You Had Me at Goodbye

The Neurosurgeon

Lisa freezes at the entrance of a local pub questioning all her life choices. She woke up earlier this morning in a good mood because she would have her very deserved good day off the next day and she was planning on spending every second of her very fine evening straightening her back on her comfortable bed at home after twisting her muscles around her aching bones standing in the OR all day long and only catching little sleeps in-between surgeries either on a chair or a rock-solid vacant patient-bed in quiet halls.

But an unexpected turn of events in a form of a call from a childhood friend of hers earlier that evening aborted all the surgeon's well-thought and well-organised plan. Now all the comforting thoughts of her bed have been thrown out of her window and her heavy steps are dragged to the doorstep of what she reckons as hell.

Lisa hates crowded places and scenes for every reasonable excuse her mind can make up but Nichkhun or Khun—as how she calls him—the childhood friend, has a terrible habit of nagging whenever Lisa implies even the slightest gesture of refusing his invitation. By terrible, it means it is almost too similar to those nags coming from that particular aunt you always try to avoid at every family gathering you are forced to attend and sends you postcards of 'cute' cats dressed in Santa's outfit every Christmas.

So giving in to her attempt of keeping her sanity intact—not that she intended to refuse the invitation in the first place, considering how the man just flew miles to see her—she is left with no choice but to be there; smelling the mixture of alcohol and nicotine substituting oxygen in the place and hearing loud noises coming from a bunch of people who seem to fail to hold the most decent form of a conversation—the ones that do not involve speaking at the top of your lungs.

Stepping into the pub with a cringing horror running down her face, Lisa's eyes are auto-piloting their way to search for a familiar figure around; a man who weirdly does not look a day older than 30 with neatly trimmed dark locks of mahogany and body built like an olympian. Fortunately, it does not take her long to lock eyes with the mentioned man. It is not like she is cracking Sherlock's case anyway for Nichkhun just happens to always stand out even among a chaotic sea of people as such.

His smile grows wider as she reaches him and they both share a hug. As annoying as he can be when it comes to Lisa—with his constant nagging, obviously—however, Khun is actually a decent lad. It is probably because he always sees Lisa as the tiny baby she no longer portrays that he always finds the need to make sure that the woman is still in one piece despite them being miles apart.

Their story started way before they even understood how many worlds outside their little earth there were to see. They met after Lisa and her parents moved from Buri Ram to the house next to Nickhun's family in Bangkok. If you are to ask the woman to tell the story of how they both met, she would just shrug off the request because that is something she does not know the reply to since Khun has always been her constant as far as she can remember.

But Khun remembers every detail of his first encounter with the baby sister. It was at a family dinner when Khun's parents invited Lisa's over. Lisa was smaller compared to the other 7 year-olds he used to see playing around the neighbourhood on his way home from school; the short bangs covering half her forehead were evenly trimmed followed by her straight jet black hair cascading down reaching her shoulders, her doe eyes were bright, glittering under the well-lit room, capturing these two beautiful lenses of cinnamon.

Her delicate features and this unavoidable cold air surrounding her make her presence felt so distant and fragile at the same time. Little Lisa resembled a porcelain doll, one that would be easily broken should it not tend with extra care.

Growing up with two older brothers, Lisa automatically became the closest thing Khun could have to a younger sibling—and a sister while he was at it, making him fail to contain his overflowing excitement meeting the girl next door. But that excitement apparently only played its part on Khun's side because Lisa clearly could not be bothered.