"It all happened last year when someone committed suicide at Dallas and suicide cases would usually die down in the media overtime, but that wasn't the case. Many witnesses claimed that the victim was pushed down by someone else. " Maeya explained to me in detail.
"Did they really push the victim down?" I questioned her but she shrugged her shoulders.
"There wasn't much evidence to support the claims but he got arrested anyway so it should be true." Maeya answered.
"The media is going crazy now because he is rumoured to be back this semester in Queenstown instead of Dallas." Maeya threw her phone at me as I scrolled through multiple posts from different news companies. Many of the headlines didn't reveal his name due to a gag order hence he was an unknown person.
"Fuck, does this mean we might actually meet him anytime now?" She asked dreadfully as I shook my head at that.
"The university is big anyways, what are the odds of bumping into him anyway?" I stated the obvious.
We were interrupted by my phone buzzing loudly, reminding us that class was about to start, "Hey it's almost 9, we have to go." I reminded Maeya as we ended our conversation quickly, realising that we were almost late to class.
Maeya and I waved goodbye to Sophie and Zion as we parted our ways in the University. They entered the Central zone of the school which is directly beside the school entrance, where the science building was situated while Maeya and I walked further towards the south-east zone to the art building.
Both Zion and Sophie had a passion in science and they were extremely smart and excelled further than the rest of the students back in high school. Sophie majored in perfumery and cosmetic science while Zion pursued a biomedical science major. Their buildings were directly beside each other hence they always walked together to school.
Whereas Maeya and I pursue Architecture as our majors where we get degraded by our lecturers on a daily basis. Maeya and I love architecture and we do want to get our masters degree which takes about five to seven years but I rather not think too far yet since it's only been our first year.
We were greeted by rows and rows of tables followed by multiple models placed everywhere. I'm not surprised if I didn't see the floor anymore. The familiar smell of glue and wood hit me as soon as we opened the gates of hell. I watched as everyone scurried around the studio, holding either a ton of papers or carrying their own parti-models in their hands. A parti-model means a concept model which we make to showcase mainly our design concept and principle and it is used as a part of a design process where we alter or make changes to our designs before settling on a final design.
"Good, you're here." A classmate of ours, Silver, heaved a sigh of relief as she stopped in front of us, holding her own parti-model. "I'm assuming based on how late you guys are, that you didn't forget that there was a pin-up review today?" She asked worriedly.
It dawned on us that we were fucked. "You have got to be kidding me right now, I haven't seen anything notifying us that we had a pin-up review today." Maeya snapped as both of us ran to our seats and practically slammed our bulky laptops on the table.
Pin-up review is basically pinning our own work on the wall and presenting what we have done so far to our lecturers and they will provide critical feedback. It's similar to a formal critique where you present to a panel yet in an informal setting.
"Y'know the usual standard protocol they always have, they don't notify us until the first day back." Silver snapped back as she rolled her eyes annoyingly before leaving us to do who knows what before our lecturers arrived. Maeya groaned loudly at her laptop not turning on as she slapped the piece of metal repeatedly while cursing out profanities under her breath.
I was about to pray to god that I have to survive today when I remembered that I already did everything before the semester break even started. I just needed to print the papers and I can be ready for the pin-up review soon. I thanked myself for having a great time management and avoiding the disaster that I foresee today.
Maeya paled at how relaxed I was, "Please tell me we are in this together?" She begged me as she almost kneeled onto the floor.
"I will help you." I assured her and for the next thirty minutes, I was helping Maeya with her drawings. Although we didn't finish everything, it was all we could manage before time was up. The pin-up review started later than usual and before I could register what was happening, the rest of the tutorial flew by quicker than I thought.
…
"Well, that was a shitty start to the day." Maeya grumbled as we headed to the nearest cafeteria for a quick lunch. She hung her head low tiredly, recalling the abusive language and reprimanding she had gotten from our lecturer earlier during the pin-up review.
"You should be glad our lecturer didn't at least tear your last minute work up into pieces." I comforted her. I noticed that Maeya went quiet as I saw her staring at her phone for a while before speaking up again.
"Zion and Sophie are nearby, they said if we wanted to eat together?" I nodded in response and Maeya perked up at my agreement before typing her reply and sending the message on her phone.
The usual lunch hour attracted multiple crowds into the cafeteria, the background noise blended almost every conversation into a cacophony of voices, creating a lively atmosphere of the common space. The smell of food surrounded the place, emitting enticing aromas such as the smell of curry or waffles in the air. Being engulfed in a sea of strangers caused discomfort to rise in me but the only thing I could focus on was the food.
