The Alien Who's Deprived of Hugs

Redundant. There's no better word to put it. I shall not forget how its definition struck me like I found the best clothes that suited me.

It was our lesson in English class, on the first Monday of September. According to the dictionary, redundancy is the state of being no longer needed or no longer useful. While in writing, redundancy is when we use words that exceed the necessary. Sitting on our first subject in the morning (because we're back to whole days of classes), my mind was completely susceptible to any information that was offered to it.

Still, I often confused redundancy with repetition and I thought the word redundant itself was a redundancy. But the words that really stayed with me were excessive, needless, and unnecessary. Because that's what I felt after my last encounter with Crimson. I felt like I no longer mattered.

In hindsight, perhaps the reason why Crimson decided to remove me from his life was to prevent my simple admiration from hatching into an obsession. So I wouldn't miss him when he transferred to another school.

He didn't tell anyone, that's why it was harder for me to accept it. We thought he was just absent one day until our teacher notified us of his transfer. But was it only fate being playful when I was lounging in the senior high corridor on the first floor, later that week, Friday.

When the sun was already setting and the campus was almost empty. My weight stood on one foot as I read a sign on the bulletin board that says, "Don't read me" but I still read it anyway. Something about reverse psychology.

Then suddenly I was struck by a jolt on the back of my knee and the weird sensation of falling hit me. By his voice I already knew who it was, "Ay gutom," Mix said. "Someone's hungry."

Most of those days, I felt like there was a knife stuck in my throat that kept me from talking.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

I stared at him moodily and replied, "Where?"

"At the meeting."

"I'm on my way home."

"Come on, we're recruiting Pluto. You're going, aren't you?"

I said no. He's talking about the stupid camp again.

"It's going to be fun." He had a daydream look on his face as he said, "Like last year."

Leaves were falling fast, and the wind was getting cold. We made it towards the gate of the Annex and strolled along the stalls.

"Last year was more of a scavenger hunt but this year's theme would be outer space and celestial bodies," he recited, his eyes twinkling. "There has to be nine planetarians, and we need one more."

"What's a planetarian?"

"The leaders that represent the nine planets to guide their dwellers - who would be the other students participating in the camp."

"Pluto's not even a planet"

"It is a dwarf planet."

Thinking of an excuse I replied, "I'm not a dwarf."

"Really?" He gestured a hand over our heads to compare our heights. "It looks to me that you'll do pretty good."

"Yabang ah. How arrogant." I kicked in the air and he leapfrogged away. "You used to be so smaller than me in Grade 8!"

Unknowingly, we were already at the Main Campus, across the quadrangle and in front of the new classrooms. The rooms were empty except for one next to the stairs. Voices could be heard and I could already see the kites hanging on the ceiling. Why, it's our old classroom in Grade 8 after the shifting of classes began.

Inside, two older girls were at the front discussing some scribbles on the blackboard. Several seniors, the first batch of Grade 11's, a bunch of Grade 10's, and a number of science class students were sitting amongst the cluttered armchairs. The atmosphere felt thick. I gulped as all the eyes turned to both Mix and I.

Blinkey was there, as well as Marcus, Arvin, and Van. I could remember them telling me about this meeting but I likely forgot about it. The two girls standing in front warmly welcomed us and had us log our names on a sheet of paper. Afterward, Mix and I sat at the back of the classroom, enthralled by all that happened.

The second time I was late with him.

But even when we're in the meeting now, we still didn't sit next to each other. He went to sit with Arvin and Van on the middle-back and I sat just behind the three of them. I took furtive glances at the people facing in front. Then I averted my eyes to Mix and pouted.

There's something that I really didn't like about him. Believe it or not, he really used to be smaller than me. His height was no taller than just below my ear back in Grade 8. Along with his downcast eyes and hunched shoulders and the way he only glances left and right seemed as though he's always expecting a fight.

He was a transferee and was frequently absent yet he still had high grades, especially in Science. I never took notice of him that year but I remember how he cried one time in this very classroom.

It was in our history class, during a group work, when all of a sudden, my classmates were crowding in front of our teacher. Telling him Mix was crying because a girl made him cry. A girl? How lousy could he be?

However, Crimson was the one who comforted him and that's how they became best friends, I guess. Still, I didn't pay much attention to him. He was just one of the lousy kids...like me.

Though there was no trace of it now, his timidity, I mean. In fact, he's so confident that girls were obviously trying to hide their giggles whenever he walked around.

His growth spurt became a mystery. We were so shocked at the enrollment that year when he came in at the door so tall, he almost bumped his head on the doorframe.

"Well, when puberty hits you with a truck," Dorothy said, a Grade 9 Science Class who's without a doubt had a crush on him. Yeah right, a truck hit him? Maybe a meteorite.

I wouldn't say that he's handsome. It's his slanted eyes, his prominent scar on his chin, and of course his height that they labeled him as a typical-looking-bad-boy. But he only looked like an alien to me.

If not for his bangs, airplanes would be landing on his forehead. Together with his small nose and coy smirk, he always talked about outer space so it fits. Pfft, alien.

Snap! Everyone was already wearing their bags, standing up, and fixing the armchairs. The meeting was adjourned and I didn't hear any of it.

