A full week have passed since Yuna went missing, and Claire discovered that no one actually cared, or remembered.

It was in homeroom that Claire noticed at first : That Yuna's name was gone from the daily roll-call. Someone even took Yuna's empty seat to talk to their friends. It didn't bother Claire that much, she was too busy cramming notes into her brain for the biology quiz.

As the bell rang, Claire picked up her things as the rest of the class passed her in buzzing, anxious groups, with textbooks or notes propped open like compasses in their hands. Jaz was waiting for her at the door, looking completely and utterly at ease, as if her next class was a free period and not one where a quiz was waiting for her.

"It's Friday," Jaz was humming, scrolling idly through her Instagram feed and saving whatever fashion photos she decided was worthy of her attention. “Ooh this one’s not bad.” She said, squinting down at her phone screen. Meanwhile, Claire was still trying to memorize the whole process of cellular respiration, while her brain raced around in a whirl of white panic. She glared irritatingly over at Jaz, and felt instant jealousy for Jaz’s over-the-top intelligence and photographic memory.

Screw smart people. And all of those dead scientists that decided to give the longest names possible for. Every. Damn. Thing. In. Existence. Claire groaned, flipping violently to the end of her notes to re-check the correct definition. Just as she was running her finger down the list of spiralling scientific terms, she spied Yuna’s locker by the corner of her eye.

Except that it wasn't Yuna’s locker.

The surface of the metal was smooth and level, with only a few scratches. Even Yuna's blue combination lock was gone, leaving nothing but a faint impression on the paint.

She didn't realize that she was staring until Jaz called her.

"Oi Claire! We are going to be late if you keep standing there, " Jaz was nagging, jogging up to her as Claire regained her senses. Jaz’s brow was raised in suspicion, then she grinned, revealing the gap in her front teeth.

"Ohhhhhh," Jaz was wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, pointing her painted nail in Claire's nose. "Thinking of ditching?"

Claire swatted her hand away, turning away from the locker. "No. Mr Rodriguez will kill us both."

"Me, maybe. You? Nah." Jaz countered, her nose wrinkled in distaste of the fact that Claire was the teacher's pet. "Everyone loves you."

"I'm not the only one." Claire was muttering, as they neared the door to the science lab. "There's Yuna as well."

"Sorry, who?"

Claire stared at her. Jaz was pushing the door open , and was high-fiving Bob the plastic skeleton at the entrance. It was common belief that you would fail Mr Rodriguez’s class if you didn’t give the plastic skeleton a high five every time you walk into class. Since Claire was desperate to not fail, she high-fived Bob, while frowning at the back of Jaz’s head.

"You know, Yun-"

A rough voice interrupted her ."Ladies."

Both Claire and Jaz jumped . Slowly turning around, they found Mr Rodriguez behind them, a stack of papers in his hand, fresh out of the printer. Claire smiled sheepishly and bolted to her seat, where Jaz was already waiting. Claire was still perplexed, but Mr Rodriguez's unamused gaze forced her to stare at the paper he placed in front of her instead. Jaz was already scribbling down her name on the front, while her neighbour tried his best to inch closer to the smartest kid in class without looking obvious.

Not the smartest. Claire corrected herself. Yuna’s first. That was common knowledge. She tilted her head to look at the empty seat in front of the teacher’s desk, but Mr Rodriguez’s dry cough made her retreat back into her fixed field of vision.

Mr Rodriguez’s sharp gaze did not leave the top of Claire’s head. Claire could only inch back and pray that she was hidden behind Andrew Simmon’s bulk. It was another one of the reasons that Claire wanted to dye her hair. Brown, Blond, Blue. Whatever. Every time she moved, her hair was a giveaway, like Papa Smurf in a sea of smurfs who somehow decided that white was the best colour for their uniform. Or Elmo. Jaz plastered her locker with Elmo stickers once because she decided it was funny. Claire didn’t find it funny.

Mr Rodriguez rolled his eyes and checked his watch. “You have an hour. Begin.”

Claire opened her test paper and prayed to not fail.

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“Oh My God I’m going to fail.” Claire mumbled into Jaz’s shoulder. It was English class, and Claire wondered if she had any brain cells left for her remaining classes. Jaz was chomping on totally illegal strawberry gum, and the smell was tickling Claire’s nose. Claire decided to go blind and deaf temporarily- She potentially failed her biology midterm, and being the perfect student council member was the least of her worries at the moment.

“What did you write for question 7?” Lia Diaz asked her, tapping her pencil on the desk. Both Claire and Lia’s girlfriend, Christa, groaned in protest. Christa slumped onto Lia’s table and closed her girlfriend’s notebook shut.

“C’mon, we are not doing this again. I forbid anyone from mentioning biology until next week.” Christa warned, her dark eyes glowering.

Lia smiled and bent downwards to kiss her girlfriend’s cheek. “C’mon, I wanna know.”

Christa glared upwards at her and huffed. Lia smiled serenely down at her. A full second passed, and Christa turned her head away. “Tell the whole damn question, I didn’t fucking memorise the whole paper, idiot.”

Lia’s smile grew wider.

Jaz pretended to claw her eyes out. “Get a room, you two,” Lia stuck out her tongue at her. “We are going to get diabetes if you two keep going. Christa, you are not even in this class.”

Christa snorted and curled up contently in her girlfriend’s lap, letting Lia sweep away her sheepdog-bangs from her face. “Five more minutes.”

“Where’s Miss Farrow by the way?” Kaveen Patel asked, sliding neatly into an empty chair and swiftly stealing the stack of gum on the table. His hair was flopping wildly all over his head in oil-black curls, his glasses balancing loosely on his nose like they were going to fall off any second. “Absent?”

