🌊-Minori

The interface on my watch said it was 6.52a.m. Why was I dumb enough to think that the commute from Simei to Bishan would take a full hour? Never mind. That meant I had time to eat a second breakfast! The peanut butter waffle was piping hot in the paper bag and the cool morning air cooled down the hot milo.

The sky was still blueish-grey; perfect for sleeping. Maybe I should do that after my second breakfast. After dunking my milo in one gulp, the glass caught sight of a girl wearing a sailor uniform. Her golden hair was tied into two braided pigtails. Reminds me of Bjorn. She sat alone on the table right next to mine. From the way her head kept shifting from one thing to another, it seemed like she was lost.

After returning my cup to the drink stall auntie, I approached her. Wait. Hold on. This wasn’t right. Alb would definitely be laughing at me. Amami Minori, the one guy who couldn’t score a girlfriend talking to a girl?

“Hey, you lost?” I asked.

She looked up at me with the brightest green eyes I had ever seen on a person before. Okay, then again, how many Caucasians had I come into contact with aside from Bjorn? There was something odd about her though. When I looked straight at her, it felt like she was sending jolts of electricity straight through my body.

“I just need to find the AEP rooms. Do you know where they are?” she asked.

Giving my directions to a girl. Albert was definitely going to have a field day with this. I shrugged my shoulders and apologised for being unable to provide her with much assistance.

Before I could go back to my seat to finish chomping on the waffles, she called me again with a soft ‘hey’. I turned around and raised an eyebrow. She was already on her feet and much shorter than I was.

“Have you ever thought about who you really were?” she asked.

I rubbed the back of my head, unsure of how to answer her. I just blinked at the randomness of the question. I looked down at my feet, only to see that something was glowing beneath her white socks. A silver chain poked out.

“Well, I do sometimes wonder why we’re sent here, considering we never asked consented to be born. I’ll just go about living my life, I guess. Oh, I’m Minori by the way,” I said upon realising that I had forgotten to introduce myself.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Éclair. I’ll see you around,” she said before walking off.

Now that was a weird way to start the morning. I shrugged my shoulders and continued eating. At the same time, the weight of the half-truth that I told pressed against my broad shoulders. What did she mean by an existence greater than the one I was living now?

⚡️-Eclair

The admin staff told me to find the OG called Aphrodite. Looking at all the banners, it seemed that they really wanted to stick to their Clash of the Titans theme as much as possible. The pink banner bordered with red roses and narcissus flowers showed me the way.

“Ah, you must be Éclair, right? The new member to our OG? Welcome! I’m Jia Ying!” said the OGL as she directed me to the unoccupied spaces in her group.

I thanked her for the warm introduction and took my place beside a tall, lanky boy who was wearing shorts that did not flatter his lean figure. I straightened my shirt out and looked at the students who surrounded me.

It was just like the first day I entered Methodist Girls. Almost every pair of eyes in the school were on me, wondering who this strange girl with golden hair and green eyes was. Papa did warn me.

You were the one who wanted to transfer to a local school. Why are you complaining? He was right. We were doing pretty fine at the Australian International School, yet I was the one who made the decision to be amongst the locals for once in my life. I have to live with the consequences of my choice and the words that people would spill at me.

The music started blaring from every speaker in the hall, signalling that assembly was about to start soon. Students started spilling in from all corners of the hall, taking their seats beside friends they had already made. Eyes were on me again.

Then, my Pectus Magi tingled. I looked up and saw him. It was the boy with bronzed skin from the morning. Minori, right? His hair was still in a dishevelled mess, but that didn’t stop his OG mates from embracing him with open arms as they pulled him towards the floor.

“If you feel weird about everybody looking at you, he felt the exact same way yesterday when they called him up to do the chicken dance,” said the shorts-clad boy beside me.

I turned to face him, surprised that he had a willowy voice despite his tall frame. He gave a reassuring smile, and only then did I realise that while all eyes were on me, he never seemed to care that I was different and just went on with his business.

Maybe I could do this.

🌼-Luqman

If Nenek found out that I not only attended lecture with two new people but actually ended up having lunch with them, she would praise God and probably fast for two weeks. Mei set her bowl of assam laksa down while Kenny munched on some bread that he brought from home.

“So, last night, not a dream, right?” Kenny whispered into Mei’s ear.

