Labyrinth | ✓

s i x t h ♂

Strangers.

Strangers weren't supposed to be inducing a past memory. To put it roughly, they were those unknown people we barely knew, not even their names. Their faces should be foreign, those that we never come across to. They commonly roamed on either the streets, public properties, as well as my school.

Regardless, the boy that I had bumped into at the bus station was no stranger.

A strong pull of knowing him formed, but even so, I have yet to recognize who he truly was. His overall appearance, his voice and the way he smiled had triggered vague clues inside of me.

Actually, I had gotten the answer.

Seems to me that he's so similar to Raphael... For some reason, I doubted the conclusion. I attempted to contemplate further, but to no avail.

Walking back home, I tried shrugging the feeling off. With the music still blaring against my ears, I kicked a small pebble into an opened manhole, and exhaled loudly. That boy was probably a stranger who coincidentally possessed familiar features that Raphael had.

After all, Raphael was my old childhood friend that I hadn't seen for a couple of years. I could still make out some quirks of his appearance, but it wasn't as clear as I expected.

I used to interact with countless friends back then, so I considered myself normal when I don't remember their individual faces well. It was also those days where I naively thought all of us will always be together.

In middle school, most of them had completely dispersed apart. Each had entered different schools, either public, private or homeschooled. Some moved out of town or New Jersey, never to be seen again.

The same case also happened with Raphael, although I remembered that he had transferred out way more earlier than others.

Now that I had arrived back home, it's my job to figure out if it was really him.

"Woof!"

Opening the door of my house, I was immediately ambushed by Myla, who was already waiting in the hallway.

She welcomed me with open arms by jumping straight to me. At her action, I almost lost my composure, in spite of her smaller physique. She then tried standing up on her hind legs, comfortably pawing on my thighs and licking on my fingers. I squatted down and gingerly petted her furs, to which she relished it.

I knew that she was going to do this, as I can hear her loud noises from outside. After all, every time I got home from somewhere else, she would get all excited and would always hop around me.

"You home, Ed?"

I snapped my head towards Lu, my sister, who appeared from the living room. Unlike this morning, she was now dressed modestly, her red hair was no longer a ball of tangled yarn. She briefly smiled at Myla, before turning to me.

"What do you think?" I murmured, under my breath. Embracing the animal within my arms, I stood back up and faced her. Beforehand, I turned off my music, before removing my earphones and shoved them into my hoodie pocket.

"Geez, you don't need to be so cold." Lu chuckled. "How 'bout snacking on some bread to warm yourself up?"

I looked over to her offering hand, seeing that she was carrying a green goodie bag. Inspecting closer, I noticed a lot of pastries. At the sight, I was instantly tantalized by the strong aroma, indicating that they were fresh from the oven. This caused me to cast away almost everything that I had in mind.

"I was so lucky, dude." Lu added. "When I got to the bakery, Mr. and Mrs. Carrington were baking more bread, so I told them to get us the new ones!