"Didn't I tell you?! I knew it! She's a witch!"
"I hear ya, baby."
"I can't believe that green-skinned vixen managed to snag Gohan too and trap him in her web of evil sorcery!"
"Gela. Just… put a sock in it, will you?"
"Del's right. We shouldn't be talking behind her back this way… It's not right."
"Oh, my, gosh, Rasa! Don't tell me even you're under her spell now too? Since when has regular noble girl rules applied to trollopy freaks? Besides, being a goody-two-shoes is so yesterday!"
"Maybe Rasa here is afraid of getting cursed by Little Miss Elphaba!"
"Can it, Sharpner! No one asked for your opinion!"
"Ohhh, that's right, Sharpiekins-babe! She's probably just saying that to disagree with me! Everybody knows about her desperate crush on Gohan after all, and the poor dear's probably still bitter that he dated me instead!"
"Uhm, I'm still here. I can hear you perfectly clear."
"Ohhh, I'm sorry. I thought you were only against talking behind others' backs? You are totally facing us, aren't you? You can't throw a fit every time others don't do or say what you want!"
"At least, get the facts straight, Gela… Gohan didn't go out with you, you blackmailed him! You shouldn't be so proud playing dirty to get a guy to date you."
"Gosh! Excuse me, your-royal-haughtiness! I didn't blackmail him, I persuaded him. And please! How is bewitching him with black magic any better?! Or has 'Princess Videl' from Satan-land forgotten that her methods of persuasion aren't exactly the saintliest either. And I'm not even half the stalker nor a pinch of the hustler you are!"
"Cello Maoh is a strong and attractive person who isn't afraid to be herself. Just because Gohan likes her, doesn't make her a witch."
"Ohmygosh, Rasa! You are under her spell and don't even know it! She's brutish, I'll give her that—but attractive? Since when? Since kicking people in the face has become the new kissing? And newsflash! She isn't human so technically she's not even a 'person'! For all we know she could actually be a shapeshifting monster in disguise like that martian girl on that TV show—a criminal on the run from whatever sector of the galaxy in the horrid outer zone spewed her out! Do you even see the unspeakable things she's done to the boys?! To my poor darling Gohan? No normal decent 'person' would ever do that! She is a wretched hag, I'm telling you! And I have proof! It is impossible—no, unthinkable! that sweet, innocent Gohan could fall for a violent creature like her over an angelic princess like me without some sort of dark evil curse or something!"
"Oh my gods…"
"Baby, don't fret. Who needs that twerp, when you have me? Your Sharpie-baby here is a hundred times the man that he is!"
"…You really are so full of yourself."
"Sharpiekins, call him a twerp again and I'll castrate you. You may be my boyfriend today but that doesn't mean I think you're hotter than Gohan."
"What?!"
"You don't know what Gohan's type is! For all we know, it could be Cello Maoh. Your opinion of her isn't the same as everyone else's, you know."
"Babe, c'mon! You're just teasing me, right?"
"Ugh, it's no use talking to you people! She's obviously got to you too, Mai—all of you! Just get off my case already! I talk about who I want, whenever I want, and however I want!"
"Yeah, but this is Theatre Club not Gossip Guild, so you should take you and your unwanted opinions elsewhere."
"Yeah. Why are you even here? You're not even a member!"
"Oooh psssh! Now I'm really convinced that she did some voodoo mumbo jumbo on all of you! Can't you see that I'm on your side? Tell me you don't honestly think it's an outrage! I mean, sure, she's got those accursedly cute pointed ears! But other than that, she's got nothing on any of us, so why her of all creatures? Someone as hot as Gohan who's been single forever that I was almost sure he was gay is suddenly head over heels for her, just like that!—practically grovelling at her feet! Don't you think it's psycho-level strange? Gosh, ever since she arrived, she's had a monopoly of all the men! It's preposterous—truly unthinkable! Instead of antagonizing me, you're supposed to be working with me here!"
"You still have me, baby…"
"I thought you hated it that she was treated like the number one campus enemy? You were all for asserting her rights and sympathizing with her in your 'Against Objectifying Women' campaign. So, now you're accusing her of being a witch and menace just because Gohan likes her over you?"
"I'm allowed to change my mind about things, Videl dear. I'm curious, you know. You're a woman too, uhm, even if just barely, but you are. So tell me straight to my face that it doesn't just eat you up inside that Gohan's crazy about her when he rejected you too."
"What? I never—"
"Oh, ho-ho-ho! Oh, come on. It's so obvious! You practically hunted him down like a hungry predator for days just to get him to join your Martial Arts Guild! I never see any of the other boys get the same special treatment. And it's not just you and Rasa, the same goes for you too, Mai! You're supposed to be on my side! Especially after I found out about your exquisite little secret…"
"What secret…?"
"Oh, you know… About how badly you're crushing on—"
"Shut your big mouth, Gela!"
"Oh, ho-ho-ho! No need to play possum, sweetie! Your secret crush used to have a brief history with her too… It's a pretty well-kept, juicy secret—a real shocker! I would never have guessed if Sharpie here didn't squeal…"
"Aw, shit… Baby, I thought we agreed—"
"Oh, shush!"
"This is bad…"
"Gela, enough!"
"No, Rasa! I'm not going to take it while you all gang up on me! You need to wake up! It's not me who's the bad guy here but that angel-faced succubus, Cello Maoh! She's taking us all for fools! And there isn't a single guy in campus—that isn't gay—who hasn't fallen under her wicked spell only for her to toy with!"
