Her name was bound to cause a few glances, after all - she was a Chinese student in a Japanese school.
And it did exactly that.
A minority in our school, was what she was.
After the first year of high school, everyone was used to it, and the school knew about her quiet and reserved demeanor and accepted her. She wasn't an oddity anymore in this school as everyone grew accustomed to her.
She always kept to herself, but still did her job as the class president when need be. She was always scoring high in the rankings on the exams that were always so tediously hard to get high marks on.
Sometimes I'd catch her staying after school studying before the sun fully went down.
I'd always give a slight nod in respect to her diligent, classwork studies every time I stayed after school. Either for clean up duty with her or the so few often times I had left a belonging and in response she always responded back with a silent nod.
No words ever usually came out of her mouth, except for whenever a teacher would pick on her to answer a question.
Always a low tone, but just barely audible enough to hear. And of course - she never got any of the questions wrong.
We weren't close, but we were acquainted.
There was a time where her glasses were off. It was when I had left my phone back in class during the end of the school.
Her face was ever so slightly lit by the descending sun's luminosity. Her symmetrical facial expression, which had never changed during all my times with her in class, looked tired.
But what I had noticed most, were her red rose eyes.
Typically when her glasses were on, her thick, circled glasses were hard to see through covering her eyes entirely.
She rubbed her eyes a bit where the sun hit.
"Why won't the sun just go down already?" I heard her mumble under her breath.
As she shifted the curtains and blocked the sun's luminosity, she put her head down soon after.
All I could do was look outside the door's window. It felt as if I shouldn't intrude even though I had done so few times before. The only difference this time was her change in facial expressions and her glasses being off.
'Red rose eyes and a symmetrical face with well complimentary features. Why would she want to hide that? Well no matter, it's no business of mine...'
After she put her head down for a few minutes, I decided to walk in and get my phone and after hesitating for a few seconds at the door, I mumbled softly "Sweet dreams."
I didn't bother looking back as to whether or not she heard or reacted to my words. I shut the door softly before anything could be seen.
After all, it wasn't my business.
Out of the many times I was in class with her - this was the only odd incident I could recall.
Again, we never spoke any words to one another directly... And that's exactly why -
it was a bit of a shocker when she called me out in her low tone during lunch period when I was eating with Hiro.
"Rin, can I speak with you for a bit...?"
I dropped my egg omelet as it rolled around onto the floor for a few seconds before coming to a halt - flopping sideways onto the dusty floor.
"...? You want to talk to me?"
She nodded her head as her braided hair recoiled a bit.
All I could do was stare between her and Hiro, before I told Hiro "I'll be back."
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The walk to where ever she was taking me was silent and awkward, as a few students even glanced at us, questioning why the quiet ace of our year, Li Fang, was walking with a boy all of a sudden.
I couldn't blame them, as I was also questioning why I was walking with her and where she was leading me.
Following in her footsteps, she halted right before a couple of stairs - the roof top.
I was even more confused, as the roof top was forbidden for students.
Not stopping in her tracks she walked up, while I followed. I wondered how she was going to open the locked door to the stairs.
Within a couple of seconds, I heard a click as she opened the door.
'Pick lock perhaps...? Should I ask her about it? No, there's a bigger question I have to ask before anything else.'
Even more bewildered now at the situation, I hesitated a bit to call her name, because despite being acquainted, I never called her name before.
We only ever truly acknowledge each others presence when we needed to like with class clean up duty.
We walked a couple of steps onto the rooftop before I asked her,
"Li Fang, what is it that you wanted to talk about?"