007

"Rock on!"

Matsumoto was stunned to hear his roommate yell out of nowhere from his computer at 3am in the morning, so much it made him wake up from his sleep. He got up from his bed and grabbed his glasses from the side table to see where Pen was and what he was doing. He could just guess it as usual though, as Pen would not be doing anything else at a time like that, not in that kind of excitement and noise - obviously heard by him as the computer was quite near to his bed. "Ai, not again..."

Laughing to himself out loud, Pen almost never looked so excited before. He was nailed at his chair, playing Counter Strike on his computer, so attached to it he did not notice Matsumoto was awake.

"Pen, what's that this time?" asked Matsumoto in a blurry, still-sleepy voice. He knew Pen was addicted to games, he played all kinds of them and had told him about them numerous times already, still he could not remember any of it, with him being a guy who disliked computer games.

"Eh?" Pen took a short glance at Matsumoto's bed, surprised he was suddenly awake. Still, he could not bare to lose his focus on the game. "CS, Matto. You know, Counter Strike. Hey, you know Half Life? Now I'm playin' with rifles! Simply lovin' this stuff. It's a Magnum-"

"HAH!" Matsumoto interrupted Pen's long, enthusiastic explanation that could sound quite fascinating but he had no interest in it at all, so he did not understand a thing. "Oyasumi, I'm going back to sleep. Get some sleep some time soon."

Still playing without any plans to stop soon, Pen only grinned at Matsumoto's words. "Sure buddy."

It's only Sunday today. Sleep can wait.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A gun was directed right to his forehead, held by someone whose face he could not see. He had no idea where he was, it was quite dark around, with nothing else he could see other than the gun which was slowly getting closer to him. It was getting more scary for him, but he did not know where else to run. Feeling trapped, he started to walk backwards to get away from the gun, trembling as he tried doing so.

"You," a female voice was heard. "Why did you do this?"

He could see the trigger being pulled, slowly. Before he could do anything else...

BANG!

"PENNNNNNNNNNsylvania!!! Aaaaaaaaa................!!!"

Pen woke up screaming on the floor, sweating, next to his bed, to see a creepy vision of a man dressed in brown clothing standing next to him. Rather, it was not a vision, but a real person - it was Matsumoto, who became scared of seeing him screaming that way at 8am in the morning.

Trying to hold him to get him up and calm down, Matsumoto told him firmly, "Sleep early next time, stupid!"

He widened his eyes and shook his head. Rubbing his forehead, chest and pretty much his entire body, Pen lay out a big sigh of relief to know he was still alive. "Matto, I thought I was gonna die!" He held Matsumoto's hands hard and kissed it, for real.

"Haa!" Matsumoto pulled his hands away fast, almost disgusted by the kiss. He felt weird with Pen's behaviour, but not an act that he had not seen before. "Come on, Pen. That was so not the first time."

Wearing the biggest frown ever, Pen felt bad. "Sorry, man, I know that."

Matsumoto sat down next to him. "That is okay. Screaming your own name like that again. You got shot again?"

Pen smiled. "Yeah, in the head this time."

"It was other places and other ways that you died before this," Matsumoto said, laughing at him. "Come on, Pen, take care of yourself. Stop those games before they cause you another similar nightmare!"

Raising his eyebrows, Pen gave Matsumoto a light punch on his shoulder. "Even if it weren't for the games, I'd have the dreams anyway." He smiled again. "Don't worry dude. Where are you going, dressed up on Sunday AND you didn't ask me to join you??"

"AH! How am I supposed to ask? You won't wake up when I tried to wake you up an hour ago!"

Owh, haha, yet again. "Okay.." Pen chuckled as he looked down on the floor. "And now I fell off my bed again. That's fine. I wanna go somewhere else today anyway."

Matsumoto nodded. "I know, as always, once in a fortnight. Sussex County?"

Hearing the word hospital made Pen's face expression change to somewhat more solemn. "Yup."

Nodding again, Matsumoto did not say much anymore. He stood up to be getting ready to leave. "I will be meeting some old friends, it may take some time. Get yourself together, eh?"

He bowed to Matsumoto from where he was seated on the floor. "Wa-kataa, Matto!"

The Japanese lad smiled. "You are the only one who calls me that, after you were the one who nicknamed me Matt."

Matsumoto left after that, leaving him alone in that two-bedroom apartment in Brighton, East Sussex of Britain. He and Pen had known each other for the entire time they had been roommates, ever since they knew each other on the first day of class in University of Sussex, which was over a year ago. He had come to accept Pen for his silly ways and doings, but above all that he still had fun being friends with the Canadian guy. Being the silly, funny man as Pen is, he still had his own problems that he kept to himself, things that only few people knew.

Staring at the floor in his last night's clothes, Pen had a deep thought about someone.

