FULL-FLEDGED

Day With Andra

Kenanga High School

“ What are you thinking? ” Qean greets with his trademark smile. His simple appearance by wearing only a black T-shirt and a hat that covers part of his face is enough to make the busy pangling of Ralin spread his class pamphlet.

Ralin only blinked his eyes for a moment. Since when is he here??

“ Not thinking of anything. ” replied Ralin finally.

“ You are thinking of something. You can't cover that up, Lin. ”

“ You mean? ”

“ When you think of something, your forehead will wrinkle. And you just did. ”

“ You noticed such a thing? ”

Qean smiled with satisfaction. “ Everything about you has always been my concern, Alin. ”

“ Thanks! ” Smiled stiffly with the answer he heard, Ralin suddenly found Andra and ignored the figure of Qean who was trying to hold back his steps. Passing across from where he stands now, Ralin tried to catch up with the young man.

“ Andra. ” call Ralin on the sidelines of his busy with the third day school Festival event that is taking place. Staring in wonder, Andra still greeted Ralin casually. “Can I talk to you for a minute? ”

For a moment of silence, Andra no longer wanted to hide his identity in front of Ralin. He hastened the speed of time around him. Then every festival goes very fast. But no one realized it in the slightest, except for the Osis administrators who could finally freely move as fast as they wanted. Ralin remained silent in front of Andra. Undeterred by what Andra was doing, Ralin did not take off his gaze for a second from Andra's beautiful eyes that were emitting a golden light.

One flick of a finger, time goes back to normal.

“ Come with me. ” take Andra ahead of Ralin.

Walking leisurely, Andra invited Ralin to walk behind the Kenanga tree which is another road to the top of the hill behind the school. It is also the road that Andra uses to escape for a moment from the noise of the school Festival event the other day.

In the parking area, Ralin paused for a moment. Doubtful.

“ Really want to ask you something? ” Andra assured from the road beside the Kenanga tree in front of Ralin to stop his steps.

Now they are both opposite.

“ But you won't mind me with ngajakin I there? ” Ralin asked doubtfully.

Andra shrugged her shoulders. Having no other choice, Ralin again continued his steps following Andra who was far enough in front of him.

It was late afternoon and the weather was a little cloudy. Riding the path that forms a natural staircase of rocks, Ralin enjoys the coolness that nature has to offer him. Stepping slowly, Ralin felt as if he was accustomed to the path. There is a miss at every step. There was also a shadow of the joyful laughter of a little girl matching Ralin's steps step by step. Dissolved in the shadow, Ralin hit the back of Andra who suddenly stopped in front of him.

Ralin.

In front of him there is now a very beautiful place. A very shady place. The place surrounded by old trembesi trees with towering branches seemed to shade a long ancient iron bench

there was an old lamp post beside him. The lamp pole adds to the ancient impression of the old brown iron bench. The footrest of natural stone is yellowish brown and around it there are small pebbles

where the green grass interrupts to grow.

As if forgetting his goal of meeting Andra and fascinated by the beauty of the place he is on his feet now, Ralin threw his gaze at every corner. There was a smile on Andra's face looking at every expression that Ralin showed.

“ Talk important stuff, right? Whahuh? ” Andra sat in that long chair with her eyes closed and her face up to the sky. Enjoying and feeling every gust of wind that hit his face, Andra ignored the many sounds of birds and the friction of tree branches that collided around him.

Silently watching Andra carefully, Ralin preferred to stand rather than accept Andra's offer to ask Ralin to sit next to her by patting the empty seat next to her.

“ Who are you really? ” ask without hesitation.

The wind blew softly as Andra was still reluctant to open her eyes. Trying to justify her sitting position, Andra slowly looked at the still staunchly standing Ralin after asking without further ado.

“ Lo and your friends are strange. ” said Ralin did not heed Andra's gaze towards him. “ Lo and your friends are not human, right? ”

“ You guys are very fast. Your body is actually so cold. Face is too pale. You are almost never seen enjoying lunch time in the school cafeteria or at the festival. ” Ralin emphasized his sentence.

“ Anything else? ” Andra justifies his sitting position that looks very relaxed.

