Chapter 24: Blue Hair Bobbing in the Sunset

After Mao Lin’s sudden departure, silence filled the room. Shirley breathed out a heavy sigh.

She looked around her surroundings. A murky mixture of vibrant oranges and soft reds colored the walls. The shadows in the corners elongated, contorting and expanding to fill as much space as they possibly could.

Amidst the silence, Mary suddenly stood up. Shirley did not know when, but at some point, Mary was wearing a red backpack that was nearly twice the size of her torso. She walked towards the doorway.

“You’re leaving too?” Shirley asked.

Mary curtly nodded her head. Her azure blue hair bobbed up and down in the process, resembling the rising tide of a turbulent ocean. Shirley didn’t find her actions all that surprising. She knew Mary. Although the two never spoke more than ten words at a time to one another, she liked to believe that the both of them were pretty close. Mary only ever went home after Mao Lin did, and whenever Mao Lin left early, Mary would also leave early too.

After spending months together with these two, Shirley had gotten desensitized to their rather odd behavioral quirks.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said.

Mary nodded in response and quietly left the room.

After a few seconds of silence, Theo’s voice suddenly sounded out from next to her.

“Is your club always like this?” He had to admit; this small club was filled with high-quality weirdos. The silent Mary and the pushy yet energetic club president; a rather odd combination to say the least

“Well, more or less.” Shirley shrugged her shoulders. She really had grown quite desensitized. She shook her head, before she grabbed the application form that Mao Lin had left on the table. She waved the form in front of Theo’s face. “Now, are you going to sign the paper or what?”

“Do I have any other choice?” Theo bitterly asked.

She stuck out her tongue in response. “Nope, you don’t.”

With one last final sigh, Theo took the application form from Shirley’s hands and quickly scribbled his name down. He begrudgingly returned the paper to Shirley. It wasn’t that he was averse to joining the club, but the feeling as if he had been manipulated into joining left a bad aftertaste on his tongue.

Shirley happily took the form and folded it into thirds, before she stuffed it inside her backpack. “With this, you are now the official fourth member of the Paranormal Research and Strange Phenomenon club. I’ll bring this application form to the faculty room tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just go already.” He bitterly spat out, as he stood up.

Shirley laughed to herself. She cheerfully followed Theo out of the door.

****

A bobbing blue head quietly made its way through the school’s empty hallway. The orange glow of the setting sun made for a rather stark contrast. The small girl who could easily be mistaken for a middle schooler, right now, her appearance was like that of a transcendent fairy from whispered legends.

After a few minutes, she arrived at the school’s front courtyard. She looked up and saw two people. Girls, dressed in flashy clothing. They were casually conversing by the school’s landmark water fountain.

Mary hesitated for a moment, before she eventually walked up to them. When she got closer, she squinted her eyes in scrutiny. One of the girls possessed a head full of pearly platinum hair, while the other sported a golden tan.

The two quickly noticed her arrival. They stopped and looked up.

“Yo, Mary you’re a bit early today, aren’t you?” The one with the golden tan greeted. Her name was Madison, although most people just usually called her Maddy.

Mary nodded in response.

“Did that little club president of yours leave early again?” The other girl, the one with the platinum hair, asked. She was Monica, or Nica for short.

Mary nodded again.

“Why don’t you ever stay around and spend some time with Shirley?” Nica couldn’t help but ask.

“Yeah, yeah. We’re over here busting our heads and trying our uber hardest for even a single opportunity of alone time, yet here you are, throwing it all away like it’s nothing.” Maddy grumbled, as she crossed her arms and huffed.

Mary was silent for a moment. She thought about what to say, before she lowered her head. For a moment, the bangs of her blue hair hid her eyes. “I can’t. Being alone with her is… it’s embarrassing.” She said such a thing with a seriously deadpanned expression on her face.

Hearing this, the two girls sighed.

Maddy scratched her cheek with a manicured nail. “Even though you come off as a cold and serious character, to think underneath that wooden face of yours, you’re like this… how do I say it, it’s kind of…”

“Disappointing.” Nica finished for her. “Mary, you’re a seriously disappointing girl.”

“Right, right.” Maddy nodded in agreement. “What’s more, you’re kind of clashing characters here. Shirley’s already the shy character, we don’t really need two.”

