In his hand was a small piece of paper with three lines of writing right in the middle on the page. It simply said:
Senyum manismu
bawah cahya suria
Kuterpesona.
For the umpteenth time, the boy turned the piece of paper in his hand clockwise, and then anti-clockwise. He tried flipping it over, hoping to find some sort of clue to understand the mysterious message, but his furrowed brows revealed what he found: nothing. At least, nothing more than scribbles.
He sighed in disappointment as he continued to stare at the paper.
He had found the paper, folded, on his desk at school that day. He missed whoever had left it there because he rushed to the gents' as soon as the final bell rang., and he found the cryptic message - in a language he neither knew nor understood - when he came back to get his belongings.
Countless questions ran through his head, like what the message meant, who the sender was, and if the message was even intended for him, but he was too embarrassed to tell anyone about the paper, in case the message was a secret. Maybe it was something that might ruin his reputation at school? Or some kind of bully tactic?
Oh no, they're not going to get rid off me that easily, he decided, feeling strangely determined that it was a threat of some sort, even though he didn't have any proof that it was.
Even so, he frowned as he continued to look back at the paper, what do I do with this?
He thought for a few more seconds, and finally gave up trying to decode whatever was on the paper.
After checking to see if he has taken all his stuff, he strapped his slingbag across his chest and headed for the door, pausing when he saw the trashbin. He looked at the paper still clenched in his hand, stared at it for a few moments, and reluctantly dropped it in the bin. Forcing himself to stick with his decision, he headed home.
Not too long after, a girl peeks out from the closet nearby. She looked around the hallway to make sure that nobody was around, and slowly, cautiously, made her way into the boy's classroom.
The girl crouched near the bin and stared at the paper laying in it among other rubbish. She sighed as she fished it out, feeling guilty for not being brave enough to give it to him in person in the first place.
All of a sudden, she heard footsteps rushing down the hall towards the classroom. Before she realised what was happening, the intended recipient of the love poem she was holding appeared at the door, gasping for air. His pained expression from catching his breath slowly softened when he saw her crouching by the entrance.
She stumbled backwards as she tried to hide the paper behind her, hoping he didn't notice. She unconsciously blushed, not knowing what to say or do.
"Are you ok?", he suddenly asked as he extended his arm, offering to pull her up.
She looked to the ground, too shy to look at him, or to even take his hand. "Umm.. thanks. I'm alright", she replied. She brushed off the dust from her pants, and thanked him again for his offer to help her.
Before he could say anything, she stuttered out an excuse to leave early and rushed out as possible, like her life depended on it.
As she stood at the junction near her home, she wondered why he ran back to the classroom.
...Was it because of the poem?
She immediately considered this as she squinted her right eye, deep in thought. Naaah, she shrugged.
Even if it was true that he came back to retrieve the poem, she didn't know what to do now that she's ruined the plan. All she knew was that the message was in her hands, and meeting him again would be too awkward.
When the pedestrian lights finally turned green, she crossed the street, still absorbed in her own thoughts.
"WATCH OUT!", someone suddenly shouted.
She was about to look at the person shouting when suddenly, she was tackled down by someone. She didn't remember when she had closed her eyes, but the next thing she knew, there were sounds of screeching tyres and blaring horns around her. She froze.
"Are you crazy?!", a male voice demanded, startling her. She opened her eyes to find him - of all people - staring down at her, looking flushed and dumbfounded.
Too stunned to respond, her eyes looked around to find people gathering at both ends of the street, anxiously looking at them; one lady was even holding her phone, looking like she was ready to call for the emergency hotline. The driver of the speeding car - which swerved to the side of the road at the last minute - seemed to be in as much shock as she was, and was being lectured by someone from the street.
The red pedestrian light started to blink then, signalling only a few more seconds before it was the drivers' turn to use the street.
She immediately got up and pulled her saviour to the other side of the road, just in the nick of time. After both of them slowly tried to calm their fast-beating hearts, he broke the silence.
"You should really look left and right before you cross, you know..."
She was about to open her mouth to respond, but she stopped when she saw that her hand was still holding onto his. Immediately she let go, embarassed.
"Uh, sorry about that...", she said, absentmindedly scratching her unitchy neck. "And umm, thank you for well, saving my life..."
He blushed, catching her off-guard. "I'm sorry for yelling at you". He began to slowly massage his arm when she saw some red stains on his elbows.
"Are... are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?", she immediately asked.
He quickly searched for any wounds on his body, and found that his elbows were scratched from the fall. She quickly reached into her pocket to get her purse, which had some plasters in it. As she pulled the purse out, she didn't realise that something else fell from the palm of her hand: the paper she had tried to conceal.
As she fumbled with her purse, the boy bent down to pick up the paper she had just dropped. When he saw what was written on it, he looked at her with a glint in his eyes, and smiled to himself.
"Found you", he whispered, and slowly stuffed the paper in his pocket.
---
The next day, he went to school with a special purpose - to find out who the girl was. After she gave him all of her plasters, she pretty much left without saying a word. She didn't even give him her name; she only smiled apologetically, waved and ran away.
He tried to ask his classmates and some juniors if anybody knew who she was, but nobody did. By the end of the schoolweek, he had neither seen nor gotten any information about her. It was as if she had never existed in that school.
Out of desperation, he decided to look through the student database, knowing full well that he would get into trouble if he got caught. After looking through each and every one of the female students' profiles, even those from a few years back, he finally accepted that the girl he was looking for wasn't there.
