🐯-Samuel

“Kumar! What’s up, asshole?” I screamed as I ran towards the bench that he was seated on in the eco-garden.

I stopped in my tracks when I saw what was scattered beside him. Glitter glue? Neon pens? Did he steal those from Janice’s room? Paper cut-outs lied on the ground like fallen leaves.

“Uh, Kumar? What are you doing?” I asked.

He shrieked and jolted upwards, sending bits of paper flying into the air. I looked at each piece. BBQ stingray? Written in silver pen against the pink cardstock was `hello, mortal`, complete with a badly drawn smiley face.

“Fuck lah, bro! Can you not scare me like that next time?” he asked before he wrapped me into a hug.

Feeling his tight biceps against my shoulders was a reminder for me to hit the gym soon and turn those four-packs into six-packs. I sat beside him and helped to pick up all the things that he dropped.

“Sorry, lah. You looked damn intense though. Your mortal is some pretty girl, is it?” I teased, nudging him with my elbow.

He turned to face me with wide eyes, as though they held flashbacks to the time when we sent him to the UNO shadow realm. I glanced upwards, wondering what this could mean.

“I didn’t get a girl. I got the girl. The French-Aussie girl. Éclair Dubois,” he said.

I shrugged my shoulders. Why was he making such a big deal out of this? She is just a girl after all. Why go through the effort of rummaging through his sister’s stuff just for her?

“Okay. She managed to get into SJ through AEP alone. That means her art skills must be damn good. I have to make an effort, what!” he said.

I somehow found myself sighing in relief knowing that he had not succumbed to white worship. He applied some glue to the back of the stingray photo and pasted it onto the cardstock.

“Don’t put too much effort into this, okay? You still got another seven rounds of angel and mortal to go with your group! Oh, and later got the dance try-outs, right? Good luck, bro,” I said.

Kumar dropped everything he was doing and smacked his hand against his forehead.

“Alamak, you’re right leh,” he said.

“You sure you’re okay going back to dancing? You haven’t danced since that incident,” I said.

Kumar packed his things into his pencil case and messenger bag. He brushed away a stray lock of hair away from his face and loosened his tense posture.

“Well, we are in a co-ed school now, so I don’t think they’ll have a problem with me here. What about you? You sure you can run for council with that discipline record of yours?” he asked back.

And I ended up clicking my tongue. Funny how dance and discipline record became intertwined, eh?

“Hey, hey. It wasn’t recorded, remember? They gave me a choice. Caning without record, or no caning with record, so I went with the former. I’ll be fine,” I assured Kumar.

He placed his strong hand on my shoulder, towering over me and inhaled a deep breath. How many times must I tell him that he was not responsible for what happened to me?

“But Sam, people will talk. So many of our former schoolmates are here with us. I don’t want to see you getting hurt because of me again,” he said.

“I’ll never know if I don’t try, right? It’s a risk I’m willing to take,”’ I said.

He patted me on the back again. Though we weren’t wearing those clapped Cat High shorts anymore, somehow it felt like we had never left those unholy grounds. He put his bag over his shoulder and wished me luck for the application.

“By the way, now that the other Jason went to RJ, can I call you Jason again?” I asked before he made his way for his trial lecture venue.

“Aiyah. I know you’ll still call me Kumar anyway,” he said before saluting me off.

☕️-Kumar

Why was I being so nervous over something I had been doing almost all my life? Was Sam right? That there was still that emotional baggage on my shoulders? I stretched my calves on the bench, reaching out for my toes as I warmed myself up for the try-outs. No. Would they even accept me to begin with? Would they deem my style to be a bit too classical? Or would I just be very rusty?

“Kumar? I didn’t know you were auditioning for dance too!”’ came a very thick but sweet Aussie accent.

I jolted up when I saw her golden curls blocking my view of the science labs before us. Thank God my muscles never strained, sia! I sat back up, posture as straight as ever and let Éclair sit beside me.

How many levels of awkwardness had this encounter peaked already? How was I supposed to act natural in front of my damned mortal? What would Sam do in such a situation?

“Actually, I’m kind of nervous. I haven’t danced in a long time,” I admitted, playing around with my curls for a bit.

“I haven’t even danced my entire life. I don’t even know what to do for this audition,” said Éclair as she hugged her messenger bag.

Ah, yes. I remembered those jittery feelings to the first time I stepped into that dance studio, dressed in my PE shorts and shirt and being one of only four boys in there. But that private tutoring made it all the more awesome.

“Well, the first time I danced, I was just as nervous as you. But unlike you, I was actually told what to do,” I said.

Well, shit. That probably wasn’t going to help her. If anything, judging from the way she bit her lip, I might have made it even worse. I frowned and wondered what else could ease her nervousness from an experienced dancer to a new one.

“When you go in, if you don’t know what to do, just dance what you feel for the past week. Everything you felt that you bottled up, just release it. Your body will know what to do,” I told her.

She looked at me with perplexed emerald eyes, making her sort of resemble a bug with their largeness, but I thought it was cute. She repeated that last sentence that I told her.

“Okay. Let me try that again. Why do you want to join dance?” I asked.

Wah. At this rate, I would probably appear in the fucking collection of men who make everything worse for women. Was I intimidating her too much? Could she handle the harshness of being a dancer?

“I’ve always been expressing myself through painting, but never through my own body. So, I want to challenge myself,” she said.

I nodded my head. Seemed like a legit reason. I looked at the people surrounding us. Part of me was hoping that the sheer volume of people trying out for dance didn’t come because of K-Pop. But that was an unhealthy way to think.

“What about you? What got you into dancing? I haven’t met a single boy in my life who’s into dance,” said Éclair.

Before I could even answer her though, a senior from the club stepped out of the room and called my name out.