Mary remained silent. She lowered her head for a moment, almost as if she was thoroughly digesting their words. After a few seconds, she looked back up at them and nodded. Without warning, she suddenly kicked their shins.

A chorus of high-pitched screams filled the air. Maddy and Nica, both of them hopped around on one foot, each clutching one of their legs with an expression of agony on their faces.

“…It’s not like I wanted to be like this…” Mary grumbled out. She did not look at the girls again, before she abruptly started walking away.

Seeing this, the two hurried to catch up to them.

“Hey, hey, come on Mary. It was a joke! Lighten up, geez.” Maddy complained. She walked with a slight limp.

“I’d just like to say, Maddy started it first,” Nica interjected.

Mary ignored them and continued walking. Although her face appeared wooden at first glance, if one looked carefully, then they’d notice the slight puff in her cheeks, as well as the faint crease in her brow. Mary was pouting.

She was about to continue walking, when she suddenly remembered something. She stopped and turned back towards the others.

“Ah, there was someone else there too.” She said.

“Someone else?” Maddy and Nica looked at one another. “Who?”

Mary hesitated. “I don’t know. He came with Shirley.”

“Ah, Loverboy?” Nica said.

“Loverboy?”

“Yup, Shirley’s childhood friend.” Maddy answered. “He has this sort of unassuming face, right? Like, if it wasn’t for how sloppy he looked, then nothing about him would really stand out. That’s the guy you’re talking about, right?”

“...”

Mary was silent. Towards random people that she didn’t particularly care for, she had trouble remembering their faces, much less their names. After struggling for a few seconds, an image slowly formed. It wasn’t a face, but more like a general profile. What she saw was a head of messy black hair.

She nodded.

Seeing this, Nica also nodded. “As far as we know, only Shirley’s childhood friend hangs out with her outside of club activities.”

“Yeah, only a twisted god would put such a boring looking guy together with a beauty like Shirley.” Maddy added.

Mary stayed quiet for a while. After a long pause, she suddenly said, “That guy, he’s kind of weird.”

“Weird?”

“Weird how?”

“Nnn.” Mary nodded. “Even when he wasn’t staring at me… I… for some reason, I still felt as if he was.”

“Staring at you?”

“Nnn.”

“Ah, come to think of it, you’ve always been sensitive to others, haven’t you?” Nica commented.

“Isn’t that the legendary ‘pervert’s gaze’?” Maddy said.

“Pervert’s gaze?” Nica repeated in confusion.

“That’s right. I’ve only heard of it through hearsay, but… it’s like, seriously bad news. If a person has the ‘pervert’s gaze’, then they're capable of visually stripping a girl with a single glance!”

“What’s with that! That’s seriously creepy!”

“Yeah, Mary, you must have sensed that pervert’s ill intentions.” Maddy turned towards her and seriously stated. “I knew it, such an unassuming face, it only makes sense for it to hide such a lecherous mind.”

Mary furrowed her brow. “No, it’s different.”

“Different how?”

“…I don’t know.” She shook her head. Truthfully, aside from that unnerving feeling of being watched, she felt nothing. The fact that she felt nothing only made her more suspicious. Were her senses off? As far as she knew, she had never once been off in her intuition.

Even after thinking about the issue for a while, she could not reach a satisfying conclusion. She shook her head again and resumed walking. “Let’s go already.”

“Ah, that reminds me, Big Sis called. Apparently, we’re on night duty today.” Nica commented as she hurried to catch up. “Says she found another ‘client’”.

“Client?” Mary frowned.

“Yeah, isn’t it cool?” Maddy said. “It’s supposed to be a codeword. Nica thought of it.”

“Hehe,” Nica scratched the back of her head, a bashful expression on her face.

“Don’t use that word ever again.” Mary coldly said. “It’ll make people misunderstand.”

“Misunderstand? What will they misunderstand?” Nica tilted her head in confusion.

Mary simply shook her head.

“Anyways~, we’re supposed to be the ones on duty tonight… sooo, let’s go together, Mary!” Maddy playfully asked.

“No. You guys are the ones on duty. Not me.” A cold rejection.

“Eh, what’s with that, so stingy. Share the burden with us~”

“Unfair, unfair~”

She ignored their childish taunting and continued walking.

