Chapter 10: December 10, Thursday– The phone (Chapter .7 part 1)

Shum Deil woke to the sound of the dismissal bell. Sprawled on top of his desk, not even trying to hide his disinterest by folding in on himself in his sleeping form, he made his disobedience open and above-board. As if to send out a provocation of, So what? Reprimand me! Luckily, the teacher had long learned not to pay attention to him. In their tacit understanding, as long as Deil did not disturb the class, the teacher would overlook his offence. They both knew he didn't have to listen as attentively as others to get impeccable results. And so, he wasn’t minded that strictly.

Deil had not come to school the previous day, and only after noon did he turn up for classes today. His head teacher called him plenty of times, which he left unanswered. In one of the messages, he got threatened as well, but pretended not to see it.

Even now, he was pushed for time, and therefore cranky. What’s more, he had been suffering from a slight cold ever since last night. His spirits low, Deil lay on top of his desk, his nose blocked and runny.

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Yesterday morning after the accident, which Deil created to evade, funny enough: an accident, he felt like the biggest idiot in human history. He was so angry at himself that he could not stop shaking for hours. He found it best to avoid school altogether, lest he stirred even bigger trouble, surrounded by either rules or people.

During those minutes he zapped through the streets, the cussing of Lennox’s lackeys continuously echoed in his ears. Those boys actually planned to run over Hoh Saering.

The surprise on the boy's face as he fell back after the push replayed countless times before Deil’s eyes. In that split moment, he genuinely thought he was doing something substantial to prevent Saering from getting hit by a scooter, from getting injured.

The adage was true: man's ignorance knows no bounds.

Once Deil stopped some hundreds of metres away, he threw down his bike, his forehead damp with the mist of rain and cold sweat. Without a look, he started running back like his life depended on it, slipping and almost tripping twice.

The pedestrian crossing in front of H Junior High did not look any different than it did other times. Cars passed by in the glistening aftereffects of rain. People hurried on their way, carrying on with life.

Deil whipped his head around but there was nothing to see no matter which way he searched. He turned to the ground, his eyes almost straining.

There was some glass sparkling on the wet surface of the road, and after a glance, a tremor travelled along his spine. His hands trembled as he crouched down to retrieve a phone with a shattered screen laying some steps away. The device was tucked in the corner of the road bank.

That was Saering's phone, and now it was left behind, broken.

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In a daze, Deil saw his literature teacher pull into the school's driveway. The car even skidded a bit on the wet road. Pocketing the phone, Deil took off after the car.

At that time, not that many students arrived yet, so the usually packed school corridors were cold and glum in the faint, overcast morning light. The literature teacher's destination turned out to be the clinic on the first floor. Deil followed closely, but he could do little more than pass the clinic's door a few times, his steps quick with trepidation. What if someone picked up on his seemingly aimless loitering and call him out on it?

The door to the clinic had been left ajar, making it easy to hear how several adults made a ruckus from the inside. Deil heard their voices rise and dip within the sentences. Everyone tried to proclaim their view rather passionately. At one point, he heard phrases like broken arm and hospital.

Suddenly, it got a bit difficult to breathe. A swirl of emotions flooded Deil’s being. The magnitude and the consequences of his actions hit deep. It was impossible for him to stay there any longer.

Deil pressed a hand to his chest and decided to leave. However lame it may be, he wanted to run away. And yet, at the crossing in front of the school, he stopped and turned back.

It was raining once again.

Some time later, the literature teacher’s car rolled out with a passenger sitting in the front seat. Deil stood there as if rooted to the spot, staring at the car. His gaze was blurry by the water but it followed the car as it left with the stream of traffic flowing in the direction of the city centre.

Not long after, he left as well.

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That day, Deil wandered the city for a while, not going home nor going back to school. He smoked cigarette after cigarette. Standing under the eaves of a small shop, he called Little Mo to ask about those high school assholes and where they usually gathered. After the call, he entered the little shop he usually frequented for dinner.

"Heavens! You're soaked through to the bone!" The lady boss chided him at first glance, "Why didn’t you take cover from the rain? Hurry and sit down near the stove." She waved at the back of the shop, where, beside the counter stood a circular gas heater.

There were only a handful of patrons in the shop. The morning rush had already subsided, but it was still early for lunch. The atmosphere was warm and cosy, unlike at night time.

"Here, give me your coat." The woman took Deil’s coat and ushered him deeper inside. She ordered him to sit with the instruction, “Wait here and don’t move.”

The owner handed Deil a dry towel to use. By then, Deil’s coat hung on the back of a chair pulled close to the heater.