Mix caught me spacing and he said, "I already recommended you. You'll be working with Ate Sarah."

I just look at him like I was a child lost in a crowd. We marched back outside where the guard was already closing the Main Gate. Mix laced an arm around my shoulder while he was bidding goodbyes to everyone. Before he could pull me closer, I managed to slip away and put a distance between us.

He grinned and I looked at him suspiciously. Then we blended in the clump of students going home.

The cables of electricity looked like strands of thick hair against the orange sky. The shade went darker every step we took, past Mizzus' carinderia, over the small bridge and a sari-sari store. Usually, I was the one escorting my classmates home because my house was just nearby. It felt uncanny going home with them.

After a while, we arrived at my house - the most popular house in school - the Pink House, because our house was pink. Mix stayed with me while the others continued walking away.

"See you tomorrow," he said abruptly.

I squinted my eyes and replied, "Tomorrow is Saturday."

"I know," he chuckled. "Maybe I'll see you at the plaza."

The sky was now a deep blue and stars were appearing. I scoffed at what he said and gave him a wave.

"Bye."

"Oh wait!" he called out. "One more thing."

I turned around and saw him put his hand inside his pocket. His hand glistened as he pulled something out.

"Here's your pen."

Speechless as I was, I thought it would somehow make my heart leap. But the pen felt so trivial and vaguely unfamiliar. He handed it to me and suddenly I felt a knife in my throat so that I couldn't even thank him.

"It was inside my pocket all along," he said. "Don't ever lose it again." He seemed to be waiting for me to say something but I still couldn't. "Bye, then."

For a moment, it reminded me of the time when I was the one who was returning that pen. It seemed so long ago. I thought this resemblance of Mix and Crimson only overlapped there. But I already had a premonition that it would not be the last time.

"Bye," I finally replied.

When I think back to the beginning of that season, all I can remember was the redundancies. The superfluous moments fate unconventionally provided as a solution to keep me from being so melodramatic.

I didn't know when did it start, our new-found friendship, and our silly little game. Maybe it was when Mix asked me to give him a dare. A dare, I say, how cliché.

I think it was recess, a few days after he escorted me home. We were strolling together, as we now did frequently those days. I just let him. Not that I even had the will to not let him. I rarely spoke since Crimson transferred.

After Mix gave a casual wave to a group of girls, he turned to me and said, "Give me a dare."

"What for?" I muttered.

"It's a task."

Prior to this, he added me to two group chats, one about the science club named Planetarians, and second, a group called 11 pm confession room.

In the meantime, I have to borrow my sister's phone because I didn't have the privilege to own a phone at a young age. I only borrowed Avi's phone to take selfies and play music.

The planetarian one was more formal. It was about the announcements and updates for the upcoming "Space Camp." The second one, the 11 pm confession room, was more about gossip and crazy tasks or dares as they called it.

Blinkey, Leslie, Marcus, Francine, Jerome, Mix, Chivvy, and other of our classmates were already members. There's a deadline of one task per week and I joined just to be part of another nonsensical shenanigan of teenagers.

Walking alongside the senior high building, Mix buzzed like a fly hovering around me. Even if I splat him and end up palming my face, it wouldn't go away.

"Come on, give me a dare!" he pressed.

"What do you want with me Mix?"

"Didn't I just say? A dare!"

Why do I feel like it's a trap? I asked myself. Like my throat was pointed by another knife and if I just let it be, I might end up being decapitated.

One could label me as a docile person. People tended to take advantage of my meek personality. So I was cautious, but at the same time, curious. Although it didn't alarm me much. With one knife already impaled in my throat because of a sudden disappearance of someone special to me.

"I'm quite hungry now," I told Mix. "You can treat me."

He pinched his chin as if thinking and after a while he said, "Right'o."

When I said it was not the last time, I meant all the following days we were always together reminded me of Crimson because of Mix.

That's why it sent me into a total tailspin to ask why? Why all of a sudden he was eager to hang out with me? Did Crimson told him to take care of me? Perhaps as a replacement? It was indeed alarming yet somehow mystifying.

Could it possibly be that they switch their bodies for spending too much time together before? But it gave me hints that this guy was just probably "interested" in me. Even I could feel it. I was not that naive.

Almost always I'd catch Mix staring at me. But he wouldn't take his eyes away when I cuaght him. He would still stare at me until I'm the one who'd look away.

What was he thinking?

What was I thinking?

When we finally sat next to each other in one meeting, I casted my eyes at the scribbles on the blackboard so as not to look at him. I read one that said, "Space Camp: October 15-17, 2014."

Exactly a month from now, I thought. When I returned my gaze and he's back was turned to me, he was now talking to Arvin.

Looking at his nape, tanned, uneven, with white blemishes with a mole in the center. I speculated that that was the reason he became attractive. Arvin and Van have moles on their napes too, but there's no doubt that they're good looking ever since Grade 7.

But was it there before he grew so tall and chase after by girls? Is it possible that you can grow a mole and baamm be attractive?

It just happened that teenagers still do what they see others do. When someone said he was attractive because of his height, another would say it, and a lot will agree to it. It's the bandwagon effect.

"Everyone is doing it, I might as well do it." It deludes what you think to what everyone else thinks. But not for me, I promised. Not for me.