The two of us walked into the convenience store.

"Anyways, enough about that, while we're here, let's have some fun!"

"We're in a convenience store, not an amusement park..."

At this school, each student gets an allowance based on their rank, class and test results. The points are basically a one-to-one imitation of the dollar in terms of value. However, the points can only be spent in the school.

Points can be earned in the following ways:

Class Points, Class A - 1000 points, Class B - 500 points, Class C - 200 points, Class D - 100 points (Per month).

Rank Points, each student gets (100 - [their rank]) points multiplied by 10. (E.g. Rank #2 would earn (100-2) multiplied by 10 equalling 980 points.) (Per month).

Test Points, (During midterm and End-of-Year exams only, for each of the four tests), a score above 70% earns 100 points, a score above 80% earns 300 points, a score about 90% earns 1000 points and a perfect score earns 5000 points.

Points can also be distributed by the school for certain events.

*

Despite being a small convenience store, the store had practically all the essentials, granted, there was not much of a selection for each different item. There were other stores in the school which were more specific but they had much higher prices.

I made my way to the oil section, for my doorknob. I looked down the aisle, vegetable oil, palm oil, olive oil, canola oil... It didn't seem like there was any oil specifically for use on non-cooking equipment.

"What's the matter? I usually use olive oil."

I really hope she doesn't use olive oil on her door.

"My doorknob is a bit clunky so I wanted to loosen it."

"Oh, for your door... Why don't we go to the hardware store?"

I guess I didn't have a choice, I felt like going for a stroll in the shopping centre anyways.

The school had a significantly sized mall near the dorms. It had most of the popular shops which teenagers went to. There were cafes, all sorts of retail stores an arcade and even a commercial-sized cinema. Everything inside could be purchased with points.

Before leaving, I grabbed a value bag of vegetable stock instant noodles and took it up to the cashier.

Students at the school weren't allowed to have part-time jobs at the stores, the positions were taken up by employees outside of the school.

"That'll be two points."

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and scanned it onto the EFTPOS machine. After a slight beep, the transaction went through and the cashier handed me my noodles.

"Thank you, have a great day."

We began walking down the clean cement path towards the mall, it was only a short distance from the convenience store. The school was filled with carefully groomed vegetation, there were short stumpy trees cut into nice symmetrical shapes and small rectangular bushes with bright green leaves.

Maia was relatively quiet during the walk to the mall.

Eventually, we made our way to the entrance of the mall, there were two sets of large glass automatic sliding doors with a big billboard with advertisements and offers for the stores.

"Hey while we're here, why don't we go to the arcade."

I figured this was coming,

"No."

"Aw, can we at least have lunch?"

"You can do whatever you like, I'm going to buy some oil."

She opened her eyes widely and looked at me. I didn't feel like doing anything today.

"Don't you have other friends who you can hang out with anyways, why are you sticking so close to me?"

"But I came today just to hang out with you…"

"That's the part I'm confused about."

"I-it's just that I want to be friends with you, and then we can work together to figure out what happened to our siblings."

This was a side of Maia I had never seen before, she usually acted tough and cold, but here she showed so much emotion.

"Fine, I'll have lunch with you after I go to the hardware store."

"Yay!"

As we walked through the mall, some of the other students began looking at us. It was probably a combination of the fact that the vice-president was walking with a class C nobody and the fact that not only was Maia already generally considered very attractive but she was also dressed very casually.

"Hey, Maia!"

It was Mackenzie, one of the two assistants of Caleb. It seemed she knew Maia pretty well, likely from their time together on the student council together.

"So, what are you doing today?"

"Just some shopping."

Mackenzie suddenly looked towards me.

"Isn't that Oliver Moran from class C?"

I decided to reply

"Yeah."

"Hmm, I've never seen you with him before?"

"Well, it's our first time really hanging out with each other."

"Oh."

"Well, we better get going."

"Alright, I'll catch'ya in the student council."

After a brief moment, Mackenzie turned and walked away.

The two of us made our way to the hardware store and purchased the oil I needed.

"Let's go to the cafe!"

"Sure."

The two of us sat down in the cafe. The place was relatively empty, mostly due to the fact that there were a plentiful number of facilities for a student body of less than 300 students.

We both looked down at the colourful menus handed to us.

"I'll take an orange juice and a vegetable quiche."

After hearing me, Maia also placed her order.

"I'll have tea and a lamb salad."

The waiter walked away with our orders.

"Haa, are you a vegetarian or something?"

"It's not that I'm a vegetarian, I just usually like eating vegetable things a bit more."

After that short conversation, Maia looked down at the table, she seemed like she had something she wanted to say. A silence fell upon us.

The ambient noise from the cafe was quite calming, I actually quite enjoyed the atmosphere of this particular place.

After a little while, Maia looked back up at me and seemed to be tense.

"What's up?"

"U-um, Oliver, do you still remember me?"

What was this?

"What do you mean? I mean I know you're the student council vice president,

that's all there is right?"

The atmosphere became melancholic, suddenly the entire area felt cold.

Maia looked visibly downhearted.

"I knew this would happen..."

She muttered something else under her breath. Her voice was squeaky and broken...

I wasn't able to hear much of it.

"but I didn't realise it would hurt so much..."

**

Run and Don’t Look Back (2)

Mother never spoke to me.

I didn't know why Mother hated me. All the mothers in the television always played with their children, they read stories with them, they played games with them, they went on walks with them, they went shopping with them.

I wondered why Mother didn't do these things with me.

I usually watched the television, but sometimes Mother closed the door. She used to get very angry if I opened the door. So, when the door was closed I got my sister's old textbooks and read them, illuminated by a single streak of light from the small window.

Sometimes I read the textbooks for several hours, even days on end. I think there was something wrong with me. I felt like time had disappeared, I was entranced in the textbooks, nothing in the world could distract me.

All I did was read the textbooks. When I was reading I felt nothing, I felt no hunger, no sadness, no thirst, I just read.

Did normal children do this?

I think I’m weird.

I think there’s something wrong with me.