Scarcely Bemused

THERE WAS a rustle around the corner.

Kane knew she had to escape, but her feet were soldered on its position, and with the tree stroking her bareback, she hid from whoever was chasing her. She never had to be this far. But then she had no choice.

"Kane!" exclaimed an authoritative voice, huskily untrustworthy. "Kane, it's me. This is Marcus Manhattan from La Cervede. I'm a friend of your brother."

Her breathings discontinued for a swift second, her gaze never left what's in front of her. She didn't respond nor she had the idea to take action. For Kane, that was a better option.

She inspected her muddled white dress. There were no torn parts, however, it was thin that the wafts and the chilliness they provided were exposing her entirety. The perturbed girl caressed herself, arms crossed and enclasping her shoulders as she's keeping sadness inside her.

The atmosphere was miserable that even the clouds, blanketed by its dark mood, weren't that useful to make Kane be a respite. She was deserted with someone she only once met.

"I came here as per Baron's request, and I am here not to hurt you, but to take you to your brother," Marcus gently enunciated with a glint of beguilement. "Tell me, do you understand my language?"

The girl closed her eyes while the wind caressed her murky poise, and sweat caressing her cold face. Her dried lips pursed, a pleat on her forehead.

For the first time, Kane could never listen to anything. There was a perpetual truce, something she sought for the rest of her being. But she learned this perpetual truce could not be sought repeatedly.

It could be interim secrecy.

It could never rid away the chaos subsisting inside her.

"Kane," she heard the man puffed, "please, don't make this hard for the both of us. I came here to fetch you, and Baron, he's concerned about you."

Kane wanted to warn him to stop his lies. Baron was in a hide like what she was doing. She understood his words, yes, even if it's not her language. Hence, that would never amend her decision to not enunciate a phrase at all.

She was cornered. As Kane opened her eyes, let alone discern that the surrounding would never revamp into a solacing niche, hardly breathed, the throbs of her heart were scurrying.

It remained grimy, misty, and terrifying. The trees were everywhere circulated, sprawling lanky and restful on the ground as their silhouettes lurched in spooked and easygoing whizzes.

Rough and hard was the tree that she bent on for her stiff back to rest, while the edges of the tickling hay disturbed her quivering knees. Rest guaranteed Kane could withstand the forest, but she could not withstand the man.

"I hope you can hear me, Kane, at least. If you don't trust me that much, who else would you dare to put that?" Marcus asked, confident, and tamed. "Can you give me one chance?"

She would suspect him at the utmost of her suspicions. The very first inquiry she would tempt to raise a question was that, why was this man the one who had to find her and not her brother Baron? It could be that the man was one of those who put his father's life on the line.

"It's not safe here, Kane," Marcus added, "if you like, you can stay at his house."

Whose house would it be? Kane would interrupt his speech, but she knew that if she pronounced a single word, it's the verge of her. It could have been a lure.

"Kane," said another person, wholly familiar. "This is Mike. You don't need to hide from those goons. Marcus is here to hide you and your brother."

Kane gulped. It was indeed Mike. The help had come to save the day, her dedication, and Will Jacobs' Prince of Hope.

Kane began to squat on the ground, her eyes drowning in her tears, haziness cloaked her visions. Mike was there, and that signified Marcus was someone she could believe that was stating merely but the truth.

She heard a few steps. It went imminent to imminent, cackles tolling in the background, breeze hissing, foliages blurting safety.

There was a halt.

None was to be heeded but tranquil in all corners.

Behind the tree where she was, someone profoundly sighed.

By that, she's aware it was him.

That it was Mike.

"I know it's tough," the teenage boy commenced, "but you know I am here. Mike's always here. I won't leave your side."

Kane retorted with a sob, her pitch trembling in anxiety. Her youth was harsh for it was filled with ironic things she never wished to come to existence. It was not guaranteed the way it should be.

It was Mike that made it easy for her.

"It will soon be over," Mike added soothingly. "Trust me instead."

Indeed, trusting Mike was the clearest decision she would ever bring about. It was never difficult for her to bet her life on this certain guy. If he was that someone who could be the one to offer reassurance, she would never hesitate to seize it.

