Chapter 3 Misadventures And Property

"WHO HAS written it?" It's the first thing that Kane suspected. "Who had stolen my journal?"

But Hazel isn't lending interest to her queries, just looking at his coffee, presently cold and intact. It has been the least that he can sight, but he can't taste how creamy the transcendence it provides nor he has the capability to consume, froth, and protrude the mystic of the sea in it. It's visible that he has spaced out, that he has an upside-down stomach unconditional to trek the coffee bean's flavor.

"Is it him who has rewritten my entries?" she resumed. "Hazel, tell me. Who is it?"

Fierce, Hazel hasn't the tiniest of courage to respond. He seems to be out of the blue, his intellect thinking something else.

Mayhap that is what's setting him aback, the genuine of what he informs Kane. He has no inkling about deluding the woman. All he oversees for is that he shall convene to Kane the information he has collected.

"Is it," Kane paused, "Mike?"

Finally, Hazel gawked at her. He hasn't blink yet, his sights illustrating someone else, but mirroring a certainty that Kane must have omitted.

Hazel has this view that is unearthing her. She comes off denuded in front of him, Kane can't combat the zeal in his jet black irises. His hair, pitch-dark as the atmosphere besieged by him, slithering a twinge in her heart.

Kane gasped, drew away from her visions to her hand. "Is it really Mike?"

Hazel, obeying to retaliate, shakes his head. "It's not him, Kane."

"Don't lie to me!" shouted by his acquaintance, terminating his statement off. "You don't have to deceive me again. You can say who it is so that this will be put to an end. It's just a simple question."

"Can't you trust me for once?" Hazel's stare fogged, a grimy is evident on his face. "It's not him. It shouldn't be him."

Mike. She squeezed to that name, yearning for him, a hope crawling into her senses. If he was the one who had ransacked her property, she could forgive him. At the very least, she even could see him once again.

However, he said it, and it sunk her want to peep a peek of someone's young soul- Mike's being. He said that it's not him, but who could it be? Should she trust the man? How could she inspect if he's not telling an untruth claim?

"So you," she breathed, "don't know? How can you expect me to count on you? How can I infer that you are admitting validity?"

"How could I have known if my source was only Clarence?" Hazel looked at the wall of glass beside him.

Kane inquired with annoyance, "Clarence who?"

"Clarence Curtis."

"Of Nol Magno?"

"Yes," answered Hazel. "He said he overheard him, your brother, talking to someone he hasn't met in his lifetime. But. . ."

Kane intervened, "But what?"

Hazel brought his gazes back at Kane, his irises gleaming sadness in tribute to his confusion. ". . . it's a foreigner."

Kane groaned. "It can be him." She leaned her elbows on the table, closer to Hazel. "It can be Mike!"

"I already said it can't be him." Hazel clenched his jaws. "He's still in LA, California. He hasn't returned. If only he had a social media account, I can prove. But there's none, only the times that we spoke to each other through roaming calls, saying hellos and byes, are what I have behind my sleeves."

"I don't believe you." Kane tilted her head, her black hair moved, furrowing her brows. "What else did he acquaint that's relevant?"

"You seem to be persecuting me by your scrutinizing frown, Kane," Hazel impeded, resting his arms on the table as well, bending forward to be near Kane, and now their nose is almost tickling each other. "He said that the foreigner was holding something, like an old pad, left by time, as it had been given to Baron."

"Baron has my diary as of this moment?" she blurted, breathing fastly, furious. "When did Clarence tell you this?"

"Yesterday through a call."

"Yesterday!" Kane frustratedly repeated. Leaning back on her seat. "It happened only yesterday, right?"

"Unfortunately, this happened last week at a birthday party." Hazel averted his eyes to roam them around the corners of the cafe, remain crowded by strangers, by customers. "There in the mansion of the Flordelizas in Sant Margaret."

"Last week?" Kane's voice pitched high before she gets aware she's luring others' attention to her.

"And yet, you can't blame the teenager, Kane," Hazel opinionated, crouching firmly on his chair. "He's a college student, and he has many schoolwork to do, exams to take, and other businesses to handle."

"I know," Kane took a deep breath, "but I can't help it- wondering why, of all people, did my belonging has been received by my brother. It is definitely not right."

"There's something else that you must be aware of for me to regain your trust," Hazel mumbled, eyes closed for a second. "It has been completed."

