Men in black

(Rhea)

As I sat in the hall of the party auditorium, I couldn't concentrate on the performance going on on the stage for the freshmen. To liberate my mind from the lingering thought, as usual, my feet were twiddling on their own. 

I forgot to blink, where I'm staring, and that I'm breathing, which I hate because he is inside my head, consuming my energy.

It's too quick, isn't it?

The way he called me, took pictures, and winked. Or is it my fault to step into his zone? Maybe he's always like that. Though it feels like I hate it and it is, he doesn't seem the way everyone sees him. He's not dangerous; he's just acting that way.

He's not around, but his voice echoes inside my bones and gives me chills. I don't want to recall, but I am grateful that I didn't give my phone number, nor did he ask for mine, which was frustrating.

God, what am I thinking?

"Oi, I need your number!"

Ah, it's coming again.

----------

[Flashcut]

I looked at his side with an ajar mouth. What a mother-fryer is he?

It's not at all like he's asking whether I could give him my number or not. He was demanding that I give it. He needs it than want it.

"Isn't that enough for you to take pictures of me?" It was my tiny voice which thundered back at the shameless guy.

What happened next just burned my mood to the fullest. "Not you, darling. Laila, I need your number."

WHAT A GORILLA!

I didn't notice when Laila walked past me and gave, what he asked with no ounce of thought. I turned away and walked off. Mario, who was standing behind me, pushed me, wishing he was the white-shirt guy.

----------

[Reality]

The place I reached after I began walking was the auditorium. Right here. The reason for my frustration resides primarily with Laila.

What was that?

I stopped thinking when someone sat next to me.

-^-^-^-

(Laila)

"Hey!", said I sat next to my cousin.

Rhea didn't look at me, nor did she say anything. What's wrong with her?

"Rhea, I didn't mean to-" 

She cuts me off, which I hate the most.

"Do not speak. You think I'm a fool to stand there like a third wheel?"

Third what?

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Who's that guy?" Rhea shouts at me, and almost five members look at us.

"It's not like I'm going to never say it." I placed my hand over hers to shut her up.

"Why are you murmuring?" she asks, crunching her nose.

She's absolutely doing this on purpose.

"Because you're shouting!"

"Am I shou-" she turned to her alternate personality.

"Come with me, now!" I smiled cheekily to everyone who pinned us with their stare, pulled Rhea's hand, and barged into a washroom where it was silent and best to shout at her.

"Tell me what's on your mind?" I tried to have a conversation.

"I asked you to wait for me when I entered the restroom, but you...", she accuses me without a break then.

"Will you let me speak?" I pleaded with my cousin to stop the nonsense. She rolled her eyes for a while, as if she wasn't ready for it, but nodded, "Hmm!"

"Thank you, madam." I paused before I narrated what happened and what she misunderstood like a child.

Her mouth goes an 'O', when I say he's the don, Mario was talking about. 

"I presumed it was your boyfriend!" she flaps her lashes. Shit!! Really?

Even though it sounds good, how does the Burj Kalifa ever match a ruler?

"That's better than his friend, Driver, flirting with me!" I told the truth to her, and she laughed like a crazy doughnut, "Hahaha...".

"Why don't you just..." My angry face couldn't pretend anymore than cracking with her. That was crazy, actually, the black spider.

"You mean the hoodie guy?" she said, controlling the laughter so tightly.

"Yeh, ah!" He was nice at first, but I will never forgive him for what he did next.

Her face was beaming with disgust. "Is his name, Driver?" she resumed her laughing business.

She needs to cool down.

"Think so. It's kind of weird, right? Whatever." I turned to the washbasin and looked at Rhea in the mirror.

"The driver was mentally disturbed; that's why he forgot his name." She talks like his doctor!

What a point! It makes me believe it because his pickup lines were terrible!

"How do you know that?", I was kinda want to know that.

"He told me the direction, and the rest of the conversation was chewy." Rhea places her hand on her head and asks, "Do you mean the mindless guy hit on you?"

I grin at her and continue the rest of the tale: "Let's talk about him later, but first you must know one thing. Marcus was just making the problem look tinier, and we just shook hands to end it there and then."

