Chapter 4: How Loud This Can Be?

In the crowded canteen you can see colorful people and clothes everywhere. Some create long queues, some are short, but the diversity makes a rainbow. The boy walked through the crowded sea of humans, with his headphone blasting music tenderly to his ear. The entire noise from outside got blocked and now, what is left is the noise from his headphones inside his head.

The boy keeps on moving, without noticing people mingling with each other, their voice and noise blend into one, making certain of steady harmony. He put himself inside the bubble, bubble of solitude, the Isolation dimension. Far from anything, not caring for anyone's well-being but himself, keep it to yourself, as he always likes to say.

In a room full of color and living, none of that can be near him, none of that can come to him, none of that can he feel. There is only melody that dances and plays in his ear, in his head, which helps him breathe through the day.

>>>>>>>>>

There is nothing changed with this canteen, even this practically start day of the semester, I was expecting less crowded. I heard people here and there promised to come to campus late by at least purposely missing their first week of the school. I guess either they chicken out and end up coming back on time, or perhaps even that much people planned to ditch, people in this University just much more crowded than what I’m expecting.

“Medium Latte for Nadya~!”

I can hear faintly the store clerk yelling from every corner, just like every morning before campus closed due to semester break. I can smell the sweet flavor from the steam of freshly baked bread, and the bitter smell from coffee too. My foot kept dragging me to one of the stores that was available in the canteen, until suddenly something yanked me hard.

I turn my face to the force, looking carefully to the big shadow that almost swallows up all my vision. I pick my headphones out from my ears, the sound that blasting still can be heard, but getting distant and mumbling now.

“I… I… I… I’m sorry!”

His face looks like his loss of breath, sweat can be seen on the top of his temple. His body is still crouching down like he is trying to catch some breath and power that was left behind, still big and massive to the point I can’t even see whatever around him.

“Sorry… But can I ask for some help?”

I still stood there, still confused and probably a little bit of shock.

“My class will start in a few minutes now, but I can’t figure out where the building is!”

The big guy who is much bigger than Daniel looks at me with a distressed face. Those muscles beneath that clothes almost look tense and hardened. This is just me or why this morning I encountered so many big men like them?

“Uh… sure but I do not know what kind of class you belong to…”

I tried to shake my shock and try to compose an answer as good and as polite as possible.

“And which building to that extent…”

Honestly, this person should go to the Student Administration Office instead seeking help here.

“Ah! Right! I also need to buy a new book for that class!”

His panicked face becomes much more twisted, even goes so far to grab his hair with both of his hands. I stood there confused and rubbed the back of my heads with my hand, my confused look did not change.

“Well, I guess it’s better for you to go to the Student Administration Office…”

Before I can finish my sentence, the man cut me midway.

“Where is the campus bookstore?!”

Suddenly the man holds both of my arms, and shakes me like I’m some kind of piñata.

“Uh, if you walk straight to that alley way you will find a section just go to left and in the end of the way there is book and stationary store there”

I am still dumbfounded with all of this, his questions pop out and keep coming after one another.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

The big man who is still standing and holding my arm looks like he is on the verge of tears.

“I’m just a new student! I felt lost!”

New student? With a body and face like that, I’m pretty convinced if you told me that you got five kids already.

“And it didn’t help my case, since I just changed my major!”

He put his arm in the front to cover his both eyes, face still grimaced and not recovered whatsoever. I just look at this pathetic big guy and shake my heads, what I put myself into right now. Today everything seems getting bizarre and bizarre by each second.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Have you calmed yourself down? Feeling much better now?”

The man that sat next to me just nodded, but his face did not change. I take the empty glass of water from his hand and put it on the table, proceed studying his behavior. I took the liberty to seek an empty table near us, in any rate this person won’t stop freaking out anyways. The fact that I even bother to help him is baffling me, even for my own standard.

“Just calm down, there is no use to be freaking out, the more you do the more your problem not solved at all”

His eyes are still struggling, and there is some kind of panicking reflected through his eyes. Despite his size, he is a pretty timid person, I thought to myself.

“Did you just say you can’t find your class and also just changed your major?”

He is still silent and his eyes seem unfocused.

“Listen… this is first week of semester and campus just open, basically everything just starting anew”

His eyes glance at me, and his body seems to be shifting toward me.

“Most of student and lecturer probably still in vacation anyways, I bet everyone will understand”

I can see that he is starting to catch interest in this man, he just sits still and focuses with my words.

“Plus, it’s not like this is new thing, out of ten student one probably experience this all the time for the first week”

I take a few breaths and focus my gaze to the empty glass of his.

