Page 19

Vivienne

A quiet chime pierces through the faint wind as the text Vivienne just sent delivers successfully on the other end.

Hours of worry weave anxiety like a cord around her nerves, her knees relentlessly jerking against the cold, metallic railing of the school’s terrace.

She left multiple texts last night hoping to wake up to meet tons of replies, but she found nothing.

Now it’s lunchtime. Others are down at the cafeteria having a meal.

And it’s not like she isn’t hungry. She didn’t have breakfast today because her mood was sour.

It was weird not waking up to a text from him.

She just didn’t feel like eating anything.

But now she does, and perhaps she should be down at the cafeteria stuffing her face with whatever junk is on the menu.

Yet here she is at the school’s terrace, trying to reach out to him…again. Because she’s anxious, worried about him. She hasn’t heard his voice in a moment too long and that reality is far too unbearable.

She’s obsessed with him.

Finally, her phone suddenly chimes with a message. And her heart races.

It’s him.

Vivienne wants to frown at his reply, which, she might add, is quite irrelevant to the topic she wants to address. But a reply is a reply. This means he isn’t dead or sick or kidnapped.

Vivienne’s cheeks warm, imagining him saying those last two words in his deep, husky voice.

He’s so polite, so self-aware and mature.

Well, Ian was mature too. But quite in a different way.

Ian was…stable, sentimental and understood basic human emotions.

But Lucan isn’t. He’s volatile, unpredictable, and with a very low emotional quotient.

Yet he always tries his best. Apologizing, admitting he’s wrong—those aren’t habits of his.

Yet he does them even though he doesn’t understand why he has to do them. That alone is charming.

Vivienne’s fingers hover over the message bar, her teeth biting into her lower lip nervously. The words she wants to type churn at the back of her mind. But she doesn’t know if she should type them.

A shaky sigh breaks out of her lips as she types the words in one breath then sends. The reply comes almost immediately.

Her heart sinks.

It has narrowly been four weeks since she last saw him.

Their bond shouldn’t feel this strong—not when it’s built on texts, calls and hours of conversation.

But whatever shifted the ground beneath them during their coffee date, whatever made her think of him, a stranger, for days afterward, has only deepened.

She’s more than just attached now. Maybe logically too quickly, but what can she do? She just can’t help it. He’s brilliant, always managing to turn even the silliest conversations into something meaningful. Every word holds a story—one he understands, one Vivienne never knew even existed.

She always knew how easily her heart could be stolen—probably why she’s been heartbroken so often. But she never knew she could actually care this much through a fucking screen. But after not hearing from him for 24 hrs, she panicked. She thought it was over, something that has barely even started.

And now, she thinks the calls and texts no longer feel enough. She needs to see him. She needs to reassure herself that he’s still here for a while.

And the yearning keeps growing every second that passes.

The text delivers, a weight settling in her chest.

A hopeful smile creeps up her lips.

It takes quite a while for him to send a reply. While she wonders if she should just tell him she misses him and wants to see him, she completely forgets that he doesn’t understand sarcasm and might have taken her last message seriously.

“Shit,” she curses on realization. But before she can send a quick text to clear the evident misunderstanding, his reply drops.

Vivienne rolls her eyes.

She hears a heavy sigh nearby after sending the text. Her gaze drifts across to Kenji, who is lying on his back on the artificial grass, one arm draped over his face to shield the sun’s reflection, the other thrown across his midsection.

He looks way too comfortable.

“You okay, dude?” she asks him. At the same time, a chime announces a new message on her phone.

“Don’t mind me,” Kenji murmurs, eyes still closed. “Just do your thing.”

Her eyes linger on him for a few seconds until she hears the second chime from her phone.

Her brows furrow at the first reply, and then her gaze drops to the one that follows right after it.

His odd question sends a weird chill down her spine, plastering miniature bumps on her skin.

It’s a fair question. Does she know him?

But she’s sure she knows him. His name is Lucan Ardalion Raskovic. He’s Russian and Japanese. He graduated high school at the age of twelve—she still can’t wrap her head around that aspect. He can multiply large numbers in seconds by using abacus imagery in his head.

