[kyle's notes]: err-- I'm sorry.. I have a lot in mind lately.. maybe I can update again two weeks from now or worse, next month when I'm done fixing the mess in my brain T.T
forgive me if the following contents aren't what you're expecting to happen.. well, there's a reason why life is full of "the unexpected" haha excuses of a lunatic

 

WARNING: LOTS of ERRORS ahead

 

 

 

Wang Hee placed down the picture frame where a younger version of So Min could be seen grinning at the camera. He agreed to the suggestion of him staying with So Min’s parents in the house where the family used to stay. Of course, it didn’t mean he agreed to it wholeheartedly—it took a lot of convincing for that. A lot from Alvin and Elvie.

 

 

 

And a little from So Min.

 

 

 

Darn it, he was supposed to be stoic, intransigent to the point that the people would just have to give up their persuasion. But with her…

 

 

 

With her, it was a different story. There was something in her orbs that could make him, or anyone else, succumb to her appeal. She’s just too adorable to decline. And another darn it! He was supposed to be obeying his father—the only parent he acknowledged—instead of agreeing to live with the couple who came out of nowhere to claim parenthood over him. He was furious; didn’t have further intentions of pursuing the conversation. But when So Min came to him with those hazel eyes—damn her and her inveigling!

 

 

 

Wang Hee drew a heavy breath from his lungs as he sat his down on the bed. His sight then caught another one of her photos, this one seemed to be more recent; perhaps, taken on this same year. He was, after all, in So Min’s room before she left the house for being wedded.

 

 

 

Marriage…

 

 

 

How does it feel for a brother to attend his sister’s wedding?

 

 

 

Happy? Sad? Emotional, perhaps?

 

 

 

When he was younger, he had a lot of wonders: He wondered how it feels like to have a mother who will cook for him every morning before going to school and in the afternoon when he comes home; she will draw a bath for him while she tells him stories of his childhood; how cozy it would be to have her arms secured around him when he’s scared of the monsters under his bed at night.

 

It took him almost ten years to accept that no woman would come rescue him in the midst of his hunger for a mother’s love. The acceptance wasn’t as easy as he expected it to be though—it eventually resulted to him being the silent, mysterious type. He was always on the side, envying those who were given the chance to hold their mommy’s hand during PTA meetings, or had their moms buy them ice cream after school time was over.

                                                                                                                                                                                                  

It’s not that Victor didn’t love him as a son; it’s just that a father’s devotion is hugely different from a mother’s affection. He might not say it, but he was weeping in silence. The tears have dried—crying is for the weak, he told himself. And so, he built this stout exterior. No one would ever dare knock on that exterior for his overall aura gives people a scare to run for their lives. It wasn’t on purpose, but he was satisfied he had that effect on them. He couldn’t just let everyone in and then have them gradually leaving him. Would he be able to take it? No, he didn’t think he would.

 

 

Those with the strongest portrayal are the weakest deep inside.

 

 

 

Forget it; he got over it.

 

However, on the start of middle school, he had another wonder: how about having a sister?

 

It was the time a new girl from other elementary school transferred to theirs to continue her education as a middle-schooler. He saw how his father got very excited about it. It was during the flag ceremony of their first day in middle school when Victor pointed at her. “She’s So Min,” he remembered him say. “Keep an eye on her while she studies here, okay?”

 

 

 

That was his constant reminder. Yes, he was consistent, almost like a broken record repeating over and over. Wang Hee could bet So Min didn’t even know his existence in their batch as she wasn’t very keen on socializing. She was as quiet as he was, but there’s a vast difference—So Min was discrete by nature; Wang Hee was discrete by choice.

 

Needless to say, he didn’t question why he was being tasked of keeping an eye to the said girl—he had forgone the act of questioning when his quandaries about his mother never had precise answers. But it didn’t equate to not wondering how it’d be like having a sister: he’d be protecting her from the school bullies; holding her hand when she’s afraid of something; helping her doing her academic requirements; guiding her when she’s lost about the facts of life.

 

 

 

“In the future, you’ll have this special mission. It involves her,” Victor said before Wang Hee entered his classroom on his last day as a senior high school student.