"The Lair Hides Low Sanctuary will live their normal days for a while until this situation of yours is not solved yet." Mike chuckled, intense and quaint as always, but it had something.

It had unhappiness, a glimpse of it, with evident agony.

"They understand," the Prince of Hope continued. "We all care for you."

Kane made a beam but not as wide as the typical ones. Her lips were shuddering, her eyes tired of the world. The tip of her fingers tickled the bruises on her arm, that even though she could not sight those, their stung was discomforting.

The raw embraces of the hay pinched her skin, almost concealing her from the world's apprehensions, as the thuds in her chest hushed. Stuck at her stance, all right at the very trivial of her expectancy.

"So trust me," Mike mumbled, the affection had never left his accent.

Kane leaned her nape and the back of her head on the hard and rough entirety of the thick trunk behind her, shutting down her gapes to trail the warmth of Mike's covenants.

She could trust him.

But would it be evermore?

KANE ALEJANDRA can be gratified for an instant, plunging her gaze on the screen of her desktop computer above her desktop table. There are accumulated files at the top left corner, while a cup of Mocha coffee on the opposite side.

She is relishing her aloneness perhaps. Even though the window beside her, curtains clasped at the standpoints of it, a speck of apparent daylight illumine the somber chamber, a furrow transpired on her delicate forehead.

The ostensibly wintry breeze whacks inward, snatching Kane on glancing at her coffee, not forever warm, flattering some moisture, and took its hand in a flash.

It's this aroma, the exceptionally distinctive flavor of her Mocha coffee, that she puffed. Its coziness propels her to the brink of her thinkings, shaded by a particular location on her mind, but still, she closed her eyes. Every eternity she savors coffee, it always turmoils her, gives rise to her mourn, and shudders her inner equilibrium.

"I think I need to loosen up first," she indicated to nobody but herself.

Spreading her arms, leaning on her swivel chair, perking up to the canopy, catching sight of the turned-off bulb lights, she snickered for a moment.

She bridged her thighs and a yawn pullbacks from her mouth. A while previously, she admits she's been way too wary on working on a sketch for her lesson plan. It's been an hour of exhausting herself.

"Teacher! Teacher!" a female pupil's voice called inside, a similar tone of a child she knows- then something occurs in her- her mouth twitches close, her mind remembering why she can't figuratively breathe, her awakedness perplexes.

Kane eyed the innocent youngster in front of her, across the table, looking at her with a wimpy face. Her brow lifts as her index finger disembarked on the side of her head to massage herself.

"Yes, Shane, may I help you?" she mellowly addressed. "Is there something wrong? Aren't you supposed to write your name on your paper, and why are you-"

Hence, the kid didn't listen. She's just pouting, her arms crossed, and Kane can't be ascertained why Shane unexpectedly needs to discuss a circumstance with her.

Does she have difficulty with her handwriting? Kane wondered. No, that can't be. There must be another reason.

She keenly observed the wimpy kid, remaining on how Shane poses, grimy blue eyes rolling, and crinkled eyebrows. Kane smiled, a usual reaction whenever she discerns the typical dilemma of her young students.

"Are you arguing with your classmate?" she inquired. "Shane, that's bad."

"But, Teacher Kane!" Shane grumped her blond pigtailed hair, shoulder-length, a bit messy. "It's Cassia's doing!"

"Did you fight with her, Shane?" Kane Alejandra heaved a deep sigh, soothing herself, freeing an intense pumping of veins in her sanity. "That would never solve anything," she wobbled her head a few times, "and you know that very, very well."

"Uh! I hate her," Shane retorted, groaning. "I'm just gonna go back to my chair then."

Mouth agape, Kane watched the kid withdrew to her seat, arms stayed over Shane's chest. Her stares dulled a little, and she anticipated the outcome beforehand.

She has brought back herself to the present. The walls are painted in lustrous yellow, the calendar at the other side of the room marked with the fifteenth of March, 2019, her dress uttering profanity at her with a sovereign sad vibrant, matching her two stilettoes with the comparable aquatic color as her outfit.

