№ ⅠⅠ
"Kau nak segan, dah kenapa?" she said frankly with an apparent frown flashed across her face. "Bukannya ada orang kau suka pun among us, kan?"
That last bit that Eileen said totally caught Hakim off-guard. Well to be honest, Hakim didn't expect for her to get right in their first conversation.
Confused? Semestinya.
Surprised? Oh dear God, hell yeah he is. Hakim sekarang tak tahu sama ada dia benar-benar sedar ataupun tidak. "Macam mimpi katanya". More of Hakim than you (yes, you the reader, yang baru sahaja tiba in the midst of this unravelling scene). But, nak buat macamana bila kau berdenelahan dengan the girl kau minat sejak first year and yet kau tak pernah pun tegur dia, sebelum ni? And now dia honestly tanya soalan ni dekat kau. Takkan lah tiba-tiba sahaja kau nak cakap terus, "Hahaha, mestilah ada! Dan kau la orangnya". Hell, no. Itu creepy teruk and mungkin tak dapat pass of as a casual joke pun. Tak silap hari nanti datang restraining order pula esok hari. However, since we are all here how about a little exposition, no? Yes, yes. That always helps readers to settle in, organically. But, I digress.
Hakim thought he was controlling the flow of their conversation. Him and Eileen. The two of them, standing bersebelahan, masing masing doing their own work nak tampal poster untuk Fakhri dekat student common room. Yeah, let's call her that; Eileen. Never has he met anyone with name as such.
Though as Hakim may came to know later, this girl who was standing next to Hakim; slowly cutting reams of black and white posters bearing Fakhri's face across it, Eileen was too preoccupied with her work to take notice of him. Tapi Hakim knew, she was waiting for his answer. Fakhri was their mutual friend, more hers than Hakim's, since he has been avoiding talking to Fakhri for the past three years now since their foundation days.
For the record, Hakim too was cutting reams of posters to be pasted on the walls for Fakhri's presidential campaign. Though it seems that his hands are trembling even more now than ever since she has posed the question a few instances ago. He stole a glance to my right, to see whether she was serious about what she said.
Newsflash- she definitely was.
"Shit," Hakim getus dalam hatinya. In his mind, Hakim was completely shocked out of his guts to be standing next to Eileen; a literal goddess. A small one at that, a rather petite figure but yet don't mistake her for being timid or bashful; she is quite the imposing figure. Even fat barnacle slobs like Hakim would be intimidated by the menacing aura she held. Though, personally Hakim (in his head) find it rather adorable to be honest.
Jokes aside, the silence was indeed deafening
Is she expecting a reply? At least, a true and honest reply from him? You know he can always just lie and shrug off her question like it's nothing. But what would that do or help me at this point. In the grand scheme of things, a lie wouldn't help me to achieve what he sought to achieve.
What should Hakim do? Should he affirm or deny to that question? He was too afraid to say anything. Terrified, to be honest. Soalan apa she tanya tadi? "Bukannya ada orang kau suka pun among us, kan?"
"Uhm," Hakim cleared his tekak in a sheepish manner. He just shrugged, as he tried to avoid the inevitable eye contact with Eileen. "Tak juga sebenarnya." Then Hakim proceeded to end it with a nervous laugh.
Eileen's eyes blew up in interest. Her black irises as Hakim noticed, lit up in the dark corners of her eyes. At least that is how he remembered it. Realizing the conversation is about to be kinda awkward if indeed they gone down that road and she didn't seem wan to prod any further, Eileen changed the subject. Or she didn't? Hakim couldn't really recall, actually. But one thing that Hakim can be really certain is that, his reply; did caught her interest.
Is this good?, Hakim thought to himself. "Kau dah kenapa, belum jadi kawan lagi dengan the girl pun dah cuak teruk sangat kenapa? Dia tanya je kenapa kau jarang lepak dengan group mereka. Kau yang nak perasan lebih-lebih buat apa?"
They both continued to stick the double sided tapes on the back of the posters while both knowing that they shouldn't be continuing on with the discussion.
This is not how Hakim planned how it is supposed to unravel. In his head, betul la kau suka dia, tapi kau lepak dulu, boleh tak. Jangan jadi kaku. As most people kata, jadi la kawan dahulu, tak salah pun kan. But, since this came out; Eileen terus from the get go terus tanya kau macam tu, then let's just throw the whole development plan of being organic out the window.
'Organic' being the key and operative word. I think every goddamn romcom would have followed the same formula. Guy meets girl, (usually by means of accidents- easily concocted and set up provided you have a certain amount of favors within your grasp), then they learn each other's values and what they cherish and hope to get out of their lives; soon they face a trial or a tribulation in their relationship, overcome that hurdle in one big swoop and then they finally resolve their relationship standing either by staying together by finding the common ground or it simply disintegrates. But, hell no. This was surely isn't the romcom scenario I'm used to; that's I'm seeing at least in them shows. The parameters were all off. I can't seem to control the outcome. Does this frustrate me? Mostly, yes. Though it is expected that such scenario happens.
To put things into context, was this meeting tonight orchestrated by yours truly? Definitely.
I always felt that in anything I sought to achieve I can control the outcome. To find the lack of a better term, I always believed that I can control the parameters. That was always the plan. Indeed, a plan was all that I need; come hell or high water. But this, this was not part of the plan.
All in all, tonight was suppose to be a ruse, a calculated plan. A method in which I avail myself to her. To 'organically' insert myself as a character into her life. As Syamsul said it himself, "You want a girl to like you, make sure you are a part of her life. Ensure that when you are there, you will be irreplaceable, and hence she will notice when you are gone." But that itself was the mistake. You shouldn't be listening to anyone else when this is your life. And relationships are meant to be private pun kan? Hakim knew this better than anyone else. But itu la. Yang penting orang yang kau minat kalau tak notice kau pun, how la nak jadi kawan in the first place?
