At the Promenade, May 21st

April 20th, 2017

After Easter ended, Kenzie had her last days of school before graduation, shortly followed by university entrance exams. Following the graduation ceremony, she occasionally came to school to study for her upcoming exams.

When she did, she’d ask me if I was free to accompany her during lunchtime.

I was supposed to go to my club at lunchtime when she came on April 20th, but I asked Ray to do me a favor:

Kenzie’s coming to school and wants to eat lunch with me
Can you sign my club attendance sheet

[Ray]: I doN’t foRgET TO aTtEnD commItMEnTS
[Ray]: - Rob, March 28th

Shut up I filled your attendance last time you ditched

[Ray]: Whatever
[Ray]: Didn’t want to see you there anyway
[Ray]: I see this as an absolute win

I waited in a corridor one floor above ground level. If you looked over the ledge, you could see the quad where the basketball court was. Both sides of the corridor were lined up with lockers that could easily be sat on.

When Kenzie found me, I was sat on one of those lockers. She smiled and waved, then walked over and sat next to me.

I asked, “How’s revision?”

“Let’s not talk about that.”

“Okay.” I reached into my bag and grabbed a bottle of hand sanitizer. "Take this. You can use it to wash your hands clean of the exams once you're done with them."

“Nice. Thanks." She eyed the bottle and put it into her bag. "How was the feedback for your Theory of Knowledge essay?”

I sighed. “Whatever I write is trash for whatever trash reason there is for it to be trash.” Such was the life of a student in the thick of the high school diploma program.

Kenzie, who was looking at me, gave me an understanding nod. She’d been through the same thing one year ago. We left it at that.

Both of us took our lunches out and started eating. It was a sunny day, but the spring breeze gently floated in the air, seasoning our lunches and cooling our heads.

For a while, neither of us felt the need to say anything. My phone vibrated a few times, but I didn’t feel any temptation to check it.

While I sat on her right, as her profile pointed towards the sunlit basketball court in front of us, I noticed the tiny scar above her lip. The artist inside me often likes to make notes of people’s facial features and what about their look defines their aura. I’m more likely to do this with people whose faces look striking to me.

“I can’t wait to finish my exams and and spend my life however I want to. I’ll have so much time to hang out after I’m done.”

“Anything in particular you're looking forward to?”

“We could go to Ocean Park!”

She did bring up the idea of going to Ocean Park together over text a few days ago.

"That sounds kinda fun."

“Oh, and I still haven't been back to the promenade yet! We can go there together once I’m free.”

After I brought her and Yunyun the promenade back on March 31st, she'd always wanted to go back there.

"Yeah. Is there anyone else you'd want to invite?"

"Not really."

Suddenly, Yunyun came up the nearby stairs.

Ahh. That’s why my phone was vibrating.

He made eye contact with me–

Please stop contacting my eyes –

And shot a confused and questioning expression at me, then went back down the stairs.

He probably didn’t take the sight of me eating lunch with Kenzie very well.

Kenzie and I continued to eat and talk like normal until my lunch break was over. She offered to help put my lunchbox back into my bag for me, which I thought was a kind but strange gesture. I went to class and she went back to the study area.

After classes ended, I checked the messages that had accumulated on my phone:

[Kenzie]: Thanks for hanging out with me

[Ray]: Yunyun came to the club room to look for you lol

[Yunyun]: I’m actually surprised

[Yunyun]: You guys are surprisingly close huh

Oh dear.

I replied to Yunyun.

Well I mean yeah we text each other

[Yunyun]: Ok whatever man

Did you just call me a whatever man

[Yunyun]: Go die

That’s very violent

[Yunyun]: Go
[Yunyun]: Die

That’s
Very violent

April 21st, 2017

Yunyun avoided me throughout the next day.

At lunchtime, Ray sat down with me and said, “Yo. Yunyun made me ask you if you like Kenzie or something.”

I couldn’t help but groan a not this business again kind of groan.

He added, “He got really annoyed for some reason and he made me ask you.”

But then again, maybe this was karma for how unhelpful I was when encouraging him to confess.

“You can tell him I don’t. That’s the official answer.”

“Okay.” He paused for a bit. "Wait, did he find you having lunch with her yesterday?"

"Unfortunately."

"Ohhh boy." Ray smiled like he'd found a new TV show to watch. "He also saw what you wrote in her book, dude."

“Huh?”

