Friday, March 26, 2010

The flawless facade Part 3

We had initially planned to avoid him whenever we can. Somehow, that never turns out right. He lives right across from us. He had a peep hole in his door, for pete's sake. He knew when we were going out, when we came back, when we cooked.. etc. And everytime we saw him, we had to be nice. Have a minor conversation. Neighbour talk. "How are you? Have you had your dinner? Weather is shit". That kinda thing. But something happened amidst all the superficiality. He started to grow on us. He would cook for us, we would cook for him. He'd have us over at his place. He'd invite me for a smoke, or a drink occasionally and it wasn't unpleasant. He would even sometimes tutor her when she had a test coming up. I wouldn't let him. I would feel too inferior, and i'd rather study at my own pace then have someone breathing down my neck about it.

But one thing about him though. He was a lonely guy. He was much senior as compared to anyone else in the hostel. Many of his friends had left, and the juniors had their own crowd. Plus, he was too matured for all of them. To me, he was this old man. Always nagging the younger crowd who made too much noise, or those who had rendezvous on our floor, or people who walked by and shuffled their feet instead of carrying it (lazy walk, he said) -_- (we're students.. we're lazy people, we couldnt care less bout how we walked) And being that old man that he is, he bores me sometimes. Talking about politics or educating me bout life and his experience makes me feel like dozing off when i'm not in the mood for it. So more times than none i avoid him when i feel like being by myself. And because he hasn't got much friends, me and BNN are constantly at the top of his 'who-to-disturb' list.

So, we would avoid him when we weren't in the mood for his company. We would exchange updates on how he messaged and we never replied. Or when he called and we didn't answer. And when we did, we pretended to be asleep or swamped at the time. Now, we weren't all that terrible if that's what you're thinking cos believe me, he was the persistent kind. If couldn't reach you today, he'd try tomorrow, and the day after, and so on so forth. I sorta feel, with me, he kinda got the hint. He stopped bugging me as much, cos i could go on for a week without acknowledging his calls. BNN on the other hand, had a much softer heart. She would always have pity on him, give in and end up going to his room to spend sometime with him. Of course, all this would be fine if she didnt occasionally come to me and say what a burden it was being his friend. "I regret ever knowing him" were her constant words.

Like i said, he was persistent. He would demand things from her. ''Cook for me, bring me some stuff from Malaysia, find me information bout something, come and see me Right Now! etc''. "He's always bugging me for things. Or to spend time with him". And when she didn't, he complained to me. He would always ask me, what she was doing. He knew when she was lying if she made an excuse just cos she didn't want to see him. I suspected that he had a thing for her. "Tell him bout your boyfriend. And stop being too nice to him,". She said she had told him many times before that she's engaged to her boyfriend. They're to wed when she graduates. She giggled as she told me, "Yea, i also want to start avoiding him more lah. Lazy to layan". And so that's how it went on for months. I would spend time with him when i felt like it, so would she, and sometimes we 3 would just hang out together. She did still complain about him harassing her from time to time, but I always thought as long as he didn't really do anything to her, then it's pretty harmless. So i'd push him to find a girl and he'd always just smile and shake his head.

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