“Symptom”

Abby goes straight to the car that seemingly blends well with the neighbourhood area while dragging me along with her. The more inconspicuous something appears to be, the higher my guard is up. 

However, Abby let go of my hand when we got closer and approached the driver’s window. She knocks on the window and the driver rolls it down soon after.

“Hey, handsome. Mind if we hitch a ride with you?”

Noticing the playful tone in Abby’s voice makes me immediately understand that these two know each other. The driver doesn’t look old but he does not look like a high school student. He startled me when he glances at me with his blue eyes before refocusing his sight on Abby. 

With an indecipherable expression, he responds “Since a beautiful young lady such as you request it, I do not see a reason for me to refuse,”

“Oh, you… Where did you learn to talk like that? Sheesh,” Abby seems to be blushing before cheerfully turning to me and shoving me into his backseat.

After that, she sits next to the driver’s seat and exclaims, “Let’s go!” while tossing her hands up in the air.

During the whole car ride, Abby is the one mostly talking while the driver doesn’t give much of a reaction. She starts talking about everything and anything.

Then, Abby starts sharing what mostly happens to me and she uses vague languages every time approaching how and why I was admitted to the hospital. It makes me feel a little uncomfortable since I am still trying to piece everything together.

The whole family has been avoiding the topic as to why but from the conversations that I overheard they had with the doctor and Abby’s story, I might have figured it out a little.

“We managed to flush most out of his system,”

“Keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t go back into using it,”

“He may start having withdrawal symptoms,”

When I put those things I found and the doctor’s advice or Abby’s story together, it just increased my initial suspicion of why he was in the hospital. I also wonder how in the world did he find those things in the first place cause if I’m not mistaken, the market for those is still on the low.

“Ohh, I forgot to reintroduce you guys. Luke, this is my fiance, Ian and Ian, you already know who Luke is,”

The word ‘fiance’ echoes in my head as I watch Ian nodding at me through the rear-view mirror as he continues driving calmly.

I did not think that rich people would be the same as us. Marriage in my world is either a shotgun marriage or some girls just get married early to escape having to work hard. Well, at least these two are not married but engaged… I guess.

Before my brain starts to jumble up, Abby snaps me out of it and tells me that we have arrived at wherever they have brought me.

"I hope he's not here," she said casually.

"He told me he won't," Ian answered back like it's a fact.

The three of us got out of the car and Abby turned to me to hug my arm. We head towards the elevator and somehow my heart is beating quickly. I don’t know why I am uncomfortable right now.

“You ok?” Abby asks me while making sure she has a clear view of my face.

I nod softly as I don’t know how to respond to her question.

Abby smiles cheerfully and says, “Don’t worry. We’re just here to meet the big brothers that can help you in your studies,”

Hearing her lighthearted explanation makes my heart able to calm down a little. My body has started to feel uncomfortable for quite a while that I don’t even notice which floor we stop at because Abby immediately pulls me out the moment the door opens.

I decided to go with her flow and allow her to drag me. She seems oddly enthusiastic in contrast to this morning before we head to school.

We finally stop when we reach a closed two-door room. Abby looks at me with a smirk and lets go of my arm. She then turns to open both doors dramatically.

“HELLO PEOPLE. ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?” She shouts as she enters the room.

I was surprised by her entrance and slowed my steps as I walked into the room. I allow Ian to enter before I do and I start to look around.

The place looks exclusive with a carpeted flooring with a bar on one side and the other are sofas. Three people are sitting inside. Two of them seem to notice Abby’s sudden entrance. One of them is holding a book and I notice that he has a good sitting posture. He makes the place seem classy. While the other is wearing a tank top and shorts with a phone in his hands.

“Whoah, what an entrance. Can’t you be anymore louder?” The guy in the tank top speaks first. Does he not feel the cold breeze from the air conditioning?

There is one more person but he seems to not pay attention to his surroundings. His spectacle slips a little on his nose and he pushes it back up without lifting his head as he continues flipping through the vast amount of papers stacked around him.

“Oh, I definitely can be louder but I won’t. Why are you here anyway?” Abby glances at the bespectacled guy when saying the first half of her sentence before continuing to look at the tank top guy.

“Well, it seems that somebody doesn’t want me here. Who says I can’t take a hint? I will leave and never come back!” The tank top guy says in a dramatic tone as he stands up.

When he stands, that is when I realise how tall and big he is and since he is wearing a tank top, it does show his arm muscles.

“Okay, see you tomorrow,” Abby replies carelessly.

The tank top guy immediately clutches his heart and groans as he approaches Ian.

“Did you see how your fiance treats your friend?”