 

 

 

Mission… mission… mission…

 

 

 

The word created a mantra of itself within his brain cells until this day. He thought the mission was to monitor her closely, but on the evening of the same day Victor announced about it, his life was taken. The memory of how Victor looked when he held out his bloody hands on his was still vivid. And it still hurt.

 

They were in the ambulance where he took his last breath. Victor was supposed to fetch him from school and reward him with something for his graduation the next day—he made it! He was going to college! But the next thing Wang Hee knew, he was receiving a phone call about his father’s unlucky kismet. His father wouldn’t be able to attend his high school grad, moreover his college graduation anymore.

 

 

 

It was agonizing enough that the only person who cared for him died before his very eyes; but fate was too brutal to include their built dreams shattered with the life it seized. Now, what was the remaining purpose of his life? Why was he still living when the ambition he had in mind was all directed to returning the sacrifices Victor made for him and him alone? He was helpless… Powerless… Hopeless...

 

 

 

 

But no! He couldn’t give up like that. The mission! He recalled Victor uttering something in his ear during the ambulance ride, but he was too blinded by terror that he failed to comprehend the whole essence of his last instruction.

 

Mission…

 

All his brain registered was a mission. It’s a gang fight, as the police reported. These were underground businesses and no one clearly knew how it started. But given the previous circumstances regarding So Min, Wang Hee concluded that it was all related to her. Thus, he made himself believe that Victor’s demise had something to do with So Min and everyone else close to her.

 

 

 

Three years…

 

It took him three years of looking for her until that event on Robert Lao’s night. It made him smirk until his jaw stung from being overstretched. At last! He found her and would be able to do the things he delayed doing for she didn’t attend the same university he entered. Well, it was presumed to be going smoothly until…

 

 

 

Wang Hee’s eyes remained fixed on the picture. So Min looked so carefree; her eyes glimmered in nothing but pure ecstasy as if she bore no burden in the world. It was so different from how she looked this evening, wherein the appearance that emerged on her commonly expressionless face indicated how knackered she had been. Based on her reaction upon seeing her parents, he could tell there was longing in addition to the hesitation; plus the fear. ‘She longs for them but she hesitates because she fears they would reject her.’

 

 

 

Of course, he was aware that it wasn’t only the parent-child relationship that’s distressing her. And guiltily, he had taken part on the production of that stress. He was sure she didn’t know this; because if she did, she wouldn’t have allowed him to approach her the previous Tuesday on Chapter Ten and every succeeding afternoon since then. And if she did, she wouldn’t have thrown him a sideward glance that could be compared to those gazes Victor had given him all through the years—it was full of care; no pity could be depicted for it was one with unspoken yet enormous tenderness. The radiance of her glances was like a virus, infecting him in the most pathologic way—it was self-limiting, but the after-effect was hard to forget. ‘How can a woman so petite in size have a gigantic heart?’

 

 

 

Nonetheless, what he did… What he caused her was…

 

 

 

The thought made his weak inner self come out. He grazed both palms across his face upwards, continuing to his hair. His fingers stopped at the top of his head in the act of pulling his hair out of his scalp. He would have never imagined life could have a tricky plan, creating turmoil in every fiber of his being. He had never wished to suffer this much.

 

 

 

It discombobulated him to no end until he found himself having fresh tears in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to the smiling face on the picture. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated until he was out of breath, clasping his constricting chest as he laid his tortured body down. He couldn’t even remember the last time he wept like this—it was probably during his diaper days.

 

Crying is for the weak. Yet he found himself staring at the lime ceiling while querulously crying. Maybe it was the tears he didn’t cry when he realized no mother would come his way; or it could be the tears he refused to shed when Victor died the day before his high school graduation; and the tears that he chose to deprive himself of after all the hardships he’d been through.

 

 

 

It was the tears reserved for a very long time to continuously flow for this moment of his lament.

 

 

 

***************************************

 

 

 

“It’s one of the expected effects after being weaned off the mechanical ventilator. His voice will come back soon, although not completely. It will take time.” The physician hung his stethoscope around his nape. “We’ll check on him from time to time for progress. For now, Nurse Ariel wi