+ + +

"Lately it's been feeling like the world is ending," the endless ramble continued.

Kiu buried his head in his arms at the lunch table. His head was still throbbing and his sinus ached. Overall, he felt miserable and stuffy. Frankly, he did not want to be at school right now.

"Right, Connie. Right." His voice was semi-sarcastic and tired.

"Like you know that paromyxovirus virus outbreak in India? Magnitude 9.8 earthquakes in Australia? Just last week, a helicopter carrying that celebrity singer crashed, and there are huge locust swarms all over the Great Plains. It's election season, and the incumbent president of the European Commission is in the middle of an impeachment trial."

"Right."

"Also my grandma-in-law died. Wait, is that the right term? The grandma of your cousin? My mom thinks it was the paromyxovirus, although there's not supposed to be any reported cases in Nepal. My dad isn't letting my mom go to the funeral because he thinks they'll lock down the airports. It would be super bad if we got stuck in Nepal."

"I'm sorry." 

"Also, Kevin and Grace broke up. It was pretty dramatic. Apparently that guy has been taking extremely questionable lewd pictures of Grace while she was sleeping ever since they started going out ⁠— and has gigabytes of her nudes stored on his computer. Grace only just found out when he accidentally left his Google drive account signed in on her computer. She said she wanted to throw up, and they're pretty much not talking anymore."

"Mhm."

"Like it's actually seriously bad. Grace is cutting again and she's in one of those 'the world hates me' emo moods. She won't respond to anybody. I'm not sure how to approach her because she's really ready to burn bridges with anyone, and it feels like she'll completely detonate on me."

"Ugh."

"Also, Comic-Con is in two weeks, and I'm screwed. The composer that I found bailed on me. There won't be any sound, and I don't think I'll be able to finish my animation short, which sucks horribly because I paid $500 bucks for a table! I borrowed money from my dad and I'm soooo dead. This is horrible! Like seriously, the end of the world! I'm not going to have money to eat anything other than ramen for the rest of the year!"

"Connie, you live with your parents. You're not going to starve. And if anything, you're supposed to be cutting down on ramen you eat on weekends anyways."

Kiu's exhausted remark was muffled behind a cold sniffle as he reached for a napkin.

"It's a manner of speech." The brown-skinned high school girl was indignant and upset.

"Right..."

"Also Kiu, you shouldn't come to school if you're sick."

The girl placed a hand on her hip and glared, a somewhat disagreeable frown on her face.

Kiu sighed once more.

+ + +

"I can't take any more absences." His explanation was short.

Connie Rivera plonked her lunch tray onto the table with a reckless amount of force. It resulted in a metallic clatter as silverware bounced around from the rough landing. She was completely unfazed by the noise, and she sat down at the seat adjacent to Kiu's. The girl immediately picked up her fork and began digging into her food.

"What? Going to school twice a week isn't enough? Who cares if you miss one or two more days?" She spoke with her mouth half full.

"It's the deal that was arranged in the beginning — 72 days in attendance, and they'll count it as full class credit."

"A shitty deal. You should have never taken it."

Kiu exhaled and pushed himself up from his elbows to look at the teenager who was sitting next to him. She seemed content to focus on eating her food, and it was rather difficult to read what she was thinking. Kiu wasn't even sure if she was being sarcastic. Despite the fact that Connie was a near-constant blabber mouth, her train of thought was extremely unpredictable and "weird". Normal people tended to avoid her, and she somewhat had a reputation for being "obnoxious" and possibly slightly "abrasive" for various reasons that are better left to discuss another day. 

As was usual, the rest of this table was empty.

Kiu had too many absences to develop a close knit friend group, and Connie was just an obnoxious weird girl that flitted unpredictably from one table to another from day to day. She generally struggled to make friends.

+ + +

"Kiu, it's good to see you again."

Those words randomly came out of the blue.

Her tone of voice was uncharacteristically sincere, and she poked at a few purple grapes with her fork, although the spherical shapes rolled away from the edge of her utensil.

"What do you mean?" Kiu furrowed his brow slightly and asked.

"It's been a while," Connie answered. "It just feels like you haven't been around in ages."