Kane swiftly grabbed her coffee at the table and relished its soft bittersweet coldness, her stomach knotted at its taste, its aroma still likes the moment when it's warm. She drained herself into the cup for seconds, leaping beneath its surface or the cup's elongated view inward as if she likes the seasoning of the coffee, and as if she likes the idea of its art, tedious and frigid, then a thud is to be heard. She has unloaded the cup, its craft inside her belly like dead butterflies cruising her inner being.

Hazel continued, "I've talked to Baron last night. I've went to him in Sant Margaret even though I've had to stay in a motel for one-night for it's getting late. I also took a day off in my company- but you know, being in the marketing team isn't as easy what I expected- just to see you."

Kane didn't bother to scan the facts in her intellect, except for one. "You said it has been completed," she rasped through gritted teeth.

"Apparently, it is." Hazel's lips tugged. "And. . ."

"And what? There's another revelation?" Kane feels it's all absurd, and like everything has gone haywire. If only she had known it herself, if only her brother told her about this lunacy, then she will not suffer from absorbing the exposures of truth.

"It's not merely about your lost journal that's been written, but there's someone else's. The difference is that it's consented to the proprietor." Her old friend bridged his arms, his velvety complexion glinted by the daylight.

She gulped from his statement, legs intersected. "And who may it be?"

"That," Hazel thought twice, "I'm not aware of."

IT IS ALMOST SUNSET. The sky, gold and submerged, has freckles of cotton clouds, stars appearing before their eyes, their souls, and their feet. It is a curious state of everything else, functioning as time is doing its firm in the speckle of life.

Kane, beside Hazel, is strolling at the side of the highway that is going higher inches by inches, their shoes ready to proceed forward, their outfit faded by the illumination the sea above bestowed upon them. The flock of strangers in the seaming eternity as the spaces and the meters tugged between the walking figures that have been lurking with them, some taking the other routes or entering local enterprises, shops, or markets at both sides of their way are brines, customary but civil.

For an abrupt moment, half a minute, they halted as everyone else did. After the stoplight turned red at the pedestrian that Kane and Hazel have prevailed, there are shouts, giggles, chitchats- all are aware, typical, and friendly. The streetlights flashed above them, and the buzzing noises from vehicles of numerous types are beeping, echoing, and grooming, while the others are passing on a certain avenue, vacant, and safe to travel.

Cars lining up at the gas station, stance, and prominent on every track where one can wander around, concealed by the crusaders in all crossings, walkways, and front yards. These two souls, too, are immaculate dependents of the mosaic of the dusk and the living.

Hazel cursed under his breath. "I forget to bring my wallet."

Both of them aren't conscious of it. Kane insisted to pay Hazel's order earlier and he didn't complain about her kind gesture. That said, Hazel didn't actualize he never has his wallet along with them.

"Jesofat drove me here. I was at his house before I came with him here. You know, we're neighbors," Hazel continued. "I must have been very impulsive to go here that I forget everything else along the way." He said something that Kane didn't hear of.

The woman looked at the town hall a few cadences away from her stand, Marquess Hall as everybody says, where all Filipino politicians at Eli Bethsaida meet for a discussion. Its walls are painted white and the lights from their windows are breaking away from their quadrangle glasses.

"I can lend you some." Kane shifted her eyes to her accompany, evident is a pucker on his face.

He glanced overhead, soothe himself with a weighty exhale. "Just let me use your phone for a minute."

"Okay," Kane shortly replied with pursed lips. She puts her hand inside the pocket of her skirt and seeks for her phone, and when she does, she pulls it, handing it over to Hazel. "Here."

Hazel scratched his nape, and a wryly beam caught up with wrinkling the corners of his eyes. When the unwanted snap of the nightfall swirled his undercut hair, Hazel has settled the phone near his ear, giving his skin a chilling touch from its screen.

Green has gone off the stoplight, and the individuals at their pedestrians have resumed their walk. Kane and Hazel are not an exception.

She's quiet as Hazel is dealing with someone over the phone, the intensity of his tone is likewise simple, the similar one when he's conversing with her. She heard about his request for Roberto to bring him his wallet and car for him to return to La Cervede, occasionally his hometown.

"At the Ebbereth Bridge, I'll see you there." The last thing that he said to the person on the other line.

Hazel returned the phone to her when they are turning right at an intersection on the uptown of Eli Bethsaida's district, two rows of urban houses at their left, and a gasoline station in the other direction.

"Thank you," he uttered then smiled at her.