“Jason Jayakumar Nazareth? Please come in,” she said.

I bowed my head down at Éclair. She wished me a simply good luck to which I replied with a simple thumb up.

The aircon stung my dusky skin. Seeing the mirrors for walls flooded me with memories of the first time I did a plie. The instructors for the dance club and student exco were lined up in a neat row of tables.

“What will you be presenting to us for today, Jason?” they asked as I browsed for my chosen song for the audition.

“Nutcracker Suite.”

Cue the surprised faces and murmurs within the judging panel. I pressed the play button and let my body do the talking from then on, realising how familiar yet unfamiliar the wooden floor had become to my bare feet.

🐼-Albert

The first and last lecture for H2 Literature came to an end. Why first and last? Because everything would be seminar style from now on. Not only that, I was going to take ELL anyway. Great job, Alb. Now you have to prepare for every class that you take, except for the H2 Math lectures.

But now was my chance to fulfil this specific mission. My chance to give him the surprise of the year. I bid goodbye to my TSD friends and rushed straight to the lobby area outside the LT, my eyes targeting the many heads that walked out trying to find a boy wearing a red hoodie with a gigantic Mickey Mouse print in the front.

As he walked past me, I brought my hands over his shoulders. He shrieked, sending some eyes darting towards us but I did not care. He turned around and as soon as he saw me, he let out a piercing squeal of excitement as he hugged me tight.

“Albee! Why didn’t you tell me you were here at SJC too?” asked Minori with a single breath.

“I wanted to surprise you!” I said.

And we hugged each other again, hands pressing tight into our ribcages. I could have sworn that Nori was shedding some happy tears, what with the right sleeve of my uniform turning damp.

“I knew you were here! How do you find the books?” I asked as I brought my arm over his shoulder.

Despite our white shirts and navy trousers, just being able to be beside Nori was enough to make me feel like I was in VS again. It was great to have another familiar face too. Or maybe…he wasn’t the only one.

“I don’t know. I’m so nervous since I’ve never done Lit before. Hey! Remember back in VS when I always said you were damn brave to do it! Wah! I couldn’t image myself doing it back then,” he said, pushing me towards the left in the playful bounce that we always did with each other.

“Aiyah. You might have an even bigger advantage than me since you’re starting from scratch. By the way, what are you up to after Math?” I asked.

He fiddled with his necklace and muttered a soft ‘ano’. Then, his eyes lit up. “Since we hardly get out of the east, I’m planning to explore Ang Mo Kio and Serangoon a bit. Want to come with me?” he asked, his ever-big eyes sparkling with that same curiosity and excitement.

Before I could even utter an enthusiastic ‘hell yes’, I remembered that I had to attend the Theatre Studies welcome session. My body slumped at the thought that this was what I signed up for – that part of the unholy contract would involve spending less time with Nori.

“What is it?” asked Nori, his chirpy voice drooping with my posture.

“Well, I sold my soul to the stage. Gotta go for my first TSD session,” I said.

He let go of my grip before drawing me into another tight hug while he repeated ‘congratulations’ over and over again.

“I know how badly you wanted this. I’m so happy for you!” he said without a hint of irony.

But when our eyes met again, I could see that sadness. I shared it with him as we did with our conversations on the breakwater at East Coast, our spying missions on TKGS and CHIJ girls (which were evidently never successful on his part), our birthday parties and so on.

“Hey, we’ll still see each other on campus a lot, okay? It’ll be just like in VS,” I tried to assure him, although I knew I could not believe in my own words.

He nodded his head with a weak ‘mhm’ before extending his curled fists for our secret handshake. We bumped our knuckles and wiggled our fingers as we released.

“Wanna head for lunch? Let’s go to the café,” I suggested.

“Sure thing! Nori hungry!” he said.

And with that familiar phrase, I gave a soft smile. Some things never changed at all.

🎼-Dae-hyun

And there she was again, sitting on that stool under the dancing lights. Her head was hung low and droplets of sweat dripped from her dishevelled dirty blonde bangs. She was silent, save for that whimper that came out from her throat every now and then.

“Uhm, sorry, but can I play?” I asked, trying my best to speak in a hushed voice.

I adjusted my beanie and tried to think of any possible follow-up to this. The last thing I wanted was to be known as Rhee Dae-hyun: Jerk of Semangat Junior College. She looked up at me, apologised in the tiniest voice and stood up from the bench.

Still though, this doesn’t feel right. I had stolen a very private moment from her after all. She bent down, took her tote bag, and proceeded to walk away.

“Wait. What’s wrong? Did something happen?” I asked.

She paused in her tracks and turned to make direct eye contact with me. They were puffy from all that crying, but still shimmering under the bouncing sunlight.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” she said.

I folded my arms, calling bullshit on that answer. I sat on the edge of the stool instead, patting the empty area beside me so that she could sit beside me and spill it all out.

“Okay. Just some problems at home, I guess,” she said.

Problems at home. I clicked my tongue, wondering whether it was the truth or a means for her to push me away. Guess she didn’t need my assistance. Thank goodness. I was the worst possible guru out there.

“Take care then, okay?” I requested.

She nodded her head and walked off from there. Once she was out of sight, I caressed the fallboard, only to draw my hand back at just how hot it had become from standing under the sun for so long.

I lifted it up and saw the same keys that I grew to love. Only except, I couldn’t think of what to play. Clair de Lune? Too conventional. Too melancholy. After seeing her crying alone in this space, I wanted to spice things up a bit.

I took out some sheet music from my backpack. Seeing my scribbles on the bars made me cringe. Did I really write these notes on my composition? I settled the disarrayed file on the sheet stand, placed both hands on the keys, and let my own voice fill this domed room.