🚲-Yu-chi

No longer clad in all-white, I was decked out in all-beige. I was grateful that my tanned skin made sure that I didn’t look completely naked compared to my fair-skinned classmates strolling into the hall. He told me that when he put his new uniform on, he started a new life.

What new life? I put on this beige uniform, I’m still Huang Yu-chi. I sat there by the side, my copy of A Thousand Moons on a Thousand Rivers in hand while my orientation groupmates exchanged the usual greetings.

“Wah. Your Angel so rich until he can give you a voucher? Wah sia! I want also, leh,” said a person behind me.

Just focus on the text, Yu-chi. Right. Speaking of text, I took out my handphone and looked at the subject combination that I was assigned to. Thank goodness I got CLL. Unfortunately, the teacher had not uploaded the syllabus yet.

“Are you sure we’re just going to keep leaving him out?” whispered Tanya.

I knew very well who they were referring to, even though the swimming hanzi stared back at me instead.

“You sure or not? He’s an ex-gangster,” said Ryan out loud, as though he expected me to snap my book shut, stand up and engage in a fighting stance to prove his point.

Gan lah. Let them say what they want to say. I have Kenny. He is enough. As I flipped to the next page, the scars on my knuckles stared back at me. Forget Ryan. That was enough to remind me of the strange status that I held here.

During lunch, the only entity making eye contact with me was the bian mee that I ordered. Voices of all sorts surrounded me. Other students clad in the same beige uniform wisped past, their shadows following them on the tiled floor. Yet, that realisation sank in. It was just me and the bian mee. Yu-wen was no longer there beside me.

I rose up and left, finding it weird that it was just me taking up a table meant for about six to eight people. Yeah, that was unlikely to help my already sullied reputation.

I found myself seated at the edge of the canteen, but at least that fetched a view of the surrounding neighbourhood. Just another MRT stop away, I wondered what Kenny was doing. Probably having fun with his new friends, I guessed. I ended up breaking into a chuckle, laughing at the irony of my dual life and how different the life I lived last week was from the one I was living now.

Everyone needed their own downtimes, I guessed. The wind hit my face, bringing with it the overly familiar humidity that never changed no matter where I was. I closed my eyes, and just let it play with my thick hair for once.

🎼-Dae-hyun

My feet made a mad shuffle for the unused grand piano. My fingers scampered over the edges of the fallboard before I lifted it up. When the ivory keys met my eyes, I was certain that I managed to successfully choped it. I placed my feet on the pedals and let my fingers tickle the keys.

No sheet music? Who cares? I was going to wing my own original composition anyway. I called it Lightning Strikes. Let this be the thunder that would consume the campus during lunch hour.

Then again, they always said that lightning came before thunder. Just as I was about to get to the fortissimo, her petite figure greeted me on the other side of the grand piano. And the music came to a sudden stop.

“What is it?” I asked as I poked my head out.

She had her left arm over her right, her green eyes facing her shoes. Well, at least the SJC uniform made her look much more mature compared to her previous sailor uniform garb. Alamak. What was I thinking?

I scooted closer towards the edge of the stool, letting her sit beside me. She pointed at herself with her thumb, ascertaining again if I was willing to let her join me. I nodded.

“Dae-hyun, I know we don’t talk much but something has been bothering me lately,” she said.

I wanted so badly to glance at the stained-glass window above us and scoff. Me? A guru? “I think you’ve come to the wrong place. Look, I’m not the best person when it comes to empathy. You know, lone wolf and all,” I clarified with her.

“It’s okay if you just hear me out,” she said.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

Her back faced the keys and she leant a bit, letting the dancing lights entice her almond-shaped eyes. Then, she closed them and inhaled a deep breath.

“If someone asked you to hurt others when the lives of your loved ones are on the line, would you do it?” she asked.

Was I in a young adult fantasy novel or something? What a strange question to be asking! I leant back and more or less shifted my attention to the way the splotches of light bounced off the white-washed walls.

