Unexpected Romances

Blind Spots

"The topic we will be talking about today is about blind spots. That are, blind spots around the school that are left unmonitored by the surveillance cameras. Today, by the end of our meeting, we must vote on whether or not to bring this issue to the school's Board of Management.

The reason why we are debating this topic today has to do with a relatively little-known case of alleged sexual harassment taking place in a blind spot. A member of the Prefect Executive Board allegedly groped [a student who we will not name], a probationary prefect, right in front of the school's least-used staircase, next to the discipline office, and leading up to the classroom of 7 Gamma. The male prefect had walked over to her while she was on her prefect duty, pushed her against the wall, and attempted to grope her private parts, not before he had laid his hands on her bosom. The student, however, managed to fight back, and ended up giving the prefect a black eye, a bruised chest and face.

The perpetrator, whom we will also not name, presented his case to the Principal. He had his injuries, as well as testimonials from his fellow prefects, saying that he was at the right time and right place, to prove his innocence, before accusing [unnamed student] of attacking him unprovoked. Most of the Prefect Board sided with him, leaving her outmatched almost forty people-to-one. She too took the matter to the Principal, but since she could produce no witnesses of the event, and that the entire event occurred in a blind spot not monitored by any cameras, she could not prove anything against the perpetrator, having no evidence. She was expelled from the Prefect Board for causing harm to one of their number, and could possibly never be able to apply to become a prefect again.

Before the decision to expel her from the Prefect Board was put through however, the battle between the two parties went back and forth, often ending in literal shouting matches, until the Principal concluded that there was not enough evidence to prove [member of Prefect Executive Board] was guilty of the allegations [student who was groped] had put forth, while she would be punished for the injuries that she gave to [member of Prefect Executive Board].

In this battle, the Student Council does not wish to take sides, but after hearing what [the victim] has said, we wish to prevent these kind of unfortunate situations from happening again, in turn benefitting all members of the school. We will now proceed to debate and discuss on this topic. We would also like the members of the Student Council to take note that all details of this meeting are confidential and cannot be released to the students of the school."

Andrew, Student Council Secretary, resumed his place at the Student Council Committee Table, but not before he glanced suspiciously at his classmate, Chen Ai, who was sitting down on her chair in the Ordinary Student Council Members' Group with an oddly vacant look on her face. And then it hit him- she has this specific expression when she is in either one of the following two circumstances: the first one being when she stares at her crush (if she happens to have one). She had shown such a face upon seeing both her crushes (obviously at different times of the year), the first one, who cruelly rejected her and her birthday cake from the other side of the canteen and the second one, a prefect who was in our Foreign Language Class that already had a girlfriend and was due to move to Austria in March.

The other such circumstance is when she is in a state of contemplation of just about anything- from deciding on what answer to put down for a test question, to reflecting on all the life choices she had made. Andrew, not being one of the people in class who scream "SHIP!" or "UNEXPECTED ROMANCE!" when a boy is in close proximity to, or making conversation with a girl, or vice versa, decided she was contemplating about the latter, and he thought no more of it.

While Andrew was walking back to class after the meeting with his best friend in Student Council, Jonathan, Chen Ai literally took the road less travelled and went where almost nobody goes- the corridor leading down to the least used staircase in the entire school. It was three in the afternoon, and everyone was in their classes, studying, making the already somewhat dead and deserted stretch of hallway even more dead and deserted.

In a sense, Andrew was close to being right about his assumptions; Chen Ai was not looking at, or thinking about someone she liked- she instead started to reminiscence about the day of the incident. The day on which her modesty was violated, and the events that ensued, which led to her expulsion from the Prefects'. The events were still a blur in her head- they were traumatising enough, with her sudden termination of her services as a probationary prefect due to something that she never actually did (okay, she did beat him up, but that was in self-defence, we must remember), and that the high-ranking prefect had groped her, and then tried to threaten some other prefects into giving evidence against Chen Ai.

But then again, what else could she have done? The first thing you would do would definitely be to go and see a teacher or someone of authority- it would be quite silly to let someone to go as far as trying to lay his hands on your chest get away with it scot-free. It definitely would have been much easier to solve the whole thing with a witness present to defend Chen Ai. But with such a tarnished recollection, she couldn't pinpoint any person that might have seen her and the prefect in that place. That was only until she stopped walking at the very place the incident took place; when she felt a little flicker of a memory in her head.

There was someone, though.

A boy, in her year.

He might be from her class.

She was quite close to knowing who it was,

but she just couldn't tell who.

She was, however, certain about one thing;

that she would like him very much.

If she knew who to meet.