untitled shoujo billiards 4/?

[pielcanela]

ta-daah! ANGST!



wc for this chapter: 2,289





Is this for real?!?

Kuya Stephen and I almost just ran over MIA MARTIN!??

The third-year student who goes to math competitions overseas with Dylan Aiba??

Who has a government scholarship for science excellence, and a legendary 90+ grade in all her academic subjects??

THAT Mia Martin!?

This is insane!!

I'm in the presence of royalty!!!

Mia Martin is in the same year level as I am, though not in the same section - she transferred early this year, without fanfare or ceremony. But as soon as she set foot in school, she started making waves. It wasn't long before she made a name for herself.

Normally, we'd know about famous schoolmates. I mean, a public school's population is never as big as you think, not even the one I attend, which is home to close to 30% of the high school-age children of the city. It's pretty hard not to know about talented classmates, when their names are on streamers, the campus newsletter, your own teacher's lips - overachievers are always in your face and difficult to ignore.

Then again, they really are rather hard to come by.

That's exactly what Mia Martin is - a rarity. A girl who's excellent in both math AND science, and who shows promise as someone who can bring prestige to our school. Because of her, Dylan Aiba isn't the only faculty favorite on campus.

You'd think she'd be easier to spot on sight, right? Think again! Nobody knows what she looks like! Unlike Dylan Aiba, who's in almost every pictorial ever made, Mia Martin isn't the kind to make herself known. She doesn't join clubs, or even hang out with her friends in easily visible places...

Is it any wonder she's gotten the reputation of an eccentric?

Come to think of it - does she even HAVE any friends??

Unable to help myself, I root through her things more thoroughly, looking for any juicy information I could find about this "secret celebrity." I discover a cell phone (pink, fliptop, with rhinestone stickers all around - very cute) and it has "Mom" and "Dad" in the phone book... but very few other names are in there. I have never seen such a sparse contact list on another teenager's cell phone. Not even I know this few people who have cell phones!

Her messages are mostly variations of "What time are you going to pick me up?" and "Okay" and "Sorry, I'm busy with schoolwork."

It takes me a while of poking around in her messags before it dawns on me:

Wow, I'm a Mia Martin stalker.

I quickly put the phone away. I'm not a stalker! It's just Kuya Stephen's fault for taking so long.

What am I supposed to do while waiting for him? All my homework is finished, I've done my advanced reading...

...

Well, there are all these books...

I pick one up out of curiosity. The lady who helped me pick up some of the books earlier has already helped herself to one title (Silvertoes - a Tagalog "pocketbook" that looks like a fun little comedy, and I wish I'd grabbed it first) and is slumped on the ground beside me, brows furrowed in concentration.

So I pick up another title. It's called Beyond Desire and it gets me curious about what exactly is beyond desire. The cover itself doesn't tell me much, although it does tell me it's by the "queen of erotic romance", whatever that means.

At least it's worth a look, right?

And on the first page, I promptly start blushing.

I close the book immediately.

Um.

I look around to see if anyone's been staring. Nobody has. The lady beside me is snickering because she stumbled upon a funny part in the text. I really, really wish I'd gotten to that book first...

The other books in the bag beckon to me. Maybe it's worth giving the rest a shot? But not if the rest of them are going to be as explicit as that one!

It's getting dark.

I pick up another book from the bag and start on it, while there's still light in the sky. This one seems nice: it's about a spirited small-town girl (the complete opposite of me, a shy city girl, I can't help but notice) torn between two lovers: a rich snotty businessman and a hot-headed mechanic.

...Hey, this one's pretty good. I don't really know much about romance novels, but I think I like this one.

I wonder if there are any sexy parts, like the one I saw in that other book...?

I'm about to flip through the boring bits for the sexy bits, when I hear the familiar rumble of Kuya Stephen's motorcycle engine. I shut the book at once. Kuya Stephen looks much calmer now.

"Here," he says, as he tosses me the helmet he'd lent to Mia Martin, the one I usually wear. "Get your things and hers. I'm dropping off her stuff at the hospital, then I'm taking you home."

I nod and strap the helmet on. "Is she all right?"

"Yeah," Kuya Stephen answers, visibly relieved. "She just bumped her head hard, so she's still a bit dizzy. They gave her drugs, that ought to take care of it."

"That's good," I sigh. I gather my school bag and Mia's. The lady who's reading Silvertoes hands the book over to me with a smile.

"It's a good book!" she chirps.

I smile back. I don't tell her that I can't imagine a genius like Mia Martin reading anything except good books. If this nice lady doesn't know who Mia Martin is, naming the girl who almost got hit by my friend's motorcycle probably isn't a good way to introduce her.

I jump into the seat behind Kuya Stephen, and drive off with him.





"Kuya," I say to him, "you won't believe who we almost just killed!"

"Heh," he snarls at me. But he isn't angry, I can tell. "I know her name is Mia. And that she goes to your school..."

"That's not all! She's a genius! She wins math contests and science fairs and everything!"

He snorts. "Really? If she's so smart, why didn't she look both ways before crossing the street?"

I honestly have no idea. "Is she really okay? Or were you just saying that to make people happy?"

"She's fine. She just needs a few stitches, nothing major."

Of course, "nothing major" to Kuya Stephen constitutes anything less than brain surgery or a heart transplant. Kuya Stephen's jobs get him hurt now and then - bruises and scrapes and stitches are not unfamiliar to him.

And if you ask me, any form of "stitches" is usually a bad sign.

"Where did you take her?" I ask. And mysteriously, Kuya Stephen doesn't answer.