“Are you taking KI or something? That sounds like something those KI kids would discuss, and frankly speaking lah, all this talk on ethics drive me nuts. Like, walau eh. You do something, there’s a consequence. No matter what you do, someone’s bound to get hurt. I don’t believe that anything is truly mutually beneficial,” I said.

Then, I gulped when I realised that I was starting to sound exactly like those KI kids. Okay, Dae-hyun. Stop tempting fate. But why would someone ask Éclair to hurt others? My pupils started to dilate. This was bad. Really bad.

“Is…is someone threatening you? Look, I don’t know why you’d need to work for a loanshark but you have to report this right away. It’s not right for people to ask you to hurt others,” I said as I straightened my back and looked straight into her eyes.

She turned away from me and shook her head. With that, she rose to her feet, ready to flee and walk away. I grabbed her by the wrist as my mind swirled with all the other possibilities that she could be facing. What if this was a scumbag parent?

“Look, whoever it is that’s asking you to hurt others – you have to tell them it’s not right. Cut off contact with them. Or report them to the police,” I told her.

She pulled my hand away and sighed.

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you about it. I don’t expect you to understand anyway,” she said before walking away.

I shrugged my shoulders. If she didn’t expect me to understand, talk to me about it for what? Welp. The moment I planted my fingers on the key again, I found that I was playing the notes right. But something was off. What was it?

☕️-Kumar

“Wah, I’ve never seen your room this clean before,” said Amma as she walked in.

I landed straight on my bum, having lost my balance from that failed plie. Her eyes widened when she saw me sprawled beside my bed, clad in just my PE shirts. She extended her hand and pulled me up, groaning about how heavy I was as usual.

“Then you pull me up for what?” I argued back.

She adjusted her spectacles and let her tight bun loose. She stood in the middle of the room and marvelled at how much space she had to walk around.

“Kumar, are you planning on doing ballet again?” she asked with a smile.

I glanced towards the side, letting my tightly contorted body do the talking. With that, she brought me into a tight hug. Well, at least I wasn’t the one squishing her to death with my muscles.

Then, Badass’ sweet barking sounded louder in the second floor of our maisonette unit. She leapt straight towards me, licking my face. Then, Janice stood by the doorway, coiling up the leash.

“Tomorrow, you’re on Badass-walking duty. Don’t care what time you come back!” she said with a peace sign before disappearing back downstairs.

“Jace, Jan, what pizza flavour do you want?” called Appa from downstairs.

“Hawaiian!” Janice screamed.

I brought Badass into my arms and headed downstairs, trailing behind Amma. Appa already had the Domino’s website booted up on his laptop screen, right beside his Outlook window. Man, it was already 7pm. Why was he still working?

“I’ll take the Classified Chicken!” I said.

I released Badass and watched as she scampered right towards her water bowl. We all huddled around the sofa, watching as Appa keyed in our choices. When he was done, he clapped his hands, and somehow, all of us cheered.

Looking around my somewhat cramped living room, it was so rare to have all four of us at home at the same time. Janice sunk into the sofa, taking off her sweaty dri-fit shirt and just lounged in her sports bra. My parents were still clad in their office attire, but I guessed their heavy eyebags meant they had greater priorities than just changing clothes.

“So, Kumar! You’re getting your class tonight! Managed to get the subjects you wanted?” asked Appa as he patted Badass’ head.

“Ah. Thanks for reminding me. I haven’t checked yet,” I said, taking out my handphone and logging into the school’s online portal.

My O Level results stared back at me on my personal particulars page. I had yet to upload a photo of myself. Well, at least my hairy legs would no longer be poking out of those awkward green shorts that made me look like an overgrown kindergartener.

“Fuck yeah! I got into Dance – Professional Squad!” I said, pumping my fist in the air.

