took a step backward. Her eyes ran up and down his body. She wanted to imprint every detail, every feature and every flaw of his to memory. She savored his very presence. Shirley wanted to convince herself of the reality happening in front of her.

Under the scrutiny of such an intense gaze, even someone like Theo felt uncomfortable. He thought for a moment, before he extended out his arms. It was the universal symbol for ‘I want a hug’. Although the two had stopped doing such things when they entered high school, he figured it was a good a time as any to revive the old tradition.

Shirley stared at his outstretched hands, before she looked up at his face. She took a step forward, reeled back her right hand, and punched out.

“Ouch!” A small fist hit him square in the chest. He sputtered out a cough, as he stared at Shirley through wincing eyes. “What the hell?”

Although she did not possess a lot of strength, the hit had taken Theo by surprise. Just as he was still reeling from the shock, Shirley threw another punch. After that, came another, and another, and another, and another. She did not stop. Her fists kept flying, all of them landing on either his exposed chest, his vulnerable stomach, or his bruised shoulders.

“Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Where did you go? You were gone for seven months! You missed my birthday! No warning, no trace, no nothing! Even after that, you… you just suddenly walk back in like everything’s all normal! Idiot! Theo, you big, dumb, stupid idiot!” Her words flooded out like a broken dam. Theo knew of how much of an emotionally bottled up person Shirley was. Whenever she got like this, it was always better to just let her vent out all of her frustrations in one go.

Plus, he understood her emotions more than anybody else could. Thus, he gritted his teeth, and chose to bear with the pain!

Fine! I’ll think of this as my punishment. Come on, keep hitting me!

He let her vent everything out on his poor, untrained body. After almost half a minute, her punches had grown considerably weaker. After two minutes, she was already out of breath. Her cheeks blushed once more, reddening up like a flustered tomato.

She threw one last punch aimed at his face, but it was more like a love tap than anything else. Her knuckles grazed his cheek, before Shirley completely lost her strength and collapsed on top of him.

He caught her in a hug, but the momentum of her fall took both of them down to the ground.

Dust spread through the air. Theo winced. He imagined that underneath his jacket, his upper body was completely bruised and battered. He shook his head and looked down.

Shirley’s face pressed against his chest. Her arms were wrapped around his neck. He subconsciously groaned. Her grip was tight. Shirley hugged onto his body like a desperate baby koala. It was as if she was afraid that the moment she let go, he would suddenly disappear again.

“Don’t go… don’t go anywhere anymore, okay… please…” He felt it through his shirt. Her soft, quivering voice was somewhat muffled, but in between each word, he could hear the faint sobbing. A flurry of hiccups, and the distinct feeling of wetness all over his chest.

Her body heat, the rise and fall of her chest, the rhythmic thump of her beating heart, he felt it all.

“…”

He silently wrapped his arms around her frail back and guided her through the tears. He rocked his body back and forth, all the while he rubbed the base of her back with his free hand. He wanted to say something, but after recalling all the pain and suffering that he had put her through, the words simply refused to come out.

Their friendship dated all the way back to the first grade.

Even from the get-go, the two of them were isolated from the rest of the class. Theo’s problem was simple; he was bad with people. He possessed a gloomy disposition, almost as if a dark cloud constantly hovered over his head. It wasn’t as if he got picked on or anything, just that nobody bothered to talk to him. Even the ones that did never got any further than one or two sentences.

Shirley was sort of the opposite. By nature, she had always been a shy girl, and as a child, she was far from the hidden beauty that she was today. She wore braces, had hair that resembled an open flame, and possessed a skinny frame that made her appear almost gangly. Although he personally thought that she had a cute enough face, the person herself did not believe so.

She grew up with low self-confidence and even worse interpersonal skills.

It did not take much for the two to eventually meet and become friends.

In fact, the reason for their friendship was actually quite mundane; the two of them were the stragglers for a partnered project. Being the only two people without any friends, they were naturally partnered together, and their friendship simply developed from there.

In the end, they grew closer. She also happened to live within the same neighborhood as him, so that too further facilitated their friendship.

He recalled a small memory from back then. It was an event that had taken place during their fourth year in elementary school.

There was this place that they often visited. It was a wooded area just outside the neighborhood. In retrospect, it wasn’t all that large, but to a couple of kids, it felt like the whole world. Isolated and away from the rest of society, it was the perfect place for the both of them.

Unbeknownst to them at the time, that small patch of wood actually bled into the forest located at the base of the mountain range. He could not remember how it had happened, but one day, the two got separated, and Shirley inadvertently wandered off into the forest.

Theo panicked. He ran around the forest, and frantically searched for her. Two hours passed before he finally found her.

She was sitting by a stream. Her hair was disheveled and there was mud on her skirt. She looked ugly, but she still looked far better than the him at the time. Theo had twigs and leaves sticking out of his hair. His clothes were ripped, and he had sustained quite a number of cuts and bruises from tripping one too many times. With that desperate glint in his eyes, he looked no different from a feral child raised by wolves.

Shirley was crying, crying for real. Her eyes red, her throat hoarse and her voice scratched. It was loud too. Her wailing sobs echoed through the forest. In fact, it was her crying that brought him there.

She sat by the water. He approached her shivering silhouette and gently patted her back.

“Don’t be such a crybaby.” His childhood-self comforted her, “No matter what, I found you, didn’t I?”

Shirley shook her head. He still remembered how her voice had sounded back then. Frail, weak, and cracked. “No… I was afraid that I’d never get to see you again.” She looked up at him with frightened, pleading eyes.

“What if… what if Theo gets lost in the mountains and never finds his way back? If, if you never come back, If I never see you again… I don’t know what I’d do. I get scared just thinking about it, so I cried. It was the only thing I could think of. I cried because I knew that eventually, you would hear me.”

Hearing such a response, he could only scratch his head and offer to take her back home.

Back at present day, Theo quietly reminisced. He opened his eyes and tightened his grip. He leaned his head down, and quietly whispered, “Sorry Sher, I’ve been gone for so long.”

The empty, desolate space echoed with a child’s soft sobbing.