Ian does not even try to answer him and walks past. The tank top guy’s jaw drops open seeing his friend’s heartless reaction.

“Aren’t you going to be late?” The guy with the book reminds him.

“Oh, shoot. What time is it? I gotta go. Catch you guys later,” The tank top guy runs out without looking back.

After the whole shenanigan, they left me seated on the sofa alone while Abby talked to the guy holding the book, occasionally glancing at me and flashing me a smile. Ian, on the other hand, went to the guy who’s buried in papers. That guy barely acknowledges Ian after passing a set of papers clipped together to him before continuing away whatever he is doing.

It doesn’t take long before the bespectacled guy seems to complete his work and organises the stack of papers before disappearing with them behind a door I can’t see where it leads to. Ian has followed him into the room but when the guy reemerged, Ian didn’t come back out.

“It will be a while before he will come out of the room. Do any of you want some tea?” He asks politely.

“Yes, please and can we talk for a bit?” Abby answers.

The guy responds positively to Abby's question but tells her it will have to wait after he gets the tea ready. Abby does not mind and immediately drags me to sit next to her.

It takes about ten minutes before he comes back with a tray.

He carefully places the tray and starts pouring. As I admire the way he elegantly pours the tea, my mouth starts to taste sour. I have not placed anything inside my mouth to make this happen but I feel like gagging. I hold back my discomfort as he serves the cup of tea.

Abby carelessly put two cubes of sugar inside hers and started stirring until they mixed well.

“Well, what did you want to talk about?” He asks Abby as if he knows that Abby has forgotten what she has requested earlier.

Abby who is sipping on her tea widens her eyes and carefully puts down the cup while saying, “Oh, right!”

“As you know, Luke does not remember much,” She pauses as if she recalls something else she forgot to say.

“Oh, I forgot. Luke, this is Samuel but we usually call him Sam and he’s about to graduate business school soon and right now he is on a semester break. It’s the only window of time where we can ask him for a favour,”

She excitedly looks at me as she explains. I am not even sure of the favour she wants to ask him.

“‘A favour’ you say,” Sam interrupts while putting down his cup of tea.

“May I know what kind of favour you would like to ask me?”

At this point, I am trying hard to keep an interest in their conversation but my mouth feels weird and I need something to wash it so I decide to drink the tea. The tea's subtle taste is helpful but it is not for long.

I ask Abby if I can go to the toilet.

“It’s right outside the door on the left,”

I nod and immediately head over without caring about them. My mouth feels weird and I feel like gagging again.

Luckily I managed to find the toilet before it is too late.

I start to puke into the toilet bowl. Everything I ate for lunch at school has probably come out already but that did not stop me.

My body starts shaking and sweating even though I am cold. Although the bathroom does not have any cold air blowing like the whole building probably does, it is still cold enough to not make someone sweat.

My body feels very tired and weak but I barely have the strength in me to move. I did puke again as the inside of my mouth tasted horrible so I forced myself to the sink to rinse it. My body is still shaking so I couldn’t help but splash my shirt a little and now the collar is soaked.

It feels weird to be so cold yet sweating like crazy.

“Are you okay?” It appears that Sam has come into the toilet and found me by the sink.

I could barely give him an answer. He immediately notices something is wrong.

“Lean on me and we will go back,”

I don’t like the distance between us but I can’t muster any strength to reject him or push him away. Instead, my weak body just naturally leans on him as I can’t even stand up properly.

We move at a slow pace but we eventually reach the room that I left again.

I can see Abby's expression immediately turns to worry the moment she saw us walk inside.

“What happened? I knew something was wrong when you didn’t come back for a long time,”

The two of them help me lie down on the sofa.

I am not sure whether or not Ian heard the commotion but I can hear his voice talking to them but I couldn’t care about what they were talking about. My body feels like it wants something and I am a little afraid to find out what it wants.

Abby came close to me and put on a blanket wherever she even got that from.

“Rest here for a bit ok. I will be right back,”

After she said that I hear the sound of people walking and a door closing. The silence fills the air and I end up alone in the room. I don’t mind though because right now I am too uncomfortable to do anything.

During the pain and blur, I feel as if someone approaches me. I try to look at this person but I can barely focus. All I know is that this person is towering above me as he stands next to the sofa. I can vaguely see a frown on his face.

“Why are you here?” His deep voice resonates in mind but I can’t seem to understand him so I defaulted into silence.

My body feels tired and uncomfortable. It’s more annoying since there is another person here bothering me. The silence was nice, I could feel it trying to lull me to sleep. 

Is this another one of your screw up? I hope not because I don’t want to deal with it if possible. I’m still not sure why I am here inside your body but I do know that for as long as I'm here, I want to live well…

Is this my freedom or your redemption?

