HEALING (bxb)

Chapter 9 - Embarrassment

(Wayo)

“Why the fuck you have taken so long to pick us up here? We’ve been here waiting for fucking hours!”

Our morning will surely not go well today as Kit started lecturing Ai’Ming who is guiltily seated at the driver’s seat, reflecting his ashamed face on the rearview mirror.

He is supposed to fetch Kit and me in our dorm building at exactly seven in the morning but it took him one hour to arrive. Ming explained that he unintentionally forgot that his SUV needs repairing so he had to make sure to have it fixed first.

Kit is very adamant to Ming’s reason by rebutting that a heads up call would have made a difference which never occurred to my friend’s mind. He said that he was too preoccupied with worry that the repair is taking too long than the usual. His intention is not to keep us waiting but he just dug his own grave.

In spite of the ruckus between them, I just silently sit and listen at the back of the car, waiting for them to finish their senseless argument. Had not for my presence, Kit could have jumped and strangled his lover to death. My guilty instinct should have been bugging me to stop the two but I’m enjoying the show. It is on a very few moments I have got to watch Ai’Ming losing himself to a cute and small guy like Kit.

Anyway, I know Ming for god knows how long so I kind of expected he will be late, hence, my inaction. Plus, Kit did not bother that it took me some time to get out my room to prepare myself up for this trip we’re about to do.

One week before the reopening of classes, the three of us decided to spend some time outside the four walls of our dorm units. I have transferred to my own place after I acquired the official student number last week though. My family had visited me either to give their traditional final blessing although it was unnecessary and some rules I should keep on my head on the course of my stay. Little did they know I have created trouble already after leaving our house like losing an important document.

It was dad who insists I should never try drugs, alcohol, and crazy weekend parties.  As if I can do such thing. They told me to stick only with Ai’Ming despite the distance of our building; and the type of people I should not keep as a company. Hot chicks, nerd freaks who are loners, campus heartthrob, gangsters, weird people, bullies, and social climbers are the categories they have enumerated. Basically and technically speaking, they should have stated I stay away from all forms of a breathing organism since a place like school is where you’ll meet people from all walks of life.

Before we meet the shitloads of academics and stressful university life, a time to spend some relaxing activities would not be too much says Ming. We are barely aware that our time will be limited and consumed by school works starting next week. Even though I insisted we prepare ourselves for the classes, they are insistent about the ‘boring’ thing I only know.

I do not know the specific location the two has came up last time. We will be revisiting a luxurious resort in Jomtien beach and stay there for accommodation. They also have plans like trekking but I gladly refuse the idea, the activity is too strenuous for my physicality. No one wants to be injured at the first day of classes.

They just tag me along in actuality (and become a pathetic third wheel). They are not saying these things to me although impliedly that’s how I think I’ll serve my purpose for the trip.

Going back, the two seems to have calmed down since Kit’s head are leaning to Ming’s right shoulder now. The unaccomplished sleep I denied myself earlier has to be granted so I tuck the earphones in my ears as songs of the band Coldplay filled my surroundings. Their melancholic hymns are my happy pill. They send me to my inner thoughts without allowing me to get drown with monstrous voice. But by the way, I’m grateful that there are no panic attacks these days. Probably getting busy distracts me from thinking about the ‘fears’ in my head.