Just A Week More Than A Fortnight.

DAY 06, WEEK 01

DAY 06, WEEK 01

The clock struck twelve, Tai Ann found me at the park.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, I sat down on an all too familiar bench.

"The question is what are you doing here?"

I rolled my eyes at him and just looked away.

"I'm here because you're here."

"I'm here because I want to be."

"Did you feel uncomfortable back there?"

"Karry did not mean to." I dodged his question.

"What?"

"Karry did not mean to make you feel that way."

"I know. I don't blame him. I know it was just me. I was just too, insecure or actually I just felt too weak." He paused for a moment and looked down at both his hands for a while, he then looked up at me, "I'm better now. Stronger, strong enough."

"Strong enough for what?" I shouldn't have asked.

"Strong enough to get and keep what's mine."

I did not have to be smart to know what he was going to say with my next question: What is yours? What do you want? Which was why I did not ask him. I just kept quiet.

"I'm going home now."

"Is it because of Suzy?" He asked and I froze.

"It is isn't it?" He continued and I sat back down.

"You felt like a third wheel between those two when the real couple was you and him? You should get used to that. He makes people feel that way. He makes people feel like they're just an extension. Karry does that."

I clenched my fist. He knows nothing about Karry. But on the other hand, do I? I only knew the Karry in front of the camera, I just met the Karry behind the scenes. I was his fan, it was only natural that he would only show a part of himself to me. Did I know him? Did I know the Karry Wang Jun Kai without the camera and the fame and the fans or the image of an idol.

"And you know him?" I asked.

"Of course I do. He was my best friend. My best friend."

He looked like he was hurt, stabbed a hundred times maybe. He just held his hands firmly together and tightened it. He turned to look at me and stared into my eyes. I stared back at him.

What if the Karry I saw that night with the jealousy was the real Karry? What if the real Karry was not the kind one, or the playful one, or the loving one? What if the real Karry was the kind one and the playful one and the loving one and the jealous one and most importantly, the mischievous one?

"He doesn't know he makes people feel that way." That sentence slapped me back to life.

"That's what's mean about him. He shines so bright no one can out-shine him, we can only be a shadow or at our best, the object."

"I gotta go."

I left. I heard pacing in the room beneath me. I was on the roof again. I sat cross-legged on the roof and was just listening to him walk around his room, nibbling on his thumb in the meanwhile. The clock struck three. He was home since 12.30 am. He waited for me for 2 and a half hours.

"Are you up there?" He constantly asked every thirty or so steps.

"Are you up there?" He asked for the tenth time.

He groaned and after the fifteenth time, he got so frustrated he screamed and threw all his books on the floor. A few minutes later a knock on the door was heard.