As the classes went on, Paul didn't pay much attention to the teacher's lectures.
Most of the time, he was staring outside the window, but suddenly, he saw a faint light in the dark abyss. It was so faint that even if someone passed by, they wouldn't notice.
Paul had forgotten, too, but when he looked back, he saw the light, very faint, almost on the verge of disappearing.
"Right, those numbers," he thought.
He grabbed his pen and opened the notebook, which was clearly blank, and wrote the numbers: 23, 25, 38, 49, 49, 66, 66, 69, 76, 77, 82, 87, and 105.
He looked at the numbers and thought, "It's probably not coordinates," he was sure.
"Then maybe some letter transformation?"
If it was some different language, then it was out of his league. He had to ask someone in the office to check it out.
Next, he drew paranormal lines, which he thought could be maps of streets or the subway.
A minute passed, and he was having a hard time remembering it. He felt like he'd seen this place before. "Which... is it?"
He took out his smartphone from his pants pocket and opened the map app, giving a slight glance towards the front.
The teacher was still spouting nonsense.
First, he checked Corsalis. He zoomed in, zoomed out, trying to find the similarities between the lines and the map.
After looking for almost five minutes, he finally locked in on the "Drayden" streets, which were about seven to eight kilometers away from his apartment.
Still, some things didn't add up. The lines he had drawn were more extensive than the Drayden streets.
"Maybe..." He changed the map to subway only and tried to match it. Still... Finally, a thought erupted in his mind, and he started drawing the street lines of Drayden, just like what he'd seen in Liam's place.
Just simple lines; after drawing that, he turned the page and drew the subway lines on a different page. After he finished, he tore out those two pages and put them up and down, sometimes changing the rotation, and it was done.
He put the street lines up front, just as he had seen before, and put the subway lines in back of it.
The subway lines up front were just like smartphone cameras. It didn't match at first, but when he rotated the subway line page to vertical from horizontal, it was somehow similar to the paranormal lines he'd drawn earlier.
"Drayden, is it?" Next, he tried to come up with something that matched the numbers, the rectangular box design, and Drayden.
"If this is what I think it is, then maybe it's..."
He started writing something: AIBEIONPO.
"What's this mean?" he thought.
"Is it some password or something? But still, there are so many errors in this, and there's still something missing, but... maybe they made it that way? Isn't this too simple?" He looked sideways at the normal students.
"Maybe it's not, but still..."
Tring, tring, tring.
And it was time for a break—to eat something or go to the washrooms.
Paul put the pages in his notebook and closed it, putting it inside his backpack. Now, that faint light had turned a little brighter. Even if he was a little far away, he could see it.
He waited for seven to eight minutes in his seat as the class cleared out and a few students remained, including Varsha, the boss's daughter and the girl with long black hair, who had caught his attention earlier.
Paul looked up for a second, a little annoyed or a little angry—he didn't know why.
He stood up, reverted to his normal expression, and glanced sideways for just half a second. He exited the classroom and went towards the cafeteria to buy his lunch.
After buying lunch from the school's cafeteria, he arrived near a metal bench a little too far away from the main playground.
There were a few trees behind the bench, but no other students could be seen aside from him. Though the cafeteria was rather big, it was always crowded around this time.
And Paul had chosen this place to eat. He had brought two veggie sandwiches and one fruit juice.
He sat down and unwrapped the plastic cover from the sandwich and was about to take the first bite when he heard someone's voice.
"Excuse me. Would you mind if I sit here?"
It was a girl's voice. He clicked his tongue with dissatisfaction and raised his head slightly to look at the owner of the voice.
He saw the girl, the same girl he saw yesterday when he was with Sara in a restaurant, when he had looked outside and saw her standing near the flower shop.
He wasn't sure at first, but right now, he confirmed that both girls were the one—the one who was in the class and the one he saw near the flower shop were the same girl, who was standing right in front of him, asking for his permission to sit beside him.
Paul, of course, didn't pay any attention to her and said,
"Do what you want," and took a bite.
The girl could clearly see that Paul was ignoring her, yet she managed a slight smile and sat down next to him.
She began eating her lunch, which coincidentally or not, was the same as Paul's: two veggie sandwiches and a fruit juice of the same flavor.
As both were eating their lunch there's awkward air started filling between them. The girl noticed it, and took the sip from her juice and asked -
"Do you always come here to eat at lunch time?" not expecting anything in reply.
Paul thought about the question, answered with a single. "No."
She nodded slightly inside her head, and asked again "Hm... I always see you alone like this, and even in the class you are always looking outside the window, don't you have any friends or…"
"Just get to the point, why are you here?" Paul spoke up, without even letting her finish the sentence, feeling impatient and irritated at the same time.
She didn't lose her small smile, and answered "I— I just saw you alone, and thought that being alone all the time isn't a good thing. You know, there's many mental illnesses that can happen, maybe you started talking to yourself. So I came here to talk to you, and to keep you company that's all."
"I'm not looking for your pity."
"Hmm.... "She looked at Paul's face for a second, and said with a playful grin "Then why were you looking at me in the classroom."
Paul was almost finished eating, and was sipping the juice.
She continued "Yep, I noticed that, but the way you always act like, i don't care without any interest in anyone, but looking in my direction. I would've ignored it, if it was once or twice maybe but you were just…"
With a mischievous smile she added "Well that's that, but I don't mind anyway, and it's a good plus point for me, that someone who doesn't have any interest in anyone looking at me five- six times... Ahh it's embarrassing..."
As she finished speaking and looked at Paul.
He was looking in front , towards the playground, without showing any interest in the words she said, "what?"
"Hey!!!, are you even listening?"
Yeah, he was listening to every word she spoke, and he was also wondering ,why?
It's the same question. Why was he looking at her in the classroom? Was it just because he saw her yesterday? No, there was something else he knew. But he also doesn't know himself?
"Well.. All that aside I'm Mia ,what about you?" She asked with a smile.
At this time he finished eating, and stood up from the bench and throwed the empty juice packet in the bin. Ready to walk away towards the classroom.
Mia hurriedly added, seeing no response. "This kind of attitude isn't a good thing, you know that?"
Paul stopped his walking legs and calmly. "Paul. And don't show your face in front of me again."
Mia nodded with a true smile, but Paul didn't look back.
He was already far away. Maybe from this distance, he might not be able to recognize…