Reflections [Complete]

Chapter 11

We sat pretty much in silence throughout the short drive except when he gave me the directions to his real address. Oh, and the one other sentence he decided to say to me.

"I am really sorry about lying to you about where I live."

That's it. He didn't even attempt an excuse or an explanation. And perhaps I was freshly soaked into my guilt of making him go through a panic attack, but right now I didn't really care about his lying. He had never asked to get noticed. In fact he had tried pretty hard to not be the center of attention. But for some inexplicable reason I was obsessed with the man. I think it's high time I just accept that's my issue and not his fault and move on. We may reach a day where he might stop feeling the need to lie to me or I may have finally reached my limit where I stop bothering him or his life. But for now I wanted things to go back to the way they were before I started doubting his every smile or his every attempt at a normal conversation. Now I simply needed to figure out how to reverse my actions for the past week, but it seems for once Kong and I were on a fairly similar train of thought cause as soon I pulled up in front of his building he spoke up.

"Ummm, do you want to come up? I ...uh...wanted to give you something."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure."

Did he really think I would refuse? As if I was capable of refusing even the tiniest glimpse Kong would allow me into his life. Even the week when I was determined to erase all signs of him from my conscious I had spent thinking about him constantly. But to say I was shocked when I stepped into his tiny apartment would be a massive understatement.

He was really not kidding when he had described his apartment to me when we were trapped in the office during the storm. Both about how small the room was, or about how much he liked, scratch that, loved plants. There were dozens of pots, in various shapes and sizes, aesthetically placed all around his room. And I can just assume there were tons more in the balcony. It looked like a tiny greenhouse, the only things missing were some bees or butterflies fluttering about.

And that wasn't the only thing that caught me off guard. It was literally everything else. This was not the room I had every expected to walk in when I imagined Kong's living space. I had always assumed his apartment would pretty much be an extension to his bland dressing and under-toned personality. But this was....this was his polar opposite. The most anti-Kong one could imagine.

There was just so much color everywhere. Bright colorful bedsheets, posters of popular bands on the walls, refrigerator door filled with pictures of him and his friends, sticky notes and post cards haphazardly stuck around his desk, a guitar in the corner of his room, a fairly large shelf with all sorts of books and comics and video games. You get my drift.

This was the room of a normal young man. Normal. One that Kong simply wasn't.

But even in his all his brown glory he did not at all look out of place. In fact he was very comfortable in this environment. A place that I would have seriously doubted he would ever be a part of. It seemed so surreal watching him and his apartment mesh together. Like two essentially different worlds trying to integrate. Almost as if Kong had two distinct personalities at war with each other, and at different scenarios one of the them would emerge victorious. So while what the rest of the world experienced the subdued version, there was a vibrant, alive, full of color Kong trapped right in this room.

"Do you want to eat something?"

"Uh...huh?"

I was having a very hard time orienting my thoughts with the massive shock I had just gotten. Would Kong ever cease to throw unexpected surprises my way?

"I was asking if you want to eat something Arthit. You missed dinner because of me."

"Oh, yeah. Sure. No, wait. Did you make it?"