It takes me another stoplight and a few more turns in the road to work it out. The nearest hospital in this area is Saint Anne - a small private hospital with very few facilities - little more than a health center, when you think about it.

Kuya Stephen had once vowed never to set foot in Saint Anne again.

But he parks his motorcycle outside of Saint Anne, and walks into the emergency room with me as if he had forgotten all about that vow.

He's carrying Mia's (heavy) things. I'm carrying mine. A nurse at the emergency room stops us.

"She's sleeping now," she tells Kuya Stephen. "The painkillers we gave her have that effect. Let her sleep."

"Fine," Kuya Stephen says. "Can I leave her things here? I'm taking my ward home."

The nurse says all right, but I say something else. "Kuya... we should stay until her folks come for her."

"What? No we don't," he argues. "I don't want to talk to her folks! They'll say it's our fault she turned up like this, they might even make us foot the bill!"

"They won't," I assure him. "I'll take care of it."

He frowns. "Okay then, you stay. It's late and I'm going home."

"All right." I make my way out of the emergency room, to the waiting seats. I pick one and plop myself down on it.

Kuya Stephen follows me out, looking incredulous. "Look, Nikki," he tells me, "we don't actually know this person..."

"I know her," I say. "...Well, I don't exactly 'know her' know her, but I can't just leave her alone!"

"If she wakes up and sees us, she'll probably panic or take us to the police station to get blottered!"

"She won't," I say firmly. "Kuya, I said you could go home, didn't I?"

We stare each other down for a good minute.

Then Kuya Stephen sighs loudly, picks a chair and sits, crosses his arms over his chest, and attempts to ignore me. Unsuccessfully. Barely an hour later, he asks me if I'm hungry. He's got some biscuits in his belt bag, if I am.






It's late, way past the early evening news. Mia's parents haven't come yet. And she's still sleeping soundly, well and thoroughly knocked out by meds.

I text my parents and Kuya Stephen's mother that we're going to be home late, but nothing's wrong. Thank goodness, nobody asks any questions.

(I suppose Kuya Stephen's mom is used to it, and my parents are used to me being late because Kuya Stephen is late picking me up. They aren't worried as long as they know I'm with Kuya Stephen.)

I continue reading the book I hand in my hands earlier - the one about the spunky girl with the two hot boyfriends. Kuya Stephen lets me read in peace, until 7 PM rolls around and he announces that he's buying us dinner.

I give him some money to buy fastfood dinner for the both of us. He accepts the money without a word. As proud a creature as my Kuya Stephen is, we've known each other for ages, and we've arrived at an understanding that he pays for all our incidental expenses - unless he hasn't gotten paid at any of his jobs yet, like now.

He steps out and steps back in quickly, holding one hotdog sandwich and a 12-oz. bottle of cola for each of us. It's more than enough. We can have a proper dinner when we get home, after this whole ordeal.

But I notice that while Kuya Stephen is eating, he looks distracted. There's a faraway look in his eyes, and he doesn't eat as quickly as he often does.

When we're done eating, he picks up our trash and deposits it in the nearest waste bin. But he doesn't come back to our seat.

"I'll just take a leak," he tells me. I nod and let him walk off, further into the hospital.

And while he's gone, I continue reading. I lose track of time. My eyes get tired and I take a break.

I look up and happen to see the wall clock in the waiting area. It's almost 8 PM. Kuya Stephen isn't back yet.

Where is he?

I get mildly anxious. I don't feel like reading any more, when I'm in this mood. I leave our things with the nurse at the emergency station, and I ask her to tell Kuya Stephen that I just went off to stretch my legs.

"You young people should be home," the nurse, a pleasant-faced young lady who is probably only a little older than Kuya Stephen, says to me. "Don't worry about your friend - her parents should be here any minute."

"Thank you," I say to her. "We might be on our way soon, too."

...As soon as I find Kuya Stephen, that is.






He's actually in the first place I think about looking.

I suspect, sometimes, that you know things like this at the back of your mind, and it just doesn't come to the surface enough times for you to want to talk it out or even acknowledge it.

And I suspect it's more like that for Kuya Stephen than it is for me.

He's standing inside the door of an empty private ward, which was for some reason left unlocked, along with the other private wards in that floor - someone must have been cleaning up at around that time.

He's turned on the lights in the ward and it's streaming out, casting his shadow onto the dimly-lit hallway. He still has his hand on the wall near the light switch.

He's staring at the empty bed, with that same silently distracted look on his face.

I step up to him and he doesn't acknowledge me. We don't talk. We don't even look at each other.

I walk inside, intending to sit on the bed. But for some reason, I'm not eager to touch anything inside that room. At least Kuya Stephen was able to turn on the lights - I don't think I could have been that strong.

"Kuya," I tentatively ask, "do you still think about him?"

I could have said "miss." It's a word I often apply to myself. I miss my brother. I miss him making fun of me and making me laugh and protecting me from older kids who made fun of me... even if Kuya Stephen is there to do all those things in his place now.

But "miss" isn't a word I want to use in this case. This is the room where we last saw my brother alive. This room is the reason why Kuya Stephen hates Saint Anne and has not set foot in it in six whole years. To "miss" Kuya Roger in such a place would be to bring back sad memories.

Kuya Stephen quietly answers, "Every day."




to be continued

Comments

[miir.livejournal.com]

BHEX.

[caelestin.livejournal.com]

...Mia, please wake up before Kuya Stephen and Nikki cry themselvs to death.

Also, B-san, is Kuya Stephen and Kuya Roger yaoi? XD

I love this chapter because Nikki gets to go through Mia's books, LOL! I hope she ends up with Kuya Stephen. Okay, maybe not. But!