"Jennifer. I'm coming over today."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She's my lovely brunette girl. She's nice to everyone and nice to me. She's sweet and she's always smiling. She accepts me for my every weird behaviour and all my foul words. Looking at her face makes me smile everytime and forget all of my problems. I still behave like a wacko, jerk, you name it I'm all of it, yet she's still there for me.

Seated down on the hospital chair, Pen looked softly at the girl on the bed. She had straight brunette hair, is also a Canadian like him, with a height of 5' 10". Her name is Jennifer McKaustin, a girl who had been in a coma for over 5 months, looking weak and vulnerable in the hospital clothes in her bed.

At least, that's all what she was.

The door of the ward was opened, which made Pen turn to look at who was there. It was a face he came to know not too long before Jennifer had the accident that almost took away her life - Ethan Smith. Jennifer was once happy with Pen, but when she met Ethan, her life seemed to have changed. Much to Pen's dismay, Jennifer began to care about Ethan and fall for him - all not to her own wish for it to happen. Even Ethan was surprised to see Pen there by Jennifer's bedside.

"Ethan," Pen muttered. So many months ago, he felt like killing the man for taking the girl he loved away from her. After she had an accident, they agreed to come to peace for her own sake, all after going through some rough time of anger, hate and distrust.

Ethan walked slowly towards him. "Hi." The tension between them was intense, although not as bad as it was before. "It's been a while."

"Yeah." He turned to look at Jennifer. "...a long, long time it's been."

No more words could be spoken between them.

"Anyway," Pen spoke up after a long silence as he stood up. "I've been here a while." He gave Ethan a cold look. "Later, then." He began walking away, being watched by Ethan right before he left the special ward. They both knew how bad things were between them, and none of them could make things any better for the moment, not until Jennifer would open her eyes. And they really could not tell when that would ever be, if it ever would be.

Damn. Really, I have no mood to see his face, Pen thought to himself as he went into the elevator.

He would tell himself every time, to ignore such things for the time being, and just focus on one thing. He just hoped and prayed that Jennifer would fall out of her unconsciousness... soon.

As the elevator doors slided open, he walked out and headed out of the Royal Sussex County Hospital to get to his car.

Before he could walk out through the main entrance of the hospital, a lady with purple-white head-covering, purple blouse and blue jeans accidentally ran into him. It was the lady who looked quite panicky, going around too fast that she bumped into him.

"Ah, sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean it, I'm so sorry, I was in a hurry for something and I didn't realise-"

"Whoa, chill, it's okay." Pen said assuringly without trying to look at her much. He was ready to go when she called him.

"McCain?"

He stopped and turned around to face her again. After what seemed like he examined her face, he realised that the lady did look quite familiar.

"Hey. I know you. Rulisa?"

006

"Sorry, please try again later."

Dang. For the two millionth time!

She pushed the reject button, hard, letting out a huge sigh. Nisa meddled with her cell phone, running back through her messages in the inbox, as if that was the only way for her to let go of her anger. She felt like everything was going wrong lately, and life had never been more different. "No answer. He turned off the phone," she muttered to herself, hoping Sarah would hear her. Somehow, that was the only way she knew on how to start a conversation that she hoped would lead to the talk where she could confide her feelings into other people. It did not seem like Sarah heard her, as she got no response.

There they both were, eating at the usual cafe they had always gone to for lunch and dinner, where the food is halal and also delicious, with prices that were not too costly but not exactly cheap.

"Sarah," she spoke softly. With that, she hoped to start telling her everything that was bottled up deep within her, only waiting to come out. It felt hard to start, but she knew she had to begin somehow, as she had been feeling so miserable lately.

"Hm..." Snorting, Sarah pulled a long face. "I'm starving here, hope the food comes soon." Looking quite tired, she looked at Nisa sitting opposite to her.

Dang. Can't pull the words out. Nisa looked back at her, smiling faintly, suddenly blurred of where to start. "Huh... you know, Sarah?"

Then Sarah focused at her. "Yeah? You were gonna say something, I'm waiting?"

Um... Her hands felt cold and they were starting to shiver. As simple as it might look like, just to blurt out the words "I have a problem", she just could not do it. Or she just was not letting herself to do it.

"SAY IT ALREADY!" Her imaginary-self appeared again, right next to her, pretty much yelling into her ears. Apparently, Imaginary Nisa did not look too happy, a whole lot more serious than before.

"Shut up already, moron," she muttered to her envisioned-self, who seemed to walk around the table she and Sarah were seated at, blabbing about her foolishness of keeping what she wanted to say bottled up inside. "You the moron! Don't bottle it up, it gets worse!"

It was only her imagination, but she found it to be just as stressful as it could have been if that was a real person yelling at her about the one thing she hated - the secretive, sensitive, quiet and scared part of her. Being quite, no, very introverted ever since a kid with such little changes till now, being in early adulthood, she hated herself for being a coward. All the simplicity of talking to other people and opening up, to let other people enter her life.

