Water and Fire (BL)

Chapter 73: Seat Plan

Eric was checking the list of students on a piece of paper pasted on the bus front when he realized that the hulking presence behind him was already gone.

His name, too, cannot be found in that list. My name was probably in bus 235, he thought. Without thinking about David first, Eric walked towards bus 235, wiggling his way against the incoming wave of students. He was barely near bus 235 when someone called him.

"Eric!"

Eric turned around and saw Charlie waving at him from afar. The small boy fought his way to Eric and with a wide smile, grabbed both of Eric's shoulders tightly and shook him wildly.

"I'm so glad you're here!" He squealed. "I thought you're not gonna attend this trip, since, you know, you haven't even said anything about it days after it was announced by our teacher. What I mean is, I'm joyous!"

Eric smirked. "You and Olivia seemed to have connected brains, huh? Both of you had the same expression when you saw me here."

The mention of the word Olivia erased the smile on Charlie's lips. "Don't mention that name in front of me, Eric."

"Are you telling me you two are having a rough road again?!"

"It's not a rough road, Eric. It's a stormy searoute!"

Eric wanted to smack his face with his own palm.

"But you're making yourself busy by joining the Newspaper Club, right? And Olivia, well, she's in Book Club. Isn't that helpful in making you distance yourselves from each other, you know, to give you time to think of other things and not be together all the time. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"That's the thing, Eric, ever since I joined the Newspaper Club, Olivia hasn't been contacting me."

"Why won't you initiate the communication then?"

Charlie pouted. "I wanted her to make the first move, not me. I'm just waiting for her, you know? Testing her, if… if she really misses me. Apparently not!"

"Just give her some more time, you know how busy Book Club members are with extracurriculars!" Eric lied. In truth, he had no idea how busy Book Club members are. For all he know, its members might have just been loitering around the hallways chatting about that cursed web book called Water and freaking Fire.

Eric, in that exact moment, vowed that someday, he'd discover who's responsible for that damned fiction and confront its perverse author. He was lost in thought that he didn't notice himself cracking his right knuckle with his left palm.