“Something about a nice smile and great eyes.”

“Jesus Christ. Firstly, I think I can give her a compliment or two in her memory book without romantic implications. Secondly, no one told him to peek at what I wrote in her memory book. Thirdly, Kenzie and I have genuinely become good friends, so I don’t think this is very fair.”

“Alright, alright, alright.” Ray gave me one 'alright' for every complaint I raised.

Still annoyed, I kept ranting. "And now he's telling me to go die because apparently I can't be friends with whoever he got rejected by. Why are my relationships his business?"

"Yes, yes. I'll slowly destroy your social life by finding more people to reject him. Just be careful about what you say around him." He was my best friend and always somehow knew what the right thing to say to me was, but also very good at staying neutral in situations like these.

"Uh huh."

"For real, though, do you actually like Kenzie?"

"Hmm."

"I won't tell Yunyun. As long as he doesn’t bribe me with anything less than $5."

"I don't know, but I don't feel the need to figure it out."

"Bro, just start liking her already so I can get my entertainment."

I bonked him and finished my lunch.

Just before I was about to sleep that night, Yunyun messaged me one more time:

[Yunyun]: You got p ra nk ed
[Yunyun]: I was never angry ha ha ha! Also u can be friends however u like with her I don’t really care lol
[Yunyun]: I just wanted to see how you’d react

I raised an eyebrow, came up with a socially acceptable reply, and gave up on being awake.

I've been tricked, backstabbed, and quite possibly bamboozled.
I can't believe you've done this!

[Yunyun]: Thanks

May 21st, 2017

Kenzie's exams raged on until the middle of May.

The metaphorical hand washing eventually came. Sticking to our promise, we went to the promenade together shortly after her exams finished, on May 21st.

I found Kenzie waiting for me at the station at 6PM. The shirt she wore that day was a bright electric blue one, similar to her schoolbag. It was a color I really liked, although I didn’t have anything with that brilliant color.

I greeted her. “Hey.”

She seemed excited. “Hi.”

As for me, I’d picked out a dark red shirt from my dad’s closet that I didn’t normally wear, because it was a color I liked, and a color that I had.

Shortly after getting to the promenade, we came across the “spinny thing”. That’s what we call it. Imagine an umbrella shaped construction which could spin, that had handles at the edges of the canopy so you could hold on to them and get spun along. Kind of like hanging on to the roof of a moving merry-go-round.

We decided to play on it for a while. When the handle lifted her entire body off the floor for the first time, she screamed, but it was the amusement park kind of scream. At that moment, I couldn’t really resolve how I felt about her, but when I was with her, that didn’t matter at all. I loved the time that I could spend with her, and that I could enjoy it was all that needed to matter.

A small child who also wanted to play but couldn’t reach the handles came along, so Kenzie and I helped him play with the spinny thing in a safe manner. Despite having no younger siblings, she was pretty smooth when it came to dealing with kids.

After we’d gotten too dizzy to keep going, we sat down on a bench to take a break. I took out a box of brownies from my bag.

“Surprise.”

Her eyes lit up. “Are those brownies?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Did you make them from scratch?”

“Mmhmm.”

She took another look at them, though it was pretty dark.

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and here’s book two of the Chaos Walking trilogy.”

I handed her a thick blue book titled The Ask and the Answer. I’d introduced my favorite trilogy to her a few days ago, and she’d finished the first book (The Knife of Never Letting Go) before meeting me at the promenade. After returning The Knife of Never Letting Go to me and stowing The Ask and the Answer, she dug into a brownie.

“Wow, these are good.”

“You’re right.” I mean, I genuinely loved my brownies too. I sure as hell wasn’t going to act modest about them. Back then, I’d make them for Sachi on her birthday.

"By the way, how often do you check your bag?"

"I just take out the books I don't need and put in the books that I need? What do you mean by check?"

"Like, do you ever fully unpack it, or..."

"No?"

"Oh."

"Why?"

"Surprise."

I watched, confused, as she reached into my bag and procured a blue origami rabbit.

“Wait, when did you put it in?”

"That time Yunyun found us having lunch together."

“Wait.” I did a bit of math. “That was...a month ago.”

Kenzie couldn’t help but laugh at me. “This is a catastrophe.”

After we settled down a bit, I asked, “So why a rabbit?”

“Because I’m stupid.”

“Well, I know that much, but – ”

“I thought you were born in the year of the rabbit, but I remembered people born a year younger than me are actually born in the year of the dragon only after I put it in your bag.”