Closing her eyes, she rubbed both of her palms onto her face. That was only nobody but Sarah, her own close friend, yet she still could not do it. She was sure she would not be heard, not be understood, be laughed at, to be ignored. All that and more, she had always taken them as signs of rejection, that she was no one; a person with little things she was proud of and had nothing to be liked about.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Sarah's sweet, concerned voice flew over the table right into her ears.

"Now, Nisa, she is kind and she won't laugh or reject you," Imaginary Nisa spoke again, this time (with a calm look on her face, like any friend would do when their other friend is in need.

Nisa could feel tears in her eyes. "I've been trying to ignore him. I'm trying to forget him by doing so. And I don't like doing it at all," she finally spoke, somehow, managed to smile while doing so, holding back her tears - she was sure they would not flow out. "He may think it's 'coz of our last conversation with each other on the web messenger, where he made me very concerned about him, of which I got annoyed at. But really... there's a whole bigger picture to it..."

"Huh? That baka is it you're talking about?" Sarah started to sound rather stern.

Laughing to hear the word baka, Nisa felt better already. "Honestly, yeah. I asked him about some Biochemistry work that other day through YM, which eventually led to something else. He told me he can't help with anything, simply 'coz he hadn't even started with it as he had no mood to do it. His mood was off again, of which I didn't wanna make worse of it, to at least make him feel better I tried telling him few bad jokes that weren't even funny-"

Sarah's hands were raised up in air. "Whoa, slow down, the food's not even here yet, okay?"

Taking a deep breath, Nisa adjusted herself. "Yeah.. I was trying so hard... for weird stuff. Yet now I know he's no longer mine." She smiled - her usual smile, take one look at it and most would not know she was feeling bad inside. "Mushy stuff to say, huh?"

Sarah snorted. "Haha... glad you know that, that's so rare of you."

Looking on the empty table, Nisa continued. "Joey eventually told me he had stuff to do, to end the conversation. Before it ended, he told me he hated living... and everything... all sounded bad... dangerous... harmful... he got me damn worried till he told me he made it all up. That was a serious matter, so I got mad!"

At that, Sarah almost smiled. "I see. But, I don't think he'd do that anyway... isn't he a good guy... he won't do....."

As the waiter approached and began serving them the food they ordered for, Nisa felt a weird, sudden urge to look outside the window of the restaurant, with Sarah's voice slowly going unheard by her, fleeting somewhere else. She saw a familiar figure across the street, the same hair, the same height, same style of walking. He seemed to be headed somewhere, wearing a tiresome look on his face and carrying a black backpack.

Joey?

Ahmad Jo: i wanna find another life
Ahmad Jo: get away from dis current one
Ahmad Jo: huhuhu
Nurul Nisa: huh?
Nurul Nisa: what does dat mean?
Ahmad Jo: wel if i tel ya i'll hav to kil ya
Nurul Nisa: ....
Nurul Nisa: nothin stupid rite?
Ahmad Jo: hmmmmmmm
Ahmad Jo: lets just say it's not something decent

What is he doing?

She felt lots of things running through her mind at that moment. She could no longer hear Sarah talking, she no longer cared about her food.

"Nisa, you said you wanna ignore him! Why are you so tight up all of a sudden?" her imaginary-self spoke again, seemingly standing next to her, looking at the same guy who was going to disappear out of their sight.

"I've been trying to call him but to no avail! I ignored him before that because of my own selfishness! Whatever happens, I can't let him hurt himself! Even if he made it all up I still worry about him!" she said to herself, still looking outside. This was heard well by Sarah which surprised her.

"Wait," Nisa stood up quickly from her seat, planning to get to Joey, which added up to Sarah's surprise. The waiter who was serving food startled a bit by her rather clumsy reactions. However, Nisa could not care about all that anymore. Leaving her purse on the table, she ran outside to chase him, feeling sure he would soon do something stupid.

"HEY!" Sarah panicked. "Where are you going??" She got up to try and stop her. "Nisa, what's happening? Don't just leave!"

Maybe he hasn't been lying. Maybe he'd hurt himself. Although he had no idea what he made me feel, worried to death, when he joked he'd do those stupid things!

"You! Shouldn't be running in a crowd like this!" Imaginary Nisa yelled, running next to her. "I think you should stop!!"

"NO! Get away from me!"

Joey vanished into the middle of the block of shops across the street of Blatchington Road in Hove of East Sussex, leaving Nisa trembling for a split second of where he went to. He went into that alley, but where would that lead to?

"Joey!!"

It was a big crowd around, at such a peak hour where everyone was going out to eat, of which she found her way running in the middle of the people to catch up with Joey. Sarah tried chasing her from behind, at the same time calling for her to stop, or basically, anyone to stop her. "You'd better stop! THIEF!!!"