We finally bought our food and found an empty table at the corner of the cafeteria. I dug into my takoyaki while Maeya ate her chicken rice beside me. Whenever it was just the two of us, we took comfort in food, allowing silence to bestow upon us as we ate our food quietly.
Not for long, Sophie and Zion appeared at the corner of my eyes as Maeya waved frantically at them since they were searching around for us. When Zion finally caught us in the huge mass of students, he pulled Sophie along with him and met us at the table.
"It's only the first lecture of the day and you guys look like you're in misery." Sophie stated as she sat in the seat across me while Zion headed to get both of their lunch. I watched as Zion left the table, leaving the three of us at the table.
"Let's not talk about it." Maeya groaned loudly. I smiled at how funny she was.
I finished my last piece of takoyaki and took out my pillbox from my pouch that I transferred from my laptop sleeve earlier for convenience. I took out 3 pills from the first compartment of the pillbox and popped them in my mouth before taking a huge gulp of water and swallowing all of them at once. When I was younger, I remembered hating the feeling of pills going down my throat but now I'm already used to it. Younger me would never.
Sophie and Maeya paid no attention to it and proceeded to have their conversation on the side. I have been taking pills since last year and for days I couldn't even count. After everything that had happened last year, I asked them if they knew anything related to my parents, if I spoke of them, or they knew them at all. Including Zion, all of them claimed I never talked about my family and was closed off about them which led to them not knowing about them at all. Although Zion did know me ever since middle school, he claimed that he hasn't seen my parents around at all.
A plate was slammed on the table heavily, cutting off the thoughts I was thinking deeply about. I snapped out of the daze I was in as Zion sat beside Sophie and a plate of japanese curry rice stood before us. The pungent smell of curry might have made me go hungry again. Sophie dug into the food hungrily first, not giving a care about her boyfriend wanting to take a mouth out of it.
"Let me eat, woman!" He snatched the spoon out of Sophie's hand to which Sophie stared at him in shock as he ate the spoonful of rice drenched in curry with a playful look.
Sophie glared at him, however, didn't give into his tactics, instead she decided to just eat with her fork, scooping up whatever food it could carry. Maeya slammed her hand on the table repeatedly, "Silence in the court!" She screamed angrily. I chuckled at her, she always did this whenever they were fighting which occurred almost every single time. The couple stopped glaring at each other and returned to eating their food. Maeya smiled proudly at the two for not escalating this further.
"There's some talk going around about exchange programs where students are pursuing a minor at other universities." Whenever we were silent, Sophie was always in charge of starting on a new topic of conversation.
"Yeah, Ares is going to Dallas University next week for her creative writing course." Maeya exclaimed, looking at me excitedly.
"I knew you would take part in something like this, writing has been your passion after all." Sophie added on as I gave her a smile back for encouraging me. I have been feeling nervous, entering into a new environment I barely know at all. I'm glad they were supportive of the direction I'm heading into.
"I'm actually thinking of heading to West Coast University for a chemistry course." Sophie added on.
"That's great." Zion said as Sophie smiled at the validation while I pretended to not notice that I was catching onto her tone of spite ever since Maeya started mentioning about the exchange programs, including her encouragement.
"I'm glad that we are doing this together." I said to Sophie as she smiled at me. This time, I didn't know if it was genuine or not. I decided not to dwell on it.
"Won't you be caught up with work at the same time?" All of a sudden, Zion questioned me out of concern. Sophie maintained her calm face but I could tell that she was starting to lose it. I pretended to not notice it again, staring back at Zion and clearing my thoughts.
I started out working in a small cafe which was located in the school compound, ever
since my first year in Queenstown started. It has been more than a year and I have managed to learn almost everything regarding the cafe. The work was stressful but making friends with the people there made it all worth it. Besides, I get to earn money on the side while studying. I wanted to gain new experiences every time I came across an opportunity.
"I can just take lesser shifts moving forward, I will be fine." I assured Zion as he gave me a look of disbelief, knowing my stubborn yet hardworking personality when it came to accepting when someone needed help covering their shift. Zion shrugged his shoulders as he went back to eating.
Sophie started another topic of conversation, diverting Zion's attention away from me and a feeling started welling up in my throat. I pushed it down, telling myself that I was indeed overreacting. I told myself mentally that I ate the pills and the pills were supposed to help. I breathed quietly, calming myself as the conversation my friends were having plays out like a lullaby in the background.
I will be fine.