I was observing a 47-year-old English teacher who has been dedicating half of her lifetime teaching the foreign language when the new face came into the class. He was waving lifelessly to a male and female, probably his parents. After bidding a goodbye to the teacher, the couple went off from our sight.
“Hi, can you introduce yourself to your friends ?” the teacher asked slowly.
“My name is Daniel” declared the boy, halfheartedly while facing 28 unknown faces in front of him.
"Where are you from?" one of the kids asked.
"I'm from Perlis," he said.
"Where is Perlis?" another kid asked, eagerly.
"Okay, okay stop asking questions to him. Let's continue our lesson." "Daniel, go sit at the table at the back."
He dragged his legs lazily to the back of the class and took a seat beside me. Throughout the whole lesson, my focus shifted from observing the teacher to monitoring the new boy. He didn't look up from the table, not saying any single words. The eagerness of wanting to talk to the boy is rising, but the teacher called me so I just bid a goodbye to him before going out of the class, and he ignored me. Okay boy.
I have no other stuff to do so I took my sweet time in the library trying to do my long-list assignments. While going back and forth finishing my work and scrolling through Twitter, the new boy came into the library with his dark blue backpack. I didn't greet him because I knew he was to ignore me so I kept my eyes on the laptop screen. 5 minutes passed when a girl wearing a purple uniform came into the library.
It must be her shift to be at the counter. I said to myself as I saw a duty roster pasted on a white brick wall near the door.
"Sorry teacher, do you happen to see Daniel?" the girl asked hesitantly.
Oh, she was searching for the boy.
"I saw him sitting alone there," pointing at the aisles in front of me.
"Thank you teacher," she then disappeared as she tiptoed towards the direction I gave her. My inner-busybody-self cannot contain curiosity as to why the girl wants to find the boy so I walked towards their spot pretending that I was searching for a book. Standing right behind their aisle, I could clearly listen to what they were talking.
"Hey, you don't want to eat?" the girl asked.
"No. I'm not hungry" sounded pissed off, he still responded to the girl.
"How can you not ? It's recess period, let's go to the canteen. The mee goreng there is so delicious. You have to try it. Come," persuaded the girl while standing up and ready to go. But the boy didn't even move a slightest muscle. He just kept staring at the book he was holding.
"Why? You don't have money? It's okay. I have extra. You can borrow mine. Let's go" she sounded demanding to me but I think it worked because the boy stood, holding his backpack and put the book on the shelf.
"You’re so loud. Leave me alone and mind your own business," the boy snapped.
"Sorry ?!" I couldn't help myself to stop my mouth from screaming and the two looked at me with an unreadable expression. After staring at each other for a few seconds, the boy barged the girl and went out of the library.
"You okay?" witnessing how the boy acted just now, she might be shocked and offended.
"I'm okay teacher. I just want to be friends with him since I saw him alone during the class but it looks like he didn't want to. Never mind. Let him be," she shrugged nonchalantly and asked for permission to go.
2 days after the incident, I spent my time in the library again. It was kind of deja vu but the boy did come again, went straight to the exact same place he was sitting the other day. But this time around, he looked sad.
Okay, this is serious, I thought.
I rushed to where he was sitting.
"What happened ?"
"She left."
"What ? Who ? Why ? "
"Serina. They said she is moving to a new school"
"Moving ? Where ? Who told you ?"
"Our class teacher"
"What did he say?"
"He said Serina is transferring to a new school," he answered me while staring at a red thing.
"I didn't get to apologize to her. I felt bad so I wanted to say sorry today but she left me with this," he confessed while showing a hand-made bracelet made from red Asoka flowers.
So cute.
"It's okay, you can meet her another time. I'm sure that. Brighten your smile, boy because I don't think she likes to see you sad"
"Thank you" he said and I'm very sure that wasn't for me because he started to suppress a smile while staring at the bracelet.