1 Chapter 1 - The De Javilla Guy

It was a usual breezy cold night in the midweek of November 2017. A young lady – Maria Ecostas Lazarus kept herself busy through the night by browsing one of her SNS Accounts, the known Facebook social media to be exact. She is currently in her second year level as a college student in a certain public state university in her province – Kalinga, taking up Bachelor of Science in Information Technology, non – majored. Maria is sometimes called by her relatives and friends as 'Mel'.

The time was exactly 7:30 pm when her facebook app notified her of having received a new message but she did not bother checking it. She got up from her bed and sat on the edge of it thinking of some crazy things to do. She playfully bites her nails as she thinks of something entertaining to do. Maria's family is busy watching the television, if only she has the interest of watching television – perhaps she won't feel bored right now.

'Maybe, I should prank the girls.' 'Nah, that's lame.'

Her mind is somewhat naughty sometimes. She is about to open her webnovel app to just kill her time by reading when she remembered that she had received a message in her facebook account last two hours ago. Yea, she really allocates more than two hours for her silly thoughts.

'Ah right!! How could I forget that, haha, finally, I can have someone to prank tonight.'

She finally decided to check who dared to message her with a playful grin plastered on her lips but to her surprise, it was an old classmate in college when she was still in her first years. She was stunned for a moment because she did not believe that her handsome ex – classmate would message her plus the fact that they aren't even close. She creased her forehead and remembered who he was. The guy was Rigor De Javilla, the unnoticeable handsome Rigor De Javilla from her first year class in college. She doesn't know much about this guy but she can sense back then that he is nice, any girl can adapt with his presence easily without feeling awkwardness but not Maria Ecostas Lazarus, she prefers to befriend guy but not with him. Maria can't believe it was him who messaged her, as far as she can remember, she hated this De Javilla guy back then because of his not so masculine gestures and voice but still has the gut to tell her to loosen up from her Maria Clara attitude, it was because Maria's like a guy when she moves, walks, acts and everything. She rolled her eyes upon remembering those days. She winced as she opened his message.

"Hi! How are you?"

These were the first four words Rigor sent her. She hesitantly clicked the send button.

"Yow, I'm far from being okay, and you?"

She does not really know if she will resume her very first purpose on why she checked this message. This guy is not easy to prank.

"Why far from being okay? How's school?"

'Oh dude! I'm not fond of telling stories about school stuffs and why does he still need to ask why I'm far from being okay? I should have just said 'I'm fine, thank you' then.'

'Duh, Maria! Of course he'll ask you about school stuffs, he stopped – remember?, but then again, why me?'

"Hello friend? Are you there?"

The ting sound of her facebook app notification sound pulled her back to reality. Yea, she still needs to reply to him, after all they became classmates.

"Hey, Ah yea, still here, sorry 'bout that"

"Hm, well, school's fine though we're really having hard times sometimes, that's fine, still part of college life."

After sending her reply, she thought might as well add some emoticons to set the mood. They talked about some random things and exchanging some life advices especially Maria who is known by her friends as "Walking google".

Maria and Rigor chatted for until 2 A.M. without them knowing that it was already really late especially for Maria. Maria finds out that she has a Congenital Heart Disease when she was in her second years of college. So she must sleep on time.

"Rigor?" "I have something to tell you!"

"Spill Maria!"

"I need to go to bed now, you know it's already 2:30 in the morning, haha"

"Haha, Is that what you're gonna tell me?"

Maria laughed at his reply. She never thought that they would be conversing this way someday, and that someday is today.

"Yes, that's it."

She replied coyly. She was waiting for him to reply first before going offline but it's almost 3 minutes yet her message only got a remark of being seen by Rigor. She disappointedly sighed and was about to go offline when she received a voice message from him.

"Hey, uh, Maria! Well ahm….."

'What Rigor? can't you just get straight to the point? I'm an impatient person for your information.'

"So yea, uh, Maria thanks for your time, hoping this isn't the last time we're gonna chat, can I get your number? But if only you want to, it's fine if you won't. So there, yea. Good night, Maria, sleep well. I mean good mornight."

Rigor's usually sweet to girls even when he was still in middle school. He gets along with girls nicely, he treats them as his own sister and it came to a point that some of them would think differently of it. They mistook his sweet gestures romantically and we'll hope Maria won't fall on this unintentionally risky trap.

Maria was shockingly blushing after listening to Rigor's voice message. She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know what to feel.

'Now what Maria? What are you going to say?'

'Duh again Maria! It's just a number, stop being so aloof from guys, you're so aloof from them since middle school, try to have some fun while you're young, just be careful!'

Her mind is fighting over what to do whether to send him back a voice reply or just a simple text. Maria has no experiences of deep relationship with guys and she never intends to have one. After how many minutes of pondering what to do, she finally decided to just reply with a text.

"Yeah, likewise. God bless."

'That's it, Maria?'

She laughed on her respond to Rigor's voice mail. Like how their conversation started with a four words message from him, she as well ended it with a four words message. She also sent him a GIF that shows a cat hugging a pillow to reduce the awkwardness she felt.

After replying to Rigor, Maria turned off her phone and slept with a small grin on her face.

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