His hands were shaking. Yes it had been raining since the day before. Yes he was sitting in an air-conditioned area of about 16 degrees celsius. Yes he was in his wet school uniform, sleeves pulled up to the elbow - as usual. But it was a significantly different kind of shaking phenomenon. One that he had never experienced before.

  He looked at the hour and minute hands on his watch for about a minute or so, trying to figure out what time it was. He couldn’t see that clearly past the fog that formed up on the surface of the watch - something  that happened to every one of his many ten-dollar watches when it got too cold - and the fact that he could not read analog time that well didn’t help a bit. Not cool.

  4.05 pm. Just five minutes of waiting. He could’ve sworn it felt like days. Kind of like that last five minutes of a math lesson where the teacher just keeps going on and on about how important math is in our everyday lives; correcting the change you get from the mamak store to three significant figures , calculating the probability you’ll win big money in 4D, finding the volume of those orange and white cones you see on the roads, etc. Simply said, it was too long of a wait. If he could grow a beard, it would’ve grown to chest length at least. At. Least.

  Despite all that, he didn’t mind a bit. For her, he’d wait a lifetime, or so he claims – just like every other victim of teenage love. Just the thought of her would keep his mind relaxed, and his heart warm, from the friction of its excessive beating. Although, he had his doubts.

  “What if she’s just being friendly? Or worse, what if she’s just toying with my feelings? Does she even like me in that sense?” These questions cross his mind as often as people at Orchard Road cross roads. A lot. He wanted to know the answer to these questions, but at the same time, was afraid the answer would be something he didn’t want to hear. Something that would crush his heart into itsy bitsy pieces of decomposing flesh and veins. Not literally though, but that was how he felt like being rejected. Being used. Being unloved.

  Yes, he does have quite a number of admirers and fans, and his self-esteem would probably outweigh both Afdlin Shauki and Adibah Nor on a kitchen scale – and eventually break it - but when it came to a girl he really cared about, he’s hopeless. Just hopeless.

  4.10 pm. The cold got to his head. Like a Slurpee. He couldn’t feel his limbs.

  “hahah, this reminds me of a time I was in London,” he joked to himself. The same line he used to start conversations on cold, rainy days. He knew it was getting old – not to mention it was already damn lame to begin with – but it was all he could come up with under his current circumstances. He contemplated giving up but blew that thought far away as far as Bedok is from Yishun – which is not very far but considerably so – because he knew that if he left that very room, he wouldn’t get to meet her anymore. It was his last chance to confess to her. To tell her how he felt. How much he cared for her.

  5 pm. Still in that same room, still freezing and still holding on to that last strand of hope he had left as if he would fall and die if he let go of it. He heard the door creak. Or he thought he did.

  “Asalamu’alikum, you been here how long?” That voice. That soft tone. That epic fail of a sentence structure.The one he had been longing to hear since about an hour ago. His face lit up almost immediately. He shook his head in response to her question - although it looked more like he was shaking the tiny pieces of frozen rainwater off his short, spiky hair.

  “Wa’alaikumsalam, not really,” he said with a sweet smile etched on his face, “Here, have a seat, I need to tell you something.”

- Tengku Danial