Chapter 33 - Revelations
Ali hurried on. The short altercation took a bit of his time, and he had a promise to keep.
Sophia was waiting nervously at the Blues Corner. It was called as such due to the blue table and chairs, which were littered around at the corner of the building. This part of the school was normally used for discussions during class sessions, but after classes, it was practically deserted. Everyone would be having their lunch right now, then would be heading either to the library for their study session, or at their club activities. Who would want to waste time hanging out here? Which was why Sophia felt it was the best place to meet up to talk.
She looked at her watch worriedly, scared that Ali would not be coming. It already had taken all of her courage to approach him, and if he didn't turn up, she doubted that she ever would be able to do it again. She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard some footsteps approaching, and saw that it was Ali.
Sophia got up from the chair she had been sitting on, and he walked over. Before she could say anything though, he handed her an chicken sandwich and a bottle of orange juice before sitting down. He took out another from his bag and began munching while she looked at him in a daze.
"You have club activities after this, right? So you should eat. You can tell me while you eat, no problem," Ali commented, patting the seat that she had vacated.
Sophia sat down, and unwrapped the sandwich. She took a bite, and thanked him. They ate in silence for a while, Ali not pushing her for anything and waiting for her to begin herself. He could tell that she was nervous, so he thought it would be easier for her to gather her thoughts as they ate. About a minute later, Sophia began to tell him what she had overheard at the cafeteria. Hesitant at first, then slowly gathering more courage as she went on.
Ali listened, and nodded slowly as he continued eating. Taking a swig of his orange juice, he crumpled the empty sandwich wrapper and said, "You should tell Kyle this yourself."
Horror entered her eyes and she shook her head.
"No no no, please," Sophia pleaded, "I can't. Please, you tell him. Warn him."
"Why are you so scared to tell him? He won't bite," Ali assured her.
Sophia put down her half-finished sandwich, and bit her lips, while thinking hard. Ali was curious, but didn't press the issue. Lunch time was almost up, so Ali got up to go. However, just as he stood up, Sophia took a deep breath and told him, "Please tell Kyle I'm sorry,"
"Huh?"
Sophia closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She mentally psyched herself up, telling herself that she could do this. She had vowed to change, and change she did but she would need to face this demon first. She motioned for Ali to sit back down again.
"And I am sorry to you as well, Ali," Sophia said, nervously biting her lips again. She always did this, when she was thinking hard, when she was nervous, when she was scared.
"For..?"
"4 years ago ... with Kay ... that ... was ... my fault," Sophia said slowly, finding each word hard to say, "I'm so sorry, Ali. I know it'll hardly make up for what I had done, but I truly am sorry."
She looked up and saw that he was shocked, and not saying anything. Gathering her stuff and the unfinished sandwich, she said to him as she got up, "I understand that you'd not want to be friends with me because of it."
Just as she was about to leave, Ali grabbed her arm, stopping her.
"That's in the past," Ali told her, "I admit, I was shocked but now I realise why you looked so familiar. You were from my old school."
Letting her go, he then told her, "Kyle never told us that you were the one behind it all. He simply told us that he found out who it was, but it was all settled. So you see, to him, it's history. Thus, to the rest of us, it never was an issue."
Sophia's tears flowed freely then, and Ali couldn't help but hug her. She stiffened at first, but then relaxed and continued crying for a while. It was as if the knot in her chest finally came undone and she felt free. She still felt she would need to apologize to everyone personally, but with Ali's words, there was a huge sense of relief.
**--**--**--
Ali rushed over for football practice, and saw that Kyle was already there, warming up. He slipped over to the locker room to change before joining Kyle and paired up with him for the stretching exercises. That was the time Ali told him what Sophia had shared with him.
Kyle's face frowned in annoyance upon finding that out. Looks like Janice went from being 'harmless' to 'super annoying and deserving to be put down'.
[Kay, I need you to do something for me] He then proceeded to give her a summary of what Janice was planning to do, and what outlined what Kay needed to do.