She made that up, spontaneously. The people around might have heard her say that, and tried to react to it by looking at the girl she was chasing after and try to stop her. Still, Nisa was a small girl among the crowd so she was able to disappear quite fast before anyone could get to her.

Sarah stopped running, finding it hard to go around as she was stopped by the red traffic light for pedestrians. She was devastated and tired.

"Miss, were you trying to catch that other girl just now?" a so-called friendly voice spoke to her, who was a little boy walking with her mummy.

"Are you okay?" the mother asked her. "We heard you but it's too hectic here. She stole your purse?"

"NO!!" Sarah yelled back. She refused to care anymore. At that time, she had lost her best friend and she did not know what happened for sure, troubled to think about her friend's last reaction. "She's my friend.. please help me.."

The boy looked at her, feeling bad for her. "Mum, we have to help her."

Panting, Sarah felt like she wanted to cry. "Where did you go?"

005

"What in the world is this?"

Nisa pretended to smile at Sarah's question. "Fried fish?"

After letting out a long sigh, Sarah sat down on the chair at the dining table, looking at what seemed like charcoal in the plate on the table. She was supposed to have lunch with her there at Nisa's house, and go shopping with her afterwards. Apparently Nisa's attempt to cook did not go well, although she tried her best so as to make the best impression on Sarah at her own house.

"This is carbonised fish, I'd say," Sarah looked at the fish in the plate. She did not know what to say much next, to comment on Nisa's cooking without hurting her feelings.

Nisa sat along with her at the table, feeling very disappointed with herself. "Ouch. Charcoaled fish..." She looked guiltily at Sarah for not being able to provide her with a good enough meal for lunch like she intended to. She had always known how bad of a cook she had been even since before she left for Britain from her home country, Malaysia. There were many chances for her to learn and improve her cooking skills but she never seemed to make use of them well, at least not often enough. "Honestly... it had never been this bad before. So, sorry."

Chuckling, Sarah looked at Nisa and said, "Relax. This is nothing really..." She glanced at the fish for a moment. "...at least you tried." She smiled.

"Sarah... it's black and it's hard, like stone!" It seemed like Nisa felt so dissatisfied with what she just did, slowly losing her mood and starting to feel upset.

"Owh, come on, other people have done other worse stuff than this. You just forgot to take the fish out in time." She got up to approach her friend, seeing that she was starting to feel down. "I remember my sister once put a whole pack of salt into a small pan to make soup."

Hmm.. that's nothing compared to mine.. I.. think...

Suddenly, Sarah pulled her arm, dragging her from the chair and off to the living room. "Let's go eat out!"

"Aaa!! Hey, hey, chotto matte.. um, I mean, wait now, WAIT!"

Looking back, Sarah stopped moving. "Huh?"

"Wait up, let me clean up." Nisa returned to the kitchen where her small dining table was. She looked at the only plate that was on it and stared at it long enough as if feeling sympathetic of the fish to throw it away. That feeling made her amused somehow. She held the plate with her right hand, putting it on her left palm - right in front of her face - as if she was going to talk to it, a deep talk somewhat.

"Sorry I fried ya till ya got charcoaled, so solid, so hard that now I had to throw you away. I really didn't mean it, ya know-"

Now what are you doing talking to a non-living fish?

She lowered the plate, held it with her hand and continued looking at it. "I'm just talking now, there's nothing wrong with that."

Oookaay, pal, take the plate away and get rid of the fish. Clean up fast.

Sighing, she did so - by throwing the fish out into the garbage bin at the kitchen and washing the plate right after that. "Sorry dude."

"Stop talking to the fish already!"

Raising her eyebrows, she looked at the back door of her kitchen, not seeing Sarah there, not the vision of Kelly like previously, but a vision of herself.

"Ow-kay, the fish is out of sight, there's nothing wrong with talking to it. I'm still sane and I will always be. Just a little bit strange," she said to her envisioned self, as if trying to argue with her.

"No," Imaginary Nisa replied, having a serious, mother-like look on her face. "You don't talk to fish that you were gonna throw away, missy." She crossed her arms over her chest. "You should stop doing such things. You may simply think they're weird, but looking at the circumstances, you may eventually go nuts someday!"

Nuts? Nisa frowned. "Now that's what's nuts. Talking to you here alone is already nuts. You don't need to advise me on such things. You're the one driving me crazy!"

Imaginary Nisa nodded her head a few times, looking down on the floor. "I realise that. But I'm trying to stop you from doing even crazier things, as sometimes you just don't know what you're doing. I am you, you and me are one. I am a necessity."

Here it goes... again.

"You are me, I am you, whatever. Sometimes you're not even helping me when I really feel at lost anyway. How would your existence really make things any better?"

