Behind the Mask

~Chapter 6~

Several days passed by haphazardly, melting one into the next, constant dance and vocal practices taking most of my time. Sensei was pressing us a bit more than usual, nervous about the debut just as much as us - if not more.

I could only find time to text the yet-to-be-named boy at night, when I would slip into bed, away from the girls' questioning looks. They all sensed I was behaving unusually, but I never told them anything about that night I cherished so much. All they could get was a fairly lame excuse about my taxi driver having been caught up in a large-scale traffic jam, that being the sole reason why I got home so late.

They didn't seem to believe me in the first place, since on Halloween, people were usually considerate enough not to travel by car, leaving the streets clear for the paraders, and Lisa, the one who always saw right through my lies, tried to push me a bit more, curious as ever about what had actually gone down. However, in spite of her extremely unsubtle attempts of making me open up and narrate the entire night's events to her, I couldn't get myself to do so, knowing all too well that if I started to talk, then I would have to tell her everything. And I wanted to keep the memory of that night to myself, selfishly enough.

Plus, I knew I would never see the end of her teasing about me being in love and all that nonsense.

Truth be told, I felt close to this boy, and conversing with him at the end of the day always helped me lose some built-up nerves, but that was as far as it got. I wouldn't even consider calling it love. It was true that we texted every other night, and that time, I would look forward to the most. In those moments, I could finally relax and chat about anything at all. No surprise if I found myself talking about what kind of noise pigs made when they 'communicated', whether it was an oink or a wink. I was team oink, of course, but after he sent me a short voice recording of himself snorting loudly through his nose, sounding as guttural as a veritable pig, I had to admit defeat and accept his variant, wondering how he managed not to bust a lung while impersonating so skillfully.

However, an unexpected reveal occurred during one of our random night talks, when he asked me what my spirit animal would be - a sloth, of course. He gasped loudly - through text, screaming - in caps, that the sloth was his spirit animal, as well.

At his exhilarated statement, an unmistakable feeling of déjà-vu rose in my mind, and I wondered if I had had that precise conversation before.
No, not if. When.

It was an years-long memory, and I couldn't associate a time or place to it, but I remembered a small-framed boy with a dark mop of hair falling into his eyes, sitting on a chair next to me and professing his love for sloths with an adoring glow to his eyes.

As I concentrated on the distant memory, trying to pinpoint who that little boy was and why we met, I heard my phone beep repeatedly in my hands, and I glanced down to see my screen full of unread messages.

?: you know, i've met a girl before with a passion for sloths

?: she's the one who taught me sloths can swim, and she reckoned they were the most adorable creatures to set foot on this planet

?: i thought she was pretty cute, herself, although i couldn't see her very clearly

?: i'd left my glasses in mom's bag and my hair kept sticking to my face

?: it was really hot that day and i was sticky and sweaty and my skin itched like crazy

?: it probably wasn't of much help that i was sitting inside a plane for the first time, either, god knows how many miles above the earth

?: somehow, the idea of flying never really appealed to me

?: so i was pretty nervous

?: scared shitless might be more accurate, actually