011

"You did come here with a smile," Rina said, grinning as she passed to Joey a plate of toasted bread with peanut butter spread. Joey, reaching out his right hand to take it did not smile nor did he frown, he just felt strange.

"I so didn't smile." He took the toast and ate it - seemingly hungry, or more properly to be said as starving, indeed.

"Yes you did, I saw you. It must've been hard to find my home." She smiled. "You also didn't say you were hungry, just thirsty."

He continued eating without saying a reply as she kept on smiling at him. He had earlier had 2 glasses of water before he ate the toast. Joey had put his backpack on the floor by his left foot, of which under it lay a beautiful red carpet that protected the marble floor from the dining table. All he got in the backpack was all he had to live with while being away from university for the moment. It was a pretty one-storey terrace house with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. She lived there with her other two siblings, an older brother and a younger sister. Her brother, Aman now was no longer living in the house as he had moved out to work in another state - she had no idea what he was currently working as. As for her sister, Aishah, being sixteen years old, she was put in a residential school in Yorkshire, full boarding, much to her disliking. They were not exactly wealthy people, but seemingly they were living comfortably in that home.

"You also need to wash up," Rina complained again, looking at his messy looks.

"I'm fine, thanks, I did wash up already today. I'm staying at a motel nearby, ok? I'm not that sloppy." He snorted, taking another sip of water with his left hand, not letting go of the toast at his right hand.

Rina laughed again. "Just teasing you. Come visit me here often for the moment, yup?"

Having eaten half of the toasted bread, Joey put it on the plate and looked at Rina. "How's things, then?"

Then he was already going into the topic of why he was even there at her home in the first place. It was a last minute plan, out of rush. Screw classes, lectures or anyone in East Sussex, he told no one. Left everyone without a word. He turned off his cell phone in case any of them decided to contact him as he did not want to be reached. He wanted to come to Rina's home alone, undisturbed, and help her. Until he did, he would not return or go let them meddle in between his business.

Rina looked down, her expression turned solemn. "My mom's called her lawyer and taken the first step, as I feared she would."

The conversation itself had got serious now. "I thought your dad disagreed with this?"

"He did, at first he really argued about it with her," her voice now sounded teary and unclear. "They both began arguing. It sounded so bad from inside of my room where I was, so close I could hear almost everything. There was a sound of something broken down..."

Before he came here, he already had the information that Rina's parents might have a divorce, which he got from Rina's emergency midnight call herself. Somehow it made him feel called to go over there to help her out, with it being a family matter, even with him having no plans at all or simply being, well, a simpleton. He just wanted to be there and help her out.

Joey was listening and looking at her so closely that he did not move one bit. He realised that she was starting to cry talking about what happened the night her parents decided for sure that they were going to have a divorce, and he did not know what to do to console her.

"...there was a moment of silence. A long one. It was after that that they knocked on my door and came in together and told me that they were going to separate from each other, and that's it. It was late, they thought I didn't hear a thing!"

"Rina," he spoke out as gently as he could. He took a deep breath and reached out for her hand.

Things back at home aren't too good for me to say anything nice to her here...

"Don't worry... thank you for being here." With her right hand, she held his left hand tight back.

I don't really know...


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The news she just heard seemed like the best news she just had since the past decade. Brian and Sarah could only smile for their classmate.

"Going home is excellent!" Nisa said with excitement. She took her clothes from the nurse with her biggest grin yet and went to the toilet, just near to her bed.

"Ah, gladly, this time you'd better not come back here, back on the hospital bed!" Sarah made her remark, yet again, like she had always been, almost like a caring sister. She acted that way almost to everybody.

Once out of sight, Brian spoke, "She still needs to be watched out for."

Sarah sat down on the hospital bedside with a worried face. "I know that. Even before all this, her attitude's been worrying."

"Joe's been missing too, for one thing." He leaned toward the back, straightening his body up as he was seated on the chair. "He hasn't been back for days now and he hasn't told me anything."

"We gotta find him." She looked at Brian, really concerned. "Nisa could really lose her mind."

Brian stopped to think at that. "He's got a girl already, you know?"

"Yeah..."

Sarah remembered how much her close friend cared about Joey. There were some things she knew about the both of them, they had been close for quite a time and at the moment, he never had any girlfriend yet. All three of them were studying at the same institution in Malaysia, of which Nisa and Joey both got there on scholarship while she got there privately.

However things seemed to have changed when their journey was about to come to an end there and when they were about to fly to the United Kingdom. Before she knew it, she found out from Nisa that he already had a new girlfriend. She knew no other details than that.

Don't blame. Let it all pass, all right Sarah? We'll all have fun there in Sussex, Sarah remembered Nisa once told her.

"...she just, worries bout him," Sarah told Brian.

He looked down and sighed. "Yup," he said while nodding his head. "He's still my buddy. I depend on him to wake me up at needy times."

As always, Brian would tell Joey to wake him up in the late night hours for him to continue doing his unfinished assignments, with Joey often being awake the whole night without sleeping, not until it was almost morning (which was the cause of him getting sleepy in classes and lectures).

"Your work's always unfinished these days, it seems," Sarah said, cynically.

Brian just smiled at that. "Yeah... but, he's running away, somehow," Brian stated, sounding devastated. "Have to say, kinda miss the guy."

The door of the toilet re-opened and Nisa appeared with her appearance seen last Saturday at the restaurant. "All set, sorry if it took so long."

Both of them got up, ready to leave.

"No problem with it. Off we go... let's get dinner," Sarah said happily. "This is my treat," she said, looking at Nisa. Brian raised his eyebrows.

"I get nothing for coming here, huh?"

"You're all healthy." She ignored him. "Let's go."

Nisa chuckled, "Whoops, sorry bout that. But I did miss my lunch with her that other day."

"Fine, whatever."

He followed the girls going out from the ward and closed the door behind him, and Nisa checked herself out.


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Messy, why do I look all messy?

The elevator doors opened. Pen walked out of it, somehow assured that something significant had already happened and he had missed it. He was now on Level 4, the level where Jennifer McKaustin was warded at. He slowly looked for his way, trying to find her room - he had been there so many times already.

As he opened the door, he saw Ethan standing by Jennifer and Jennifer's mother sitting by her, holding her hand. Jennifer is among her mother's 5 children, with her being the youngest daughter (4th child). Still, Jennifer had told him once that her mother was not close to her much, she was much closer to her father, who died five years ago.

Seeing her mother there, was a surprise, and was the first time there for him. He knew her as he had met her before.

Mrs McKaustin only looked upon Pen's face once he opened the door and showed his face there. Ethan seemed dumbfounded.

"What's your name again? Florida? Washington?" Mrs McKaustin glanced at Ethan, confused. "Some name of an American state."

Pen laughed. "Funny.. joke, ma'am." He walked in and closed the door. "Pennsylvania. Just remember me as Pen. I'm a Canadian, though."

Both Ethan and Mrs McKaustin laughed.

"Well I've always thought that's unique," she exclaimed.

Pen glared at Ethan. "You're not working today?"

"Well..." the fiance of Jennifer seemingly stuttered. "I got an emergency call from here." Ethan was still dressed formally with his office attire.

I knew I had a weird feeling...

"Pen, Jennifer woke up about an hour ago or so," Jennifer's mother explained, looking full of hope in her eyes.

"We're now waiting for the doctor to come, then only I can go back to work," Ethan continued.

Pen approached the bed to look closer at Jennifer. "How is she now, then?"

"She's fine... she's asleep, and will get up again anytime soon to talk to us," Mrs McKaustin said confidently. "But Pen, don't you have any class today?"

Huh?

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.

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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."

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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?"