https://open.spotify.com/track/5sMfKUyNzRwXrdWkj5aade?si=6b928ee684de447b

When Fior first met Gian, she expected a stuck-up, pretentious douchebag with a personality that more closely resembled a lonesome paperbag in the wind rather than an actual human being. But when she actually met him, she was surprised that he wasn’t like that at all. He arrived at her school by driving his own car, headphones around his neck, a duffel bag too big for his body on his right shoulder. He kept his mouth shut as he approached the registration table, eyebrows downturned like he was sad, car keys jingling in his grasp.

She knew who he was before he even needed to introduce himself–she might be less fortunate than kids at her school but she knew enough to understand just what kind of family the Hadis were.

He rubbed his eyes with his fists a bit lazily as he scanned the iPad in front of him, trying to find his name from a list of hundreds of names. Fior wanted to ask if he needed help spotting his, but before she could say anything, he picked up the white stylus and scribbled his signature beside his full name. A. Gian Hadi–she raised an eyebrow, what did the ‘A’ stand for?

“Aremyfriendsherealready?” He asked–his pronunciation spotless, his tone flat but it was the volume of his voice that completely took her by surprise.

“Huh?” She couldn’t quite make out what he’d just said, it was like he mumbled one long word. She felt her cheeks blush from embarrassment. There she was, greeting guests and participants and then completely making a fool of herself in front of a guy that most of the school had a crush on.

Gian looked up and she should have been intimidated–she knew–but she wasn’t. His gaze softened as he tried once again, “Are my friends here already?” She finally heard him–not loudly but clearly–and she breathed out a sigh of relief that he didn’t get pissed off over having to repeat himself.

“Uh, yeah, they’re inside, by the pool.”

He nodded and it was the first time she realized that he hadn’t offered her a smile–even a flat one. But that didn’t matter because he was off after that, grabbing the lanyard with his name on it and walking into the school like he owned it. (She wouldn’t be surprised if his family did, actually).

Fior was on the swim team and even though she wasn’t captain, she was a good enough swimmer to be trusted by her coach. When all the participants had registered and she walked into the locker room to change into her swimsuit, one of her friends–a cheerleader–approached her and squealed into her ear.

“Gian’s here?”

It took her a few seconds to register who Gian was before she remembered the guy from earlier with the expressionless face and a voice too soft for his own good. She shoved her committee shirt into the locker and slammed the door shut so that it wouldn’t fall out–she really needed to clean that storage of hers–before turning her head to look at her friend.

“Yeah, he signed up, didn’t expect him to be that –”

“Cakep?”

Even during their brief interaction, Fior wouldn’t call him attractive. He was flat, decent, a guy with a normal fashion sense, he was if the color ‘grey’ was a person–not flat enough to be black or white. She wouldn’t say he was emotionless, either, the signature he put down beside his name told her that he cared enough to make it unique–it looked pretty hard to replicate–but then she wouldn’t say he was a fun person to be around as well. Everything that she observed from Gian Hadi proved nothing and everything at the same time–he was a puzzle she couldn’t quite figure out.

Fior shrugged her shoulders as she put her foot on the bench, starting her stretching routine, “I don’t know – he seems… bland.”

“Bland?” Ines looked at her like Fior had just sacrificed her friend’s firstborn to a witch or something. “He’s a lot of things but he’s definitely not bland.”

She stretched and reached for her toes, her brown hair falling into her face, blocking her view of Ines' expression, “Tadi, sih, bland banget. Dateng, cari nama dia, tandatangan, then done. Didn’t even offer me a smile or something.”

Ines sat down on the wooden bench, “Do you think he’s nervous because he’s scared of you?”