Whistle in the Woods | Teen Fic ✔️

The melody was like a soft beckoning layered secretively beneath the breeze, luring her deeper into the field. She trod softly, on malnourished grass that'd flattened from frequent visits, though someone with footwork like her had the stealth of slipping past a cat unnoticed if she tried. The music flowed in the trees faintly like a silver chime waiting to be discovered, and then in her ears as she moved closer, clarifying. It sounded like a lullaby, something sweet and familiar. But it wasn't familiar. If she wasn't wrong, the notes were touching a sorrowful edge, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star did not have a sorrowful edge from her childhood memories. Soon, the skeleton trees gave away to a spacious clearing ahead. Meldei froze when her eyes landed on a person's back. But it was too late—she stepped on a dry leaf. The dreamy music she'd been chasing after stopped immediately as a pair of ink-black eyes veered toward her own widened ones, revealing the last face she expected to see. She thought she'd find a new species following the birdsong, maybe a local one. She'd be less stunned to see her friend magically popping up there from her house a few blocks away—but not him. Especially not that boy, with hair that glimmered like quality wood under the sunlight and spilling down in waves, all without being called into the Principal's office. Fujihara Youhei got away with many things exclusively because he was a foreigner His face smoothed in recognition. "I didn't see you there," he said. You scared me for a sec." Meldei didn't move an inch. Something unpleasant was beginning to creep its way up in her. That was when she noticed it—but again, it was too late. The tiny sparrow flapped its wings and shot off from Youhei's palm up to the sky, the noise startling them both. Her eyes went after the bird, dumbstruck and forgetting a minute about the intruder invading her private lunchtime space. The sparrow joined a swarm twittering atop the silk-tree nearby, near the lake bank, until she couldn't tell it apart from the rest. Their tweets echoed throughout the tall trees around them. Yet it wasn't the melody she swore she heard just now. When she lowered her gaze Youhei was still looking up at the tree behind him, dusting his hands. "Were you—" She bit her tongue. How could he understand if she spoke in Khmer? "I think it was bored," Youhei said, seemingly unaware of her mistake. His expression was friendly as he turned to her. A bag slung over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. "The bird I mean. Sometimes I think they want human company." "Did you catch it?" she said, in English this time. "It actually came to me." A smile hinted on his pale face. "You'd have to wait until it wants to come, though. When it's safe." He indicated. "Want to try?" She hesitated, pulling the straps of her bag higher. Nobody was supposed to be back here—herself included—and nobody ever did. At least not in the past year that she'd snuck out in hopes for a break without a reminder of the next class assignment or the chores waiting at home, or having to go back right after school because her sickly grandmother visited. "But, umm, what are you doing over here?" she instead said. She didn't want to see Lea's heart wound in her own territory, but she kept it out of her voice. Despite their situation, she never had real issues with him—heaven knew they barely exchanged more than three words daily in class. "It's still early for class. You didn't get lost...right?" Meldei added uncertainly, noting his well-dressed uniform. "I tried not to." He leaned back to observe the landscape behind. "It's a straight way back, right? But well, since you're here everything's fine." He put a hand on his chest, but she raised a brow at the genuineness of his relief. If he was a friend, she would have joked about not helping him find the way back if he got lost. "Did you lose something here?" he said, motioning at her hand. She held the wooden stick up, almost forgetting about it, and brushed off a clot of dirt that clung when it fell earlier. He still hadn't answered her question. "Just for protection," she said. "Just in case." "Protection?" he said, stepping back as she passed toward the silk-tree for shade. "So you come here often?" Anyone would find it weird. She set her bag carefully on a stump and leaned the stick nearby. Winds carried the deep, rich scent of nature across the lake and up her hair, filling her senses pleasantly. "Don't tell me it's weird." Youhei sounded confused. "No, but for what? There's nothing here." "That's why I'm resting here," she said. "Alone?" Actually, her best friend was on the way home to bring their forgotten lunchbox. "Sometimes." He looked like he had trouble understanding her English. "Wouldn't our class be more comfortable to rest?" he said, before also coming under for shade. The clouds moved away. The breeze toyed with his long hair and he looked like the noon sky, pale and... She looked away. "Then why are you here?" she said back. The differences between her height and his cleared at this range, though hers also fair. "Caspian told me he'd come soon." He glanced at his phone. "We were going to see a team we met during the holiday for basketball." Meldei's gaze lingered. "With other schools?" "It didn't seem nice to decline the invitation." He shrugged. "They also seemed like great players." She didn't know what to say, her mind automatically shifting to Lea. When Youhei had ended their relationship on a