The chair by the dining table suddenly moved, creating a sound that interrupted Nisa out of her world again. There stood Sarah by the chair, who was looking at her with a puzzled look, with so much curiosities in her mind of seeing Nisa talking all by herself. By the way she was talking, she could be kind of upset, but Sarah could not figure out why it seemed like she was talking to the back door. "You... talking to the... door?"

Erk. She saw me talking, yet again.

"Ha..ha.." Nisa muttered out loud, grinning all the way as she tried to find an explanation of what she was doing. "Baka... yeahh... got so bored I talked to the door!" She began walking faster.

"Hah? Why, you do that quite a lot, don't you? That's really not good..."

Nisa held on Sarah's shoulders to turn her around. "Forget that. Off to eat, I'm starving!"

"Hey, hey, or was that you practising to talk to me, maybe? My existence doesn't make your life any better?" Sarah said, as she was being pushed over by Nisa toward the living room out of the kitchen.

"HEY! Don't you dare say that!" She gave a light punch to Sarah at her back, getting uncomfortable at such words being told to her. "You're my friend! Your existence is very important to me!"

"Ok-ok-ok, I get it, I was joking, don't hit me, don't push me!!" Sarah started yelling out, sounding almost startled by Nisa. This amused Nisa even more, of which she ended up laughing at, quite loudly indeed. She stopped pushing her from the back right before they reached the main door of the house. "You are da bomb, Sarah!" She grinned, hugging Sarah from her back. "I love you!"

"... okay.." Sarah felt weird, but she appreciated it nonetheless. "Thanks, can we go now?" She smiled, shaking her head as she was going to open the door.

"Yeah, definitely." They both went out of the small house that Nisa shared with her other three classmates, ready to get their lunch after a near-disastrous attempt of Nisa trying to cook.

I'm still all-good. Nisa kept her smile upon her face, putting her right arm around Sarah's shoulders after exiting her house.

004

The cell phone rang again. It was just the message ringtone of an Avril Lavigne song that did not last longer than 10 seconds. As Joey heard it ringing, he stopped meddling with the computer mouse and looked at his cell phone that he earlier threw on his bed.

He got up from his chair to get his phone. It was a message from his new girlfriend, Rina, asking him what he was doing at the moment. He smiled a bit reading the message, and lay down on the bed to send a reply to her. As he was typing the words in, he received a "buzz" on his Yahoo! Messenger from his laptop at his desk.

Who's that?

Once done messaging, he put his phone down and looked over at the laptop from where he was lying down. Then he could see the picture from far. It's her...

Joey, or whose real name is Johari, decided to ponder into the ceiling of his bed in his thoughts before he would go over and respond to the "buzz". Lately he felt bad about what he had done to her, of which he thought was something that had really made the girl sad. She was a very close friend of his, someone he held close to his heart, an important person to him. He cared about her, although not as much as he cared for his girlfriend. By telling her that he already had a girlfriend now, he knew the mess he would cause between himself and his close friend, something he had no intention to do. He had caused her so much pain, he knew this; and he could not help but to feel guilty for doing so. It was one of the worst things he ever had to do; so hard to deal with.

"She seems to be upset... and it's all my fault."

And I never ever deserve her for this shitty me.

Another "buzz" was thrown in, and he only looked at it, feeling like a fool. Some messages were starting to come in, and he knew he would need to respond to it soon.

BUZZ!
BUZZ!
Nurul Nisa: hey u baka, r u there?
Nurul Nisa: i need sum homework help here! fast!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You're in same group with her?" Joey asked him, for the second time. Brian kept his eyes locked on his Superman comic book, not moving his eyes to respond to his roommate's question.

"Yeah. We just got to know each other. She, apparently, just knew who Pen is," Brian said to him.

Pen?

"She just knew Pen?" Joey repeated the words. It was a strange thought, since almost everyone knew who Pen is, being the extroverted guy he is, being the attention of almost all lecturers in the lecture halls.

"Weird is it? She knew him by the face, knew him by all but the name. She just knew his name today, earlier this morning."

"I see." Joey pondered out into space again. She can be quite oblivious to her surroundings, though...

He and Brian had been roommates for about a year now. Although they both did not have much of talk with each other, he still considered Brian as one of his closest friends.

Friends?

In reality, that could still be incorrect. He had never understood the real meaning of friendship or what it felt like to have buddies. He did not know the real importance of it in his life, as he felt like most of his life was spent on his own, independently, without feeling like he needed anyone else. No family, no friend, no girlfriend, and he would still make it through.

In a life where he had been on his own all the years he had lived, he did not really the purpose of his life or where it was headed. It seemed like it would be better off if everything would just end for him at that very moment. No need to worry or feel the guilt about anyone. Leave all the fears and curiousities he had all the while. No more wondering what he had to do next or what would happen next. Nothing had been easy for him in life. Everything seemed a blur. All the pain life had given him, all had become immuned to him. If there was nothing good to get out of it, give me more of the bad part. He could not care less.

