Sae arrived home well after one in the morning. The house was still and quiet; his mum had not come home yet.
Sae first took a shower then dove into bed without drying his hair. He only closed his eyes, and his alarm already went off in the morning. Sleeping only a handful of hours with a full stomach really made the mind feel hazy. Opening his eyes, he didn’t even know what day it was. In the pale sunlight of morning, last night’s events seemed like a dream.
After a few minutes, Sae dragged himself out of bed. Today, he had exams to take.
Although his mum had made it home later than him, she still prepared a feast for breakfast.
Sae looked over the table full of dishes. “Mum, I can’t eat all this.” He took his mug and drank all of it, but his hand slipped while putting it down. The remaining contents of the mug spilt onto the table.
Sae’s mum pinched Sae’s sleeve as he mopped the tiny puddle with a napkin. “Are you still sleepy? How late did you recite formulas and whatnot last night?”
Sae threw the sopping napkin away. “Not too late.”
“Sit down and eat first.” His mum led him back to the table. “You have to eat, or your blood sugar will drop.”
Since his mum insisted on giving him and Emi a ride to school, Sae arrived earlier than the bus he usually took. In school, he tried to look out for a certain person, but still didn’t see him all morning.
High school was different from junior high. When it was exam time, students didn’t sneak over to other classes. Everyone knew to stay in their designated room for the day.
Before the first exam, Sae sent a message to Susu asking if Deil had come to school. The girl provided an answer in a few seconds, replying with a simple and efficient no.
That answer was straightforward but carried a bit of ambiguous air in Sae’s mind. It urged him to go to the person in question and inquire about things he wanted to know if he felt so bothered. Unfortunately, there was no time to do anything like that. The invigilator had stepped into the classroom, collecting everyone’s phones in a bag.
Sae had a rare talent – his brain flipped a coin every time it got put to serious use. He could concentrate entirely on the test paper before him without a wandering thought. He answered question after question, completely in the zone.
Likewise, the minute he finished the last question, he sealed it all off, not pondering about it until correction time. While his classmates whined and looked up the answers during breaks, Sae never opened his notes. He did not ask others how they did on the test, nor did he chat about its difficulty level.
“How did you do?” Teo threw out the question of the hour with a flippant attitude, turning back with half his body to face his friends.
Since it was exam time, the desks in the classroom got pulled away. Everyone had to sit alone.
“Good,” Sae wasn’t being arrogant; what he said was the truth. Out of the other two, no one took it personally.
“I have a feeling I did okay,” Kaikai also admitted.
Teo winked. “I don’t think I’ll fluke this time.”
“Did you choose ‘B’ on the multiple choice questions?” Sae asked.
“Yes.” Teo took a pen and wrote the letter B on the cover of Sae’s notebook. “Just like you said, I chose ‘B’ every time I didn’t know how to solve a question.”
Sae nodded. “There were many Bs this time around as well.” He took the pen Teo handed him and put his stuff away.
Kaikai sighed. “Ah, it’s finally over, but I still can’t wind down.”
Sae glanced at him. “Extra lessons?”
“Mnm,” Kaikai nodded. “The tests may be over but I still have to attend review sessions.”
“Today as well?!” Teo seemed at a loss for words. “Damn, and I thought I had it bad.”
“Why?” Sae asked.
Teo scratched his cheek. “Mum asked me to help out at the restaurant today.”
Sae hummed in agreement. “And?”
“And I wanted us to hang out somewhere, but now I can’t make it.” Teo pointed at Kaikai, “It doesn't matter since Kai also has something.”
“So we’ll just go our separate ways?” Sae put everything into his bag and left the bag on his table.
Kaikai took a mint from his pocket and threw it into his mouth. “We could meet at your mum’s restaurant after my class?”
“Yeah, and be observed by my mum every minute we spend there.” Teo shook his head. “It’s okay. Let’s just grab something quick before your lesson.”
They agreed to make a detour at a cafe and grab a bite right when Yidan returned from the teacher’s office. The class pres put the bag containing their phones on the teacher’s desk, “Everyone, come and get your phones!”
The class scrambled to have their phones returned to them.
On the way home from the cafe, Sae wrote to Deil, asking how the other was doing. Before sending the message, though, he retracted it.
Sae typed out a message and retracted it for the second time.
After staring at the screen for a while, he stopped typing the same thing for the third time and moved to lock his phone. Exactly at that moment, the screen lit up with a new notification.
