[Clipart 044] Cola Mateya

(The Spiritual Counterpart to Mateya Cola.)

She was the girl of his dreams, that Mateya Cola. Every single day, she and her silver hair came to school with an explosion of energy, bringing life to the school like none other. She dressed up in gorgeous outfits, never in with uniform code, but beautiful enough that the teachers never began to care. The way she carried herself was with the utmost confidence and self-respect, never bothering to consider what others thought and always carving out a place for herself among the stars. He couldn’t bear but to look at her during class, ogling her as she stared out of the window in her seat in the back of the classroom.

He was convinced that Mateya was oblivious to his existence. She had never spoken to him, and he couldn’t recall an instance where she even made eye contact with him for a prolonged period of time. He wanted nothing more than to strike up a conversation with her, to talk to her about the weather and about how the sports teams had been doing, but there was always something preventing him from doing it. Some sort of sinister anxiety creeping up within him; he couldn’t explain it, but he could never bring myself to even get too close to her.

But he continued to try. He decided he’d leave a note in her locker, a confession of his love for her. He wrote down an eloquent, passionate expose about how much he cared for her, and had it revised for three drafts before he dropped it in there. He didn’t sign it with his name, but instead, simply as, “Your Beloved.” With any luck, she would seek out this secret admirer, and hopefully figure out that it was him.

However, her behavior never changed. It was as if the letter was never delivered at all. Why couldn’t he get through to her? He knew that she would read the letter, and she wasn’t the type of person to simply ignore the passions that he sent to her; even if she didn’t return them, she would at least have to seek them out, surely.

He agonized over this. Every single day in class, he sat and pretended to pay attention to the teachers, but he actually stared at Mateya. That beautiful Mateya Cola.

He saw her as she talked to her friends, and as she walked home with her childhood friend, who was an unremarkable boy, but one with a remarkable affection for Mateya. He would admire this childhood friend, except for his passivity; he simply never spit it out. In fact, he thought the childhood friend might even have his love returned by Mateya, if only he were to actually admit it to her. But the boy never did.

Mateya never seemed too concerned with her classes, and went to cram school only once or twice, and yet she never did badly in school. Her priorities were always skewed towards the outside, towards the shoreline, rather than the current that flowed around her. He wanted to grab her and kiss her on the lips, but he felt like she wouldn’t even realize it happened, even if he did.

He stared at her as she left the school one late afternoon, the golden hue of the sunset casting over the everything around them, but her childhood friend was missing, and she went alone. She seemed apprehensive, like she didn’t know how it truly felt to be alone at any time. And he wanted to fix this. Without thinking, he dashed forward through the hallway and caught up to her. He reached out his arm to grab her shoulder, and then… he pulled it back. She kept walking, and he kept standing.

It wasn’t right. There was no way he could do it. Mateya was the protagonist. She was the one who would save the day, who would change the world, or change her peers. He was nothing like that; he was an extra, destined to sit in his desk in the middle of the classroom and take notes. He was there to stand behind Mateya as she talked to her best friend, or to make a surprised reaction when one of them accidentally tripped while running on the track. He didn’t even have a name for her to call him by.

Her figure vanished and went to the next scene, and he remained behind as the golden hue faded to cobalt, and then navy. He tried to cry into his hands, but no tears would come out, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to hold her against him and let his tears run into the back of her sweater and stain it with sapphire streaks, but he knew that Mateya had better things to do. The school festival was next week, and she was to meet with the Student Council Vice President. She’d simply be too busy for him tomorrow, as she always would be.

He couldn’t smile, or frown, or talk to anyone about his problems. He could only sit against the wall beside a classroom door, slumped over, waiting for the next day of school to start so he could stare at Mateya once again.

She was the girl of his dreams, that Mateya Cola.