Her ears abruptly perceived the noises chiming in one another: the kids' chuckles, the silent disagreements, the kids reading a storybook, the quiet dialogues, the vehicles outside. . . .

Kane bit her lower lip.

"So much for today," she spelled in the wind.

It's almost done. This. Her teaching. After the end of this school year, at least, she's not going to see these insolent kindergarten learners. Therefore, certainly, another batch will show up.

It's similarly disputable without any questions. Whenever she ponders of these children, from well-known families, she assumes that this is the world's utmost. Vicious.

She hoped to transfer to a kindergarten school where she can be teaching lessons to those who are in need, who earns to learn, and not with these kids that have parents who can't even respect her endeavors regardless of what she can do, what she can provide, and how she adapts.

They are spoiled. Kane made a sour curtsy. And mean. Definitely mean. But she expects more of their behavior, of their attitude.

As a teacher who shall comprehend and cope with the entire surrounding she's uncommon with, she realizes she's still lucky to be with a family who has not been perished from wealth, from money and all.

Kane resumed her task for that day, definitely about her lesson plan. She's been doing this for weeks, doing tons of target population of students who have to know the basics of learning: coloring, counting, shaping, and letter recognition, phonics, basic personal hygiene, and social proficiency such as dealing and associating with companions. Her hazelnut eyes glanced at the watch on her wrist and read the time she has spent for her daily requirement, an update to submit every weekend.

"Almost two hours," she uttered to no one in covert, "and it's not that. . . bad."

Kane struts before her swivel chair, closing the file on her desktop and shut it down when she has saved the document and exits all the tabs she has opened.

"Okay, class." All eyes gazed on her heavenly face, and all ears listening, judging how she sauntered in front of them, going beside the blackboard. "Are you familiar with the story of Peter Pan?"

"My mom told me that, like, a hundred times, Teacher Kane!" a male answered with an American accent, smiling as he's on his seat. "It's a bedtime story I'm willing to hear until I get old."

"That's good to hear, Jonathan," Kane praised, flustered an admiring and deemed curve on her scarlet lips. "Can you please get the book on our mini bookshelf?"

"For you, Teacher Kane, I will," the white boy in his uniform responded and chuckled as he trots toward the bookshelf at the left corner of the classroom.

"And be careful!" Kane looked around the room. "Does anyone here, except Jonathan, heard the story of Peter Pan and his fairy tale into the land of-"

Kane is suspended by uttering when knocks are slamming the door heavily. She paused for a while, a curious crumple is apparent on her face, asking herself who may it be.

"Class, be quiet, okay?" she ordered. "I'll list down the naughty and noisy kids. You'll have no recess if your name's there. Do I make myself clear?"

The slamming persisted.

"Yes, Teacher!" the kids lengthened their answer, almost an earsore for Kane, the reason she has to less her reminders to her class. Youngsters tend to do this as if they are wearied with answering.

She paced forward the closed door, and the insensitive visitor, whoever he or she is, that bothered her teaching, has made no sense at all. She grips the damp knob of the door as momentarily as she's closer, then dragged it, and an unknowingly unforeseen response has been expressed when someone she doesn't have the trivial of likelihood to visit is witnessed by no one but herself.

Her hazelnut eyes flickered, titillating rosy lips partway distant, head shortly angled, and a thought appeared on her mind. Had this guest not be in front of her, she won't be this flabbergasted. Had this not taken place, then her lesson must have been resumed. She shouldn't have to open the door if she only focused on her class.

She shouldn't have seen him.

"Hazel," she gasped, "what are you doing here?"

"Teacher Kane, the book is now in my hand. What shall I do next?" Jonathan queried behind her. "And who is that guy?" he asked, takes a glimpse of the man outside their room. "Why don't you let him enter?"

"Hush, Jonathan," Kane ordered, never averting her focus on the ebony irises spiraling a profound chilliness in her entirety. "Go back to your seat. Hold the book. And be quiet."

She heard a tenfold of footsteps. Perhaps it's from Jonathan who has abided by her authority. She didn't bother to look at the back of her.

The man, Hazel, whistled, hands in the pocket of his jeans, a grin visible on his narrow and soft lips. "Do you have some time to spare? We need to talk."

