Neil turned away from his reading book, to see Michelia coming and sitting next to him. She looked at Neil sheepishly, her hands moving to curl a few strands of her hair back. Neil waited to hear what Michelia wanted to say. He leaned against a tree comforting his position.
"Neil, about a few days ago. I want to apologize." Michelia said so slowly that Neil had to hear it properly. Neil realized several times in his head that the one sitting next to him was not his best friend. But it was still very difficult, where the years he remembered at Michelia's school were always there and accompanied him especially now that he was sitting next to her with a face of regret. Although he knew the slander accused by Michelia greatly disappointed him with the dirty accusations.
Neil closed his book and put it on the grass next to it. He lays a focal point on Michelia, raises an eyebrow, and wants to hear the continuation that Michelia will tell him.
"I deeply regret it and didn't mean it. I'm sorry, Neil." Michelia's eyes watered, Neil couldn't see his best friend crying at all.
"Don't cry Lia, you've already admitted your mistake. That's enough," Neil said understandingly and smiled faintly.
"Do you forgive me?" asked Michelia hopefully, she shifted to get closer to Neil until Neil could feel Michelia's body heat by his side.
A smile bloomed back on Neil's lips, then a small nod. Michelia looked delighted, she immediately jumped up hugging Neil, Michelia's cold hands hanging with Neil's neck open making her instantly jolted in her sitting. The eyes of the clouds widened, the fear that had just settled at the base rose back to the surface to the shadow of the touch-sing how the woman's dirty hands helped contaminate Neil's body, how the woman who raped him tore off each side of his most vulnerable self well. Hurling insults that Even Neil couldn't hear. How he was pressed, slashed, punched, and gagged with something disgusting on the woman's part. Until Neil is utterly humiliated and will continue to remember that nightmare for the rest of his bad life.
Neil violently pushed Michelia, fear painted on Neil's face, dragging her continuously tirelessly. There was no Michelia in front of him there was just a messy-haired woman, faded lipstick with a grinning revealing shirt.
"Are you resisting? You like it, you know." His face was pushed, and his groin hurt. He hated that woman so much.
The shadow spun in Neil's mind until it winced as Michelia touched his arm. His face blurred from Neil's terrible illusion to Michelia who was staring at him worried.
Neil's heart pumped fast, his lips quivered and Neil bit him firmly. "... Men shouldn't cry." His father's words were in Neil's mind.
"What's going on, Neil?" Michelia approached grasping Neil's wrist.
Neil brushed it off reflexively. "Don't touch,... Sorry."
He couldn't keep going here, Neil got up and went anywhere where he was alone.
***
"Neil?" A call from someone disturbs Neil's composure in stepping into class after he spends a full hour feeling sorry for himself in an abandoned empty classroom. A voice he rarely heard again called out to him and forced Neil to stop his path and turn his head and stare at the man beside him tiredly.
"Neil? You know me, don't you?" the man asked, pointing at his face. Neil was tired enough just to think about this guy. He pinched the base of his nose when Neil's head felt throbbing.
"No, can I go?" asked Neil, hoping he could return to his class quickly.
"I am Faiz. Friend Skylar, remember?" The man looked at Neil expectantly.
Neil grimaced, how long had he forgotten Skylar?
"I don't know who you are, please let me go."
"No, Neil. I know you're different from these people."
"I don't know you, please let me go."
"Please stop, it hurts! Please, please! What am I wrong with you?"
Terrified again hit Neil right in the face, Neil ran anywhere where his legs took him. He didn't care anything anymore now, and no one cared how he begged to stop.
Neil's throat felt like it was suffocating and as if his heart was about to jump down the esophagus, Neil's eyes staring wildly at where he could hide from anyone. His feet brought him to his original place in a stuffy, dust-filled space. Neil hugged his knee in the corner of the room and away from sight. No one will know that he's this disarming and timid. Neil hated himself, even though every day he rubbed the surface of the skin more than he should. But all is not enough, the stain will remain and continue to exist.
Neil pressed his palm into his mouth, stopping the disgusting sobs coming out of his mouth.
It's embarrassing.
The door opened very slowly, Neil increasingly inched against the wall so that someone who entered was not aware of Neil's existence. Footsteps approached him, couldn't people leave him alone for this time alone.
Neil looked up to see anyone who disturbed part of his embarrassing moment.
Yes, it must always be Sain.
Sain didn't say anything he was knocking his body next to him and Neil chose to look straight ahead ignoring Sain and assuming there was only himself here.
"With a short time, I can make your whole life remember this." The woman spat. The thin knife that was in the grip of his hand slashed around Neil's waist. Where Neil thrashed was blocked by the man holding his hand. "Or how did my boss make you forget for the second time?"
Until the moment that Neil wished he was dead right then and there.
Silence doesn't always make Neil feel safe, his head feels like it's going to explode with voices he's always wanted to forget. Neil pressed his mouth, he was nauseous, disgusted with himself. What was my sin until I accepted this? Neil thought.
