Chapter 30: Silvia (4)
Back then, little Silvia who had just entered elementary school was confused about how to make friends. The little girl had a very hard time interacting with children her age.
Silvia eventually became closed off from others, until the moment she met her first friend.
At that time, her other classmates were doing exercises. However, she decided to be a little naughty and instead wandered around the elementary school.
Until she reached a garden. There stood a large tree whose leaves shaded most of the garden.
There, a boy was leaning against the tree. A sketchbook almost covered his entire small lap, and his little hands were struggling to hold the rather large sketchbook.
He looked very focused on drawing something. He occasionally looked into the distance, apparently drawing a cat that was sleeping on the slide.
Silvia, influenced by the very calm sight, decided to approach the boy.
She got closer and was about to greet him with all her courage.
Before she could speak, the boy suddenly looked at her. His eyebrows rose slightly, perhaps in surprise. But in the end he opened his mouth.
"Oh, hey. What are you doing here?" The boy asked in a small voice.
Silvia immediately froze. She could not say that she had skipped the exercises her class was doing together. In the end, she could only make a strange sound.
"Umm... I..."
"Shhh... lower your voice, the cat will wake up." The boy said, pointing at the cat sleeping on the slide.
Silvia quickly covered her mouth. She glanced at the boy’s sketchbook. There was a sketch of a cat that looked somewhat similar to the real one, though it would have been even closer if the ears the boy drew were not too long.
"Come here, sit next to me." The boy said, patting the grass beside him.
Little Silvia shyly sat down next to the boy.
She stayed silent there, watching the boy sketch. The sound of the pencil scratching against the paper could be heard, and over time the drawing became more and more similar to the cat.
Silvia then felt awkward. She gathered her courage to ask.
"W-why are you here?" Silvia asked.
"You haven’t answered my question yet." The boy replied.
Silvia fell silent. She felt she had said the wrong thing, and her heart grew heavy.
"Well... I’m here because this place is pretty quiet, and it’s really also shady." The boy said.
"Then what about you? Why are you here?" The boy asked again.
This time Silvia decided to be honest. "I skipped exercises. It’s very hot, I don’t like the heat... so I ran away..."
Hearing that, the boy chuckled. "What’s that, so you’re quite naughty too. Even though you look like a model student."
The boy then looked at Silvia’s face and gave a grin.
"Y’know... I lied to you earlier."
Silvia immediately froze. Her mouth opened slightly. Only a small sound came out. "Uhh...?"
"Just like you who ran away, I also ran away from someone. Even though you’re in a different class, you must have heard the rumor about a girl with a bad smell and messy appearance, right?" The boy said.
Silvia recalled. She had once heard her classmates talking about it last month. They said there was a girl whose bangs covered her face, whose uniform was very dirty, who had an unpleasant smell, and whose nails were black.
The boy then lowered his head with a faint smile on his face.
"Because I like watching power heroes series on television, I ended up helping the girl from the people who were bothering her. She looked really pitiful, you know. But who would have thought that after playing with her for quite a while, she became very close to me and didn’t want to be separated from me."
Silvia listened in silence. This was the first time she had met someone she could get close to.
"That honestly made me feel quite suffocated. That’s why I finally found this place."
Silvia nodded in understanding.
After that, the two of them talked for quite a long time. Sometimes they laughed, sometimes the boy taught her how to draw, and sometimes the boy teased her.
It was a very enjoyable experience for Silvia. Who would have thought that talking together like this could be so much fun.
Silvia’s heart warmed every time she spoke with the boy. A smile never left her face.
Until the bell rang. The boy still stayed close to her, and they walked to the school gate together.
"Hey, how about we make that place our own special spot. Don’t tell anyone else, okay?" The boy said with a smile and a finger on his lips.
Silvia nodded quickly. "Yes!"
A place just for the two of them. That felt very exciting.
After that, their friendship continued under that tree. The boy always showed her something new. He even taught her how to draw expressive emojis.
Once, when they were under the tree, a scary-looking insect crawled into Silvia’s clothes. The boy immediately rushed to remove the insect from her clothes without any fear.
The next day, the boy caught a rash. It turned out the insect was a centipede, and his palm became very red.
Silvia, seeing that, immediately teared up. She then promised the boy that she would buy medicine for him.
From then on, their closeness grew even stronger.
Until the moment when they were walking home from school together. After a full month of friendship, Silvia finally realized that she had never asked the boy’s name.
Silvia spoke naturally. "Umm... I still don’t know your name. Can you tell me?"
The boy also looked surprised.
"Oh, yeah! We don’t even know each other’s names yet. Well... a name isn’t that important actually." The boy said, then continued.
"My name is Liam. Liam Kent." The boy said with a warm smile on his face.
Silvia’s cheeks reddened. She looked at the hand extended toward her. The boy named Liam wanted to shake hands with her.
"I’m... Silvia."
Silvia held the hand extended to her. It felt warm, different from her mother’s touch.
"What a pretty na—"
"Silvia." A heavy voice called Silvia from the side.
They both turned their heads. There stood Silvia’s mother, looking at her daughter with trembling eyes. She looked at Liam, and her breathing became visibly heavy.
Quickly, Silvia’s mother grabbed her daughter’s wrist.
"M-mom?" Silvia was shocked by her mother’s strange behavior.
Meanwhile, Liam could only look confused from behind.
Silvia was immediately put into the car, and her mother said to her,
"What are you doing befriending that boy?"
From then on, her mother’s absolute control over Silvia began.
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