"The one who took my... pictures?" Rhea leans to the slab further.

"Yes, he's Marcus." I noticed her face looked thoughtful.

"How sure are you?", she demands me as if I am lying to her!

"You better ask him, nah!"

Why is she interested in it so much?

She pushes off the air with her hand. "Tell me something that I didn't see." Diverting it now.

"Fine..." said I sighingly, dwelling on the cringes I went through.

----------

[Flash cut]

"Why do I do this with some stranger?" I tell the tallest guy without shaking his hands, and he puts it down, offended. 

"Don't do it then," he says, taking one step back and smiling. "And keep it in your skull that you won't sit like this forever if we don't close this now. "

I could not decode a single letter he's talking. I know why... I am hungry and I feel bad to push that water can.

"Do you have any backups?" I unhesitatingly let him know. His gaze dug a deeper hole in my face, but I clarified, "I need some rose milk."

I see a wave of blue tide crash the cliff in his face. "Why do I do this with the stupidest girl?" he asks coldly, acting like he lost something.

Suddenly a voice defends me: "Did I hear the stupidest girl accidentally, Marcus?" 

Driver steps forward with a plastic chair in his left hand. Oh, chair fight! Go on!

"I am just talking with her, Trev. Step aside", the tall guy says to stay safe.

"It didn't seem like it. She just asked for fucking rose milk, which I can buy a ton for her. There's nothing stupid I can find in it!" Driver moves his hands like an octopus giving a lecture.

Are they talking about me?

"If you're so in love with this senorita, just go grab her the juice. Get lost!" he screams at his friend, who was cutting off the serious conversation.

"It's not juice. It's rose milk, genius, and I am going to fetch it," he said, throwing a bomb at the tallest guy's face and walking away, winking at me. 

Argh. I need the rose milk so badly.

I flip to the guy in front of me when I heard him, "Shall we talk now, miss?" 

The tallest guy looked at me with a relieved look, and I nodded.

"Where was I?" he cutely asks.

"If we don't close this now ..." I lift the point he was struggling.

"Yup. The matter is, you are creating so much mess in Mario's life and my friend's heart. One hates you till his life and other says he likes you like he never did. Which is why both of them are testing my patience from the second you fell inside their sight. And what's the result? I end up a migraine." 

He pulls another chair and sits on it, resting his chest on the back-rest.

"You have a migraine? I hate it too, it's trouble-some!" I could relate his current moment.

"That's right. I don't want to spoil it further, and I don't want to drag this silly problem on the very first day of college." 

He looks around the vivid campus and says, "Mario isn't who you think he is. His father is a political typo who has links with the higher authorities of this college and could cause severe damage to your pretty butt within he could lift his pinkie finger. You understand what I'm saying?"

Everything this guy is saying was floating visually and shook my fear even more. Thus, I touched the wrong wire in the circuit, didn't I?

"You mean he can...", my mouth frightened to tell it.

"He can make you vanish from this college with a black dot," he says.

Will a bully do such a thing for a yet-to-live girl like me?

I nodded ten times in a row with a hard face.

His facial muscles relaxed and the tension faded a bit, while he rested his chin on the chair.

Looking at the guy in front of me makes me assume, he's not that bad.

"What's your name?" I gulped the lump in my throat and asked him.

His cheeks which were sticking chubby as he lay down, raised.

"That's how you ask the horned Don, huh?" he grins at me, and his eyes are no longer on me when he looks behind.

"Got it, Marcus!" The driver came back jogging with the drink of my life. Marcus's face turns back to frustration within a fraciton of a second.

The driver waved the rose milk bottle at him, and Marcus sighed. 

"Go ahead," he said, pushing his thumb over his shoulder.

The driver hands me the pink liquid and I stare at him queerly. 

The loop of his deception kept running through my head.

"I don't drink this in principal office." I ignore his hand which was lending me the drink, though my stomach grumbles.

"I don't mind, baby!", he emphasise the can in his hand at me but I didn't borrow it any soon.

"F*ck your baby!!", I stomp over his toe with my strong sandals and he wince.

The whole time, Marcus was gawking at us with the utmost care and giggled when his friend got nose cuts.

