14. "disloyal"

"'Love makes you do crazy things.' You hear before the saying, no?" Jewee mentioned more confidently than I was used to, coming from him. It was -- or it seemed to be the first sentence he was able to finish since we circled up together, and it didn't fit the scenario whatsoever. We were talking about the unknown gore of this world that I've chosen for years to dismiss, and that I finally had to stare right into like this dark abyss, but here this kid was, talking about romance.

If people kill for romance, is it actually romance?

Jared chuckled quietly when Jewee said it, but it was loud enough that my ears started to ring. He was too carefree for the air we were breathing and out of nowhere. He was supposed to be talking his way out of some sort of charge, whether that be murder or kidnapping or whatever it was the police thought this was, but instead his laughter was making us suffocate and badly. I'd rather he physically held his hand to my throat than he do this. Oxygen forgot to exist when he laughed.

"Last year or something, Jayvee, Ryan, and Colby met up in America, right? Jayvee already reported this to you, sir, if I'm not mistaken, but since I didn't get to say this yet, I'll say it now. While that trio was having the time of their life together, the rest of us formed our own little squad, you could call it, and around the same time they were in the US, Nova and Jewee, were visiting me in Brazil," he began.

Each of us couldn't help but to wonder where he was taking this, because so far, it answered none of the questions that we had for him. Nobody attacked him for it though. We let him talk. As antsy as we were becoming, it took everything to close our mouths, but we let him talk.

"Nova has this tendency to rant and to gossip, and we never minded it, but these days specifically we did, because it seemed what she believed was true. Ryan had a random fling with Jayvee just to piss off Nova. Come on, they were built on absolutely nothing and out of nowhere, suddenly they're traveling the world together -- it didn't make sense. There had to be an underlying reason and that was the most logical thing to believe."

His expression changed, and the cocky attitude began to slip away. His lip trembled, and he bit it to stop it from showing, but it was too obvious. Everyone saw it. It's then we could see that his cockiness was to hold in his own tears, yet it wasn't enough. His cockiness wasn't enough to hide his raw feelings.

Yet as much as we hated his confidence, which was clearly made up, I don't think any of us knew how to feel bad for him. We couldn't get ourselves to pity him. Tears hid behind his confidence, but for some reason, it felt like behind his tears, he hid something else.

We just didn't know what yet.

"And I hated that. I hated that so much," he sniffed. "Because when I met Jewee and Nova at the first seminar five years ago, both of us said the same thing when she entered the room, at nearly the exact same time -- that she was the most beautiful girl that we've ever seen. Maybe that should've made us competitors. Maybe we should've constantly fought each other so that we could win her heart, because we only grew more deeply in love with her the longer we knew her, but strangely enough, it wasn't like that. We became friends. Good friends, and we promised each other, you know, that we'd let the best man win."

"W-what?" Nova turned red, but nobody turned to look at her. We were too curious to figure out how this had anything to do with Ryan and why he said he hated him, but seeing that both Jared and Jewee were red as well, it was a no-brainer we would have a pause in the story until they recovered.

Yet Dela Cruz had no intentions to see recovery. He wanted the explanation. He wasn't the type to be a sucker for love and for sweetness. "Talk later. Continue first," he commanded, and with a couple deep breaths, Jared accepted the nudge and went on.

"But on the very same day, she was head over heels with someone else, for Ryan, and for years after then, she'd cry herself to sleep at night, and I could see her face full of tears when she video called me at like three in the morning -- this guy ruined her. He sapped the joy out of her when all she deserved was happiness. And I get it, it's not his fault that he didn't have feelings for her. It's not his fault that he didn't return what she thought of him, but when all you see out of this beautiful girl is tears, it kinda shatters you, you know? Even if you can't be the reason she's happy, you'd like it if someone else can be.

"So when I found out that we would be coming back to the Philippines and we'd be seeing each other again, I contacted Jewee and I told him that we should talk some sense into Ryan. We didn't tell him that he should accept Nova just for the heck of it, but we told him that he should be a little bit nicer to her and it caused an argument. He said he's been nice to her -- too nice -- and in my mind, I knew he knew that he gave Nova rightful reason to assume they had a chance, when he wanted nothing to do with her. Nova is straightforward, -- she'll ask if someone is single or tell them they're attractive -- but she's not someone who would chase someone for no reason. If you think that way, you're wrong. I know her better than anyone.