Neil's tears had been shed ever since, no matter how his pride was lost in front of Sain and he hoped Sain spoke anything to him, Neil couldn't bear to hear the voices in his memory vying for him to remember. The hours he went through the previous days were very hard for him, and he had to forget everything related to the nightmare. Although sometimes he has to hurt himself, adding to the wounds that have been inscribed before.
"Get your phone out we can play Fruit Ninja or Angry Birds now." Finally, Sain opened his voice in an instant the whisper inside Neil's head disappeared.
Neil's little smile bloomed, not out of mind Sain invited him to play that childly game. He wiped his tears violently creating a red imprint on his cheek. He combed once his hair stuck to his forehead with his fingers.
"I don't have an app," said Neil in a hoarse voice, reaching into his black phone in his pocket.
"I know if you have it or not," Sain replied quickly.
"No, I mean I don't have the app." Neil turned to Sain, his nose contorted looking at the red end of Sain's lips and bleeding and his cheeks slightly blue. "Why are you?"
"Fight. You don't know the people here are all jerks except me?"
Neil shook his arms outstretched in front of Sain's face, their eyes meeting in a staring event at each other where Neil could see Sain's black iris slowly darkening from before, Neil's eyes turning to his own roaming hands. Neil's cold fingers gently stroked Sain's blue cheeks and then slowly descended into the corner of his bleeding lips. He could feel the gentle gush of Sain's breath stroking his wrist until in one jolt Neil's hand floated and hit Sain's lips quite hard.
Sain gasped and held onto the lip Neil had just hit. "Sick, what the other?"
Neil laughed. "You said I was a jerk. We know that you are the one who is a jerk. Not your middle name, Sain Bastard Antariksa."
Sain was dumbfounded his eyes widened staring in disbelief at Neil. "Since when can you use those words, to mock me?"
Just a snap of Neil's cheek feeling hot, he blinked a few times. "Since I've been friends with you."
Sain grinned his body leaning towards Neil. "So we're friends?"
Neil replied with an indifferent shrug, not wanting to make Sain happy with him replying to his words.
Neil's chest became more relieved than before until he could straighten the legs that had since squeezed his chest.
"We're not playing a game?" Neil shuddered when Sain whispered right in his ear making Neil no longer have to think about pushing Sain's head away from him.
Sain's laughter echoed in the room, he increasingly leaned towards Neil making their shoulders pressed against each other.
Neil shook his head. "We should be in class. There's a points system here, right?"
Sain snorted, he was piling his weight on Neil's shoulders. "That point reached the limit of 300, I've already spent 198. If the teacher wants to reduce, please reduce. I don't care.'
"You're going to be ed out of school and you know, I'm the only one here—"
"You also have to go out, why is it just me? After all, what a stupid world should use points for when the offense is very good to do," Sain said.
"Heavy, Riksa." Neil pushes Sain's rough away from him. "My point has been cut off by 50 by Lia."
"I told you not to approach Michelia. You don't know he's cunning and has a satanic nature." Sain returned to Neil, who this time just resigned.
Neil felt his anger come when Sain vilified his best friend. "He's my best friend."
"Yes, but not this Michelia."
"Still, he's my best friend. It's hard to stay away from him, moreover, I'm so sorry to have pushed him before when he didn't know anything," Neil said honestly.
Sain is enforcing his body. "You don't have to regret it, she's not the Michelia you know."
Neil exhales heavily, he becomes deeply missed by Michelia and wonders if Michelia is looking for herself there who disappeared suddenly. "You won't understand."
"Do you like it?" asked Sain, suddenly changing the course of the conversation.
"Yes," Neil replied.
Sain didn't say anything else. He stood wagging his pants to remove the dust. Then looked at Neil with an expression that Neil couldn't read. "What if we go home?"
"We're going to class, I've been leaving behind a lot of lessons lately."
"Okay." Sain turned around walking to the closed doorway. Neil's forehead frowned slightly at Sain's sudden change.
"Don't wrinkle much, you're getting older."
Neil, wrong. Nothing has changed from Sain. His nature is still oblique.
***
"You always fail!" shouted the loud voice of a woman standing at the window.
"I've tried. I'm sorry," begs one of the girls under the woman's feet.
"We're just waiting for that month to arrive in a moment, but you messed things up. I can't believe I'm still allowing you to breathe." She growled with boiling anger. Her feet, which were wearing gold-plated shoes, pressed against the girl's head.
The girl gasped and bit her lips firmly holding back tears with her heavily quivering body. "I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry."
The woman laughed shrilly. "I seem to be very good to people. Just look at the next month whether you still have your head stuck or not?"
The woman released her pressure she kicked the girl hard without pity. "Get out of here, you littered my shoes with your misfortune."
The girl tremblingly stood up straight away, she bowed too much and walked around jolting out of the room quickly.
Fear sticks tightly in every day from now on. The hell had arrived since the portal had opened.
Thank you for reading.