He slumped into the chair, disappointed. "She must be from another school, then", he grunted disappointedly.
He was about to leave the room when he realised that there was a note (labelled 'URGENT!' in yellow) for him on the pinboard, reminding him to proofread the draft of the school newsletter. He sighed again as he picked up a hardcopy draft from the computer desk. Before he could scan for typos and other errors, his attention was caught by a black-and-white photo of a young girl, smiling cheerfully on a hospital bed -- who looked like the girl he had been looking for for the past few days.
He instantly sat up straight as he read the short article accompanying the picture:
"It is with sadness that the editorial board share the news of a recent death of a fellow member of our school. Last week, our school received word that Sara Lyana, a student from Class 1D three years ago, has passed away due to a rare heart disease. She peacefully took her last breath on February 15th with her loving family by her side.
If you knew Sara and would like to contact her family, you may call 455-7656. We hope her loved ones stay strong through this ordeal; may her soul rest in peace."
He froze in his seat, not believing what he had just read. He quickly looked at the calendar to see when February 15th was, and found it to be Tuesday, the day after he had met this girl.
He gulped, feeling awkward and slightly anxious.
Should I give the family a call?, he wondered.
He went back home that afternoon feeling gloomy. He tried punching in 455-7656 into his phone several times, but he always ended up putting it down before it was picked up.
What do I say? 'Your daughter ran away from the hospital and visited me at school'...?
Suddenly his phone started ringing, startling him.
"H-- hello?", he said nervously.
"Hello, is this 453-7889?", a female voice asked.
"Uh,.. yes?"
"Right. Our caller ID recorded your number calling us a few times. Were you looking for someone?", she said curtly.
"Uh...", he paused for a few moments, "I knew Sara, sort of... and I just heard the news. I'm really sorry about your loss...". He wasn't sure how to continue.
The other line suddenly went silent. After a few seconds, he could hear someone sobbing, and not too long after that, a different voice answered the phone.
"Umm... hi there, thank you for calling", a younger female voice said. "Uh, I'm Sara's sister, Fara... Sorry about that, my mom's not feeling too well because... yeah. Heh. You can talk to me instead, if you want".
"Umm, hi Fara. I'd just like to say I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your sister. I hope your family is coping well...". He thought for a second, and then added, "I'm Adam, by the way. Sara and I uh... kinda met recently. I'm quite surprised when I heard the news".
"...Kinda met? Recently? But... Sara's been in the hospital for the past few months?", she said, confused.
He panicked, not knowing how to explain. "Umm... she kinda left me a message a few days ago. At school.", he admitted.
The line suddenly went silent. So silent that he thought something was wrong with his phone. "Are you there?", he nervously asked.
"Are you... are you that guy from 5B?", Fara slowly asked, "the one at the accident at the junction last Tuesday?"
"Yeah, I'm from 5B and... how'd you know about the traffic lights incident?", he asked, curious.
To his surprise, she chuckled.
"No wonder she liked you so much...", she said to herself, baffling him.
"Adam, that paper you got... on it was a poem written by my sister", she softly said. "You might not realise this, but she was your junior by a few years. She saw you around school sometimes, when she was still a student there".
When he didn't respond, she continued.
"She said, when she saw you, it was, like, love at her first sight. She was planning to confess to you before you left school... but she fell into a coma late last year. She didn't wake up until the very end...", she trailed off.
"So...", he slowly replied, "was the girl from the classroom and traffic lights incident... you, Fara?"
"... Yyyeah, it was me", she finally admitted. She quickly continued, "I'm really sorry for the confusion... I just wanted to pass you that poem because I knew she would've wanted it; it was written for you last year. She had planned to give it to you on Valentine's Day this year, but she, well, couldn't make it..."
He unconsciously nodded to himself. "It's okay, Fara. I understand. And thank you for going through so much trouble to give it to me. But umm, can I ask what the message was, though? I still can't figure out what it means..."
He took out the paper from his breastpocket and read aloud the words, trying his best to make it decipherable by Fara. She stifled a giggle by how much effort he made to get the pronunciation right.
"Adam,...", she started, "that message... it's actually a haiku, which is a Japanese-style poem. Sara wrote it in Malay though.
It means...
Your sweet smile
under the rays of the sun
I'm spellbound"
He just blinked and stared at the paper in his hand when another voice appeared on the line, in the background, calling Fara.
"Adam", she interrupted his train of thought, "I'm sorry but I have to go now. Thank you so much for calling... I'm sure Sara would've been very happy to know you called to ask for her. Please take care of yourself okay?"
"Will I see you around?", he asked, almost too hurriedly.
She paused. "I'm sorry, but my mother is planning to move back to her home country soon; she says there's too many painful memories here..."
And with that, they said their goodbyes and she disconnected.
As soon as he placed the phone back on the receiver, he felt a rush of regrets. He knew it was circumstances that kept them apart, but he felt like a small part of him is empty now that he knew that there was no chance of meeting the writer of the poem, or even the messenger.
He sighed and read the haiku again... except this time, he knew what the words meant. He then reached into his schoolbag to fish out the newsletter draft from this afternoon, and stared at her picture. After a few seconds, he smiled.
"I've never even met you, but you still managed to put a spell on me", he mused.
So long, Sara. I hope you're smiling wherever you are.
------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Felt like some love story was in order, heheh. I was initially thinking that he finds out that she was a ghost/spirit at the end, but it kinda sent chills down my spine so I changed my mind at the last minute, lol. Hope you like it! :)
Time taken: 2.5 days
