Love Fiction

Chapter 10

            “What do you mean, we seem to have identities in this world?” Christopher questioned with a disbelieving look.

            Quinn, Jim, and Christopher, who was now borrowing one of Mr. Tadao’s shirts and a pair of his pants, were sitting on Hiro’s bed while Prince Arion sat in the desk chair. As I sat up straight in Hiro’s armchair, Hiro was on his piano bench with his elbow resting on the keys and his chin resting on his hand, looking grumpy. I felt like a soldier giving a bad report to my generals.

            “Well… Like, Christopher,” I said, looking up at him timidly. “You’re my childhood friend, apparently.” My eyes went to Quinn. “And Quinn, you’re a friend whom I’ve known since freshman year, and you’re going to be a junior this year.” And then Jim. “And Jim is the son of our neighbor who is constantly in need of a job. He dropped out of college for some reason.” At that, he cringed, probably because in the novel, Jim was a pretty smart guy in college who was planning to do great things.

            Lastly, Prince Arion’s eyes found mine. The clear blue enchanted me once again. “U-um, Prince Arion, I was actually pretty surprised about yours.”

            “And not about mine? Dropping out of college and in need of a job all the time, for Christ’s sake…” Jim muttered.

            I coughed. “Um, Prince Arion, this fall, you’re going to be our school’s new Student Counselor.”

            All of the boys, Hiro included, stared at me, not knowing how to react. Of course, everyone had the same question, which hung in the air, unspoken: how? As the famous saying goes, “What sorcery is this?!” I wish I knew. But if I really knew the wizard who cast this spell on us, would I break his magic wand? If this was all a dream, would I really want to wake up from it? Meeting these people is an unreal experience already, a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Do I want to take that chance away? I sat in a daze, gazing at these four men longingly.

            “Clara, did you hear me?”

            Snapping my head in Hiro’s direction, I gave a dreamy “huh?”

            Hiro exhaled sharply. “Well, I guess it’s not only your family who knows these guys. My uncle knows them, too. It’s like they’ve always been in our world, but this morning is definitely the first time we’ve seen them.”

            “That’s not all,” I said quietly. My hands grabbed my small backpack, a light green bag with a few hanging key chains. Rummaging through the backpack, I pulled out my four precious books, though you wouldn’t know they were the books from last night.

            “Huh? Books?” Quinn said.

            One by one, I held a book up to their view. “Look. The covers are blank. Pure white.” As soon as I was done showing those off, I put down the last book and picked up a medium sized paperback. Just by the weight, I could tell which one this would have been. I paged through and read aloud,

            “Jimmy was a sick bastard,” said Syd. “Blank, you need to throw that thing out.”

Looking up at Jim, I met his concerned, puzzled eyes. “Jim, after some descriptions and words, there’s a part that should be your dialogue, but it only has quotations around where the words would be. There are only blank spaces. No dialogue at all. And I said ‘blank,’ right? That’s where your name should be. It’s like that in the rest of book. Your name isn’t mentioned at all in the whole book.” My eyes scanned the whole room, making contact with everyone. “And it’s like that with everyone else.