The Girl Who Never Acts Like One

Prologue

PROLOGUE

Summer vacation of 2013.

It was still around 5 AM in the morning, but her volleyball is already rolling madly on the steep sloping cemented ground in her neighborhood and she's running after it. For the past few hours after sneaking out of the house, she spent her temper on walling and spiking her ball on the wide tall wall full of random vandalisms made by the kanto boys.

She simply hates the fact that she has an inborn feet problem, but...not that it's obvious. It is okay-looking at the outside, but not in the inside. In her bones. Which makes it a big "no-no" for her to play volleyball in outside-school tournaments. Which she's clearly angry about now.

Oh, and that's such a great reason and excuse to why she needs to transfer school at her last year in high school. To stop you from being a varsity, her mother, Shanelle Cruz, said.

Finally, her ball halted to a stop on the splinters of some detached broken glass window from the abandoned burnt house across the street. If it wasn't for such tragic end, that house could've been beautiful. Wet with sweat and panting, she ran another 10 meters for her ball and picked it up, wiping the dirt and dust on it with her baggy pajamas. And then, stared up. At the house's looming 6 ft. fence of rusty angular bars and crumbling cement, and at the dying century-old acacia tree leaning against it. It just occurred to her that this is the exact place where she met that...kid.

2004, at the very exact time to today's 2014, 8-year-old Rhainne was strolling alone in the neighborhood, wanting to be lost for awhile by her mother's side, her volleyball balloon, in her grip. With her small little fingers, she played with her balloon's string, laughing cheerfully to herself, not until a strong wind went past her, and flew her balloon out from her grip, and up, up, it went. She jumped and chased after it like an idiot, trying to reach hard for its impossibility, until she stumbled on the ground and bruised her left elbow and knee. With her head down, her wavy pigtails down on her face, she cried. Not for the pain, but for her missing balloon.

Against the small tear droplets clogging her eyes, a small hand with blue wristwatch reached for her, and it took a minute before she can register this boy staring down at her. They probably have the same age, or just a year difference. He has white fair skin, straight tangled black hair, some of it swept to the side, the long ones reaching till his nape, hazel brown eyes, and long nose. Handsome.

Rhainne stood without the boy's help, suddenly angry for no reason at all, pushing him away.

"I don't need your help!"

"But you're crying! And you're...hurt."

"I'm not crying!," Rhainne insisted, pouting, "I'm not a crying baby!"

"But you are," the boy said, suddenly infront of her, his face, worried and innocently angelic, "Are your bruises painful?"

"Crying for a simple bruise is stupid!," Rhainne insisted, and with embarrassment, bowed her head, "My balloon is gone."

"Balloon? You mean that?," the boy clarified, pointing to a tree branch near the scary house's tall wall.

Rhainne looked at it, still pretending to be grumpy, "Yes! And now what?"

"I could get it. I know how to climb trees and wall."

Rhainne's eyes widened with amazement, "H-how?"

"I learned it from Jackie Chan," the boy answered with a grin, his eyes stretched to the side as he smiled.

Rhainne wondered if this is crazy or awesome, but before she could even shout on how stupid he is, the boy was already gone, left only by a trace of his footsteps that he crawled through a small hole in the crumbling barrier of the big abandoned scary house. Rhainne frowned but wondered to why she feels so hot despite of the cool, cloudy and windy weather. She watched in amazement as the boy climbed skilfully, and finally on the branch where her balloon got stuck.

"Liam! Oh my god! What are you doing up there?!," someone shouted, both because of worry and furiousness.

Rhainne shuddered, feeling absolutely guilty. There, just a meter apart from her, was a beautiful woman both with fair skin, straight waist-length hair and chiselled nose. That must be Liam's mother. So his name is Liam.

"See, Mom! I could already be an action star! I could climb the tree fast just as how Dad-"

"Down!," the woman snapped.

"I rescued someone else's balloon!," but the mother didn't take notice of this, even when Liam glanced at Rhainne who was already shuddering with fear and guilt.

Liam climbed down the tree and out into the street through the hole in the barrier, quite disappointed that his Mom didn't appreciate what he did. Quickly, when his Mom wasn't watching, he gave Rhainne's balloon back to her, their fingers brushing against each other.

"Sorry," he said with a guilty grin, his hands shuffling the back of his hair, making it more tangled than ever. Rhainne stared at him.

"Li--!,"

"Okay, okay, Mom!"

And he ran past her, and back to his Mom's side.

"Now, what was that for?! You thought I wasn't watching, were you? Acting like a prince or--," his Mom began.

"But she's pretty, Mom!," Liam explained, and Rhainne couldn't help but feel hotter, even after their voices were drowned by the rushing wind, and their figures, seemingly like two dots in a faraway distance.

18-year-old Rhainne shook the thought away, but couldn't still take her eyes off the small hole in the house's crumbling barrier, where that kid crawled. It is still there after a long decade, and for goodness' sake, wherever the hell he is now, he surely won't be able to fit himself in there again.

If there is even, ever an again.

(P.S: PLEAAAASSSEEE VOOOOTTTTEE :) )