"We're all entitled to reject people we don't like, that doesn't make it toying with them!"
"She seduces boys only to string them along! She's playing every single one of us for fools! I think this campus needs a witch hunt to kick her out once and for all so that everything will go back to normal!"
"You're wrong, Gela. Not all the boys like her. Some of them just started harassing her because of a bet. You're blowing things out of proportion because of a personal grudge."
"Are you defending someone in particular, Mai? Why don't you let him speak for himself?"
"N-no, I—"
"After all, despite all the nasty rumours, we all know that the boy you like isn't gay… Isn't that right…?
"…Trunks, darling?"
7
Close to Something
It's been three days. I know I'm supposed to have made some kind of progress. But my life kept reloading from the same "save" point three days ago, reliving what I was convinced was a dream.
I finally had a breakthrough with Cello Maoh.
My status from "unwanted bodyguard" had finally moved up to "casual acquaintance". …Or so, that's how I wanted to interpret it. The more I rewound and replayed the event in my head, the more surreal it seemed… And somehow, everything in my life just continued to feel unreal since. (Not to say that my life wasn't unrealistic enough already…)
(Juggling schoolwork and bodyguard duty was like trying to live two separate lives. One was that of a martyr "super"hero who was trying to save an alleged witch from the murderous mob; the other part of me was just a normal high school student who also badly needed saving from homework, projects, extra-curriculum, exams, and occasionally his own mother…)
Those aggressive stalkers I most recently fended off seemed unenthusiastic about retaliating – at least, for the time being. It seemed that no one else from bully camp wanted a go at it just yet either; word of what went down must have already spread around campus, going by the mixed stares mostly composed of fear, pity and-or admiration I kept getting. It wasn't supposed to be the kind of truce that was comforting, I know; after all, the silence could be revenge brewing and this peace was merely the calm before a storm. That didn't stop me from trying to milk it for all it was worth; a reprieve was still a reprieve nonetheless. And, for better or worse, it was the longest one to date…
Days became uneventful blurs: my trek to and from her hall; trying to get by all my classes; futilely reducing pile after pile of schoolwork; and whatever else made up my drab and boring life sans the attention of Cello Maoh.
While I distinctly recall thinking of—and almost missing—my old boring life before all the daily kerfuffles I barely survived, unable to even stand at times from the world of pain beleaguering me–it's the strangest thing in the world not to feel relieved now that I finally got what I had been wishing for. Surprise, surprise. The peacefully uneventful old life I thought I had been longing to return to wasn't as gratifying as I fantasized it would be. Was it even real at all?
The only thing that's real is me, standing here now in this pocket of time, closer to her than I had ever been before. But just when I thought I had gotten so much closer, I then I realize that she is actually still so much farther away than where I originally pegged her to be in this virtual space in time. I felt so close to her then I could almost kiss her… But now, I can't even see or feel her at all.
Never has the phrase 'so close and yet so far' been a truer truism.
You know that feeling when you've worked so hard just to get one step ahead from the starting point? That when you finally do, you feel great and extremely proud of yourself… But then, you wake up to the reality that you're still a hundred-thousand and who-knows-how-many-more steps away from that elusive finish line. It gets you wondering… Will taking another insurmountable step forward be worth the risk of losing everything you've worked so hard to gain thus far? Because unlike actual races where you know which direction to go and that there's sure to be a finish line at the end of all that mad running, every step I decide to take in this race is a blind one—a leap of faith into uncertainty that could spell the difference between being closer to heaven or my entire world crashing down… So here I am, thinking:'Okay, Gohan, you've come this far. It's a long way from the starting point but you can't see the finish line from here, heck, you don't even know if it exists at all… Maybe you should be satisfied to be where you are because, what if this is just about the farthest you can go…? And by regular standards, it's far enough for most. Don't get greedy.'
And maybe it's greed. And maybe I shouldn't want more…
But what if I do?
Would it be a sin to want to go all the way to the very end of this untravelled road, not giving a shit even if I crashed and burned? No one has ever gotten this far, that much I am sure of. Beyond this point, it ain't going to get easier. That's another thing I am sure of. Nothing ever does, right? Because if it did, then there'd be others ahead of me and footprints to guide me. There are a million and one questions and doubts going through my mind, but at the end of the day, it's all just white noise. It's that song about being numb and too much not being enough blasting my AirPods and ringing in my ears even when I've turned my player off as I walk down the beaten paths of the school grounds in-between buildings and classes and yet another featureless day…
How trite.
The irony of it is that when one gets used to chaos being ordinary, they soon find themselves ill-at-ease without it… Brawling with scumbags to protect the fair maiden at least once daily has become my ordinary. Did I really want to reinstate myself into my old life without Cello Maoh and all the chaos she brought? Did I really want to run away from her after everything? Was I really fine with staying in this suspended state of happiness? Feeling so close to something… Something incredible and wonderful. Yet still so out of reach…
Sometimes, the closer we get to the top, the farther we get from the ground and it just won't do any good to look down worry about how far the drop. You know it's there and if you slip you die, but you can't do anything about it. You just have to keep looking up.
You see, the biggest irony of my life yet… is if I wasn't out there getting beaten to a pulp saving her, I had no excuse to have anything to do with Cello Maoh at all…
And without her…
Nothing in my life—
Not even death—
Felt real anymore.
End of Chapter 7
Continued in Chapter 8: "Day-Dreams"…