Whistle in the Woods | Teen Fic ✔️

7 : Bargain

At lunch break, Meldei unlocked the rehearsal building and beckoned Nika to follow. The sight of the dim, dusty room, glittering with cobwebs at the window, though, seemed to only heighten Nika's displeasure.

"It's not that bad," Meldei said, turning the window panel wide. More light poured on the walls.

"It's terrible," Nika said behind her, muffled. She was covering her nose. The floor was marked with their footprints, and a new arc was appearing when she drew her shoe across the powdery surface. Nika jerked her foot back. "We could get sick in here."

Meldei stopped near the covered piano, undeterred. "There's nothing some cleaning won't fix. You said the lake was risky—you can't say the same here."

"It's airless!" Nika sighed and pointed at the ceiling. "Does that work?"

Meldei hadn't noticed the ceiling fan before. It looked like an old, spooky chandelier dangling with dark coils of spider webs.

"It's already cool. But if it works, you can't say no." She then searched for the source of the wires along the crook of the wall and eventually found the switch at the a corner where the instruments were at.

The lights worked. The fan squeaked a few times, gradually rotating, before settling into a steady spin, sending particles spiraling in the air.

Nika gagged at a black flying piece of cobweb.

Meldei dusted her hands triumphantly. "We're staying."

"What about the keys? Aren't you supposed to return them?"

"I'm sure he forgot about it," she said. "We'll give it back when he remembers."

"Just ask." Nika moved to inspect the instruments. "They all dote on you." Meldei went beside her.

"There's a piano," she said, her eyes never away from the lone instrument across the room. Her thumb was restless against her skirt. "Maybe I'll practice here."

Nika stared at her for a moment. "I thought you gave up."

"How?" she breathed. She wrung her toes. "I didn't even have anything to give up from the start."

The rest of the day went by in a blur of research and Meldei rubbing her paper with a shrinking eraser from middle school.

Though Mr. Foster was kind to let them work on the project during class, the water festival was approaching fast and they had to finish it before November ended. Everyone in her team agreed that they'd make enough progress to spare their holidays from having to critically think about a nonsensical poem from Through The Looking-Glass.

By the time class ended, Meldei packed her things with a new throb beating her head.

She used to wonder if her body would ever break from the routine, of its duties and thought processes, day after day, engulfing the flavors of anything else outside of it. Nearly four years, she forgot other flavors outside of it. Other times, she wished her body did break. But that was selfish because her mother was out there enduring through sweat and blood just to hold them where they stood today.

Study so that you’ll not be looked down upon.

If only the human heart was just an engine.

A hand caught her arm, startling her to the present at the hallway.

"I was calling you," Noleak said, letting go. Meldei made way for the others to leave. "When's your class? I thought maybe you could help me put this in the council room. I'm late to mine."

Her extra class was at four—fifteen minutes left. Meldei took the folder from her. "Everyone's signed it?"

"You haven't," Noleak said. "If you're not staying at school then just cross your name out." She paused for a second. "Most of our class chose basketball."

Meldei looked up, waiting for her to finish. Noleak didn't, and she already knew what it meant.

"Same old faces at the court," Meldei brushed off. "Typical of them."

"Did he invite you?"

She lowered the folder. "What?"

Noleak glanced toward the head of the hallway. Meldei could almost see her entire jawbone before she turned and said, "I heard someone's doing a birthday party for him."

"It's his birthday?"

"On the 25th." The second day of the festival. Lea half shrugged. "I thought he'd invite you."

"Why would he?" The fact that she just heard about it proved it all. She said, "It'd make more sense, I think, if he invites you."

Lea's smile was a flash. It shrank so fast it died completely on her face in the next breath.

"I'm a nobody. Why should he invite me?" She turned to go. "The council room is next to the Principal's office. Bye."

A moment later, sighing, Meldei went back inside the class to borrow a desk to write on. Everybody was gone.

It took a moment to find the name list of her and Nika's class; she took them out, seeing the box beside their names empty as unexpected. Turned out a lot of students either left it blank or crossed it out.

She took out a pen to cross out the boxes, but then, thinking better, with a tinge of curiosity, she scribbled down two words.

Dance Room.

____.____

Meldei was heating up by the distance by the time she climbed the stairs of the faculty building. Usually, the place would resound with protests and troublemakers, but now the second floor felt more desolate than the rehearsal building, with air blowing across the open balcony that she was walking on.

She peered through the window of a room beside the Principal's office. Nobody was inside, so she took herself through the door.

The council room was half a mess, half an office—literally. The west side was stacked with unused chairs and boards, while on the opposite, Meldei assumed the middle desk near the window must belong to the President, seeing a worn soccer ball sitting on the chair behind it.

She went forth and tried the first drawer. It yielded easily. Inside amidst some graded papers, a black cap sat beside a cellphone.

The door didn't even have a lock. But then, who would come up there for? She shut the drawer.

If his phone was still there, then he must also be around. Meldei did not want an encounter, so she quickly found another drawer to put the file in and left.

All of the teachers had gone from the building and some, she saw, were heading toward the academics building up ahead as she got out.

It was six minutes before class. If she strolled in the garden, listening as trees shook in the winds, she'd no doubt her headache would ease. But biology has numbers now, so she jogged.

He came out so suddenly a tree supported her misstep.

"That's the second time."

It took a moment to call back her spirit, and another to realize that someone was laughing. Another to recognize who it belonged to.

"You don't sound sorry," she rasped, straightening. Oh, her heart nearly leaped out.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Youhei said, but the traces remained on his face. He cleared his throat. "I was about to text you, then I saw you going in there and thought to ask."

"Ask?"

A passing student glanced.

"Yeah, like ask if I could go hang out back there—sometimes."

"Suddenly?" She was going to be late. She paused, breaths evening. "Wait—are you really asking for my permission?"

She burst out before he managed to speak. She pressed her lips shut, but they trembled upward. It was the first time a stranger took her seriously about where neither of them had control of.

"What?" he said, smiling again.

"You said it's in the middle of nowhere."

He shrugged. "Also peaceful—beautiful," he added. He glanced up at the flame-tree that had supported her just now. Dry monsoon made the scarlet flowers scarce. "I miss the little birds."

Meldei missed the melody, but he didn't need to know that.

This was a chance, the thought struck her with force. Though they occasionally texted about their projects now, she doubted the prospect of the internet conveying true emotions of a much more complex being.

"Are you okay, by the way?" Meldei looked up. "You look pale today," he said.

"Pale?" Then, understanding— "Oh, you mean—yes. Yeah, I'm fine."

He made a gesture. "So..."

She thought of Lea, and the thought stuck.

Then, she said, "You may go as you like—as long as it's a secret for obvious reasons. But you have to agree to one thing."

"What is it?"

She really needed to get to class. But she held his gaze. "Talk to me about Noleak."