Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree

Six Questions

You referred to me as 'Uncle Joe's kid' for quite sometime after our so many encounters; exactly three weeks and four days by then. At first, I did not really mind because then I would not really need to bother knowing whether your name was actually 'Lali' like your mother called you, 'Priya' as your father did, or 'Lisa' like everybody at school did.

Plus I only got to talk to you occasionally at your house on Saturdays for family dinners and on Sundays for BBQs. We used to pretend like we did not know each other at school that much anyway—well, you always looked like you did not want to be seen with me—and I somehow got it, you were one of these cool kids anyway, while I was just some transfer from a little town somewhere in Atlanta. But then the phrase 'Uncle Joe's' fell off and you started calling me 'kid' instead and I felt like you just existed in my life to annoy the hell out of me by calling me so.

That was until I decided to visit the library one day after the school hour and I saw you all frustrated sitting at the corner table hidden between these piling books. It was actually a miracle to be able to spot you between all those books. Well, the murdering vibe radiating from you was actually enough to attract anybody's attention, to be honest. Whatever those books did to you. And to think that it was supposed to be your baseball practice but you were there reading a book instead did not really make sense to me.

"I thought you had practice."

I greeted you in the lowest volume possible. The book in your hand fell off and you bumped your head on a hard-covered book on your way to see where the greeting came from.

"K—Kid!"

'SHUSH!'

So much for me wanting to be subtle.

Every single person who was existing in the same space as we were that day, hissed loudly towards our direction. Well, it was only natural as you did shout in the quietest place possible.

"Y—You speak to me."

You told me in surprise like it was only on every blue moon rising from the east that I spoke to you when all we did was talking at our family occasions occasionally, that was. Although what really happened was we just shared these random one-way conversations but those were conversations nonetheless. So to your surprise, I furrowed my eyebrows.

"I—I thought you didn't wanna talk to me at school."

I just stared at you with deepened furrowed eyebrows, not getting wherever you got that idea from until you told me a story of my first day at school when you wanted to shout at me but realized you did not even know my name and not sharing any classes with me was not helping either. Then things got worse because at lunchtime I just walked away and was not even giving you a half glance at the cafeteria. To be fair, I did not see you. I was busy being self-conscious with people staring and nobody had any intentions of showing me around. So because of that, you assumed that I did not want to be seen with you because apparently, I was the transfer everybody was talking about, you claimed.  So you stuck with Kid instead and ended up not even wanting to ask anymore because you thought it was too late to ask for my name at that point.

"So... What was your name again?"

Call me sensitive or whatever but the moment you asked me that, it felt like it was the first time you finally acknowledged me. As if I was finally visible and worth enough of your time for you to finally want to learn about my name.

"Jennie Kim, Manoban."

"Lisa. Call me Lisa, Jennie."

Fine, Lisa.