She continued to stab at the fruit on her plate.

The girl actually seemed to be acting nice, for once.

"...Right."

"You were beginning to make me think you were going to pull one of those crazy stunts where you're allowed to skip the rest of the school year for some fancy complicated loophole reason, graduate in December, start a company for the third time, get featured in Time magazine, win the lottery, and then run off and disappear forever without even telling us... again."

The tone of her voice rapidly turned sour on the turn of a dime. A perfectly sunny day suddenly developed cumulonimbus storm clouds, and suddenly Kiu felt an intense shiver run through his spine. He had a bad premonition that electricity was in the air.

"Freshman year was an exception. That one counted as studying abroad in a last-minute exchange program. It was a rare opportunity..." Kiu muttered under his breath.

"Grace still hates you for that, you know." The brown-skinned girl shrugged.  "You could have at least told us."

Her attitude was still casual.

"I didn't know it mattered to you so much."

Connie's eyes narrowed.

"You know you're a fucking asshole, do you, Kiu?"

And there it was.

The infamous bombshell of profanities.

Kiu was unfazed by the sudden burst of loathing, because if anything because he was well-accustomed to it.

"Well, apparently so, as you've told me at least a dozen times before," Kiu responded, coughing for a short bout.

"And Grace is the bipolar class slut who can't go two weeks without fucking somebody, I'm apparently the unlikable angry brooding bitch with a screw loose in my head, and you're obviously the autistic entitled rich brat who has every single teacher in the school paid off so you don't ever have to go to class."

"You're quite harsh on yourself."

"Don't you ever wonder what the fuck went wrong? We used to be kids. We used to be friends. We all liked each other back then. Once upon a time, we weren't this broken. What the hell happened??"

Personally, Kiu thought that they were all still kids. Technically, they were all still under age 18.

"You still always eat lunch with me," Kiu pointed out. "I'm not the one seeking you out every day."

"I fucking hate you."

"The feeling is mutual."

"I'm also worried about Grace."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"You should talk to her. She won't talk to me. She hates me right now. I think she would kill me if she could. She tried to light my backpack on fire a few weeks ago."

"That's reassuring."

"Yeah, I know."

"You're still an asshole though."

"I know that part too."

"This is just so fucked up."

+ + +

Connie Rivera suddenly stood straight up, crushing an empty milk carton in her hands. She had finished eating her lunch.

"Okay, we're done with each other," she spoke abruptly. The girl appeared weirdly content with herself. "See you tomorrow." 

"We have class later," Kiu said miserably, rubbing his throbbing temples again.

"I'm not talking to you," Connie answered cheerfully.

"Great news. I feel wonderful. I can feel my cold improving already."

"Ew. Stay away from me."

She efficiently extricated herself from her seat while balancing her lunch tray with her left hand.

However, she hesitated for a moment, and paused in her steps.

She craned her head around to look at Kiu.

He still looked miserable and sick, half alive on the lunch table.

"By the way—" she started. "Who are you taking to the Winter Prom?"

Kiu blinked for a second.

He clearly wasn't expecting the question. For that matter, it hadn't even crossed his mind to think about the annual occasions that were a ritualistic part of the high school experience. Since he was a senior this year, it made sense that Senior Prom was on the agenda of a typical teen's calendar.

The black-haired teenager was silent for a few wordless moments.

"I'm not going." His response was slow and carefully worded. "I'm busy. Schedule conflict."

"Kiu, you're a fucking liar. The date for prom isn't even set yet."

"So it seems."

"Lying is bad for you. Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying. If there isn't a schedule conflict, I'll just make one. No biggie."

"Fuck you."

"Why the sudden interest in prom, Connie? Are you going?"

"Hell no! Fuck no! No! It's an antiquated shitty tradition about damsels in distress, the cult of domesticity, and plastic fake smiles. Everybody knows that fairy tales aren't real. Burn those stupid stories to ashes, dammit. They're contagious and sickening. I hate them so much!"

"Good to know."

Kiu sneezed.

"I'll never wear a dress as long as I live! It disgusts me!

"That one, I already knew from the beginning. You didn't have to remind me," Kiu said.

"Fuck you."

 

∎