I could hear Appa almost spitting his water out of his mouth. He cleared his throat and faced me; his deep-set eyes droopy. And my arm just limped back to my sides.

“You sure you’ll be okay this time? I don’t want people to bully you again because of your hobby,” he said.

“Hey, Sam got into council. Well, the first stage, lah. He wants to implement stricter bullying rules so that he won’t have to fill in the gaps by himself,” I said, though I could feel the corners of my mouth drooping as I said that.

“What?! Sam managed to get past the interview round?! Not bad, sia,” said Janice, though the murmurings of my parents followed closely after.

Then, I looked at the subject combination that was assigned to me. I shouldn’t have pumped my fists earlier. This was a bad ‘fuck no’.

🐼-Albert

The screen of my MacBook Air stood still as my jaw was left hanging upon looking at the flood of unread messages in my school email account. There was something from my KI teacher. Ah, right. That scary Malay man who administered the placement test. But the email that I was looking forward to the most was from my Civics Tutor.

“A warm welcome to 11A09,” I read out loud.

Then, I logged back into the student portal just to see the full class list. I wondered where Minori went. CTRL+F was my friend. I smiled too upon knowing that our subject combinations and assigned CCAs were made available to everyone as well.

My own details stared back at me. Albert Lau Ka Wai. 11A09. H2 Theatre Studies and Drama, Knowledge and Inquiry, Mathematics, and English Language & Linguistics. Drama Society. Somehow though, I pursed my lips knowing that half of my fellow TSD mates were all following me into Drama.

Speak of the devil. A Facebook message from Minori arrived. He sent me an emoji with a worried face.

M: Okay, alb. You and the other boys get the last laugh.

A: Wah. What happened, bro?

M: Guess who’s the only boy in class now?

And I burst into a peal of laughter, letting it bounce across every wall in my room. Sofian and Zach would be proud. I brought my hands together, amused yet worried for poor Minori. I looked his name up in each class. I found him in 11S24.

A: Bro, no wonder why you’re the only boy in class, lah! You’re in the lit class, right?! Somemore, you’re in biology

M: Oh. You have a point there…

Indeed. Everyone in his class was taking the standard Biology combination, but with Literature or KI instead of Economics. There were some PRC scholars who were obviously taking CLL. Some Malay girls. Oh man. This was ripe material to tease him with. Wait, no. Who was the other KI girl? Noraliah Nur Rahmat. I missed another one by the name of Jacqueline Loo. Man, Minori has no more excuses if he can’t score a girlfriend. He has 17 options now!

Screw that. Who were my KI classmates? I looked at the recipients of Mr Khai’s message. Only then did I realise that he gave us assigned readings for our first class tomorrow. I could have sworn that my eyeballs rolled out of their sockets at that moment.

A: Eh, sorry bro. Gotta go. First day of class kena assigned homework already. See you tomorrow for lunch?

M: No prob! Good luck and good night! :D

I opened the attached file and looked at it. Nice. He just had to assign us with Plato for the first reading. The next thing I knew, I was added into some Facebook group chat by some guy called Samuel Wong. No way. This was the guy who got called up for the mass dance forfeit, right?

Noraliah and Jacqueline got added to the group too. Before I could even introduce myself, Samuel was already typing away. I had no idea what was going on. I could just sit there, frozen on my chair as Sam started compiling an actual summary of Plato’s Myth of the Cave. Just for us.

He ended off the summary with a simple ‘you’re welcome’. The only thing I could do was to reply with a clapping emoji. No way. We just got the email from Mr Khai like 15 minutes ago. Unless of course, Sam has read the piece before.

“Kor-kor, I think it’s still better if you do the full readings. You don’t like to cheat, right?” said her voice.

I looked up at the photograph of the two of us back in Hong Kong Sea World, happy face plastered over our faces. She’s right. I downloaded the document anyway and decided to dissect it down to the T, even if it would take me all night. Better thank Sam for trying to help anyways.