[ a week ago ]
Sereia Theodore had been aware of her fragile mortality ever since the death of her grandfather. She was seven, her favourite barbie movie was scheduled at eight but no one would let her switch-on the television. People flocked her home wearing grim outfits and stoic faces, they hugged and sobbed while munching on biscuits but when Sereia reached out to take one, her hand was smacked away.
Nobody explicitly sat her down to tell her that her grandfather was never coming back but as an avid television enthusiast Sereia could place the pieces together. Her favourite childhood movie, after-all, was Bridge toTerabithia, so, she was capable of feeling loss – but, unlike her favourite movie which could be replayed over and over, life couldn't.
Sereia could not press rewind when her grandfather died and she purposely did not press replay when her grandmother died.
She was fourteen, her grandmother was a fine individual and now she was never coming back. Sereia remembered pressing a hand over her chest and sighing after the funeral services.
She remembers thinking, 'good riddance.'
She did feel horrible about it for some days, after-all, the old folks left her a mansion and good enough real estate to not worry about her future – which made Sereia look very ungrateful in repercussion for she did not have the gut to stand at their Death Anniversary Events. Sereia considered the old folks lucky, blessed even, to have lived in power and with wealth, to have evaded responsibilities and abandoned Sereia in this forsaken household.
With wasn't a problem, Sereia loved that part, in was a problem; Sereia hated that part. The hate was strong enough to overpower the material wealth she could own, so, in the second year of college with Communications as her major, Sereia decided to die.
Not the putting-a-full-stop-to-my-stagnant-life kind of way, which would require real courage and have real consequences, but the I-am-ready-and-I-will-do-anything-which-could-get-me-killed-without-having-the-responsibility-to-kill-myself sort of cowardly way.
Sereia Theodore, at twenty-one, was aware of her mortality more than anyone in the room and everyone knew about it.
"We have to submit the project by tomorrow night and he tells us today? TODAY? Does he want me to jump off the department building? Because I will, if it gets my classmates more days to complete a project worth 60% of their final grade, I surely will!!" Sereia shouted from her seat, going relatively unheard within the bustling classroom.
"Shut up Theodore, he's reminding us today. We've known about this for like…two months now? Yeah. But please, if you want to sacrifice yourself for the greater cause, I do not mind, go ahead. Though, something tells me your death would be covered up faster than cat-shit."
San looked up from his project file and pressed his lips in a sarcastic smile directed at his seatmate.
"So true," Sereia tsked, forehead pushed in a thoughtful frown. Her hazel eyes narrowed at her empty desk as she proposed, "Should we murder him instead?"
San cringed and in an act of physical repulsion he dragged his metal seat away from her side.
"You, my dude, are a criminal in the making," he rolled his eyes.
"Criminal…ah, yes, why the fuck not," an evil look dawned over Sereia's face. Her dark brows rose in excitement and the rosegold glasses guarding her eyes dropped to the tip of her sharp nose, probably terrified of having witnessed what crossed their owner's eyes.
"I do not like the face you're making," San whispered, wincing out his words as if he was physically pained by the glint of mirth in her eyes. He sucked in a deep breath and looked around; the class was brimming with students discussing project details or making last minute changes. All honest and good citizens going about their day, their peace only disrupted by the chaos windmill breathing hot gusts against his ear as chills ran down his spine.
"How about we kidnap him instead? Leave him after the weekend?" Sereia proposed.
San clenched his jaw and turned to look at his excited seatmate in the eye.
"You are a power-tripping hilarity, the funniest woman in the neighbourhood, top dawg, cross my heart hope to die," he deadpanned. Grimacing.
Sereia huffed and settled in her seat with a slump in her posture. "You're so lame," she heaved out with as much vigour of a forty-year-old man losing his entire life's savings to a scam porn site. There is grief, self-awareness and mortification with multitudes of lament but not a word which could be shared on respectable evening gatherings.
"Oh, the sorrow," San exclaimed dryly, rolling his eyes again. He flipped a few pages of his very thick project file and said, "At least I'll graduate on time," he raised his brows and inhaled the scent of freshly printed pages with a big smile on his dainty face.
"Ten points for Gryffindor!" Sereia mocked a cheer with both her hands raised in celebration.