There must be a reason why you and I are in this situation. Are you still alive or have you truly passed?

Everything you left behind is so foreign to me but it won’t be you that is facing them, it will be me instead.

And sometimes, I don't know what to do…

--

I end up waking up in a cold sweat only to realise I am tucked in bed. The room is dark but I am sure this is my bedroom. Well, for now at least.

I am not sure what happened because it feels like I fell into vague nothingness while I was in pain. I must have fallen asleep and Abby probably managed to get me home with the help of Ian and Sam. I guess I should thank her when I see her next time.

Feeling the stickiness of my dried sweat, I go straight to the bathroom to take a shower. Something I am very grateful to have. I take my time because my current life still feels unreal that I might wake up one day and find myself in that tiny room again. I am scared of that happening. I don’t ever want to go back there.

Never again.

I slam my fist to the bathroom wall and grit my teeth. 

I don’t want to go back even if I die again. I am willing to do anything to not go back.

…

Mama…

Right.

I heard his voice.

I remember hearing his voice before I wake up. I think that is his voice. It might not be his and it could be that my brain is making things up but I need to see him again. I want to see how he is doing even if he can’t answer all of my questions.

I turn off my shower and grab my towel. I make sure to rinse my body properly before putting on my clothes. Even if it seems I have the privacy of my own, I still don’t feel comfortable walking out of the bathroom with no clothes on. It feels as if anyone could just see everything like before.

When I walk out of the bathroom, the first thing I do is look at the folded laptop. I have seen Mama using it so I know I need to flip it open to use it and see the screen. I feel around the laptop and slowly flipping it in the position that I usually see people put it at. I don’t think I should push it any further, or can I?

I look at the letters spread out on the keyboard. Mama did teach me how to use it before but right now the screen is black. Whenever Mama passed it to me, it was already turned on. I fumble around and start pressing buttons until I find a lone button away from the symbols, numbers and letters. 

Pressing that almost frightens me because the laptop starts vibrating but at least I know I manage to turn it on. It does not take long for the screen to show me a familiar but foreign view. It looks like Mama’s laptop screen but not quite.

Now… How do I find something from this again?

I try to remember slowly what he has taught me previously and tries to press everything and anything that feels familiar. I am not all that good with technology because I rarely get to be in contact with one.

Before I manage to get used to using it by trying to remember what Mama taught me, someone knocks on the door and breaks my concentration. I feel a little off place because of that but I didn’t mind. I can always try and figure things out later. Plus, there is something else I have not checked but was afraid to. 

Everything needs to be put aside for now.

I open the door and see his- I mean my 'mother' and a housemaid holding a tray of food and drinks. She has a soft smile on her face. It feels weird but my heart feels warm whenever I see that smile. It’s like all the darkness just fades away blinded by the ray of sunlight she radiates.

“How are you feeling?” She asks as she reaches out to touch my forehead.

“I’m okay,” It feels awkward to talk to her but she gives me similar vibe when Mama takes care of me. I feel a little greedy and want to keep this warmth to myself.

“I brought you some food. You can eat them in your bedroom and when you’re done, you can put the tray outside the door. The maids will clean it up, okay?”

I honestly don’t know how to react to that so I dumbly nod my head. Her smile seems even wider when I give her a positive reaction. She immediately gestures to the maid to put the food on the coffee table I have in my bedroom. I allow her to come in by making room for them to move past the door.

This is probably the first time my 'mother' has entered my room after I cleaned it up. She did pause for a moment. I thought she was going to say something about the room but she did not. Instead, she says,

“Have a good rest today. If you still don’t feel well tomorrow, you don’t have to go to school ok,”

With that, my mother and the maid walk out of the room as we bid each other goodnight. It feels like there is an odd silence after she left that I blank out for a moment before realising that I am hungry.

I guess it's time to eat.

*****

Heart

I am not sure who is reading this because there aren't any comments about my book. I am sorry for not updating this because its a rewrite. That's just an excuse though. You guys should be grateful to BL Palace that this chapter is even up. They approached me in my inbox asking if I do not mind to be placed in their newsletter but honestly, I don't even think I am qualified just because I am a BL writer but I haven't updated in ages. The reason this chapter is here because I was actually halfway through writing it but ended up dropping it when life happens... I end up reopening it after my conversion to this wonderful person. Thank you for reading my rant and for supporting me. Oh, and fyi, I will not turn into 100% BL writer which is probably not good but I am too lazy to make a second account since I don't even properly take care of my current account. I will do my best to finish this book and the future BG romance (no promises). With love, Heart.