There’s always this one girl, sitting alone, in that usual table.

Jennie doesn’t pay mind to it. Why would she?

There’s nothing special about that girl.

Except that the said girl’s always alone.

She’s kind of pretty, – Jennie admits – tall, slender.

Maybe Jennie only wonders why no one hangs out with her.

Was the other girl such bad a person to have no one with her? Even with Jennie’s attitude, she somehow managed to find friends, why not the other girl?

Jennie shakes the thought off as it’s not her business to do so.

Why waste her time, right?

-------------------

Jennie has observed – unintentionally – that the loner girl would take out a piece of paper or a random notebook and draw on it.

Jennie knows that the girl is doodling and not answering assignments. With the way the other girl scratches the paper with pencil, the way she clutches at the paper’s corner, the way she scratches her head or bite her pencil.

The way she smiles when she get the smudges correct.

Jennie has observed it all.

The other girl wasn’t that fascinating.

Jennie’s just really bored.

Really bored that she has known the time the girl normally goes to that table, really bored that she involuntarily tracked the said girl’s schedule of breaks, or what year and room the girl stays.

The other girl wasn’t that fascinating.

No, not yet.

------------------

Not when Jennie knows the girl’s name is Lisa Manoban and ‘Lisa’ would be serving her in payment of the latter’s family debt.

It sounds and seems wrong – a form of slavery – but hey, Lisa’s family suggested and agreed with the conditions so it’s all good.

At least they’re ‘helping’ a family.

Jennie thinks it’s the same with their other maids who work to get paid. Lisa just got paid first before the service.

Lisa proves that at least Jennie’s theory is correct.

Lisa’s a bitch.

An indifferent one, that is.

One who doesn’t care about anything.

One who is a come-what-may person, a relaxed and uninterested being.

It ticks Jennie how Lisa is not the scared, begging, ass-kisser Jennie has thought of.

Suddenly being a servant should have been hard to take.

Lisa should hate Jennie, Lisa should be a bootlicking flatterer – telling Jennie what Jennie wants to hear, doing what Jennie wants to be done.

That’s what servants do, right?

Especially if the said servant owes your family a very huge sum of money.

But Lisa proves fascinating as she’s not any of those.

Lisa disagrees with Jennie, groaning and cursing the older girl. She doesn’t do what she’s told immediately, she answers back, and worse – she explicitly shows how she hates what she’s doing.

How she hates Jennie.

It’s not Jennie’s fault for being a bitch, because Jennie has the every right to do so. She does own Lisa in a way.

And isn’t that what this service is about?

Lisa serving Jennie?

Plain. Simple.

But it proves to be more complicated than it should have been.

Soon, Jennie will know.

Soon, Jennie will notice.

----------

Because Jennie loathes Lisa back. Twice as much hatred Lisa harbours for her.

Jennie admits she’s the devil itself when all she wants is to see Lisa squirm.

To fidget under her stares, to writhe under her touches. To struggle with her words.

Jennie admits she’s the devil itself as she yearns for Lisa’s uneasiness.

At least Lisa will not be as laid-back and uncaring.

So Jennie purposely irritates and annoys Lisa with impossible tasks. She intentionally angers Lisa with simple and silly requests.

Silly requests like massaging her shoulder, or making her assignment, or bringing her breakfast in bed or opening doors for her. Or God forbid, feeding her.

Simple things she could easily do and yet, let Lisa do it.

Where’s the fun if Lisa’s not struggling?

When all the entertainment Jennie wants is when she starts to see Lisa blush from almost anything Jennie does. When all the fun that Jennie needs is when Lisa starts flushing red with embarrassment from the things Jennie say or Jennie makes her do or what Jennie does.

When Jennie becomes more and more devious when Lisa starts to stutter as time goes by when the taller girl talks to Jennie. When Jennie finds more pleasure in seeing Lisa start to shift time to time when Jennie touches her.

Oh, how fun it was to finally see Lisa squirm.

So Jennie goes as far as having sillier requests as the time goes by.

Sillier requests like staying away from her in school, or acting like they don’t know each other.

Because Jennie isn’t that kind of girl.

One may be physically close to her – or any aspect of proximity Jennie wanted – but she knows too well to keep their distance from each other.

It’s just too much when it comes to Lisa.

No.

Jennie doesn’t want even a hair of Lisa near her.

No. Not with Lisa.

When all the reason they’re connected to each other is through a stupid debt. When Jennie’s not even convinced that Lisa is even worth of her greeting.

When Jennie doesn’t even need to know Lisa.

Who is Lisa to her, anyway?

Lisa is no one.

Why waste her time, right?

----------------------

But Jennie is not that heartless.

Because Jennie sat with Lisa that one time to talk about and clarify their ‘contract’. Because Jennie took care of Lisa that one time when Lisa got sick because of her. Because Jennie did buy Lisa a sketchpad that one time when she learned that Lisa left it at the latter’s ‘real’ home.

And Jennie is not that heartless, because then she doesn’t know why she felt the littlest of hurting when Lisa implies that the taller girl doesn’t want to be with her.

When Lisa implies that the house Lisa lives then is not a ‘home’ with Jennie.

Why does Jennie feel the smallest of discomfort when Lisa asks about her private life – her lovelife – her boyfriends like it’s the most casual thing to talk about?

Because it shouldn’t be. Not when Jennie starts to expect that Lisa was slowly falling into her trap of uneasiness.

Because Jennie thought that Lisa will have a harder time asking such things. Because then that means that Lisa does care.

Not like that one time when Lisa deliberately got mad at Jennie for coming home late. Lisa got mad because she was worried about what Jennie’s parents would say.

Not because she was worried about Jennie.

In that moment, Jennie knew something’s wrong.

Because then she wasn’t able to take it.

She got mad. She was furious.

She doesn’t know why. Why it had affected her that much, when it was her that clearly put the boundaries between them.

When it was her that was careful not to get too close to Lisa.

She doesn’t know why she felt resentful when Lisa was perfectly doing her job – a job well done!

And maybe that was what’s wrong.

Lisa was only doing this because it was her ‘job’.

But that’s quick to vanish because the very next day, Lisa asked her out as apology.

Lisa was willing to pay – how ironic it was – for the ‘date’.

Then again, Jennie isn’t that heartless. She doesn’t let Lisa pay an expensive bill.

She isn’t as heartless as Lisa who surprised her by watching a horror film. Of all genres that could have been picked, and it was her least favourite.

Way to go, dumb monkey.

Though it continues to fascinate Jennie how Lisa remembers little things about her. Like how she doesn’t like pizza when she only mindlessly mentioned it that one time.

It continues to fascinate Jennie how she starts to learn things about Lisa. Like how the latter instantly stiffens by physical contact. How funny that sight was.

So it amuses Jennie more – urging her more to touch and hold Lisa.

Urging her more to basically latch herself to Lisa.

---------------------

It doesn’t help how she starts to notice how Lisa acts around her.

Lisa still answers back, and still teases her. But something was off, something was new.

With the way Lisa stares at her like Jennie’s the only one she sees, the way Lisa would somehow lower her gaze to Jennie’s lips then back to Jennie’s eyes. With the way Lisa stammers with normal conversations, with the way Lisa looks mad and lonely at the same time whenever they’re at school and they would chance upon each other – with Jennie hanging out with her usual circle of friends and some guys – having to act like they don’t know each other. Because Jennie makes it clear every day that it should be like that. That they should be like that.

Jennie didn’t understand.

She has no clue what was happening.

Jennie didn’t understand.

Not that time, she didn’t.