“Nope. Everything you saw was real. The glass monster, my starlight powers. Luqman making a hedge grow on the spot. All real,” said Mei.

She proceeded to slurp up her noodles and wiped her lips with her forearm. I raised an eyebrow, wondering how she was so bold to do something like that in public. Kenny on the other hand inched nearer towards her. I mouthed at him to not do it, but he didn’t care.

“So, please tell me more! Like, ah, where does your magic come from? Got source or not? Oh! What about that glass creature?” he said.

It was like watching a kindergartener asking his teacher many questions about the animals at the zoo. I offered Mei a piece of tissue paper in case she wanted to wipe her lips with her arm again. Maybe I had to pay close attention to so that I could have some idea over what I just did the night before.

“We still don’t really know the origins of magic that well. We just know that there are parasites called Anima Magi that reside within us and provide us with that power,” she said before diving into her noodles again.

Did she just say ‘parasite’? I grimaced at that thought and averted my eyes away from my nasi padang for a bit. So, there was a parasite eating me alive and giving me magic?!

“No, lah. Not that kind of parasite. It just stays in our bodies for protection from the elements. In exchange, we’re allowed to tap into their magical abilities. That’s all I know for now,” she said after gulping everything down.

That was definitely not the right word to use. Mutualism was more appropriate in this case. Kenny just let out a silent ‘wow’. It was hard to get rid of the sparkle in his eyes, wasn’t it? Then, he pressured her with more and more questions. It wasn’t until a while that Mei put her spoon down and heaved a rather frustrated sigh.

“Was I too much?” asked Kenny.

She shook her head. She glanced at the ceiling, probably thinking of what to say next before looking straight at me. I pointed at myself.

“You have to get registered at Divyane before they label you as a rouge mage,” said Mei.

I was sitting still, but somehow, it was as if the whole world was spinning around me. How did my life change in the span of just 24 hours? One moment, I was just Luqman, a regular Singaporean boy just doing his best. The next moment, I was suddenly some sort of spell caster and now…there was some organisation?

“They oversee our welfare and give us training so that we can control our powers better. They also have their own courts, hospitals,” and I just found myself blanking out again.

There was a whole underground society for people…like me. While Kenny continued to bug her with more questions, with her showing her glowing left fist as a warning, I just sat there, contemplating everything that I had known.

🧸-Frankie

“Wah, your future campus is damn nice sia,” I said as I looked at all the glass-lined sky bridges, the art studios, and art installations that dotted Laselle.

“I know, right? Aiyah. It sucks that NUS and NTU don’t have arts management courses. SMU’s is only a minor. So, this is my only choice lor. No regrets though. It’s so damn pretty and state-of-the-art,” said Sissy.

A single balloon floated up towards the ceiling, the LaSelle insignia printed on its pink surface. I wondered if some naïve members of the public would consider that as art.

“So, have you decided what to do while waiting for poly to start?” asked Sissy as she accepted a bag of free popcorn from one of the open house booths.

I held my hands out too, thanking the Uncle Ringo guy for the free food. I munched on the popcorn whilst trying to ruminate over what she said.

“You got life so easy because you already got an internship. I don’t even know where to find work. Giving part-time tuition sounds pretty boring. Besides, I don’t want to feed the industry. Hey, you think I can take up one of your illustration courses here?” I joked.

Sissy pushed me to the side before bursting into laughter, her mouth opened like she could eat up the full moon.

We paused to catch sight of a modern dance troupe. Sissy stood still, her eyes transfixed on the way their bodies were like fluid, flowing with the rhythm of Dance of the Pearls’ remix. With Parkview Square providing the backdrop behind the newly made stage, it seemed quite surreal.

I imagined the gigantic bronze sculptures of those men coming to life, dancing with those light orbs as though they were pearls. I giggled at the thought of them becoming backup dancers. Or maybe they were part of the set design.

Parkview Square. I blinked. Nah, who was I kidding. It had only been a day since that interview, right? Surely, they wouldn’t reply so fast. Or maybe I was tempting fate after all. My handphone vibrated. I looked at the SMS and almost let out the greatest victory cry I could.

“Hey, Sissy, what say you if I took up an internship at Divyane for the next three months?” I asked.

She made a dramatic turn towards me and just stared with wide eyes.