Sae tapped into the messaging app.
They said it’s only this bad because of the godly body I’ve got. Otherwise I’d be in trouble. Deil sent a picture of his X-ray scan. It was of his leg, more precisely, his ankle.
Sae looked at the picture and didn’t know if he should see anything wrong with it. In a few seconds, another message came in.
I couldn’t go to school because my dad freaked out, driving me to the emergency room in the morning. Heh, I’m all bandaged up, waiting for a boot. Why do I need a boot?
What did they say? Sae asked. After a moment, he added, Why ‘in the morning’?
Deil replied, ...He only discovered it in the morning.
Sae: ???
Last night, Sae didn’t take Deil to the door of his house. Initially, he wanted to escort the boy all the way home, but Deil said there was no need.
They stopped at the entrance of the apartment complex, and Deil kept on insisting that he could go alone. And so, Sae dropped him off at the lift.
When the doors opened, Deil turned and pushed Sae back with a hand on his chest. “Off you go,” he said as if he was the one letting Sae off.
“Will you manage alone?” Sae asked.
“It’s okay. I’m already here.” Deil waved goodbye.
Now, what he wrote was that his father only discovered his condition in the morning. Sae thought that he really should have taken Deil to the front door.
The boy sent another message: I didn’t tell him when I got home. Why would I wake him in the middle of the night?
It was funny how a dozen hours ago Deil had clung to the idea of going to the clinic right away. And yet, today he played it off as no big deal, like it was no reason to wake his father in the middle of the night.
What did they say? Sae repeated his question.
Grade two sprain, Deil wrote, That’s why I can’t go to school today. I have to ice it and whatnot. I’m not allowed to move around, but it can be better for Game Day.
…That’s only two days away, okay?
Sae wrote Got it. He wasn’t sure what more to say. He wasn’t someone who chatted for a long time. It was their first time talking like this too.
Sae exited the one-on-one chat and looked over the other’s profile. Deil’s picture was only a shadow of a hand, his nickname Bang. There weren’t any profile updates, nor a theme or background picture.
Tapping into the profile picture so that it popped up to fill the screen, Sae became sure that the hand was Deil’s. He felt a bit disappointed. Somehow, he expected a more elaborate SNS profile from someone as extreme as Shum Deil.
The second day of exams was hardly as prominent as the first, so most kids quickly got over it. What they had in front of their eyes wasn’t their results but the upcoming Game Day.
“Let me tell you, no matter how we score in the tests, we’ll win every race in the next two days,” a slacker classmate declared with triumph in advance.
“I wouldn’t be so hasty.” The class pres was onto the boy’s case in a matter of seconds. He poked the notebooks scattered on the table. “Do you think we’re the only class out there; that winning is so easy for you? Did you forget how to count after getting hit by so many questions? Let’s wait and see what our teach says first.”
The unassuming classmate who got attacked by facts: “...”
The class pres was right. Pan Rita made her way to the humanities class before any other teacher could. “Everyone quiet down! I want to chat with you before tomorrow’s mayhem unleashes.”
A few of the students giggled at their teacher’s phrasing. Hearing that, the corners of the woman’s mouth also threatened to lift. “You think I’m exaggerating? Just let me catch you tomorrow, you brats!” She tried to remain stern but cracked a smile in the end. “Okay, okay. Listen up! I’ve leafed through your exams and can tell your English scores won’t be the problem.”
The class collectively let out a breath.
“Not so fast, though. Just now, in the office, a few of the subject teachers were rather fired up,” Pan Rita looked over the class, “I decided to brave it out and prodded a few of them.”
The easy atmosphere instantly vanished. The class turned anxious with the mention of fired-up subject teachers. They murmured among themselves and looked at the teacher, blinking nonstop.
“Mathematics...” Pan Rita sighed. “Alright, I know this is a humanities class. But honestly, this won’t do. Your average is almost at the bottom of the whole year. It wasn’t this bleak during the first semester. A few students bringing up the average with their grades isn’t enough now. That can hardly carry the others mucking around. Also...”
“Bet she’s talking about Linda,” Teo stage-whispered to Minke, rocking his chair back so that it bumped into Sae and Kaikai’s desk. He shot a glance at them. “And you two.”
“And what about me!?” Minke asked.
“Oh,” Teo pretended to be surprised. “Didn’t you say your tests were only so-so?”