“And you told me you just changed your major? Just used that as an excuses and tell the lecturer that you busy with administration”

I throw a small smile at him, looking him directly to his face. His eyes lighten up a little bit and his face looks much more relaxed.

“So you told me that you changed your major? This might not be the right time to chit chat, but if you are willing to share…”

And suddenly all the light comes back to his face, the frightened giant now becomes a cheerful giant, that smile really makes him look like a fool though.

“Well the last major is too tough for my poor brain, I don’t think I can survive any next semester if I’m barely keep up with the current one”

I laugh at his answer, that is one way to put out how chaotic student life can be. We just barely survived with anything. I guess his decision to bounce to another ship was not half bad either. Either that or let yourself sink inside the burning ship. Or you can always force yourself till you are able to make the same ship floating again, but who am I kidding? Most people will just give up anyways.

“So, from what major to what?”

I became curious, what major is too difficult? Health Department? Psychology? Pure Science? Pure Math?

“From IT to Health Sciences, someone like me is too stupid for something like number and coding”

He seems a little embarrassed by his own answer.

“Don’t you have friends for you to check for something like that?”

Most people definitely have one or two people that they keep in touch with for the sake of exchanging information, which is basically how universities work in the most part.

“I’m the only one that moved to Health Science, so I do not think I can ask people that used to go together during IT class”

My lips twitched, knowing his timing just a little bit off.

“Fair enough”

I nodded at him, closing my eyes. I took a big inhale and exhale, knowing that he was just junior, most people won’t know how the system works at university after all. But I just realized something from his statement.

“Right, funny because I’m from IT, so you supposed to be my junior then”

His smile brightened more once he heard my reply. He took one of my hands and held it together with his both hands. I jumped a little from my seat, not expecting his reaction.

“Whoa! That means you must be really smart!”

His eyes become sparkle, it’s almost like a mix between admiration and hope.

“Hey stop it! Stop overreacting! I’m not smarter than any normal guy!”

I quickly snapped my hands from his, he just stared at me with that goofy smile. See, he looks like a fool by doing that. I quickly fix my composure, and collect myself carefully, setting myself to the proper condition like this.

“Listen, the best thing right now is probably go to the Student Administration Office first and collect your class information. After that you can use whole administering the change major as your excuses, they won’t check it, after all who have times”

He listened carefully with a smile still plastered on his face.

“Don’t panicking anymore, it’s not fits with your hulk-like image”

When I see he seems already collect all his composure, I just shake my heads, knowing how stupid he is, and how stupid I’m; to let myself entangled to this kind of problem. This is not like me, and I never make this kind of decision before, I never put someone else above me.

I stand up and ready myself to leave him and to go to the queue again, but before I can stand properly, something like a big crane warps around me and within a second my whole body lifts up from the floor. When I realized what happened, everything was already too late. That big man just hugged me hard and lifted me far enough from the ground, since when I had this phobia!

“Thank you!”

That’s all his exclamation, without worry of people's eyes around us.

“Hey-hey! Put me down!”

I’m starting to panic and frantically hit his seemingly iron body.

“No! My pops told me that a man should show their gratitude”

I’m really embarrassed to be locked in this position in this kind of place at the top of that. I just yelled at him to beg him to let me down, and covered my face while at that. This is beyond humiliating, this is all my fault, my stupidity fault.

“Hey! No PAD allowed here!”

That voice comes from the cleaning lady. Her both hands she placed both on her big hips, her wrinkle didn’t help her stink face. The old lady's face flooded in a way that is not pleasing to see, the anger took her good this time.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After all the escapade that happened just a moment ago, I managed to come back and continue my life. That was embarrassing and I can’t even describe how I want to just cut my face and throw it in the trash bin. I guess helping him wasn't a wise decision after all, and I have to question myself why I even bother? I have never done something like this before.

After the whole hugging incident, he let me go and ran, but before long he just shouted thank you and promised to get back to me. This is a huge university, not sure how he is going to do that, and I really hope that day never comes, I don’t have enough capability to handle such trouble again.

I go far and sit down in the far corner of the canteen, the attention eyes still all above me and around me. This feeling of being focused it’s never comfortable for me. As if I am some kind of monkey in the zoo, some kind of clown in the circus.

I just want to enjoy my meal for god sake, not as a joke.

I shake my head, try to throw away any thought that is related to the scene that just happened.

While I’m digging my meal, I can’t help to feel exhausted, either because I’m really-really tired, or the whole ordeal already took all my energy already. This feeling of exhaustion is worse than necessary. That cleaning lady also can’t stop eyeing me, as if I’m some kind of scene maker or something, probably she is afraid I might start some heist and make her work ten times harder.

Lot of people here are still in their high school self, some have already changed and become mature, but probably a bigger part of them still have their egoistic self. To have a clown to entertain your days must be great isn’t it?