And he had made a decision, long time ago. Let's end this. All of this stupid shit crappy thing.

003

The brown-haired, blue-eyed twenty-year-old guy stared hard at the yellow walls decorated with pictures of cakes around the Anne's Delicious Cakes at The Droveway, Hove. He had been there with his two other guy friends for almost an hour, waiting for their two other female lecture mates to show up. They were all getting tired of waiting, feeling bored.

“My hot choc is finished and the three cake slices are all in my belly,” Matsumoto, the only Japanese out of the three, commented to his other two friends. To make it easier for other people to call him, he nicknamed himself Matt, which was not even his idea in the beginning since it was his lecture mates who started calling him by that name. “Where are these girls??”

The other guy with the blond hair, who is also an American, Brian spoke up. “Who knows… if they’re not here in 5 minutes–”

“Yo, I see them. That’s Sarah,” the brown-haired guy interrupted as he saw two girls entered the café at the entrance door. The rest of the guys turned to the door to look. They all knew Sarah but not the other girl she was with, although they were all set up together to work on the assignment they had which was planned by Sarah. “That other girl was supposed to be Nurul Nisa, as what Sarah told me.”

Sarah said something to Nisa as they both looked around the café, looking for the three boys but did not seem to see them. Matsumoto just looked at them. “They can’t see us here. We seem to be hidden or something.”

“I’ll go.” At that, Brian and Matsumoto looked at their friend getting up from his seat to go and get the girls. Still standing, Sarah and Nisa looked clueless. Then Sarah digged into her white purse to get her cell phone to make a call while Nisa just looked around.

The guy who went to approach them stood behind them, trying not to be noisy in doing so. “Yo,” he whispered to Nisa’s left ear from her back, resulting in quite a shock out of her that came out as her mumbling something out to him, fast-paced as she turned around to look at him.

“Yah!” Nisa yelled out when she saw him. The guy grinned at her. Apparently, he was a lot taller than her, as her head did not even reach the height of his shoulders.

“Whoa, chill there miss,” he said to her, glancing at Sarah who had turned over to look at Nisa and him when she heard Nisa’s loud voice. “You girls are way, way late!” His grin suddenly faded away. He was then glaring at both of the girls, expecting an apology and a reasonable explanation.

“Okay, Pen, I’m sorry, really, I am. I woke up late and later we were stuck in a traffic jam. Really, I’m sorry. I know you guys all have your own stuff to do. I didn’t mean to slow you down. It won’t happen again,” Sarah went up to him, doing her explanation. The guy let out a long sigh after that, not really knowing what to say anymore.

“Well, come over.” He invited the girls to follow him and walked over to where all the guys were seated at originally. “Really don’t wanna comment on it much anymore, since we’ve been tired of waiting. Just don’t do it again.”

Sarah replied with a short “Sure” as Nisa only nodded, feeling quite bad as well. She felt even worse, as she did not really know the guys who were all Sarah’s friends, not hers.

When they got at the table, Sarah apologized to the other boys. She sat with them, joined by Nisa and Pen.

“No sweat, since you’re already here. We’ll go on with it now,” Matsumoto told them. “Then, you’re Nurul Nisa, huh?” He looked at her with a friendly smile. Nisa suddenly blushed, as at that moment everyone looked at him.

“Ah, yeah.” She nodded. “Just call me Nisa.”

Pen smiled at her. “We won’t eat you so relax.”

“Yup,” Brian sat up straight to talk to her, as she stood just opposite to him. “You know our names, right?”

Sarah got a surprised look on her face at that question by Brian. She had forgotten to introduce them to her or even told her who is who. “I forgot ‘bout that. From left, Pen the wacko, that’s Brian and Matsumoto, we all call him Matt.”

“Or you can call him Pencil,” Brian joked, laughing at Pen.

Oh man, haha, here it goes again, Pen thought to himself. “Yeah sure.” Pen threw his tissue at the man, as he grinned at Nisa. “You know my real name?”

Nisa widened her eyes, looking like a blur, as she saw Sarah smiling at her. “Not really… Sarah told me nothing much…” She glared at Sarah.

“Well then. My name’s Pennsylvania McCain… most people call me Pen, but there are others who call me other names like Pencil like Mr Nice Guy, Brian here.”

“Yeah, and this is like Mr Stationery,” Brian replied.

“Come now, it’s not good to say so, B,” Sarah commented. “You can call him anything you like, Nisa, for this Brian guy. He’s really no nice guy.”

A sweet smile appeared on Nisa’s face. “Cool, sure.”

Matsumoto just sat still at his seat with a smile, as if analyzing every one of them there. “The names thing, done yet? Can we move on?”