"It's nothing special," the woman replied and slid her phone back inside the pocket of her blue skirt. "But you're welcome."

"Can I," Hazel hesitated, "ask you questions regarding your heroic job?"

Kane snorted. "Are you mocking my work as a teacher?"

"No," he defended, taken aback. "Of course not."

Kane sighed. "I remained uptight, Hazel," she paused, "to you, to this mess, to the revelations, to our discussion. . ."

"I bet you're having difficulty believing me, huh?" His hand tagged inward the satchel of his jeans, crinkled like his gray shirt. He peered at her innocence, and for a moment, his blinks slowed down. "That's alright."

"Nothing that's occurring- everything- inclines to be alright," Kane rebutted, her face drew a layer of sadness, like art, or she's a muse of someone's masterpiece. "Nothing seems to be alright."

Kane's head can only meet the bare neck of Hazel above his broad shoulder, and as she observes him on the way he strides, every step of his way, the movement of his muscled arms, the shape of his defined chest, and the silk of his smooth skin, she knows something. Hazel is truly blood-related to him. She'll always recall that.

Because he is his cousin. Kane understood. That wouldn't change. That's why Hazel was aware he was departing from the village. He was mindful of Mike's plan.

"You've been fluent in your own vocabulary, I see," Hazel discerned. "I barely hear you speak your own language."

"And you've improved to understand it," Kane replied, a curtsy flight from her moistened lips. "The power of words, the power of wisdom, the power of knowledge. . . the power of our intelligence."

Kane wanted to tell him that she has an English instructor for years while she's personally studying his language. That she took a lot of effort to be eloquent ever since she was in college.

It's too much. Kane doubted. It's too ahead to be sharing her life with the guy she had loathed, and she still has despised.

"You stayed to love this topic." Hazel smiled, authentic, recognizing the very moment when he listened to her claims, to her values. "You stayed to live with our youth and the languages of our diversity."

They changed course to the left after they are in front of a church's gate, meters apart from the following crossing, empty and vacant, while the sky stilled on its state, and the dusk breeze is enclasping in the atmosphere. They have seen the opposing side of the houses of two columns, consequently, the other is at the alternate corner, a school campus.

"It is enchanting," Kane genuinely commended, "like our souls, traverse, as we explore the notions we never did search for when we were young, and our curiosity is merely but in the zone of our adolescence."

She could have intertwined her proficiency to the brink of their youth. How their words affect their growth, their anxieties, their diversity, and similar concepts. But it is inaudible in gaiety as it is not in their cognition, although they had liberty in Nol Magno.

Hazel held his breath, his hand landed on his chest. "I'm drowning with your words, Kane." He grinned. "I miss the old days."

"You just miss your lies," Kane argued, a taste of iron at the edge of her tongue. "You miss making everyone else fallen."

"And now you're attacking me." His smirk faded away, his hand on his chest back inside the satchel of his jeans. "I'm completely perishing. No one to save me. No one to put my trust on to."

"You had me before," Kane retorted, her stares gloomy. "You had a best friend."

"Had," he stressed. "Past tense. Like was."

"It happened." It sure did happen. Kane wanted to resume, but she doesn't want to be more direct. All she can say is that the very situation afore set a barrier between the two of them.

She can't save him when he's drowning with the reflection of what he did in the past. There's only one alone that can be of lending hand: her savior, her Mike.

Hence, he's not here beside her, merely his cousin who she can't be with, who she has to push away.

An outmoded, enormous building is the destination of Kane that caused them to stop when they are closer to where it's been installed. Uncanny quietude enveloped them, and before Kane went inside or before Hazel continued his trotting, she made the assurance on something.

"Hazel." She met his penetrating gaze, facing him instead of her destination, her soul stunned by the output of the creation of his eyes, and spiral a drastic whirlpool in her spirit. "Have I need to remind you, that whatever has to take place in our history, that it can even be a mystery forever. . . I don't regret everything. I never did."

He didn't speak a word, only his stares are his reply. A simple appreciation, a delved amusement, that he's willing to be a part of.

"It's just that," she made a curtsy, a caustic one, "it hurts, that it has to be like that, that we have to be like that, that we were all wrecked souls."

"Your language," Hazel looked up, parting his lips to continue his advice, "don't loosen its grip."

She bobbed her head. "As you said, I won't." She stepped backward. "And so do you."

Hazel beamed, a glimpse of acclaim to his past is subsisting in his retort. "And so do I."

Scarcely like that, the two ravaged selves split up their trails.