“Bede Teo,” Minke turned to face him. “At least I read all the questions, not just blindly scribbled my answer sheet full of formulas. Writing down the right one in a dozen by dumb luck won’t bring you as many points as solving the actual question would.”
Teo, with a blush creeping up his neck, immediately shut up.
“Hehe, she’s picking on you,” Kaikai whispered with schadenfreude.
“Shut up,” Teo pressed the words from the space between his gritted teeth.
At this time, Sae pushed his phone into the basket of his desk. He had been spammed by the bored to death stuck-at-home patient until now.
It all started with Deil bombarding him with messages about a series he had binge-watched since yesterday evening. Classes didn’t even start, and the other had already sent Sae up the wall.
Why are you even awake right now? It’s only 7-something, Sae wrote when he got enough of the phone’s non-stop buzzing.
Yesterday, he changed Deil’s name from Bang to Shum Deil, but that seemed too formal. So, he changed it to Deil, but that seemed too close. In the end, Sae deleted everything and left it as it was.
The name at the top of the chat stated: Bang.
Bang: It’s not that I woke up early. I haven’t even slept yet
hhhsae: …
hhhsae: Then why write to me? Go and sleep
Bang: Wait, I’m negotiating with the class pres.
In the classroom, Pan Rita was still speaking. Sae didn’t check his phone but pushed it deep into the desk’s compartment.
Pan Rita was a soft person. No matter how much she wanted to lecture the kids, she only passed over the issues briefly. The sternness in her voice melted, words coming out only as heartfelt warnings, if anything.
Since a few minutes had passed without an answer from Sae, Deil sent another message. The phone buzzed in the desk compartment. Kaikai glanced over, but Sae didn’t react.
As Pan Rita finished saying her piece, she packed her things and left before the first bell rang. The phone in Sae’s desk vibrated a few times, lost in the classroom’s din. Their first class for the day was literature, taught by a respectable-looking teacher. It wasn’t a risky subject to begin with, and their class had always done well in it.
Like in most lessons after exams, the teacher covered the test paper. Some of the teachers were already done with grading; some merely took peeks so they had an idea about how the classes did on the exam.
Sae fished the phone out of the desk compartment, checking his messages while the literature teacher wrote on the board.
Bang: Since my leg’s busted, I’m trying to work out this sports day business
Bang: The initial programs I wanted to be part of have to change
Bang: There are only like two that don’t need the usage of one’s legs…
Bang: The class pres says it’s not easy to change it last minute
Bang: Shit that’s not even true. I’m notifying them in advance
hhhsae: ???
hhhsae: Didn’t you say you can’t move?
Bang: Ah, I thought you’d leave me hanging for eternity
hhhsae: How will you come to school?
Bang: I’ll take care of it
Bang: If not, are you offering to take me on the back of your bike?
hhhsae: ಠ_ಠ
hhhsae: Shouldn’t you limit your movement and not strain your ankle?
Bang: I won’t strain it. A little hopping won’t hurt anyone
hhhsae: That’s hardly plausible
Bang: hehe I still want to be there, only if it’s watching you all
Sae never felt the need to be zealous during school events, yet he participated in each and every one of them. Sometimes it was Teo pulling his arm. Sometimes it was Kaikai kicking his butt or Emi jumping around until he caved in and everyone spilt into the heart of the crowd, mingling like fishes in a pond. Even when he broke his arm, Sae went to watch the basketball matches of his class, cheering them on.
Watching you all was what Deil wrote when they had talked in the morning. That was two hours ago. Now Sae stared at that last message displayed on the screen. He could understand where the sentiment came from. Being part of their first sports day meet in high school was an event they could only experience once, not that it made Sae feel anything special. But getting left out because of an injury sucked.
“Sae,” Kaikai bumped him with an elbow, “What are you doing? Teach is in.” He pointed to the front of the class with a curled forefinger.
Bang!
A stack of test papers clashed with the teacher’s desk, making several classmates flinch or, in extreme cases, jump.
“What a beautiful day!” the Math teacher said, “Can anyone tell me why I feel like you’re all here only to infuriate me?”
Even without Kaikai’s input, it was impossible to miss the Math teacher’s entrance.
“You like to play, huh? Anticipating tomorrow, I see.” The short man’s temper reared its head seeing the distracted students. “I don’t know what’s worse, looking at you or looking at these test papers...”
And so, the time for repentance in the humanities class began.