"Do you still think you achieved something proud?"I am afraid, but I feel like I'm falling for bickering with him for no reason.

"About what are you praising me?" he blinks at me and only focusing on me.

"I am not praising but accusing that you told me the principal called me! Look who is the principal here!" I point him and his rose milk, standing to my full height.

He casually shrugs. "I didn't think that I said the principal called you, did I?"

He's gaslighting me, for who's sake?

"I am not buying it," I said, cutting the air with my face. His muscular jaws lose their stiffness when he grins at me without a sin.

"Really?" he says.

Why is he looking at me like I am a clown?

"Yeh, really." I shrink my left eye and pretend that I don't care.

"I never said he called you, I swear, Lallu!"

His statement lost its meaning when he added something at the last. What Lallu?

It took me a few minutes to realize that it was a thoughtless nickname. Oh, silly!\

"Principal has ordered me not to call you!"

The sentence he meant hit me hard now, saying that it was too late to even admit it. I slapped my forehead and controlled my urgency to not laugh at myself in front of this driver. Not for now, at least!

He laughed at my inability instead, but Marcus didn't, because he was mystified at this point.

"Why would you do that, moron?" I stretched my hands to push the black hoodie by his chest, but he grabbed it before I even touched him. 

"If the principal really called you, who must I inform?", Driver locks his eyes with mine and my heart just goes on with it.

"Me..."

"If he didn't call you, then I must tell it to you, right?"

I frowned unintentionally at what he said.

Did he think he was smart?

Marcus's intruding laughter disturbed the rising stupidity.

I just stood in his clutch, thinking whether he's really mindless or acting that way when I am around.

And I saw his eyes saying something else, "If I am being true to myself,"

"Maybe I wanted to see you..." he yanks me so quick that I almost touch his nose. "...this close." I froze when my hands flung over his chest. Fuck, I am touching a rock, isn't it?

His red iris gleams at my difficult face, comforting it in some way, and one of his breaths accidentally falls over my cheek, and it burns beautifully to make it red and bright. My heart transformed into an athlete who raced around the speed of light.

"I am not falling for it!" I gave a second thought to pull away my hand from his hell-handsome body before I actually did. His eyes didn't leave me even after my hands left the contact of the turning point. 

I never had a moment to imagine a guy's touch would create butterflies like this, God!

Marcus came to the picture suddenly, and I realized barely he was there too. 

All blame settles on the driver of all fuckers!!

"I don't think it's safe to stand this close," he says, taking off the rose milk bottle from driver's hand and stretching it to me, standing in the middle of us. 

It made me almost laugh at his way of concern. It was true, though; it is never safe to stand that close near any driver anymore. He's driving me crazy.

"No, thank you. I guess I am fine." I refused the drink of my life because I am afraid that every sip of it would remind him in anyway. I don't want to feed the butterflies either.

"No poison!" Marcus smiles at me.

I laughed at him and held my hand out. "Nice meeting you, Marcus." I emphasize to Marcus that Driver would remember that I didn't know his name yet. "Thanks for tying the knot before anything spills out. Let's be friends."

Marcus held his hands too; I saw how Driver's face stiffened through it when we twined our hands to shake it. I like it, moron!

There was an unfinished business and a dense stare between me and the black spider when someone shouted from behind, and I breathed back to reality.

----------

[Reality]

"And that was you, dumbo!" I nudged her with a troubled face.

"Someone's missing someone, ha!" she nudged me back, creating butterflies to fly back, but I forced my belly onto the slab and bit my lips to seal the temptation to see him again.

"Shut up, Rhea!" I dwell on the conversations and his red iris. I have only seen them in anime and comics. 

Though it bore into my body deeper, I was astonished that I let it happen in the first place.

"Hold on! Everything happened before I came. I didn't see it!" she puzzles herself.

What did she say?? 

"Were you watching us?" I made a slow turn to her with a stoic face of mine.

"Um, for a while, when the driver pushed you," she says innocently.

Dang it!

"After that? You didn't say any of the things I said now?" 

How the heck is 1+1=1?

Rhea shrugs her way of expressing, Oh-I-dunno!

"Did anything happen meanwhile?" I gathered energy to think staight.

