I woke up in a classroom.

It was near evening, and the sunset poured into the room like saturated honey. Everything, everything was exactly how I pictured it. I always wondered if scientists would ever invent lenses to filter everything we see, for that was what I was experiencing. No matter where I looked, it all was as if it was straight out of a polaroid picture. It was how I wanted the world to look like, all filtered and gentle.

"Does it hurt?" I heard a small voice from the back of the class. There were two kids, barely seven walking into the class. A girl in a bluish black pinafore uniform and a boy as well, with an adorable bow tie. They had to be from the same school. As they walked in, none of them seemed to notice me at all. 

"Come on, tell me." the little girl said to the boy. They sat side by side in their chairs, after the girl had took out the first aid kit from the class cupboard. Her little hands took out some bandages and oinment, and started dabbing it on the little boy's bruises on his arm. "Did Shi Mon and his goons bully you again?"

The boy nodded timidly, his face facing the floor. The girl shook her head, "You need to tell Madam Lee, or your mom-"

"No..." he mumbled. "Later he'll say I'm a coward for telling a grown up."

"That's not true!" she cried. "He wants you to think that way, that's all. Why would he beat up someone like you anyway?"

The boy was quiet for a while, until the girl put back the oinment and bandages into the first aid kit and returned back to the cupboard. "What are you going to tell your mom when you get back? School ended hours ago, it's almost six now." the boy croaked. 

"I'll just say I had homework to do." she answered.

Miraculously, the boy giggled. "We're not even in middle school yet, we don't have homework."

"She'll believe anything I say," she said again. "Let's go, before a teacher catches us here and calls both our parents."

As they were exiting the door, the boy gulped, "Shi Mon told me if I kept being friends with you, he wouldn't leave me alone." but his voice was so soft only he and I heard it. The girl was too far away. 

"What was that?" the girl turned around, her long ponytail bouncing from behind. 

"N-nothing." the boy lied. 

She giggled, "Come on, before it's too late." and the boy follow suit, disappearing behind the door. Their laughter echoed in the hallway outside the classroom, as if beckoning me to follow them. I did and turned the knob.

Now I was in somewhere else, a theater.

The second I exited the room, the first thing I felt was air conditioning. Then there were red seats and a splash of velvet of the curtain call, I recognized it all. I was back in the school theater in LA. I was dumbstruck for a second, as all those memories started flooding in.

The whole place was empty, but the stage lights were on. Patiently, I sat in the front row - already anticipating what was going to happen next. Then it happened, a girl walked onto the stage, holding a violin. I recognized that violin anywhere. 

"Somebody told me you have given up on your smile..." a boy appeared on the stage next, next to the girl who was playing the violin. Both of them were masked, dressed as a prince and a princess. 

The girl never once sang as the strings she played belted out smooth notes everytime she motioned with her bow, black hair swishing across her shoulders in glittery dust. The boy kept on singing, never once skipping a beat. Soon as it all happened, the two began dancing - with the girl still playing the violin. Through my eyes, it looked as if nothing else mattered in the world except the boy and girl swaying on the stage and under the lights. 

As I watched, I didn't know why I felt like crying. 

When the performance was over, a roaring applause surfaced. I snapped to attention, and realized I was no longer the only one present. The seat to my left and my right - the whole hall was packed. Hollers and claps and cheers sounded for the boy and girl on stage, whose faces were secluded from sight behind their masks. But even all that, I could see they weren't merely performance partners - they were more than that. The way they looked at each other, it was as if their gazes upheld their whole universe. It almost seemed magical.

Then a shadow walked passed me, even before I could identify the face. A single necklace landed on my lap and I picked it up, with a bejeweled pendant of sorts. There was a minature sand timer, filled with some sort of glitter inside and held together all perfect as it shimmered.

Hastily, I got up and ran after the person. I could tell it was definitely a boy, but he was too far away to identify. As he exited the theater, I trailed from behind as I clutched the necklace. The crowd's applause slowly faded away by the time I was out, but no matter how fast I walked, the boy seemed to never get closer and we stayed at a fixed distance.

Finally, I found my voice. "Hey!" I called out. "You dropped something!"

But he didn't turn back and kept on walking. All I could see was his back facing me, so vivid and vague it left an impression in my head. Then he disappeared, and I was left alone in the hallway. I looked at the necklace again before attempting to run after him again.

"Hey!" I said as I was getting closer to the end of the hall when a bright light burst out.