"Do I want to ask why you're not at school?" asked the owner once Deil was sitting. She wore a red apron; her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. The woman wasn't tall, but she wasn't a small, frail lady either. She put her hands on the table, eyeing him.

After a good look at the boy, however, she shook her head, "Never mind. What do you want to eat?"

Deil said nothing. Still trembling slightly, he stooped low in the creaky chair.

"I'll give you soup to warm you up!" The shop owner swept a hand on his shoulder before she went back to the kitchen.

Slowly, Deil wiped his face and hair, then the back of his hands and the back of his neck. He put the towel on the table and pulled the broken phone out of his pocket for a look. He did not even check if his own phone – which was still in his coat's outer pocket – got damaged by the rain.

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The screen of Hoh Saering's cell phone showed an intricate web of cracks, completely destroyed. Deil tried pushing the power button a few times without any success. The thing did not turn on. The surface of the phone was a bit wet, but not soaked. Even though he kept it in the pocket of his hoodie, his clothes were drenched after all, being in the rain for so long.

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When the lady boss came back with a big bowl of steaming thick soup, the youth sitting at the table was rubbing a cell phone with the towel. He stopped when the food got placed before him, a strange expression slipping onto his face.

The three occupied tables were all served at the moment and the boys could hold down the back. The lady boss thought about it for a moment, then decided to stay and talk further.

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Deil put the phone down on top of the folded towel. He took a spoonful and started slurping up noodles without waiting for a second to let the soup cool. The shop owner idled around, glancing at the phone. "Is that yours?" she asked while wiping down the next table over.

Deil shook his head, "It got damaged because of me."

"What are you going to do about it?"

He stilled with the spoon in his hand. "I don't know. Should I buy a new one?"

"Well, it depends on whose phone it is," offered the owner.

Thinking about it, Deil didn't say more. He really did not have a close enough relationship with Saering to buy him a new phone, or... to buy him anything, for that matter. Certainly not after what he had done. Even if Deil dared to purchase a replacement, the other boy would probably not accept it.

"Is it water damaged?" asked the owner.

"Not likely," Deil shook his head. "It's just the screen."

The lady laughed, saying, "Then get it fixed and it's done."

Deil felt some embarrassment, pulling the phone out of sight.

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He found a phone shop dealing with repairs in the afternoon, but they could not perform the screen change that day.

Thus, Deil had two choices: he could either leave the phone in the shop and pick it up later; or return in the morning when they had more time to spare.

For some strange reason, Deil did not want to let the phone out of his sight. Not that the shop looked like a particularly shady place, but he was still worried about getting scammed or getting some parts or data stolen. He could not cause more grievances to Hoh Saering.

This level of cautiousness in itself told a lot about how he felt regarding the situation. Even little wild cubs knew to turn wary and penitent when they did something wrong.

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First thing in the morning Deil went back to the repair shop and watched the whole process of the middle-aged employee changing the broken screen. It wasn't cheap, and Deil paid more than he initially thought the work was worth, but he wanted it fixed as soon as possible.

After getting the phone back in his hands, he left for school at noon.

All through last night and this morning, Deil’s phone kept chiming with incoming posts about what happened yesterday. He almost religiously checked the chats, all the while feeling conflicted each time he saw something new, doubting if anything he read was true.

At school, he asked around some more, getting basic information about the previous day's happenings. That little girlfriend of Saering laughed at people who brought up most of the things online, while Bede Teo straight up told everyone that it was complete bullshit.

The truth was that Hoh Saering broke his arm and injured his leg. Everything else came from the overactive imagination of teenagers.

Kaikai, one of Deil's classmates, was friends with Saering. The boy didn’t seem to be deeply concerned, so things could not be that bad. Regardless, Deil felt increasingly worse and worse. He wanted to light a cigarette every five minutes and his stomach twisted this way and that. After only two classes, he felt mentally and physically so exhausted he practically passed out during the day's last lesson.

When school let out, he had to make a delivery happen.

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After much contemplation, Deil used a bubble padded envelope, snuck into the humanities classroom, and looked for Saering’s student cabinet. In each classroom, a row of storage shelves lined the back wall. Deil quickly found the one with ‘Hoh Saering’ written on it.

First and foremost, he wanted to try this locker – leaving the phone at the other boy’s desk did not seem like a good idea. Fortunately, the cabinet was open. Inside were only some books and a change of clothes, no wonder why Saering did not lock it.

Onto the envelope Deil wrote ‘Hoh Saering’ in big, bold font, opting to leave out the sender’s name, and note only the recipient instead.

Inside however, he slipped a note next to the phone – a small piece of paper consisting of only one line.

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