Notice? But is it really enough for me for her to just notice I'm there? To even at least acknowledge my existence? Well, for one we're not really like good friends to begin with. Strangers? Pretty much, but more like acquaintances; I know that she exists, and likewise on her part.
But truth be told, that is easier said than done since you know, we have never shared any classes together. We never like have the same group of friends, as well you know I kinda was stuck with a group with a significant amount of guys only; whom were all assholes to each other but tolerated each other bullshits. While as for her; she was in the 'it clique', or rather I would say part of the cool kids who had visions of what to do for themselves in the next twenty years to contribute well for the society. The most that I could ever remember that our interactions that we had prior; were only the 'hi and hellos' that I used to say to her before I developed any feelings for her.
Well, typical of me being a rather cheery individual myself; I made it upon myself to say hello to everyone that I meet whenever I meet them along the hallways, across the classes. I had this feeling that if I wanted to appreciate a person, it is essential that I pronounce and say their name in my greetings. Hence, I should say along the lines of "Hi, Eileen!" or "Selamat pagi, cik Eileen!" with much emphasis given on the honorifics. Fun fact: Me being a stickler for Malay honorifics; I always found it fascinating when we Malays call ourselves "Tuan or Encik or Cik or Puan"; these honorifics are in a way the equivalent of the Japanese honorifics of "-san, or -chan or -kun".
The whole point was, I used to greet her and smiled with a big grin on my face a lot in my first and second year whenever we happen to stumble upon in the halls (usually she is accompanied by her friends), but back then things were different. Young me didn't have the need to blush every time she looked my way. Nor did I felt that she could like stare right into my soul even though she was looking the other way. Back then all I thought was I wanted to annoy her with my hellos thinking it was for my own self-amusement. It kinda changed a bit when I started to realize how attractive she was. It took some time, but maybe it was the scarcity or it was the less time we interacted that contributed into me noticing the little things that I saw in her.
You know, it looks very silly now thinking back, but the first thing that caught my eye was probably the frown that she always wore on her face. To be honest, it would be the rarest of occasions to see her smile. Not that it bothered me at all, since I do find it to be the cutest thing to see her frown, as her brows curl in a bind and she would fix a rather disapproving look to anybody that dared to disagree with her. Yeah, that was another thing, she must be the most forthright and frank person I have ever met. She would never back down from an argument and only if you could see how fierce and how it would light up in her eyes when she argued with someone else. Terrifying, yes but it's more fascinating to me as a matter of fact.
Not me though, I would never once even try to imagine to get in her way. I'm much a pacifist myself, or at least that's how I imagined myself to be in my head. I'm up for a confrontation as much as the next guy, but not at the expense of my entire future hanging in the balance. One second, you could be seeing her minding her own business with her Macbook with her earphones on as though she was not paying attention, but the next moment you would see her hating someone so passionately even the angriest of hot-blooded teenagers would blush. Despite that, I know she is one hell of a listener. She knows. She always does. If a conversation flew within her earshot; she would be listening, definitely. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, I'm supposed to help Fakhri out with his presidential campaign. I'm getting way ahead of myself.
I looked around the room. There weren't that many of us in the lounge apart from a few juniors casually hanging about in the sofa. There was Melissa and Ainom; both close friends to Eileen. I couldn't really recall what were they doing. I do remember Melissa was very flustered making sure that everything was in its place as per usual of Melissa. But they were here because they are very good friends to Fakhri. And Fakhri was in already a four plus year relationship with Ainom. How did I got on board on this campaign trail despite not being anywhere close nor at least a part of their inner circle?
Simple.
Fakhri knew the slimmest chance for him to win the presidency was to get the best. And he needed someone who was ruthless. Someone who was willing to do the dirty job of undermining the opponent. Someone who had insight on Den; the other guy who was supposed to run against Fakhri. And I was the only guy that fit the description. And of course, I kinda was the only guy who was willing to do poster designs for Fakhri without much complaint (or without a killer pricetag for the matter). That guy can be a handful but he means well. I tried to strong-arm Fakhri insisting that he at least compensate me for the the work done. And I asked for a seventy bucks. He paid but I returned it to Ainom after we lost the campaign because a mystery benefactor came to his aid. It was Hud who paid on his stead. He always had a soft spot for Fakhri. So I returned the money, because a favor for a favor. A blood for a blood. That is how Hakim's honor system worked.
Nevertheless, Hakim kinda envy that. Having friends. It's not that Hakim didn't have any. But he spent for almost first four years of law school pushing away everybody that wanted to come close to him. Oh, how I regretted that immensely. I couldn't count the amount of times people out of their kind generosity invited me over to their houses for event celebration, for birthday parties and everything else; but I always seemed to never was bothered to even have friends. I always felt that I was okay and will be alright in my own lonesome. I thought that solitude was all that I needed. A computer or a laptop before my face and a wired connection was enough to keep me occupied. Even when I was talking to people I wasn't paying attention, my head and my mind was somewhere else, somewhere far away as though it didn't matter where I was. But now when final year of law school is creeping in; it really present that Hakim is running out of time. He'll never get another chance like this ever again.
Most of the guys of the campaign being Fakhri, and Hazmi both were supposedly scouting ahead throughout the faculty to find places to place up the posters. I, knowing that if I were to follow those two would led me to less time being with Eileen, volunteered to lead the double tape poster-pasting exercise.
Now it really dawned on me; that probably all those time in our third year I never really put much stock into Syamsul's advice, he of all people know that he has been always been known to be wrong. Should I just wing it and take that chance?
"You tak kenal pun dia siapa tau", getus hati Hakim kepada dirinya.