These days I've been hating myself more and more.
No, there wasn't that ounce of "Maybe I love him still" left.
I was well on my way of forgetting about Zop.
His existence was hard to evade though, but I had to deal with it.
The facts were straight up clear, I couldn't be with him. Not in this moment at least.
All my fantasies of having that secret relationship just faded away and all that's left was that lingering burnt smell of what could have been.
Band was something I should have avoided but strangely, no.
Initially, I joined for Zop but now, it seemed like I fell in love with music and the people instead.
Yet another day of band practice, another encounter with him.
I'd notice him walking in and he'd hover around my area.as well.
If you're Singaporean, surely you'd know of this feel.
You know, when its about 6.30 PM in the evening and you're in the MRT at Orchard MRT station on Christmas Eve.
It's so crowded in there, that you can barely breathe. You're literally choking from the lack of oxygen.
You no longer breathe in free air but rather someone's pale stench of a breath from his last Macdonald's meal.
That stench was almost as choking as the awkwardness in the air between Zop and me.
He'd make awkward conversation starters and I'd respond to him, merely only for a reply sake.
I'd casually turn around and accidentally make eye contact with him.
I hated that. I really did. Made me think of so many things.
It was all so confusing.
I didn't want to see him and yet everytime the band door opened during practice, I'd be looking and expecting him.
My brain was hardwired around his presence.
This cruel ring of repetition occurs every band practice, yet somehow, I loved the torture of it.
From standing so close behind me , he shuffled a bit to the side, to quickly make his way to the front of the band room to make an announcement.
I wasn't giving him proper eye contact, instead just looking at the floor and the lines and scratches it adorned.
These scratches must have been made by the people of the past.
They each held the memory of a day, a person, even a story to that person's life.
Fascinating.
"Shakinah, what do you think?"
What? Everyone's head shifted and locked onto my half-stunned face.
"How do you think you could be a role model to your Juniors?" he asked with such a stern look on his face, that for once, even I felt afraid.
"Well, urmm...I guess we could come punctually for practice, practice beforehand and be fully focused during practice and not be well... distracted? Ya" I spoke out, trying to imply something else totally.
"Exactly. Now I want all of you to be exactly like Shakinah. She's got it. Be serious. Now do I make myself clear?"
A monotonous "Yes" echoed after him from the rest of us.
I went back home that day and slept the night off without even a single thought of whatever happened.
Saturday morning. No school.
Homework...Pfft.
Not ma thang.
In all seriousness, due to all the Project work stress, i blatantly ignored my other subjects.
So as my theory goes, I needed to catch up and I already made it to the second year, what can the teachers do if I didn't complete my homework right? Homework thereforth, was not ma thang.
I checked my phone, only 1 text.
Mom: Hi children, wash the dishes, dry the clothes and cook rice. Thanks. I'm tired.
Modern slavery.
I completed the given list of tasks, grabbed my bag and headed off to Starbucks.
Starbucks practically was my second home.
I was there most of the time, even the baristas recognised me!
The place held a lot of different memories for me.
It all initiated with the first ever post-graduation ChocoChubies meet up.
What in the world is ChocoChubies you might ask?
Let me first explain the origin of the word.
Chubie.
When I was in Secondary 4, I owned this China phone.
Oh no no, it wasn't any other ordinary phone. It had a freaking antennae to it and I could watch TV almost anywhere.
Pretty cool I might add, especially with the whole American Idol mayhem going on.
So you can imagine why the toilet breaks I took were extra long.
It came with a price though.
Vibrations so loud and constant that every text could possibly send off an orgasm to those within five feet of me.
Also, it had this weird China-based autocorrect system.
So one day, meaning to text my Secondary school buds "where are you bitches?", the autocorrect totally morphed it to "where are you chubies?"
Hence became the term Chubies.
The chocolate part well represented us.
There were five of us.
Caramel, Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Cookies and Cream and well, me, Mint.
Caramel.
I sat with her towards the midway of the end of my school year.
She'd sing and sing... and her voice was a pleasant replacement for my MP3 in class.
Best thing was, i didn't have to charge her! Then she had this great humour as well. We'd laugh and make sneaky little remarks about the teachers. Mean? Maybe so, but it was hilarious nonetheless.
Till today, I'm astonished how successful she had become. The one doodling outfits in class on her huge calender is now designing them at school as a real-time assignment. She expanded her singing with youtube videos and no, her talent doesn't stop there. She just quite recently graduated from her dance crew. I guess you could say that she was artfully perfect.
Dark Chocolate.
The best things come in the tiniest of packages. This proves right of her.
I'm really not exaggerating this when I say, her smile and laugh could literally send a tingle of joy down your spine. Sometimes I really can't help but laugh uncontrollably with her. But there's this other thing though, she has those eyes that are so fresh and burning with excitement. Throughout these four years of friendship, I never quite saw them lessen to a flicker. In other words, she was happy, almost every other time. You can imagine what a joy it was having her around. As cheesy as it is to quote after One Direction, I'll say it: Baby you light up my world like nobody else.
Milk Chocolate.
The white girl in the clique. I couldn't be anymore obvious now. I'd be lying if I said she wasn't gorgeous.
She had the complete package. Beauty with a slice of bimbotic.Mere words don't do justice to her sight. Many don't look into much deeper and it's a waste. As far as it is on the outside, she's pretty and has it all and some might even think she's a typical mean girl. To those "some", I'd like to stuff a smelly tofu down your throat because she is the sweetest thing as yet. Despite not being in contact, she'd still send me good luck texts and make me feel warm inside. I really have no clue how she does it though. Black magic? Possibly so.
Cookies and Cream.
Honestly speaking, we weren't really close to begin with and it was only from Milk Chocolate that I met her. I never regretted that day though! At first sight she seems a little Korean of sorts. She'd come across as the total Asian kind but oh no, she's more white washed than you think. We shared common interests like forensics and we'd make little inside jokes mocking Milk Chocolate sometimes. It was all fun and laughter with her, best of all knowing that she got my jokes and I got her as well. Who knew though that she'd be joining my college as well, and here we are today bonding over the latest school gossip. How girly!
These were the few that made my two last years in my secondary school an absolute delight. After what seems to be a testimonial to their presence, perhaps there'd be a few souls out there wondering why I'm Mint?
Confession: I'm Shrek.
Nah. In all seriousness, it was because I was deemed to be cool.
See the thing is, before, I always felt a little insecure around the Chubies.
Mostly because I was not like them.
All dresses and heels.
Make-up and nails.
I came across as the one with the jokes. Music maybe represented me and that's about it.
No bit of girliness there.
In fact, if people thought I was lesbian, I had no proper proof against that.
There ya go.
Ms Jokes alot was actually pretty darn messed up, but on the outside, I was all cool.
Mint.
Meeting them after months of separation was no trouble at all considering that somehow or rather, we'd be like as if we never departed from that 4e5 classroom of ours.
Then again I had those usual Starbucks meet-ups with Weave every now and then. Updating him on my life and him making me laugh like a Hyena and snorting out my Green Tea Cream.
And of course, meeting Claire and Wheels. We'd make weird little theories there and sometimes it actually made sense. If in the right sense, perhaps even the birth of an idea to a musical. Like Jurassic Pack. A failed spoof of Jurassic Park.
Thinking about times with Claire at Starbucks reminded me very much of the times I bumped into Zop there as well. My god the last one I remembered was of him looking my way and there I was taking off my stained skirt in public. So sophisticated of me.
I doubt he saw but then again, he was smirking and all. We'll never know and that is it to it.
It was all in the past and it always will be.
Moments later I met Weave at Starbucks and soon began the catch-up.
