opia
(n.) the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out
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When ones going abroad. Everything feels different. The building is different, the road is different, even the sky looks somewhat different.

So does the windows, he will learn of that.

On a walk from the hotel, he sees a window is rattled. Like someone is banging it from the inside, not like he can see that it is the case from the position he is now.

But then he sees the upper side of the window going down with someone standing just next to it, and he panics.

“Watch out!” He warns, runs, and holds the upper side of the window.

When he doesn’t feel the weight of the window he supposed to hold up, he looks up to see, to his embarrassment, that the window is supposed to be opened that way. Its hinges are on the lower part of the window instead on the upper.

He peered down, seeing a set of surprised eyes looking up at him. In their vicinity he can tell where her dark brown irises meet even the darker cornea. And how her sets of eyelashes adore her almond-shaped eyes.

She looks stunned. And looking right through him with so much clarity, making him realizes what he’s doing.

“It’s the-um, I thought the window-”

The eyes shifted to see his hand holding the opened window. He blinks then hurriedly walks away. Before having to turn back with red face to retrieve his bag that he apparently throw to the ground to hold up the window. She already picked it up and hand it to him.

“Thank you,” he thinks he hears her say that so he just nods quickly and leave. He doesn’t know why she has to thank him since there was no danger after all.

He never wished that hard to never meet someone again due to the embarrassment.

Until life seemingly putting too much attention on what he wants or not, since the woman pops up next to him.

In the middle in a small yet jam-packed traditional coffee shop he had planned to visit. The second wish he has that day is to never fell for the google image photos of a tourist spot.

Because he is now stuck on the ocean of people trying to get the attention of the baristas.

Among the yelling of various foreign tongues, he hears the familiar English, “It’s Lale.”

He looks at the woman who just slides next to him, hands still typing on her smartphone.

He recognizes her instantly, because of the eyes. The man blinks at her, one hand still hanging in the air in the middle of waving the barista down, “Yes?”.

“The name, my name,” she said it like it answers his confusion, “it’s Lale.” She spares him a glance, just a little one while she still typing away.

His eyes slits into a mix of embarrassment, amusement and pure bewilderment, “O….kay.” Then he tries again, to no avail, to wave the barista down.

He puts his head down. Then on a weird urge to not make her feel like he is a total loser who cannot be seen by the barista, he passingly remarks, “Is Lale a local name?”

She huffs, “Well, it’s the shortened version of my name,” she turns to him completely for the first time, making him blinks in surprise, “because the time that you’d use to pronounce my name correctly could be used for us getting that damn coffee.” She turns her head in the direction of the barista.

“What is it?” He asks as a man just jostled his shoulder in the midst of all the people pressing on the counter.

“What is what?”

“Your real name”

“Curious much?”

“Colour me intrigued”

“Lafayette”

“Lafayette,” he repeats it after her, just like how she said it.

Lale looks at him, “Wow. You really don’t want us to get coffee.”

He blinks again and then realizing the whole thing that is going on.

That he is beside a woman who somehow manoeuvred her little frame among the crowd of tourists and entitled coffee aficionado to be there. And with all the loud noises of the cafe and people yelling for their order, she could not be seen more unbothered and talks to him.

“Are you hitting on me?” is just rolling out of the tip on his tongue. Then he realizes what he says and stammers on, “Or maybe for the window? I mean-it’s not-”

The look that she gives to him is something that he would never forget. He never thought that a patronizing gaze can be so endearing before. It stops him from rambling.

“Well, glad you catch up,” she said. “What are you having?”

“Black,” somehow can still be voiced from his frozen up throat.

Then with a voice he wouldn’t even imagine coming from her, she bellowed, “Nino if you don’t bring two black coffee here, I don’t know what will happen when you see Harriet tonight!”

The one barista who is apparently named Nino called back, “Shut up!” before hurriedly make her order.

“So,” she turns back to the man beside him, hairs flipping to the her shoulder, “what is your name again?”

She actually have to look up, due to their height differences. He still can see her eyes clearly nevertheless, because it seems the only interesting thing he could see right now.

“It’s just Jae,” he blurts out.

“Okay, ‘just Jae’,” she doesn’t skip a beat, “where will we have our lunch?”

The smiles he has on his face makes her smile too.

And he finds that he loves that fact so much.