Rhea blankly says, "To be true, yes, I had a call." 

"Call? What call?"

"My crush called me," she said really low, dropping her head.

What!!

"Please teach me how you've never mentioned your call and are expecting me to tell you what happened a moment ago."

I would collapse any moment by her shits.

"Tell me why you gave your number?" She turns the subject again.

"I would keep that in account, Rhea."  Having that been said, I find myself resuming the narration.

----------

[Flash cut]

I was silently passing my number to Marcus and making sure it did not spread to any spiders who roam with black hoodies, and he agreed.

I brought Marcus number too in return and turned back to leave when you were gone and Mario was standing alone. When did he come?

"Ask him sorry, Laila. It ends after that." Marcus told me in my ear, and I gasped.

Why should I apologize to him? He was the one who slapped Rhea, and he was just staring at me with a bloody smirk. I feel so bad to do that with my approval, but thinking about the stakes that depend on it, I had to do it. 

"Forgive me, Mario."

"Huh? What did you say?" Mario steps closer.

"Say it, Laila." Marcus reinforced the end for the trouble again, and I realized I hadn't done it yet, man!!

"Ahem," I said, looking at the elf who was eager. 

"I am so... sorry, Mario!" I coughed three times in a row after that. 

I can't believe that I said something like that. Rhea would sue me for that.

"Silly pieces must stay on its line; go!" He tries to tap my head like I am a child, but a hand blocks the contact.

"You're done, buddy," Driver throws the wrist of Mario and stands next to me. The elf looks at me and him strangely before he vanishes from sight.

After a brief pause...

"What are you doing tonight?" His voice creepily gets under my skin. I expected that.

Smiling within my lips, I felt his heart jump as he stood so close to me.

"Murder every guy who wears a black hoodie— in this hot summer— overnight." I look at his face and ask, "Are you joining?"

He chuckles without looking at me. "The black hoodie is making you sweat more than me. Is that the reason?"

I didn't mean it to make me transparent.

"Doesn't matter; I can always buy rose milk to cool me down," reinforcing that I refused the rose milk he bought me.

Suddenly, he dragged my ID card and read my name, but I pulled it back. 

"Laila Benito!" he says my name, and it feels as if fire and ice collide. 

"Bonita's (Beautiful's) surname is Benito. Sounds perfecto (perfect)!"

His Spanglish disturbs me more than his cheesy pickup line. "Stop your non-sense!" I couldn't resist cutting him down quickly like that. He is making me nervous.

He passes a disappointed glare at me and puts his hands in my pocket. "Why do you hate me so much?" He's asking me even before knowing whether I liked him before or not.

The poor guy was really offended.

"I just hate men in black!" I pushed him with my finger and walked past him.

Marcus prodded Driver's shoulder and let all his laughter of his life out at once. "'It's not about girls. It's about feelings'", mimicking something that my brain couldn't catch.

I didn't give an ear for that except I turned one last time at Driver, "Leather jackets are better than hoodies!" I give Marcus a wink, trying my best to add fuel to the fire.

Marcus, "I remember it, Trev!"

"What now?" Driver replied smugly.

"I remember that my ex said the same thing to me that day." He couldn't hide his laughter anymore. I wonder what they were talking about.

"You don't have an ex, Marcus!" Driver yells at him and snatches the rose milk, which I rejected.

That's when I saw how colorless his face could ever be.

----------

[Reality]

"Don't worry, he'll be alright!" Rhea puts her hand over my shoulder to console me.

"I am not caring about it anyway, Rhea." I splash the water at her reflection on the mirror.

"Person who's really caring never says it aloud, Lai," she said, splashing back the water from the faucet at my reflection.

"I am not caring!" I splash more water.

"Why are you blushing?" she mocks me, splashing the most water.

As we play with the water in the restroom, someone exits one of the toilet rooms and stares at us, muttering bullshit and leaving. 

"Why did she look at us like that?"

"She envies our Gucci skirt, Lai."

We both sway our hips together and giggle. Tearing a tissue from the machine, we jogged out to the auditorium and sat in our reserved seats. 

I personally love writing about Laila and Trevor ❤️

What do you think?

SEE YOU LATER, BYE.