“Yeah sure, sorry guys we were late,” Nisa said.

“Nah… now then... let’s begin!” Pen declared. They all gathered the papers on the table to get started on their assignment.

Here we go. Another good start to things, Pen thought to himself again.

002

Huh?

Sarah woke up to the bright sunlight shining through the windows, onto her face. Looking at the apple-clock on the end table next to her bed, she realised that she had missed her Fajr prayer – it was half past 9 in the morning on another Saturday in East Sussex, UK.

“Ouh.. not again…” she grumbled to herself. And I just thought about going jogging after I pray.

The thought of jogging made her remember that it was indeed another Saturday, a day which she had always gone for jogging. Saturdays were her favourite, having day-off from the rest of the world for her to engage into her own. She looked at a picture frame next to the apple-clock, of which was a medium-sized picture of her father who died back 3 years ago because of alcoholism.

She stared out the window, looking down the quiet neighbourhood from her second floor room in that apartment in Flakestown. Closing her eyes to feel the wind blowing her hair, she felt like her decision to come to that place was the best decision ever. Still there, living on her own after about a year since she arrived in that country, Britain, to further her studies after all the hassle trying to get there. In that hassle, she had to deal with her father’s condition of being alcoholic, something that was not an everyday situation or problem that most of her friends had. Dealing with a father that had left her and her mother along with four other siblings was not easy in such a condition. Her father, Rahim, left them even before she was born, but had often been coming back to them within 2 years before his death. She could remember him very well – he came to them when they were done having dinner at home, where she was the one who opened the door after hearing the doorbell rang, thinking it was her older brother who was not there at that moment who always went out at night. There stood at the door a man in his forties whom she did not recognise, someone who looked like a homeless man who had not cleaned up himself for a long while. However, looking at the man, she had a funny feeling inside, leaving her speechless for a moment.

“Who’s at the door –” Sarah’s mother appeared from behind. She stood as if in shock at what she was seeing at that time, not moving an inch, looking at the man at the door. Sarah took a glimpse at her mother and shrugged. “I don’t know who he is…”

The man was about to reach his hand out to them before he fainted right away at the door, falling right in front of his daughter’s feet. While Sarah was starting to panic at the situation, her mother clung to the opened door with tears starting to flow down her cheeks. Hearing the strange commotion, Sarah’s two other sisters came about to look at what was happening.

“Mama, what happened? Who is this?” Farah went over to get to her mother who was beginning to become unstable. “What’s wrong??” She looked at Sarah who only looked back, blurred and startled as her other younger sister went to call for help. Their mother, Nadiah kept crying as she moved closer to the man fallen at the door, trying to get a hold of his apparently weak right hand. “Your father…” She looked at the man in disbelief and closed her eyes, as tears keep rolling down.

Opening her eyes, Sarah felt a warm feeling deep inside. That was a moment that she could not forget, to know the man she had not seen for years come back to them in such a condition. The man she had always wondered whether he was dead or alive. The man she never got to know, at times she felt curious of what kind of person he was like. The man she grew to hate for leaving her family and leaving all the burden to her mother. Nadiah was overwhelmed by his comeback although she was very hurt and angry by his act of leaving and abandoning her and his children before. Despite of his wrongdoings, she was able to forgive him – much to her children’s dismay. Because some of her children could not accept him, he was not allowed to stay in their home, which was understood by Nadiah. Being the youngest child, Sarah – although hated her father at first – came to love him when she tried to get to know him better. Her dad once cried as they were both having a simple conversation with each other. He took the step to leave them and never came back till then, and he eventually began regretting his faults. So he turned to alcohol which at first was just a once-in-a-lifetime plan, turned to be a lifetime of disaster.

Love you, dad…even for all that you ever did…

She closed her eyes again…

Splat! Something hit her face. It felt cold and watery…

“You there at the window! Come out here, hurry up, we’re late already! We had a date to go to, remember? You’re the one that set all of it up anyway!”

Ouch. That voice is so loud is hurts.

Sarah knew the voice all too well. There was a wet cloth, possibly soaked in some melted ice or cold water, thrown to her face earlier that later fell down to the floor. She turned, with raised eyebrows and a frown, to look down on Nisa down the building who was practically yelling at her. “Hey! You hear –”

“Yea, yea, I hear you already. Wait up.” Sarah picked up the cloth and threw it back out to Nisa, obviously mad. She moved away from the window and grabbed for her towel for a bath.

Date?It’s just some work that needs to be done. Okay, no need to throw me something like that right in the face. Sarah snorted, thinking of a plan of some way to sort of kill her later.

Down the building, Nisa, who managed to catch the rolled, thrown cloth that then looked like a really bad yarn product, looked on at the window with a smile.

"Cool," she said to herself.

001

"Why are you smiling like that?"