“Fine.” Eventually, they gave up. Maddy suddenly asked, “If you’re not going to help tonight, then where are you going?”

“Back home.” She curtly responded. The place in her mind was dark and dreary, with cobwebs everywhere and rotting wood nearly taking up half the infrastructure. It wasn’t much, but for now, it really was her home.

Mary, without pause, kept walking. She walked past the gates and down the street. She disappeared beneath the horizon, with the quiet sunset in the background. She left behind Maddy and Nica by the school’s front gates.

As the duo watched her go, one of them suddenly nudged the other. “Hey, do you think that little girl fell in love?” Maddy asked.

“Fell in love? With who?” Nica questioned back.

“With Loverboy, of course! Who else would I be talking about?”

“Him? Why would she fall in love with him?”

“Well, wasn’t she particularly interested in him? It’s rare for that girl to show interest in other people.” Maddy paused for a moment, before hesitantly adding, “Plus, he looks like he gives off that… that disposition.”

“What disposition?”

“The type who can’t hold back.” She stated. “I bet Loverboy’s the type of guy that’d jump at any girl that gives him even the slightest sliver of attention.”

“Oh…” Nica nodded her head in agreement. For a moment, she was deep in thought, before she suddenly widened her eyes and snapped her fingers. “That’s it!”

“What? What happened?” Maddy reflexively took as step back, caught off guard by her friend’s sudden burst of enthusiasm.

“Loverboy!” Nica answered. “If we fall in love with him, won’t that naturally make us closer to Shirley?”

“Ah!” Maddy widened her eyes. She looked at Nica with an expression as if she was staring at a genius. “You might be on to something!”

“Yes, yes. It’ll be like the common saying, ‘pole sisters!’”

“That doesn’t sound quite right, but basically yeah.” Maddy nodded. “If we fall in love with Loverboy, then we’d naturally have to spend more time with him, and vice versa, we’d also be spending more time with Shirley!”

“Isn’t it the perfect plan?” Nica proudly boasted.

“Hahaha, you’re a genius!” Maddy clapped her hands and furiously nodded her head.

“Hahaha!”

With the setting sun as their background, two idiots laughed merrily in front of the school gate.

****

“Achoo!” Theo sneezed. He rubbed the tip of his nose. “Is someone talking about me behind my back?” After thinking about it for a moment, he eventually shrugged his shoulders. He opened the doorknob and loudly greeted, “I’m home!”

“…”

Nothing but dead silence.

“No one’s home?” He raised a brow.

Theo had just finished dropping Shirley off, and it was only now that he made it back. Although it was still light outside, a certain wave of fatigue and drowsiness hit him the moment he walked through those doors.

“Where’s Aunt Lynn?” He wondered to himself.

After briefly investigating all the rooms, he found a sticky note slapped onto the surface of the refrigerator. It was a short message, and it took Theo less than ten seconds to read to full completion.

‘I’ll be out for tonight. Something to do with my publishing agent. Don’t wait up for me, I’ll probably be late. Cook something for yourself.

P.S.

Don’t burn the house down.’

After he finished, Theo rubbed his chin and silently pondered. I really should have gotten here early. Heck, just a little earlier and maybe I could have caught a glimpse of the agent. With that sort of advantage, I would have definitely been able to get a name or two out…

The fact that Aunt Lynn still wasn’t willing to tell him the name of her book seriously bothered him. For the last three days, the curiosity’s been gnawing on him from the inside out.

He shook his head and sighed.

With Aunt Lynn out of the house for tonight, Theo suddenly found himself alone.

How should he spend this quiet evening? Of course, things like watching a movie or surfing the internet did not come to mind. Instead, he immediately concluded that tonight was the perfect opportunity for even more training.

He glanced over at the electric socket by the kitchen table. A bitter smile flashed through his face.

This method really did suck. Not only was it inconvenient, but it also left his body numb for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as if he had any other alternative. For starters, using substitutes like battery packs wouldn’t work. Those types of things simply lacked the juice

Using alternative energy sources also wasn’t very viable. Where the hell would he even get alternatives?

If he could get his hands on a car batter or a generator, maybe that’ll work, but Theo’s family didn’t own a car, and buying any sort of generator was already an expensive investment, one that he could not afford. In the end, he was left with only one option…

Theo shook his head, before he bit down on his thumb. Tonight was going to be a long night…