In his four years undergraduate degree, he did pre-med, focusing on Anatomy and Physiology as his main field.

After his undergraduate degree at age eighteen, he proceeded to continue his four years in medical school.

But he pulled out after two years and enrolled in the Russian army.

He dedicated four years to the force, and with the political connections of his late adopted father, he managed to become a marshal when originally, that title could’ve only been earned after 20-25 years of service.

He’s now the youngest soldier to hold the five-star rank of a marshal.

She believes that if she knows this much about him, doesn’t that classify as knowing him?

“And he leaves ellipses,” Vivienne sighs exasperatedly, throwing her hands in the air.

Her mind latches onto his question instantly. Why did he suddenly ask such a question? Is he hinting at something? Is she missing something? Should she prod or just brush it off?

She feels a sudden shadow hovering behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she catches Kenji peering at her phone’s screen from behind.

“What are you doing?” She throws him an accusing glare, turning off the screen and slipping the phone into her blazer’s pocket.

“Nothing.” He moves to lean on the railing beside her. “I just think you’re going too fast with this thing.”

“Fast as in?” she quirks a brow, ready to defend her heart’s reckless actions.

“You are latching onto him too fast. It’s like you already see yourself settling down with him or something,” Kenji adds.

“You’re acting like this is the first time you have met me,” she scoffs, tucking a loose strand behind her ear before leaning against the railing, her arms folded on the horizontal bar, chin resting on it.

“I’m quite unfortunate. Opportunity to be happy hardly dangle themselves in front of unfortunate people.

So when I see something that looks a lot like an opportunity to be happy, I latch onto it like it’s my lifeline. ”

She takes in a shaky breath, a warmth spreading in her chest as the image of fiery amber eyes dance behind her lids, and as if the wind brought him to her, she can almost perceive it, his scent lingering in the air.

“I love talking to him. Gosh, you should see how I forget Isadora is in the next room and dad is in prison whenever his name appears on my screen.” She turns her head, her cheek resting on her arm now as she peers at Kenji.

“He makes me happy even without knowing it. And I just want to be happy, you know.”

“I know.” Kenji’s voice is low yet steady. “And that’s why I’m scared. What if it doesn’t work out? What if he turns out to be something else?”

The questions make her stomach lurch. “Then I’ll take it and move on as usual.”

“You’ll be sad.”

She shrugs, a wry smile lifting the curve of her lips. “Well, I know sadness more than I know happiness.”

“But—”

“I’ll be fine, Kenji Sato,” she beams, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m a big girl.”

Truly, she’ll be fine, like she always has been. What’s the worst that can happen? He decides to settle for friendship, or they get into a relationship and he breaks her heart by leaving. It’ll be a pain she can bear. Her heart and body have been nurtured to handle the savagery of love and life.

She’ll be fine.

Oh, she’ll be just fine. Because it is her against fate. And in this battle, Vivienne has decided she will win.

The bell for the next class chimes, cutting through the wispy air.

They both push off the terrace as Kenji glances at his watch.

“What do we have next?” Kenji asks, giving her his arm.

Vivienne hooks her arm through his, their sides pressing against each other. “Introductory Psychology.”

They exit the terrace through a winding staircase and emerge in a hallway a few seconds later. The said hallway buzzes with students—feet shuffling, papers and bags rustling, chatters drifting through the still air as everyone tries to figure out where they belong for the next hour.

When they step into their classroom, it is already filled in with their classmates. Some perched on their desk, some leaning over the window, writing Greek on the board, while some are zeroed on their screens.

“I heard Mr. Walsh left,” a student says as soon as Kenji and Vivienne plop on their seats. They glance behind at the person that made the comment, then turn to each other to share a clueless look.

Mr. Nicolai Walsh is their Introductory Psychology teacher. If they are right that he has left, then Vivienne wonders why he suddenly left. She hopes he’s okay, because she truly loves his class.

After her father’s case, she became obsessed with the study of Human Psychology. She was the happiest when the subject suddenly was introduced last summer.