Chapter 167 The Past - Part 7

We wandered around the mall for a little longer before I decided that it was time to leave.

"Are you going now?" She asked me.

"Yeah."

I had done about all I could think of. With nothing else left to do, going back to the boarding house seemed like a good idea. The next bus I could take was in six minutes, it was going to take me a few minutes to walk to the bus stop anyways so it was best to leave now.

She seemed a little dejected when she realised our play date was over. It was to be expected, I had kept her company for a little while and her friends never came back to find her either. I wasn't going to stay with her for the rest of my life though, so I began walking away from her.

"Wait, can I add you on Snapchat?"

I never checked Snapchat, and although I did have an account, I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing to tell her the name, although she would be out of luck if she wanted to talk to me.

"I guess."

I pulled out my phone and showed her my username. She quickly typed it into her phone and sent me a friend request, I accepted it and moved on, making my way out of the mall. She looked at me for a little while as I walked out and eventually, I was on the footpath, going towards the bus stop.

There were still two minutes until the bus arrived. I leaned against the side of the little bus stop structure and looked across the road. There were a few convenience stores and restaurants and such that seemed to be situated outside. I suppose not everyone had the privilege of running a store within the mall. The bright orange state-run bus eventually arrive and opened its doors to all of the passengers.

I got on and took a random seat near the back. As the bus began moving again, I felt a vibration in my pocket. It seemed I had forgotten to put my phone on do-not-disturb-mode today so I opened it and saw that she had already sent me a message on Snapchat. Now that I'd seen the notification, I supposed that I'd read the message. Snapchat hides the messages when you're on your lock screen, so you can only see that you've received a message, not what the message actually is.

'hi' was the message she sent. It was a pretty stock standard opening, I suppose that she was a bit bored now that I had left her. I didn't necessarily want to have a conversation with her right now, I wasn't really in the mood to talk anymore, although now that I'd 'seen'-ed the message, I had a societal obligation to reply, otherwise, it would be a sign of hate.

'ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ No(ve) l Bi n',

'hi' I decided to make myself as bland as possible in order to allow her to be the one to stop talking to me. I put some music on in the background and plugged my headphones in. It was a playlist that Hannah had given to me, apparently 'all the outcomes liked it, so you should try it too'. The music was okay, it was nothing special as I listened to it.

'wyd?' She texted.

'I'm sitting on the bus.'

'oh that's cool so you take the bus.'

'yeah.'

'where about do you live?'

'at the boarding house of engadin high school.'

'oh I thought you were going back home.'

'do you have curfew or something?' she continued.

'yeah.'

That was technically true, although it was only four o'clock and curfew was at nine o'clock, even so, it wasn't like they ever really checked, it was only a rule for the sake of being one and wasn't actually enforced.

There was a little moment of silence.

I made my way through the playlist as my bus went on its route. I wasn't exactly sure why outcomes would like this playlist any more than any other, it seemed pretty normal to me. A few stops later, the bus eventually arrived at my school. I got off and made my way towards the boarding house.

'This chapter is updated by N(o)V(e)lB(i)n.',

The schoolyard was pretty empty, most students either sit in their rooms or library or they go out with friends, the schoolyard itself is pretty deserted on weekends. I cut through the oval as it was a little short than walking on the path around it. I wanted to get a book to read, and as I made my way into the boarding house, I took a brief detour to the boarding house library and chose a psychology-themed book.

My phone was on do-not-disturb now so if she was sending me any messages I wouldn't be seeing them. I found a spot on a nice couch in the study area of the boarding house. It was an alright book, despite it having knowledge which I technically wasn't aware of, the main concepts I already knew, so in the end, it wasn't a great use of time.

After reading through part of it, I decided to go and grab another book instead. I suppose I could do something else instead of reading. I could go to the gym and work out, although that wasn't really that interesting either.

In the end, I just decided to get a novel instead, it was one about the life of a polish person during world war two.

After reading through a decent chunk of the novel, I decided to check my phone to see if she had texted me in the meantime. Turns out she had actually texted me quite a lot since I last checked.

'what restaurants do you like?'

'hello?'

'are you back at the boarding house yet?'

'do you want to hang out again tomorrow?'

'will?'

'hello?'

I decided to reply to her now. Although I didn't especially want to hang out with her tomorrow, I didn't really have anything else to do. I might check with another outcome and see if she has any other suggestions for things to try out. Despite being an outcome like me, she seemed to be quite knowledgeable about entertainment, at least in comparison to me.

'sure, I'm free tomorrow.'