"Something else too, he got extremely defensive about the idea of a relationship just when we mentioned the word, and he got very awkward about the subject of love and dating like he didn't know what to think of it, or in some way, that he didn't know what it was. He acted like he wanted to distance himself from the concept entirely, which was funny because later into the morning he admitted to him and Jayvee's relationship and proudly too. I still don't understand what happened there, and even though I know he's dead, it still offends me because he sounds like a guy who plays around with feelings. He doesn't know what love is. He's looking for his own pleasure. You can say Jayvee is proof that he's a good guy but I don't know. I don't get it. What I do know -- the way he acted -- I don't like it."

I blinked. This guy could very well be telling the truth, but it was mixed in with his own bias and interpretation. Jared is a lot closer to Nova than I thought, which means that he will defend her to every level that he has to. He'll be on her side no matter what, even if they bicker. For me though, I knew Ryan better than he did, -- I think I can rightfully say that much -- and from my perspective and from what I know, the relationship was as real as it could get. It's only started to look weird now, because of Jayvee and her reactions.

At the moment though, she was furious. Jared verbally poking at her without a care, as if her relationship was fake gave her reason to be mad, but she didn't speak. She sat with a gaze on her face that could make nearly anyone pass out, yet not a word came out of her mouth.

Nobody said a word in fact, besides the officer.

"So, why did you lie? Why did you lie and say that you never had a conversation with Mister Javers' that wasn't peaceful? Clearly, you had one at least, but possibly more, because even after you each claim that he was murdered and that he's not missing, you still have hatred in you. You think that that anger is so justifiable that even after he supposedly died, you're still angry. Many people during the loss of someone they know suddenly regret every moment they spent mad at them, but you don't. Why then, Mister Kinoshita, would you lie at a time like now?"

Jared didn't say a word either. I couldn't tell what he thought of what he was hearing.

"Of course, lying is not proof of murder or foul play and will not be evidence in court," Dela Cruz continued. "But it's not in your favor, you could understand. It doesn't change that there were five other people besides the victim in the room at the time of the crime, but it does change what order you will be on the suspect list. Reasonably, we can say you're on top of it."

Now, Jared smirked. "Lying is not evidence in court you say? Well how about this? Is it evidence in court when I tell the truth?" His ego was returning to him, and as it did, he stood up to his feet, so that each of us had to look up drastically to his height. The expression on his face that proved he was convinced that he was superior to any of us sat before us quickly made an impression on us, but even so when he opened his mouth to speak again, none of us were ready to get chills.

He didn't confess, and still, the chills came.

"I didn't kill him," he spoke eerily, like he were telling a ghost story over a campfire in the middle of the forest darkness, and fortunate for him, the sun was setting just for him so it seemed. "No, I didn't kill him, but I wish that I did. Praise the person that thought of that first. Praise him or praise her for getting rid of someone so ruthless. Praise them, because they killed someone who tainted the beauty of love."

And then, Jayvee finally rose, that same pass-out glare oozing from her eyes. Her steps toward Jared were slow, and innocent, like the most she was going to do was give him a piece of her mind -- to force him to take that back, but that looked like such a little thing compared to what she did.

She kicked the air out of him, knocking him down to the ground with an unexpected lunge to his stomach, and when he fell, -- when she had total control and power over him as he laid there helplessly, she scratched him, slowly, with her long acrylic nails from the top left of his forehead to the bottom of the right side of his chin, picking out his skin without a second thought or a single care and he bled -- he bled in five diagonal lines across his face.

Jared was strong, but a flawless blitz was going to leave him a scar.

Five scars.

"Praise him or her," she mocked him when she stood back up, forcing him to look up to her now, opposite the way it was before. She loosened some of the dirt at the tip of her toe, dirtying his wounds with soil and with spit -- her spit, and she didn't stop until the officer pulled her away from him.

"Praise him or her from down there, where you belong."