It was my turn to laugh.

Kenzie shook her head. “Wow. Everything about this little gift failed.”

But I really appreciated little gifts like those, despite my inability to check my bag and her inability to get my zodiac year right.

Once I was done laughing, I admired the cute paper rabbit while Kenzie munched on my brownies. Although it was slightly creased from spending a month in the chaos of my bag's innards, I could tell how carefully folded it was. Written on the rabbit's belly, in shiny ink that I could read even in the dark, was a message -

Thanks for always making the time to talk to me at night. It meant a lot to me.

It must have been in reference to how we talked pretty much every night over the Easter break while she crammed for her exams.

I said, “Thanks. I love it.”

“Thanks.” Kenzie said, thanking me for my thanks.

After the brownies were finished, we walked the calories off. A few minutes later, we heard rowdy music coming from somewhere close by.

I asked Kenzie, “Do you hear something over there?”

“Wanna go see?”

What we happened upon was a dance battle. It was our first time seeing one up close.

“I can’t see anything,” Kenzie complained. She’s one of those people I’d describe as vertically challenged.

“You can stand in front of me.”

“Will you have enough space?”

“I mean, I’m a head and a neck taller than you,” I teased, patting her head twice. She swatted at my hand on the second pat but took my offer and moved in front of me.

Two teams of dancers on the stage would take turns showing off their moves and imposing their swagger upon the opposing team. That’s how the dance battle basically worked. It was quite a sassy phenomenon.

Kenzie and I occasionally glanced at each other as a non-verbal reaction to the dance moves. She’d turn her head back to lock eyes with me, and her wide eyes would whisper, cutting through the noise and the music, did you see that?? and my eyes under my raised eyebrows would shoot back, I did see that. We stood there for at least half an hour, watching the dance battle until it ended.

After the dance battle, we went to lean on the glass railing that separated the promenade from the sea. While we gazed at the water, we suddenly heard a splash. I think it was a fish.

“I think I saw a fish jump out of the water.”

“Wait, where?”

Another splash. Our heads turned.

“Over there!” I pointed at the ripple that the fish left.

“Wait, why can’t I see it?”

“Do my eyes look like they’re any better than yours?”

“Well, I think your eyes are lighter than most people’s,”

Although the promenade was a place I’d already been to a few times before, I was there with a friend and seeing new things about it that I hadn’t known. It felt like I was on an adventure. I’d never been on an adventure with anyone before. If it was anyone other than Kenzie, though, I doubt it would have felt as fun as it did.

“Well, I think your eyes are also kinda light,” I mumbled in response.

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear what you said.”

I really had to kick the mumbling habit.

“Your eyes are –”

There was a couple walking past nearby. I have no idea why I waited for them to pass before finishing my sentence.

After they passed, I pretty much blurted out loud, “– kind of pretty.”

Kenzie smiled a bit and said, “Yours too.”

We stayed at the promenade until almost midnight. I pretended not to notice the texts from my mom. Kenzie was reluctant to go, and so was I, but she but obliged when I reminded her that I had school the next day because it was Sunday.

Back at the train station, when my train arrived, I thought about how Kenzie hugged her friends before they left back on the day of the charity run. I thought she’d feel presumptuous about asking for a hug, so I offered one. We shared our first parting hug, and I got on the train.

I made it home at midnight, then showered and texted Kenzie until I gave in to fatigue. We sent each other the photos and videos, then thanked each other for the amazing time we had. Somehow, I’d have to pull myself through a full day of school the next day.

But I wasn’t complaining about it.

[Kenzie]: Thanks so much for tonight!!! I had a lot of fun :))

[Kenzie]: Sorry for making you go home so late

[Kenzie]: Hope you don't get in trouble for that :/

It's alright my mom wasn't that mad ha ha
Thank you for the best night out I've ever had
I've always wanted to do something like that with someone

[Kenzie]: Same!! I'm glad I went with you

I texted Ray a follow up answer to his question regarding how I felt about Kenzie.

I think she’s pretty and I’m just a bit sad
that she won’t be around in school anymore

[Ray]: Damnit you like her…

I’m just trying to be aware of my lack of actual romantic experience
Well you don’t have to like someone to think they’re pretty

[Ray]: I think you’re pretty and I like you

Sorry I don’t feel the same way

[Ray]: My father will hear about this