I didn’t really pay any attention to my surroundings, though I can feel the suspension and the aura all over the direction. Their presence is already that strong that makes me wants Lower myself to the ground and ask for forgiveness, despite there being nothing to ask for forgiveness for.

People will be pleased didn’t they?

While I immerse myself into the savory taste inside my mouth, digging every bite of my meal. The taste of the liquid touching my tongue whenever I sip more of my drink, the sweet taste tingling from the front of my tongue part. The little droplet fell from the side of my mouth, I let it be, I just wanted to extinguish this thirst that was crawling inside my throat.

And I could hear sound from a tray that dropped at the front of me. I stop myself from drinking, wipe the side of my mouth with the back of my hands. I try to look at the person standing in front of me. I looked at the tray, it’s full of food, steam can be seen from each of that food along with the hot tea that accompanies it.

“Hello can I sit down here?!”

She accompanies her cheerful voice with a soft smile, it is almost candy like, if the voice has a taste. She is wearing colorful and bright clothes, all stuffed animal stickers can see stitched tight to her yellow sweater. Her hair is bright with so much highlight, maybe there are around 3-5 different colors striped together.

I have no idea when she arrived and why he wanted to sit here. There are plenty of tables that she can choose, and yet here she is standing and asking for permission. I would love to leave and let her go down to herself, but I’m not even done eating.

She is still standing, but now her posture crouches down a little bit, her both hands placed at the edge of the table, face still smiling waiting for me. I don’t know what to do, what kind of answer should I provide to her?

Should I say yes?

Should I say no?

“Uhh… yeah I guess… go on”

I can’t do anything at this point.

“Thank you!”

The girl quickly sat down and proceeded to dig her meal.

This is odd, why does it even keep happening like chain today? Let’s just let her be and continue to finish my lunch, the sooner the better. Whatever the ghost possessed her to make her to want to sit down here, it is none my business.

Before I can add more food with a spoon in my hand, she makes a sudden voice questioning me.

“But my presence is not bothering you, right?”

I stop in the middle of whatever I’m doing, closing my eyes, trying my hardest to control my outcome. I do not want to be labeled as a jerk and this girl is also innocent. Today doesn’t have a great start, but still no reason to be rude.

“I’m not… just enjoy your meal…”

I’m not even bat an eye when I reply to her questions. Just continue enjoying my meal.

“Well, I don’t have a particular reason, I just feel like it. After all, I'm what people call a nomad!”

She laughed hard and played with her spoon in the air like it’s some kind of wand. But I’m not even asking you…

“I liked to change group table during my meal times”

she continued chirping.

“So, you don’t want me to sit here or…?”

Her voice trailed, waiting for my answer. I just stop midway, feeling like a fool.

“I said it's okay… no?”

Why do I have to repeat myself?

And the table fell silent instantly, I just this girl got the hint that I have no interest to mingle from the very start. But I can see that she is pacing and being inpatient, that uneasy look also makes her leg keep shaking quicker than before.

“Hey did you see that lady?”

I just sigh and stop once again mid-way of my meal. Look at the direction she pointed out.

“I think she got her period quite personally!”

I just started her unbothered.

“But she got it like every second a Niagara Falls between her tight! Even my mother’s will be lot nicer than her”

Can someone speak about their mother like that?

“That cashier likes having Niagara Falls every second, its likes when she talks Niagara Falls and when she walks Niagara Falls, every single time”

She made this dramatic sound effect and her face became so comical. He lips pouting and her both hands make wriggling movements imitating water flow.

I just smirk at her, what a peculiar girl, and a low chuckle comes out from my lips.

“Yes! See you smile and laugh!”

She throws both of her hands in the air, and stays like that for a second or so.

“You look nice and cute with a smile on your face!”

She looked at me with her intense eyes.

“You should smile more!”

I was just bewildered by her responses, I just threw away my face from her, and ate as fast as I could.

“My name is Maya Lewis, shall we have lunch again next time?!”

Her face getting closer to mine, her smile almost like Cheshire cat. That smile shows all her white teeth with her pink gum.

I just shook my head, shocked with all of this girl's act, my body cowered to the corner since her face was awfully closed with me now. That body of hers does not show any sign to back down, I don’t want to have any kind relationship with this vulgar girl like her!

“It settled! We should have lunch every day together! Yeah?!”

I just want to run away.

>>>>>>>>>

The weird girl came back to sit down on her seat and enjoy her food, still throwing the boy her smile in between. The boy kept cursing to himself, feeling like he did something he shouldn’t that made him get cursed like this, yes this must be a curse! This kind of encounter definitely curses!