There was the sound of birds chirping, sunlight pouring into the room through the windows, and the faint smell of spring grass. It's morning, obviously. And what makes Luke grateful the most is that his condition is better than last night. The feet are no longer cold, the body is no longer hot, and the hallucinations about the hairs on the hands have all disappeared. Not proven. Meaning it is true that last night was just an illusion. Even so, the head still hurts and the mouth and nose are slightly twitching.
Luke spent almost thirty minutes lying on the bed before he finally couldn't hold back his intense thirst and got up and headed for the kitchen. Grabbed the phone and staggered, eyes half open, down the stairs. Decided to have cereal breakfast with cold milk instead. Later, after a bit noon, he will look for food outside. That's the plan, but often things don't go according to plan.
Only two mouthfuls of Luke ate the cold cereal and the next second he spit out the cereal in his mouth. The reason is, Luke, who had just had time to check his cellphone, found that there were twelve voice messages from Valentina Miller between seven and nine o'clock and several messages from Amy and Andrew. As for Valentina's voicemail , Luke wouldn't open it because it must be some old bullshit just because he found out Luke was getting into trouble at school due to a fight with Patricia Bowleans. But, for messages from Amy and Andrew, it goes something like this;
' Lookey , hey… instead of you at home like an idiot, why don't you just go out with them? We can have so much fun you forget you're getting suspended. They're gonna be the ones to tell Ben, okay? Reply to this message if you really want. Pip. '
'Hey! Why didn't you reply to the message? Did Ben stop you from going? Well , then, let them go to your house now. Don't accept rejection. Pip .'
Luke giggled for a moment. Always find it funny every time Amy sends a voicemail and ends with that piip sound . Even though this is voicemail for a cell phone and not an analog phone. That one girl is strange.
The third, fourth and fifth messages were just Amy calling his name over and over then in the following messages he said;
'Luke. Open the door. I'm in front of your house. Me and Andrew.'
'Luke... Hello, Lookey the stupid girl... Where are you? Why is your house empty? Don't pretend that you're away. I can still see the room light up inside, okay. So, come on down and open this fucking door. I'm getting cold .'
'Ah, fuck it. We're leaving, okay. '
'Hey, don't throw tantrums like that, girl . If you get suspended, it's not the end of the world. But, it's your fault too, why didn't you open the door? And Andrew and I wanted to cheer you up.'
Luke frowned slightly at the last voicemail. I don't really understand what Amy is saying. Rampage? What did he mean by the phrase 'don't rage'. Immediately, he sent a text message regarding his question and while waiting for a reply, Luke scrolled down the screen slowly and reflexively spit out the cereal.
The strongest reason that made him spit out breakfast was because there were hundreds of calls from Rei between nine at night and four this morning. So, it might be true that the voice calling as well as the knock on the door last night was Rei Suzurao. It didn't take long for Luke to call him back. On the first two calls, he seemed to refuse on purpose and after waiting a while then calling her again, Rei answered.
“Luke!” He sounded pleased but also held his breath. “Oh, Luke. Sorry, I just had to leave the classroom."
Ah, right. Luke forgot that he was at school now.
Rei said again, " Are you fine, Luke? I mean, have you… erm, eaten breakfast?”
"Yes. I'm having breakfast now. Well, there's something I want to ask you, why did you call me a million times last night, Rei?"
"I'm worried about you."
"And you also came to my house early this morning, aren't you ?"
"Right…" he said in a slightly slower tone.
"Why? What is it?"
“I'm worried about you. I said it earlier. You are okay?" Rei repeated his earlier question.
"Yeah, just a little fever..."
"Fever? You have a fever?" Rei sounded panicked.
"Yes. But, it's alright now."
"You're at home alone, right?"
“Right… Hey, how did you know?” I frowned.
"Yes, yesterday your own grandfather said when we were in the car on the way to school. You forgot?”
Luke chuckled and slapped his forehead. That is true. Luke had almost forgotten that. Rei was there when Luke and Ben were chatting. But, still, Luke was still curious about why Rei contacted him so much, plus he also came at night knocking on the door and screaming Luke's name. Even though he was asked about this many times, Rei's answer remained the same, namely; "I'm worried about you."
Luke didn't understand the feeling of social sympathy, but he felt Rei was going too far in that regard. Whether it's because he's Asian or that's just his characteristic, Luke doesn't know. But he thought it was strange. Gerald alone, who was practically a friend since childhood, was never like that. Gerald wouldn't call hundreds of times or come home in the wee hours of the morning… yeah, unless Luke called him and said there was a deranged psychopath behind the door, he probably would have done the same.
Back on the chat with Rei via cell phone, Luke said again that Luke was fine and he didn't need to be so panicked. This is normal. But Rei kept bringing up about Ben and Ulfa not being home. So Luke said to her "Hey, aren't you being left out by Herr and Frau Hofmann too?"
"Yes. But, that's exactly what I was… erm, a bit worried about you.”
he laughed. It was funny, by the way, to have someone she had only known for a week or two and become so concerned about the little details and put a lot of affection into every issue. Not even Amy or Andrew cared about him this much. Luke has a hunch that Rei kinda… yeah, likes Luke. Plus, Luke always helps him out at bad times. Who knows.
"I'll be at your house after school, Luke. I'll bring you dinner. Now I have to get back to class, Luke. Bye ," said Rei.
“Yeah, bye. ”
The conversation stops. Luke is still having breakfast while watching a collection of videos of animals behaving funny from the Youtube channel. Every now and then Luke laughs because it's really funny, like when a puppy fell into a ditch because he didn't see that his footing stopped at the edge or when a koala cried because its friend kicked it from a tree. It was funny for Luke.
After a while, the bell rang and Luke got up. When Luke opened the door, there was no one but he saw their home post box slightly open. So Luke walked over to the post box and looked inside. There was an envelope with a stamp and logo from the school. Needless to say, it was the suspension letter promised by Mrs. Cindy yesterday. Instead of reading it, Luke just threw the envelope on the living room table and went to get a snack in the kitchen when, again, the doorbell rang. But this time there was someone at the door, a letter came, but it wasn't a notice of school punishment. Instead, the interrogation warrant that came with it was delivered by two police officers.
Said one of them, "Come with them, Miss Bright, and clear things up at the police station."
Damn it. Look, everything is not alright .
***