"Talk about what?" Kane with a hint of madness in her voice quickly retaliated. "You know what, you should go."

"Na-uh," Hazel winked to tease her, "that's so wrong of you to make me do such a thing and just make me go."

"You're still the same brat kid of the Lair Hides Low Sanctuary," Kane reprimanded with resentment. "You never did change. Barely kind."

Kane viewed a peek of what is behind Hazel, just the corridor, then she has heard the engines of vehicles outside for her room is near the gate and the parking lot.

"And so are you, the Vice Leader of the Sanctuary."

Hazel's stares deepened to penetrate her more. "But there's something I have to confess to you."

"You know you can just say it to me now," Kane claimed with her pitch quivering. "Seriously, do you have a problem with me, Hazel? Can't you see that I have a class to resume?"

Hazel takes a deep breath. Possibly it's the discussion that goes on, that certain matter he has to deal with before he even comes to visit Kane.

"We've only met for once this year, Kane," Hazel unleashes through clenched jaws. "Can't you appreciate my effort?"

"Is this an effort?" Kane sarcastically stammered. "You've only visited me after a year and this is what your response will be, speaking that this is an effort?"

"I doubt you are the Kane from before as of this juncture." He shakes his head at infrequent times. "I apologize for my very impression after a year of visiting you. However, just something to remind you. If it's not for this urgent matter, I will not be here."

"You often aforementioned about this urgent matter, but you can't pray tell me what exactly it is." Kane leaned her shoulder to the side of the doorway, arms folded. "Let's end this. Go on, speak."

"You're but merely entangling things," Hazel swiftly brushed his hair, pissed, "and can I remind you that even though I am that brat kid from before, I'm still a member of the Sanctuary. I'm still-"

"You're still whoever you should be," Kane intervened. "You act so highly of yourself just like the genes of the different races in the village. And don't bother to tell me you joined the force because you wanted to, but because you had to."

"It was you who have said that," Hazel ventured, almost a murmur. "Anyway," he stepped backward, "it's about your lost journal."

"Wha-"

"First, proceed with your class." Hazel glowed not so absolutely as an inkling of satire is scarred in it. "Meet me at the Wensylvanian Cafe after your residing classes. I'll wait there. . . for hours or a day. . . for friendship. I'll loiter for you. Just be there."

SHE DIDN'T INSINUATE to be impudent, but it came about to her that the man she withstood was the liar she's furious at. She recognizes his duty when they were both in that village. She can't shirk the distressing lies he bestowed on the seeming truth behind an individual's departure.

It took about three hours to wrap up all three classes until midday, the breadth of the daily schedule is described in consideration of their limiting capacity as young learners.

Thereupon the duration when Kane Alejandra equipped herself to convene Hazel, she has ambled from uptown, since the school is beside a highway, at the right corner, to downtown where Wensylvanian Cafe is located, more than ten blocks away from the establishments at the left corner of the school. Hence, it's not inconceivable to hike in an elevated avenue with stilettoes three inches lofty, mainly as to the point that the owner itself is used to this kind of set up. Still, walking can be a fraction of the exhaust.

Since last year, she has self-taught herself how to handle the exceptionally high heels of hers and be a professional wanderer around the district of Eli Bethsaida.

The coffeehouse is adjacent to the clinic, as an alley is detaching the two. There are four blocks of grocery stores inline with the latter but are the first ones in their column. Across the alley, beside the two corners of the hospital, is sections of the infrastructure of numerous forms: urban houses, boutiques, and pharmacy stores.

"What is the problem, Hazel, to the extent that you are desperately conveying the journal in our discussion earlier?" Kane maintained her stern voice, chin held up, grasping a cup of black coffee in her hand.

It's broad daybreak outside the haven they are staying at, crouching at the top middle, and near them is the transparent wall of glass imaging the conscious day of the passengers trudging, prancing, and drifting the flock of slender pedestrian lanes with the automobiles quelling, hastening, and ceasing in the sliver of the summertime. While on the contrary corner, another wall of glass is present, reflecting the spirited hours of the pavements and parking lot, doctors and nurses in their white coats, sprinting back and forth inside and outside the hospital.