Kay, who was in the library at that moment, furrowed her eyebrows as she listened to what Kyle wanted done.
[No problem, but I'll need a day or two to set it up]
[Okay] Kyle responded, getting up and did the basic dribbling exercises that the Coach had set up [While waiting for that to be put in place, get MIB to monitor the situation manually. Wouldn't want her to slip through the net before everything is up and running.]
[On it] Kay assured him, closing the textbook that she had been reading. Getting up, she returned it to the shelf and told the others that she wasn't feeling well and needed to go back to the dorm. Sarah wanted to follow her at first, but Kay told her that she was fine. Just needed to sleep it off.
When Kay reached her dorm, she took out her laptop and quickly began to work.
**--**--**--
Later that night, Kyle was busy studying the documents that Kay had sent. In it, was information on Principal Dobbin's rather unique method of ensuring the school maintained it's top 5 position.
It wasn't unusual for students to drop out, or transfer - so Kyle had not placed much stock in that the first time the school was investigated. Turns out each and every one of those students had low scores, which brought down the overall aggregate. Seems like the reason for them leaving the school wasn't as innocent as one first thought.
Kyle felt he had been really careless. It wasn't a serious situation now, and easily rectifiable, but it could have been.
Truth be told, Kyle couldn't really be blamed. He had so much information to shift through everyday, on top of going to school, so just how would he know what are the sort of things that needed further investigations on? He didn't have unlimited resources, or time, and had to focus on the more pressing matters. Sometimes one would make mistakes or have a lapse in judgment. Right now, he just had to learn from it and figure out how to improve the system so that this wouldn't happen again. Finding that balance was difficult, but important.
After securing all the information in his head, Kyle deleted the documents and erased all of its digital traces. No one would be able to retrieve it anymore, but he could easily reproduce the information when needed. He no longer kept physical evidence like before, as it was too risky to keep such information in a place that he couldn't personally monitor all the time. Call him paranoid, but that was partly due to the events of his past life. Since he had the capabilities of not forgetting things, he'd use it to the fullest.
This has certainly been a day full of revelations.
Just as he closed the laptop, Xing Han came out of the bathroom. A towel was wrapped around his waist, but his bare chest still had droplets of water while his hair was dripping wet. Kyle frowned at that, and said, "Why didn't you dry up properly before coming out?"
Xing Han mumbled something while rummaging through his closet. Kyle sighed, took the towel that he hung at the back of his chair and started rubbing Xing Han's hair dry. "HEY! Stop that!!" Xing Han cried out, flailing his arms about but Kyle ignore him. Being taller was helpful, for he simply applied more pressure while rubbing the towel vigorously on Xing Han's head and pushing forward. Xing Han couldn't move much, as Kyle was right behind him and it took all his strength just to stand up.
Finally the intense rubbing stopped, and Kyle wrapped the towel around his shoulder, while growling sternly, "Stop being a baby. You can catch a cold walking around wet like that right after a shower." The room was air conditioned after all.
Xing Han stuck out his tongue at Kyle, who promptly whacked him at the back of his head. Xing Han retaliated by jumping onto Kyle, smashing straight into him. Kyle could have dodged easily, but it would have meant that they would crash onto the table that was behind him. That, in turn, would have meant his laptop would be in danger as well.
Kyle stumbled under the weight, and twisted a bit to the side so as not to fall onto the table. Unfortunately, Xing Han the klutz got his feet entangled with Kyle's and they lost their footing. Both them smashed loudly to the floor, with Xing Han falling right on top of Kyle. The towel around Xing Han's waist got loose, the knot at the side untying. Xing Han had also spread out his arms to the side, in an attempt to break the fall - and brushed against Kyle's shirt on the side, pushing it up. Kyle, in the meantime, had his hands on Xing Han's bare chest, holding him up and preventing him from squashing him flatter than a pancake.
Both of them groaned in pain for a while, and at that moment, the door to their dorm suddenly opened. Xing Han and Kyle turned their head to stare at the door at the same time.
It was Jack, their next door neighbour.