The Arranged Married

Chapter 9

06.20 PM, at Martin Sun Apartment, Batam.

It has been more than a month after Sean agreed for helping Rose. Although he didn't want to take the money when Rose paid him, but Rose kept insisting him to take the money. Rose also gave him extra bonuses because Sean's work performance has been good for this past month. Sean always comes in the morning before nine o'clock, then he prepares some food for Rose every morning, afternoon, and evening. Sometimes he also helps Rose in cleaning the apartment. Generally speaking, Sean has become an assistant in Rose's life.

Right now, they are still doing packing of some items. The items are only left a bit, it means they are going to finish the packing earlier than usual tonight.

"Sean, where do you come from?", Rose asks suddenly while packing.

"Bandung. My family live there."

"So, why are you coming to Batam? I mean, what was your plan?"

Sean sighs, the first time after all this time then he says, "I'm running away from my family."

Rose stops packing. "What? Are you serious?"

Sean nods.

"Why?"

With a gloomy face, Sean tells Rose about the reason he runs away from his family. In his family, he has two elder sisters and one younger brother. All of them have married and start the new life with their new families, except him. His parent tried to get him an arranged marriage with the daughter of their friends. So, he ran to Batam. Besides, he has some friends in Batam also.

"It doesn't solve the problem.", Rose says after she listens to Sean's explanation. "How old are you now?"

"I'm 29 years old."

"Really? You look so much younger, I thought you were about 25 years old."

"Are you the same as age as me?"

"No, I'm 1 year older than you.", Rose says while standing up and arranging the packaging.

"Don't you have any crush?"

Rose turns to Sean. "I didn't even have time for that until you help me. We are done packing, now I'm hungry. How about we order in some food from the online apps?"

"Good idea. Western food? Chinese food? Indian Food?"

"I'm craving for some Indian food. Help me order a prata with milk and cheese, and mutton curry fried rice, please."

Sean nods then he orders the food from the online application.

Rose goes to the kitchen and prepares drink for them. While preparing some orange juice, she is thinking about what Sean asked about her crush. She can hide the feeling she has from Sean, but she can't hide it from herself. She never expects to have a special kind of feeling toward Sean. She realizes it after working together with Sean, Sean shows a lot of care to her and almost never makes her disappointed.

"Rose, what are you doing???", Sean approaches Rose suddenly.

Rose then realizes that she has spilled the orange juice. "OMG."

"Are you okay? What are you thinking about?", Sean uses a cloth to clean the juice that spilled on the kitchen table. He is standing right beside Rose now.

Rose stares at him.

"Rose, do you have any problem recently?"

"Yeah, you. You are the problem in my life right now."

Suddenly Sean's phone rings. He is confused with what Rose has just answered him, but he needs to answer the call from his mother.

"Yes, Mom?"

Sean goes to the living room and talks with his mom through his phone. Rose's heart almost jumps out when she realizes of what she told to Sean before Sean received the call. She takes two glasses of the orange juice to dining table and sits there. She is looking at Sean who is still talking through the phone with unpredictable expression. Sean looks at her with a sad face after he hanged up the call.

"My dad is in the hospital", Sean says while sitting in front of Rose.

"I'm sorry to hear that. What happened to him?"

"I'm not sure yet. I will go back to Bandung tomorrow morning. Will you be okay handling all the stuffs alone?"

"Of course, I will be okay."

Rose hardly smiles but she can't hide her own worriedness when she hears that Sean needs to go back to his family by tomorrow. The only thing that she worries now is what if his family turns to arrange marriage for him again. Even though she knows that the only reason why Sean needs to go to Bandung is his father condition right now. What will she do if thing happens as what she thinks? Is Sean giving her a false hope after he treats her nicely from the beginning until now? There are too many questions appears in her thinking right now.

After they have their dinner together-mostly in silence-Sean leaves Rose's apartment. He doesn't know when he will come back to Batam again, but he surely asks Rose to always take care and gives him a call if anything bad happens. It makes Rose feel very sad after Sean's leaving, she slowly walks to her bedroom and cover herself using blanket. 'This is why I don't like falling in love.', she thinks.