Chapter 15: P’Van

Mindara Manaying

            “Hongyok we’ll be late,” Nann called the younger one. “Mr. Yupanun doesn’t have all the time in the world to wait for you.” It happened that Hongyok overslept after work and none of us noticed her whereabouts. Waking up with nothing prepared, she had to rush for shower and get herself ready.

            “Why don’t we go there by ourselves?” Hongyok shouted. “Pie can go with Mr. Yupanun first.” If Nann could see the real scene inside my head, she would have seen my eyeballs popped out from their sockets, rolling down on the floor. I tried my best to include everybody so that I did not need to deal with Mr. Yupanun alone and now, Hongyok was telling me to go with Mr. Yupanun? Just the two of us? That was insane.

            “We can wait for you, honey.” I found myself saying. I watched how Hongyok redirected her gaze to Nann and smiled her victory. Whatever it took, I need to keep the four of us together. There’s no such way I had to be alone with Mr. Yupanun along the journey. I would rather cancel the dinner if they couldn’t come with me.

Short after, the flash of a bright light and screeching of brake coming from a vehicle caught our attention. Mr. Yupanun was earlier than we expected. I preferred not to look at who was coming, knowing that none other than the headmaster, himself. Fortunately, Nann willingly walked herself to the door.

            “Well, look who’s here.” My curiosity grew stronger that without I realising it, I found myself walking to her direction and stood right next to that taller figure a while later.

I threw my gaze to where she was looking at. “KIMHAN?” It turned out that my voice came out clear, almost screaming at the sight of seeing her at this hour, right at the lawn of the house. Kimhan’s head snapped to my direction and I saw a smiled curved up into the corner of her thin lips. What’s so delightful about it?

            “Pie, are you ready?” She asked while making her way to us. What?

            “What are you doing here?” It blurted out so sudden that I forgot Nann was listening too.

            “I come to pick you up. You’ll be at my place over the weekend, you remember?” She answered it calmly as if nothing was wrong with her sudden appearance. I did not call her to come over, I did not tell her to pick me up and I never told her that I wish to spend my weekend at her place. How could she show up and saying such thing to me?

Realising the awkward moment between Kim and I, Nann excused herself.

            “Seriously Kimhan?” I saw her left eyebrow furrowed into questioning gesture upon hearing me. “I didn’t send any messages to you. Why did you come here?”

            “That’s the reason I’m here.” She shrugged, playing innocent as the way she could. “You were gone almost a week and I had not heard anything from you. Your Grandpa, you best friend, all of them were asking about you from me. How I’m supposed to react?” She made it reasonable that her sudden presence was on a purpose. Collecting messages maybe?

            “I’m good and tell them I miss them so much. Now go home and deliver my messages,” Kimhan shook her head instead of agreeing whatever I had told her. “What’s the problem?” Seeing her again irritated me.

            “You’re coming home with me.” She stated, somewhat sounded firm when she spoke.

            “I can’t.” A hiss escaped from my mouth, expressing the annoyance out of me. “Don’t you see I’m going somewhere?” Only then she studied the clothes that hung on my small frame. Obviously, I was all dressed up, simple but decent for an activity of Friday night. I promised the headmaster that we would go for a dinner toge