"I am a Ravenclaw, you bitch," San clicked his tongue and slotted his back against the chair to sit up straight, reeking fictional housepride. He ran a hand through his silken blonde hair, dyed black on the ends, to add an extra flair of superiority to his stance.
Sereia too sat up straight and placed a hand over her forehead to shadow her eyes from, well, nothing, as she exclaimed, "Oh my, San Tzu, I hardly see you. Where the fuck are you?" she looked around, whipping her head left and right to drill the message in.
San was short.
Repulsed, San dragged his metal chair back in her face, "I guess the floaters got you afterall," he pushed a smile through, leaning into her face.
"Oh my, oh my, true love…" suddenly, a girl dropped her head in between their seats, continuing, "Will they kiss or will they curse? Find out in the next episode of the Raunchy Lives of the Communication Majors!"
"Plot twist, we fuck," Sereia winked as a sly grin replaced the scowl on her face.
"Hard and fast, which category do you wanna record?" San ran a hand through his hair and puckered his lips, playing into the joke.
"Midgets? Modern day Elves?" the girl cackled.
"Stfu, Aren," San shoved a middle finger in her face just as Sereia began wheezing with laughter.
"Aw, you've infuriated my poor darling! He's gonna stomp all afternoon now," Sereia cooed through her gasps and patted San's head.
"What do you mean stomp? He'll rally with the ants," Aren hollered.
Sereia fell out of her chair as the image of a tiny, blonde, red-faced, San rallying along with animated red ants imprinted in her brain.
"And I will invade the pantry as well as the café across the street so you'll be left with nothing but dry bread and bitter coffee to survive on," San raised up two sarcastic thumbs.
"And you say I'm evil," Sereia cringed.
"I got nothing done, I'll have to pull an all-nighter," Aren groaned as she fell back into her chair, in the row behind them.
"For a project that marks up sixty percent? You madwoman," San turned to give her pitiful shakes of his blonde head.
"I proposed something better than an all-nighter but he rejected me," Sereia too turned to give Aren pitiful shakes of her head.
"Ah, the kidnapping? I heard. Sounds pretty respectable if you ask me," Aren shrugged and the people beside her turned to burn her face in their mind's eyes – in case they were asked to make a police sketch.
"See! You hear that? A smart woman!" Sereia pointed a finger at Aren, brows disappearing in her soft bangs to get her point across.
"No, not smart. A smart woman would have planned out her project and would be brushing up the final pages by now, last read, probably. That," San pointed his veiny hand at Aren, "is a dumb woman. Probably equally suicidal but dumb nonetheless because her parents are not a politician or a lawyer."
"Damn dude, look at that arm," Aren sighed and leaned forward to run a finger over San's veins. "You're hot," she said with surprise overwhelming her face.
"He's mine," Sereia flailed her hands to separate the two.
"This relationship is unconsented," San rolled his eyes and crossed his arms against his chest.
"Here I thought we were gonna fuck on camera," Sereia mocked a sigh with petulant headshakes.
"Wow, you're giving – a ship with red flags and mixed signals, toot toot," Aren raised her hand and pulled imaginary chain horns.
"We're glad," Sereia replied.
An instant wave of silence rushed over the class as San and Sereia turned around to sit up straighter, for, in walked Professor Wallace with his overwhelmingly buff frame for a Communications 101 Professor and muscly arms given stare-time by the rolled sleeves of a very strained and overworked blue dress shirt. He cleared his throat with a gruff, 'hm,' and half the class swooned.
"I hope your mid semester projects are completed. You're welcome to bring them in for a last-minute flip review. I will be available in my office till 6 P.M. tonight and a good morning to only those who scored a ninety-five or more in last week's pop quiz." He singled out his star achievers with a piercing blue gaze and passed on a smile which if plastered on funeral-home posters would skyrocket sales.
San too was a recipient of his dead-eyed smile.
Sereia wondered if Professor Wallace got his degree from the Mafia.
"I swear he remembers faces like a hitman," San whispered through gritted teeth.
"He looks like one too." Sereia gulped.
"I cannot believe you even fathomed the thought of kidnapping him." San tsked.
"He'd make a soup of our innards and use our bones as toothpicks." Sereia established.
San merely nodded in agreement as the class began.