“You wish.” Jaz’s lip curled. “Since when has she missed a day of class?”

“Doesn’t stop me from hoping,” Kaveen retorted, sliding a piece of paper across the table before he started to unwrap a fresh piece of gum. “here Claire, the list of people who signed up.”

Claire narrowed her eyes down at the wrinkled sheet, then at her beaming vice-president. “Kaveen. Your damn handwriting.” Strings of alphabets were scribbled across the printed spreadsheet in alternating shades of blue and black and cramped, fisted handwriting. “Who the hell are these people supposed to be? And for Pete’s sake, get yourself a new pen!”

Kaveen’s beam was blindingly annoying. Claire was trying her best to suppress her nagging urge to punch Kaveen’s straight, even teeth in. “That’s their names, and their classes.” He grinned, proud at his daily accomplishment of ticking off Claire. “Or do you want me to frame them all in little hearts?”

Jaz patted Claire’s shoulder and coaxingly offered her some of her gum. “Next time, use google forms.” Claire could only lay her head on her shoulder and fume in complete silence.

The noise in the classroom was starting to rise to an alarming rate, and Claire had to snap her fingers at people to make them tone down their voices. She needed a free period without a teacher in the classroom. Desperately.

“Guys, seriously, hush.” Jaz’s voice rang through the wall of noise, even though it was soft. Immediately the volume decreased to fervent whispering, even the group of rowdy boys at the back did so without reluctance. Claire envied that of Jaz, she commanded respect even without orders, she had that sort of serene boldness around her, which seeped into whatever direction her gaze was set upon. Claire’s words were only effective on the debate podium, and it was the only instance where her words stung and flew straight out of her tongue and into people. Sometimes Claire wished that there were debate podiums every few feet so that she could just get rid of annoying people.

Kaveen was not helping, he was whistling along to whatever that was blasting into his eardrums through his air-pods. Claire kicked him, and he started to whistle louder like a boiling kettle ,just to spite her.

“Kaveen.”

Kaveen winked at her. Claire rolled her eyes.

Much to everyone’s annoyance, Miss Farrow bursted in at the last fifteen minutes. Apparently she forgot that she had a class today, and had ran all the way from the teacher’s conference room.

“But she still gave homework!” Lia complained loudly to Christa at break, the latter somehow managing to teleport out of the classroom and into her English at the last minute without getting caught. Christa grinned, consoling her girlfriend by stroking her blond pixie hair.

Claire, meanwhile, was already on her last paragraph of her essay, taking wild stabs at whatever Orwell was trying to warn the reader about in 1984. She was not letting an essay take away her precious weekend. Currently, she was trying to prevent drops of her lunch from splattering onto her page as she ate left-handed. She’ll worry about lunch later- she was ravenous.

“Claire, you are getting sauce onto your hair.” Jaz said calmly, deftly braiding Claire’s hair and looping it into a bun.

Claire’s mouth was so full, the most she could manage was: “Fanks.”

It was rather windy that day, people’s hairs were tickling their faces in loose strands. Claire’s essay was threatening to fly out towards the football field, which made Claire wonder: who decided that it was a good idea to build an open air canteen right next to the field, where dozens of soccer balls and Frisbees tear through the air every day? And sure enough, a soccer ball flew onto a nearby table causing people to scatter with irritated swearing, taking their food with them.

“Look at those girls. Freshmen, I reckon.” Jaz pointed out. A group of girls were tittering excitedly at the edge of the field, ignoring the fact that their hair was whipping wildly around their faces and the fact that they looked like absolute kids as they giggled and cheered when one of the seniors scored a goal. Claire silently thanked her freshmen self for not looking so airheaded, and for sensibly picking her current table, where they were less exposed and were slightly safer from harmful flying projectiles and people in general.

Though, everyone was air-headed in freshman year. One way or another. Claire mused, remembering her almost frantic desire to bid goodbye to the colour pink, along with the girly tags that came along with it. Instead, she drowned herself in oceans of blue, and yanked up her hair to torturing ponytails that left her scalp aching. If it wasn’t for Jaz’s (magical, absolutely magical) handmade shampoos and oils, her hair would be in a much worse state. She joined almost every club in the first term of school (because she wasn’t sure which one was best for her) until Jaz crossed out her name from the lists except for debate. You are going to die. Jaz told her simply, while she undid Claire’s ponytail. And so will your hairline.

Even Jaz went through some phase. The care-too-much for her friends phase, which Claire knew had left Jaz deeply scarred. Claire didn’t know the full story, but she remembered some of it. Crying. Freshman Claire punching sophomore Mimi Reale in the nose before a teacher pulled them apart. Jaz’s eyes as she watched Mimi transfer schools, and when she deleted Mimi’s number from her phone. It was one of the reasons that Jaz ‘observed’ new people from afar before approaching them now.

But if someone was perfect from the start, far above from all the petty drama and chaos, it was Yuna.

For as long as Claire remembered, Yuna was alone. Except for the rare occasions when she had to sit near people for a group project, or when she was paired up with someone else during PE. When Yuna Sato wasn’t accepting an award on stage or not twirling elegantly across a gymnastics mat, she was invisible.

On that note, Claire glanced towards the farthest corner in the canteen which was partially hidden by a pair of too-close to each other pillars. Claire knew that there was an old wooden table and two ancient chairs made as a failed woodwork project by some unknown alumni, and it was where Yuna Sato ate if she ever descended into the canteen. It was a sweet spot, for Claire knew that the place was also hidden by a row of overgrown hedges, so it was almost disconnected from everyone else in school, like how Yuna Sato was, partially there, and then disappearing without a trace.

Claire froze, for a group of people had just left their table and exposed Yuna’s hiding place in full view,

And there, staring right back at her, was Yuna Sato.