The Billionaire's Closet [English]

Chapter 3: First meet

A vivid memory of their past flickered on Hughes’s impressive pair of deep-set eyes. As his eyes bore on Yuriah’s smiling face, he remembered their happy moments and tears from their blurred yesterday.

“She is lovely and attractive, isn’t it?” asked Julio, one of Hughes’s classmates in that school year, as he pointing his fingers at the open window of their classroom, “She is from section one. I wish that next school year I could be on their section so I can court that girl right away.”

“Silly you, Julio,” said Joana as she rolled her eyes; she is one of their classmates too. “Do you think she will like you back or allow you to court her if you confessed your feelings to her? It seems absurd, Julio, quit daydreaming.” she continues to mock him, “And if it was taking place, I will place all my bet if it was Hughes.”

“Joana was right; Julio stops it now. You will just get hurt later.” seconded by Quenziel, Joana’s best friend. “Unless it was Hughes,” she giggled as she steals glances at her classmates named Guillermo Hughes Andrade.

Hughes lifted his face from the book that he existed reading. He doesn’t like what he heard from them about the bet. He closed his book and laid it on his armchair as he tosses glances at the girl outside the window named Yuriah. She was currently tying her long and shiny hair with a red ponytail. Unconsciously, he licks his lower lip as it crept in an appealing smile. She runs and quickly vanished from his sight when their teacher calls her attention.

“Hey, girls, what’s wrong with Julio’s appearance?” asked Melissa, who is chewing a piece of bubble gum, as she puts her right arm on Julio’s right shoulder. “Hughes is just one or two baths advanced from Julio, right classmates?”

The last statement leads their whole class into a boisterous laugh. And Even Julio laughed as his cheeks that full of pimples turned red. They were on section two, and jumping to section one was a bit easy for them.

“What is her name?” Hughes asked them as he gets up from his chair; he looked around at his quiet classmates. “Who knows her name? Julio?”

Their whole class went silent when Hughes asked these questions—looking at each other asking if they recognized her precious name. In the end, they shooked their head, instead of saying no to him whose waiting.

“I did not know her name, Hughes,” Julio replied as he glances at Melissa, asking for help. The said girl went silent as her eyes silently bore to Hughes’s serious face, “I just know and memorize her features.”

The silence stretched from their classroom for a few seconds. Melissa tried her best to say something, but she just pursed her lips and acted righteously in the end. Melissa knows her name because the unknown girl lives across from their house, and she also becomes her friend. And because Melissa silently adores Hughes as her classmates do, Melissa prefers to keep quiet about that matter. She doesn’t want that Hughes will give her so much attention than her.

“We will find a way to know her name later, Hughes,” Quenziel assured him that broke the silence of surroundings.

Hughes is half Spanish and half Filipino. And having foreign features alone in their classes, he is pretty much attractive and famous to his classmates and schoolmates, especially to the girls and mainly to the third gender, gays. Hughes doesn’t care about their gender; he desires to be friends with them nothing else. A silent type individual loves to read a romance book, preferred a food trip with his classmates than do online games. He has a younger brother who had the same appeal and features as him.

“Yes, I will help Quenziel to get her name and probably her phone number, just for you, Hughes,” Joana added as she slid her few strands of hair using her right hand behind her ear.

“Thank’s a lot.” a short replied from him to them, and he went back to his chair, “I will appreciate your effort if you’ve done that.”

They continue what they are doing that afternoon before Yuriah appeared in the scenes. It was snack break, and their class must prefer to stay in their classroom than to the crowded cafeteria of their school.

“I know her name,” a thin voice of the girl made them stopped once again from what they are doing and turned towards her to give her attention.

Hughes puts down the books that he planned to flipped and read again. His brows furrowed at the girl wearing thick glasses and long wavy hair.

“She lives few doorsteps away from our home,” she continued; Melissa’s eyes darted to her; she is one of her neighbors too. "Her name is Yuriah Hatswel. A transfer student from Australia. And now in our province because of her grandparents who lived and were born here in Zambales.”

Hughes gets up from his chair for a second time and strolls in the direction of the girl. Some of their classmates get up to watch him and get curious about his unexpected reaction to the girl’s information.

“How old is she?”

“She is fifteen.”

“How do you know her?”

The unknown girl’s edge of brim lifted and raised her brow at his silly and surprising question. She laughed in a nervous tone as she looked at the annoyed expression of her famous classmate, Hughes.

“Are you kidding me?” Hughes’s forehead creased as he looked at her keenly. The humor did not found in his frustrated appearance now.

“I was not, Hughes,” she replied as she wipes her a bit teary eyes.

Hughes rumpled his quiet messy, disheveled hair to calm himself. He felt a bit frustrated as he thinks she is just playing around to get his mere attention.

“How about her phone number?” he tried to ask her once again, “Do you know it since you knew her name?”

“I’m sorry, I did not know,” she replied with a bit nervous in her tone.

“Alright,” he mumbled and went back to his chair, sulking.

Melissa, Joana, and Quenziel throw a disappointed look at Avril, the unknown girl from their class who happens to wear thick eyeglasses. She might appear like a nerd, but she was one of the intellectuals in their class.

“Don’t worry, Hughes. We will find a way to get her phone number,” uttered of Melissa to Hughes as she pats him on his left shoulder.

“Yes, we will find and made a way to get her phone number for you,” said Joana and Quenziel in unison. Hughes did not give them any attention.