lunch date that was supposedly meant to celebrate their one-month anniversary, Lea had withdrawn to a shell of her former self. If she found out that he already had the mood for new friends and hobbies just after a week of their breakup, Meldei doubted that the shell was going to fall away any sooner, if at all. "How was your holiday, by the way?" Youhei said presently, joining her in gathering dead leaves around the area to a pile. She kept her eyes on the grass, a new depth sunken in her stomach. "Nothing special." "Did you see the fireworks?" "Barely. It was too far." She remembered her balcony door glowing, but because of the distance between her house and the riverside, the celebration of Independence Day barely made it above the thousands of rooftops standing between. "Where were you?" he said. "If you'd told us, we'd save a spot for you and your friends at the front." "I stayed home. I don't have friends," she said—without any meaning, really—and regretted it when he looked at her, the smile plainly visible now. "I'll remember to invite you next time if that's the case." "I'm not going." "Now I know why you don't have friends." Meldei straightened. "Friends don't intrude on friends' personal space," she said. "That's why we're not friends." "Personal space?" He also got up. "I didn't—" "This is a personal space." She pointed at his feet. "Here?" he clarified. "I was walking around just now and saw the gate. It was opened." That explained the mystery of the water bottles littered around the entrance. She hadn't come for a few days; who knew who else intruded? She wanted to pull Nika's ear so badly. "Nobody's allowed to come—if you didn't know," she said. "You'll get in trouble if the teacher sees you." Tossing a clump of leaves onto the existing pile, she crossed her arms at the look on his face. "I came before they banned us, so it doesn't count." "I just knew I shouldn't be here, so it also shouldn't count," he said and gave her another look. "Well, not unless you snitch." "Maybe I will," she said slowly. "Then I won't be in trouble alone." He grinned. "Friends." She rolled her eyes, but then a chuckling sound made her look up again. She believed what Lea told her now, about how he sounded sometimes, that it was like the winds blowing around them now—cool November winds, drifting and contagious. Just like the melody. She pressed her lips together. "Would you hit me with that stick," Youhei said, back to his self-employed task, "assuming we do get caught?" "I'd need a new stick by then." "I better get permission next time then." "Wouldn't you be playing basketball from now on anyway?" she said, ignoring him. "Only on selective days. Then I'll come see why a friend likes to hang out in the middle of nowhere." She knew he didn't mean it any other way, but she couldn't help it. How could he see, she thought as she went on to work, when this place felt like the only place she had left, the only place left of what she used to have—once. Sometimes, she could almost pretend that she was back in the country, in the forest behind her old home where she chased after red dragonflies with her mother and played hide and seek with her father. And then their laughter would ring into the woods like playful little fairies. Their laughs still rang in her ears now, fresh and absent from the lies and pain and betrayal, from absence, whenever she sat long enough in silence, staring at the lilies bobbing on the lake's rippling surface. "I think Caspian's here." Meldei broke out from her thoughts; Youhei was tapping on his screen when she straightened. The area around his feet was now picked cleaned. "I'll have to go now," he said. "Are you sure it's safe to stay here?" "I won't get lost," she began. "Not just that. I meant—" "Yes. My friend will be here soon." That earned a nod from him. "Alright. I'll see you later." She waved—out of habit again—and quickly brought her arm back down. But he already saw it and waved back, before vanishing into the trees back toward the campus, the smile unmissable. She sighed to herself. The field began to regain some of its rhythms after a while, the familiar motions she got used to seeing here on the silk-tree above her head and there on the cluster of bright wildflowers at the opposite end of the lake. But her mind was behaving like an old film projector, replaying old records over and over. What had just happened? She remembered seeing herself sit on the stump and wait for Nika before crossing the gate to be distracted by the potential songbird. Exhaling, she peered up at the silk-tree, running her eyes along its gnarled, almost-black bark to its wide-spread branches and velvety leaves. She raised a hand, palm upward, and held it as high as she could near the lowest bough, where a sparrow perched. "Would you come down? Come down." But her voice merely startled the creature away. She dropped her hand. Maybe she shouldn't speak next time. She thought of the melody again. Surely that was what really lured the bird down? If she tried to whistle she might as well screech at the entire flock and send them spiraling off. So instead, she went behind the silk-tree and attempted to drown in some sort of activity while she waited. Nika ran like a horse, it shouldn't be long before the field brimmed with her energy again. Meaning until then, she was stuck with the thoughts circling Lea, around the surprisingly easy smile of her ex. If a smile like that could break a heart, then maybe the other side of Lea's story was also worth knowing. No. Not maybe. She would find out.