To Put On An Act [bxb]

Chapter 24 - artificial strawberry

It was cold. It had been cold since Monday, and had rained since Sunday. This wasn't a special thing, it was October after all, but this Tuesday was noticeably cold. Monday had been a bit colder, actually, and the memory of Sunday was anything but cold, but Youngbin had decided to just not have any memory of Sunday.

So, it was cold. It was grey and it had rained, just a drizzle, but pretty uncomfortable regardless. Youngbin had analysed the weather for half an hour as his old English teacher at the front of the classroom had talked about things. Who knew about what she had talked about- Well, most students, probably, at least the students that made an effort to listen. So, never mind then, nobody knew what she was talking about.

The Tuesday afternoon English class with Misses Wright-Walker had never been a favourite for Youngbin, but they'd never before felt this awful, this drawn out. So uninviting to listen and partake in class, though the old teacher barely even cared about anyone partaking in the first place.

To be fair, everything had been slow lately. And a lot too fast at the same time. Everything was drawn out and had left a strange pressure, an anxiety in Youngbin's chest, like something was going to happen, something was slowly approaching. Nothing was, as far as he knew. But he was running out of time regardless.

Whatever was approaching slowly, it was also speeding into his direction at the same time. It was coming closer with every second, and Youngbin simply didn't have the time to prepare. Because he was stuck here in class, staring out the window.

The grey sky had become boring, so he glanced around the classroom. Attendance had always been low, but now that the seat next to Youngbin was empty, it seemed as though the classroom was nearly completely abandoned.

Kaya didn't come today, mostly because she was sick, but also, more importantly, because today was supposed to be the biology presentation that the two had barely prepared anything for. He'd gotten away with the presentation today, but that trick only ever worked once.

Aside from Kaya, who else was missing today?

The boy that usually sat at the front, with the black curly hair. He was pretty cute, and Youngbin had stared at him before- until he bumped into him one day, and Youngbin had never dared to look at him again.

The girl that played Juliet in the last play, Wanda, usually sat behind Youngbin in class. She wasn't here today, Youngbin could tell because usually she was the one to participate in class the most. Without her, it was slow, and dead silent.

Well, not just because Wanda was missing. Someone else hadn't shown up either. At the very back of the class, someone quite chatty was often seated. Sometimes, maybe, instead of often. In fact, she'd been missing from class a lot since a few months ago. Maybe she'd been subjected to some bad influences.

English class with Misses Wright-Walker was one of the few classes Youngbin shared with Leia Zhang, and one of the few instances he was actually aware of her. Of course, he'd heard of her, a lot, because Kaya collected gossip about the cool kids like she was trying to recreate the burn book.

Leia missed class a lot, particularly this one, but she didn't seem to skip every class she had, at least Youngbin was seeing her around school a lot. But she hadn't been around at all, since maybe Thursday or Friday. And she hadn't been at the party on Saturday either, though Youngbin had just kind of assumed that she was somewhere else, somewhere Alex wasn't.

The disappearance of Leia Zhang shouldn't have really mattered to him, and honestly, it didn't, and yet he couldn't help but wonder where she was. At home, probably. Maybe she was sick. The chances were high. Or maybe she'd moved to a brand new city to finally get rid of the menace that was Youngbin and Alex, without a word. Well, even if it was without a word indeed, Kaya would've found out about it still, and told Youngbin.