Days passed that turns into weeks and months until they have almost done in their eighth grade. The three girls still did not know Yuriah’s phone number. No, scratch that. They already get it after a week, but Melissa did not allow them to give it to Hughes. She told Joana and Quenziel her ridiculous reason that became their poor judgment and mentality, too, later on.

“How’s the search for her phone number?” Friday noon Hughes asks Joana as their classmates leave them behind. The afternoon class ended early, and because the weekend is waving, they went outside to eat after class.

“We still did not get it,” she answered, avoiding Hughes’s hollowed facial expression, “Don’t worry, maybe we could get it tomorrow or the day afternoon tomorrow.”

Hughes stopped hoping that they will get her number for him. He can sense that something was wrong with them. And Hughes can’t point it out. So the following months, he tried to do his best to get good grades, to jump into section one where the mysterious girl belonged. Hughes always encounters her without her knowledge in different times and places. In the cafeteria, in their hallway, in the playground, and even after classes, Hughes waits for his brother. He gathered his strength to say hi to her when he waved his hand, her classmate wearing thick glasses comes.

“Avril, can you accompany me to buy something in the center of town?”

Avril nods her head at her as she looked curiously at Hughes. After a while, she smiles shyly at him.

“Hughes do you want to come with us?” she asked as if she’s asking for a pen, “You don’t mind, right, Yuriah?” she eyed her friends.

Hughes looked at them, but his eyes bore Yuriah, who has a bright and innocent smile as she nodded her head to Avril. A genuine smile crept on his lips as he agreed, not minding his younger brother, who is approaching on their side.

“You don’t mind?” he asked again to verify it, and if he did not become deafened for a second.

Yuriah shyly nods at him again and smiles like the beauty of the setting sun behind the distant mountain.

“Yes, I don’t mind,” she responded.

Hughes unconsciously rumpled his a bit messy hair. His cheeks turn in blushing red that made Avril have an intentional cough.

“Let’s go; what are we waiting for?” Avril questioned as she puts one hand on Yuriah’s shoulder, “I want to buy something too.”

Yuriah throws a short and a bit awkward glance at Hughes before allowing Avril to pull her away. Hughes’s smile widened at the thought that he would be closed to her in no time and could get her number.

“Hughes, where are you going?!” yelled of his younger brother to get his attention that made the two girls stopped from walking away, “Hughes!”

Hughes turned around and faced Giordano, who got a questioning perception at him.

“You should go home first, Gior, and tell Mom and Dad that...” he replied but paused in the middle and looked at the two girls who were waiting at him. “I have something to do in town.”

“No, I want to go with you.” his ten-year-old younger brother answered.

“Giordano, you can’t come with us.”

His almond shape eyes bore to him as his thin lips start to made sobs.

“I want to go with you in town!” he yelled as his tears started to fall, and he kicked his feet on the dry ground.

“Giordano, will you stopped--”

Before he could finish his sentence Yuriah come running towards his brother.

“Hush Gior,” she said that made Hughes mouth half-opened. Giordano nods at her and smiles, “Alright, let’s go then. You come with us.”

Hughes nearly stumbled on his knees if he did not hold on to the railing of the elevator. Hughes adam’s apple went up and down as his face turns pale as a white paper, and his eyes widened as if he saw an unexpected person that came from his past.

“Y-Yuriah...” he murmured in shock. It was almost a silent whisper.

Yuriah, who was still smiling from ear to ear, went inside the elevator, not minding Hughes’s reaction to their accidental meeting. Everything is fine at her as if did not pass a decade in their life like the unseen wind. Yuriah is a playful and naughty girl back in their middle school, and with her unbothered reaction right now, she seems did not change even a bit after a decade that she is far away from the Philippines.

“You are not going out of the elevator?” she asked as she glanced teasingly to her ex-lover, “Are you going to accompany me now to my room?” Hughes’s mind that went and traveled back at their first meet went back like the group of bullets of his sweats on his forehead, “I don’t mind, Hughes.” it has a glimpse of pain from their past as she said it too ages ago. “Let’s catch up about our lost years in our life without any communication with each other.”

Hughes grabbed his traveling bags in a hurry. He is still shocked at his ex-lover sudden appearance. Not like the old times, she has short hair now. It was still shiny, but the length was not the same when they were young. He looked at her once again before he clasped the elevator door using his trembling hand, whose slowly closing. He felt humiliated in front of her.

Yuriah burst into laughter when she saw how muscular and manly Hughes nearly fall on the floor but stop when his eyes meet her. Hughes throws her a harsh and sharp glance as he gets up from holding on to his traveling bags.

“Hey Hughes, careful!” Yuriah rustled and tried to went out of the elevator to help him, but she was too late; the door is now closed and tightly shut. “Geeze, it was my chance again, this time to be near him, but like the old times, I wasted it because I was so self-centered,” she uttered in a disappointed tone as she rests her back on the wall of the elevator.

A heartfelt smile crept on her lips as she crumpled her a bit untidy hair and held her leather rust-colored sling bag that hangs on her right shoulder. After checking her phone for a new message from her best friend, she crossed her arms across her chest. The yearning was written all over her sad face for her first love and first ex-boyfriend. She still likes him after all those years of separation from him.

“He never changed,” she grumbled as she took a deep and subtle breath, “Hughes was still attractive, quietly charming, and more handsome now.”

She let a sad smile followed by her deep breath. Memories from their yesterday that keep lingering on her mind seemed like a breath of wind after she went out on the elevator that opens its door on the last floor of the said hotel. She looked up at the ceiling as she tried to stop her tears from falling. She missed and still loves him. She gets her phone and dialed her friend’s phone number. It was out of reach or out of signal coverage.