Nevel’s Backstory

"I am hanging out with my friend." Smooth like butter, Shawn replied to Nevel coolly. It was at that moment when a small part of the lonely boy had lit up for the first time in a long time.

Nevel had been in Roselia International School for since he was a little boy. At age 8, he had just moved from Hong Kong, due to his father's job and was enrolled into RIS. Going into an international school, this meant that every lesson was taught in English. Nevel was raised up speaking Chinese and Cantonese as his first language. And so, going in, he did not understand anything that the teacher was saying, nor could he interact with his classmates.

The language barrier had caused Nevel numerous problems from the get go. One of the times, he had accidentally called another child a bad word as he did not know what it meant. Little children being themselves, they avoided Nevel as they taught that he wasn't a good influence. Nevel could never clarify himself as he couldn't converse with them.

This soon led to ostracizing and in order to feel safe inside the school, Nevel thought it was best to be known as the teacher's pet. He tried his best to be the perfect role model student and that also meant that he would report his fellow students if he saw that they were doing something wrong. Many students got in trouble because of him and that led to Nevel being labelled as a 'tattertail'.

Being called names everyday scarred Nevel and many times, he would fake being sick just to leave school early. He hated school and everything about it. There was nothing good to it and a few years had passed, and Nevel had joined the school soccer team. The boy was a natural from the get-go and was able to score goals in matches. To his shock, there was a boy in his soccer team that wanted to befriend him. His name was Matthew and he was the first person that had approached him ever since he had learnt English.

Matthew had even invited Nevel over to his house for play dates and that was the first time that Nevel ever went to anyone's house. It was a wonderful experience that he remembered till this day. Sadly, that friendship only lasted for a year, before Matthew had left RIS and went off to a different school. That was the only time anyone had ever approach the child and it stayed this way throughout his entire primary school life.

Eventually, secondary school began and there were many students that were like him that transitioned from primary to secondary in RIS. Nevel, who thought that things would be wildly different in secondary, was sadly wronged after a few weeks. It seems that rumours about his past had spread about the entire year level. So now, even the new students did not want to talk to him either.

In desperation, Nevel wracked his brain to think of ideas as to how he could make new friends. He had tried using soccer as a way to interacting with others. Nevel would bring his own new and expensive soccer ball and allow others to use it if they allowed him to play with them. It was conditional and most of the time, the students would reluctantly allow the boy to play with them. That was Nevel's first stepping stone into socialising with others. Many times, when he played soccer with that group of boys, the soccer ball would be kicked out of the field and out of the school. Unfortunately, the ball could not be retrieved and Nevel would have to spend hundreds of dollars just to replace it.

Eventually, Nevel had used a large majority of his piggy bank savings and could no longer sustain using soccer as his tactic of interacting with people. He then chose to use sweets as a way of attracting others near him. Anyone who wanted a candy simply needed to look for candy man Nevel and he would gladly give it to you. Every morning before school started, Nevel would head to the convenience store and spent a lot of money on an assortment of candy. It was very draining on his wallet and many times; he would lie to his parents about needing more money for events in school.

This went on for a good one year and his efforts were all for naught. People still treated him the same and only saw him as benefits. The day that he was forced to join a group with Shawn and Julian, no one wanted to be a pair with him for Badminton. He was already used to this outcome and just tried not to disturb the duo in their games. That was why he had apologised to Shawn after their match as he got too engrossed in the game and had sometimes, intercepted the shuttlecock for him.

The second time they played badminton, in Nevel's head, he was already prepared to not get Shawn and Julian again as he thought that Shawn would be mad at him for being selfish. To his surprise, his classmate volunteered to play with him that lesson and had taken the time to speak to him about his interests. The final nail in the coffin was during lunch time and Shawn chose to sit with him. It was out of his expectations and that moment felt extremely surreal for him.

The classmate of his had even called him, his friend. Nevel had not heard that word in over four years. Even as he went home, the teenager still had lingering feelings of happiness. He did not know what to do or how he should act. Worried about what he should do the next day, he stayed up all night thinking about it. It was a very cute and innocent sight, that Shawn would come to know about only after many years of friendship.