Furthermore, the cafe is awestricken microcosms; selves as the planetaries, coffees as the streaks of dust-like luminaries, and tables and chandeliers as the solar systems. Other walls, dismissing the walls of glass, are smudged jet and pearl as if a mosaic to obtain the substantial textures in the billow. It is artistically constructed that most of those who nurture the grandeur of crafts will honestly laud the notions preserving itself in the borders that can't recite.

"As distant as I can confide, the meant thing is misplaced long ago, nearly eight years from the present time," Kane added, puckering her eyebrows. "So it firmly stunned me, Hazel."

Hazel huffed a sigh of dismay, his pointed adam's apple moved up. "You are," he crinkled his faultlessly full-figured pointed nose, "always this conventional to me. I hate it."

Hazel has this particular atmosphere that encompasses him, a sympathetic and nonchalant type of a guy that everyone can be delighted to be with. He has the tenderness of a soul lounging his central stillness into him and brings about the equivalent sensation he possesses.

Kane whimpered, "I loathed you more!" Teary-eyed, she clasped her hand on the cup of the semi-cold coffee.

She did despise the man, because currently for her, Hazel is a person who is flawed by his past, by his deceits, and nobody can rectify Kane's impression toward him. He's a wicked man who has broken someone's trust, and he still didn't explain himself even after that event that transpired in the village- their village.

Nol Magno.

"You could have confessed that he's leaving! That he's never gonna come back!" Kane whined silently, a tear whirled down her cheek. "You didn't, remember? You lied to all of us- to me. It's not easy to just. . . just forget."

"We're not kids anymore," the only words that are mouthed by Hazel. "Until when will you loathe me, huh?"

They unnerved neither the presently lacking warmth from the coffees on their table, the busy noises outside the walls of glass, the giggles of youth in the cafe, nor the struts of shoes of various styles, sizes, and colors- greens, blacks, blues- as Kane and Hazel stared intently at each other, peers locked and sunken. They appear to be in another time and dimension, governed by their past.

"That day you're the only one who can speak the truth, because who's to say the truth, the mystery, and the story? Who's to say we'll all be consumed by our crestfallen days?" Kane placed her elbows above the thick table, her palms fondled the sides of her head. "We could've been so closed. The three of us. But you're the traitor in the group. You sure annihilated the seven of us, the Sanctuary."

"No one's to be blamed, Kane." Hazel gave an assuring yet bitter taste of truth from his beam.

It's the most confusing part for Kane. She, herself, can't point her finger to who's at fault, who needs to be condemned. She's way too emotionally drenching, her anguish can still recollect these days.

Yet that moment, she can't condone her emotions, because she has three unstable spots that every time they are spoken of, Kane will shatter into slabs. She has a drawback for the sanctuary, the Nol Magno's group, and the village itself. That whenever they are the cause of the dingy absurdity in her, she'll be frazzled by the concept of sorrowing.

"Let's bring back our topic to your lost journal," Hazel began, his eyes are at the cup of chaí tea latte at the table.

Kane wiped away the very tear that she didn't portend to circumvent. Her lips commence to tremble, her eyes squinting quicker. She didn't say a word as she's prudent on paying attention to what he's about to notify.

"He has written it."

Kane shudders down her spine, stiffened.

"Your journal," Hazel added, serious.

Queries come to be a surging creek on her mind, mentally drowning her in her gang of questions. Who is he? Is he the thief who stole her journal, or the one who found the journal and wrote about her misadventures in the village? Why is all of this happening to her?

The corkscrew chandeliers, even though they are steadily dangling on the ceiling, emerge with pastel glistening, its illumination darkened the room. The disturbances lulled in deafening rest, that although Kane's royal blue stilettoes are caressing the green-carpeted floor of the cafe, or that although there's an obvious nuisance in her, Kane can't accept.

Could there be a possibility that he returned? Kane asked quietly. When, where, and why? She reckoned that he flees to his hometown in Los Angeles, but why is she feeling this? Why is she marveling at him?

She's sheer ridiculously theorizing that he is around all along.

"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.