“ ..and you guys also seem to be very interested in blood... ”

“ Blood? ” Andra stared at him fixedly. " Which one? " It was not the fear that Ralin felt when fixated on that fixed gaze but... Longs.

Shaking from her sense of self, Ralin's memory of blood suddenly led her to a sudden sense of thirst. The smell of blood splattered on the main page on the first day of the school Festival event and also the smell of fresh blood of students who tried to commit suicide from the roof of the main building, flashed in his mind.

Trying to resist the sudden thirst attacking the esophagus, Ralin bowed and groaned a little. Andra did not budge with that, she just kept paying attention to Ralin whose eyes were now emitting a reddish glow.

The longer the thirst felt the stronger, making Ralin more downcast. Almost struggling weakly to accept the situation that befell him, Andra got up. He stood up and stretched out his hand to help Ralin stand up from his current position. Receiving Andra's helping hand, the hushed voice gaped in Ralin's ear.

“ Habisi. Kill her! ”

Holding a firm grip of Ralin's hand on her, Andra remained standing in front of Ralin who was trying to control himself and his memory. Andra's hand was crystallized by the grip of Ralin's hand. Just momentary. The crystal disappeared slowly along with Ralin regaining control of himself.

“ I always wait to know this. ” said Andra. His face turned relieved to see the ice crystals that had infiltrated the skin of his hand.

“ Know about what? ” Ralin looked at him.

Andra raised her crystallized hand again as it grasped Ralin's hand. “ It. ”

“ Is not a strange thing, is it? ”

Between fear and feeling strange with the feeling of pleasure that appeared suddenly within her, Ralin did not let go of her gaze in the slightest from Andra who was still holding her hand gently. Andra's figure in the past flashed through his mind. On the steps near the porch of a small cottage, they sat down and stared at each other affectionately like today.

Time stopped for them. The wind stopped moving. Some of the fallen leaves fell as if hanging. Not one drop of rain fell soaked some parts of the place. Andra was silent about what happened. Constantly watching Ralin with all his gurgles unaffected by the power of time he has, Andra lets time stop longer than she wants.

In a place that from the beginning should only be the two of them, carrying the prejudice of Ralin to the owner of a raucous whisper that disturbed him on the day of the school festival. Maybe that figure is around them now. Closing his eyes again, Ralin tried to find the origin of the whisper. A raucous whisper that again tried to disturb his hearing.

Opening her eyes slowly, Ralin stared intently at the root of the trembesi tree behind the beautiful place. Behind the roots of the hanging trembesi tree, stood a figure of a man dressed in all black who stared fiercely at them.

“ Kill! ” said the man from a distance. Hearing that whisper from behind his back, Andra fell silent.

***

“ I left first ma'am..” said Ralin while passing in the kitchen hallway. Not yet had time to open the exit, the mother called and stopped Ralin's steps.

“ Did something happen at school? ” asked the mother who does not usually see Ralin leaving early in the morning.

“ None, mom. ” Ralin reply. He smiled and then left his mother's sight.

The mother just smiled. There was a bit of bitterness on her face when she saw her daughter who seemed to have changed a little more than usual. For a very long time the mother had been worried that Ralin would really be as scary a figure as in her dreams.

The dream that had always haunted him since the first time he found a boy crying by the side of the forest holding a baby girl. She eventually took care of the two sons with her husband. And consider them as his own children. Seeing the figure of the two children growing up, the mother was well aware of the strangeness after strangeness of the son and daughter they named Ralin and Rassya P. That duke.

Starting from the first drops of blood Ralin at the age of six years that fell to the ground. Besides the beautiful blooming of the white rose that had turned color to be as thick as blood, she cried in her knee-length white dress. Crying because her finger was bleeding, little Ralin shed her tears and fell wet the rose petals. As if shining, those tears returned the color of the rose to the origin. The blood that came out of his wound shrank along with closing the wound on Ralin.

“ Father! What if my dream is real? ”

“ We can only do our best by not letting Rassya get hurt like yesterday. ” replied the father who came to see and feel Ralin change from day to day.

The mother cried on her husband's shoulders. Recalling the dream in which Ralin, the princess in a black knee-length dress stuck her fangs in a boy she knew as her son, Rassya.

***