Nisa stared at the therapist with quite a silly smile locked on her face.

"All right, Nisa, now here me out. Why are you afraid?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Afraid? Kelly, why are you saying so?"

Kelly sat up straight with a serious look in her eyes. The young, pretty lady with hair and a pair of hazel eyes now did not look as cheerful as she had always been. "Why do you think, I'm here, talking to you then?"

Why? How would I know that. Why do you keep appearing anyway?

Looking up to the ceiling, Nisa let out a big sigh, still with a smiley. "I never wanted to talk to you in the first place. Somehow you keep appearing in my life. It used to be someone else that appears in my life, talking to me like this, asking that question of why I keep smiling... it's my choice to smile, so be it. It used to be some other feeling, some kind of other problem that I could take. No case has ever been this serious before... 'cause you keep appearing in my life asking these stupid questions!"

Suddenly another voice interrupted.

"Nis, who are you talking to?"

Right next to the door, there stood another woman with long, curly black hair, holding a bottle of mineral water and a plate of fish and chips to be served for Nisa. A long-time best friend, Sarah had come in to snap Nisa out of her 'own world'. Image of Kelly had then disappeared as Nisa turned to look at Sarah, with a smile that had started to fade out. "Hey.. Sarah."

Sarah walked over and sat next to her in that living room, putting the bottle and plate on the coffee table. She, too, had a serious look on her face. "Are you okay?"

Are you okay?

Such a phrase, supposedly words spoken out in a gentle way to help out a friend. Nisa looked at Sarah, grinning again, but this time tears were starting to flood her eyes. She appreciated those words so much, she knew how much her friend cared about her, but she just could not respond to it. She felt trapped in her world. She could not say a thing, even though she felt like she had thousands of things to talk about, to let go of what she felt inside.

"Nah. I'm fine." She looked down to the floor with a chuckle.

"Really? I don't think so, miss. Come on now, what's wrong?"

She knew she was starting to make Sarah more worried, and it might get worse if the tears in her eyes actually came streaming out. At that moment, she knew that if she began crying, she might get out of control somehow. A deep sad feeling that she just could not contain once it was blurted out - a feeling of which she would rather die than to feel it.

As for all the years before, she had always managed to hide it. If I could avoid it, I might as well feel better soon. Everything will be okay. Daijoubu desu!

Of which, daijoubu meant that everything would be okay, in Japanese.

Nisa took a deep breath, widened her eyes a bit, looking up to the ceiling again before closing them. It was a few seconds later that she turned to face Sarah, smiling, with tears that she tried so hard to 'take back in' and hold them from spilling out.

"Seriously... I got so bored I talked to the wall." Nisa laughed at herself. "Been having the blues or something, I guess... but you know me anyway. Doing weird stuff all the time."

"Haha, that's really funny," Sarah snorted, "Seriously, won't you talk to me?"

Few lines of wrinkles sort of appeared on Nisa's forehead. "Come on now, I'm fine really. You know I have been up all night doing pretty much nothing with my computer. I got so sleepy now but even with these yawns making my eyes watery, I refuse to sleep. And your wall is so beautiful I love chatting with it." Nisa lay her arms around Sarah's shoulders, patting her hard from the back as she laughed again. With the hard pats, Sarah almost choked - well, she acted like she would.

"Ouch! You know, you always hit me hard like that! It hurts!" Sarah looked like she could fall off the sofa they were both sitting on. Nisa was still laughing at her, the person she had come to know for more than three years at the time. "Well then, you know me. Haha..." Sarah smiled as if forced to, trying to rub her back with her left hand. "That hurt. Moron." Then she hit her back - they were then both hitting and laughing at each other, breaking the silence in the house that Sarah rented on that windy Saturday evening.

Laughter. I love it everytime. Sorry, friend...

"HEY! Now that's over acting!" Yelling out, Nisa took the pillow that was down on the floor. "Watch out!!"

With that, Sarah got up and sped fast into the bathroom before Nisa could have the chance to hit her with the pillow. "Ya won't get me in here!"

"Haha..." Nisa snorted. "With you in there, it will stink later anyway. I might as well stay away," she said, joking. "I'll throw your pillow away!"

"Yeah sure!"

Nisa returned to the red sofa in the living room, putting the pillow next to the fish and chips.

I am a moron, after all. Scared of telling my problems. Scared of showing my true emotions. Scared of telling the truth. Maybe, scared of having a friend or even a companion.

She lay on the sofa looking up again. "Ni-sa no baka."

000

hey all..

i had a hobby of writing when i was a kid, something i left out many years ago. i got exhausted very easily writing with my hand, hehehe, which was supposedly why i gave up to write as i got kinda lazy with it.

now i figured, i got time, so, why not go on with it? hehe =D

feel free to comment, positive or negative, or even give suggestions!

-ifyani-