“You’re skipping? Come on bro, you know her like what, four months?” Shakir tried to reason with his friend.

But Safwan’s mind was made, he will, no, he needs to take time off to clear his mind. He felt like he could do something worse if he went to class in this state.

“It’s just one class, it’s not like this is the first time I skipped anyway. And I feel like I need to calm myself down a bit. I just felt off today man.”

“Huh, come to think of it, you’re right. Fuck it, just go have a bit of a breather then. I’ll try signing your attendance if I can.”

As Shakir thought about it, he finally agreed. His friend was a bit out of character this morning, so a little bit of break might be a good idea.

Safwan just gave him a thumbs up and walked towards the student’s parking space. Well, he could investigate the mysterious box that he found inside his locker, but he instinctively knew who it’s from, so he won’t mess with it, at least for now.

As he walked under the roofed pathway, his mind began to wander about himself, specifically his sudden attitude change.

Safwan thought of himself as someone that was not aggressive, as a matter of fact, he doesn’t like any confrontation whatsoever. Being the middle child between his two amazing sisters and also as the only son, he always relented whenever he had a fight with them. Also because his father will always side with his sisters. He also didn’t like to argue about something, as he sees it as pointless and tiring. 

What, just because he likes something doesn’t mean he will enthusiastically tell everyone about it, and curse them or fight them if they disagree. That’s why he avoided social media, as he thought that it was a cancer to his mind and wellbeing. But his behaviour of always relenting and avoiding arguments made him a primary target for bullying. Luckily, he met Shakir.

Shakir was almost the complete opposite of him. Always running his mouth without fear, just because he can. Safwan couldn’t count how many times Shakir’s mouth got them into a fight with others. He won’t start any fights or arguments, but when it starts Safwan wasn't afraid to jump in and back his brother up.

So yeah, it was weird for him to be so mad at something trivial, like when he snapped at Shakir just for waking him up, which had happened hundreds of times before today. Also, his sudden outburst when Razman dropped the news about Nora.

Like why? It was just a crush and with Shakir’s wise advice to just ‘be a man and fess it up’, he confessed and got rejected. Yeah it was his first crush and confession, and it was a little heartbreaking, but that’s it.

He arrived at his car, an electric blue Perodua Myvi, the king of Malaysian roads. It was  gifted to him by his stoic father, when he got accepted to college. He almost cried when he got it, as he really didn’t expect it.

His father was a typical Asian father, always asking about his performance and result in school. Everything Safwan did was not satisfactory to him, always being compared to his sisters, and because he was the only son, his punishments were usually more physical than his sisters.

But it wasn’t like his family didn’t love him, they do, but sometimes he felt that he was the least loved. Until the car came, along with a congratulations from his father.

Everything after that changed, his father became very lenient of him, well he was given warning about illicit relationships, drugs and alcohols, but other than that, he was practically able to do whatever he wanted.

Even his older sister didn’t receive a car when she got accepted into college. She was also restricted in many more things than him.

As he drove the car out of the college, he began planning his day. First he needs to go to his workplace and pick up his phone and apologize to his co-worker for leaving early this morning. After that maybe take a stroll down the beach nearby.

For now, he’ll just have to listen to the banter of the people on the radio.

-----------------------

‘Well, the events early in the morning couldn’t get any weirder than this.‘

Safwan said to himself as he sat by himself on one of the benches on the beach of Teluk Cempedak. He had been here for almost an hour, trying very hard to calm his mind and heart about his conversation in his workplace earlier.

He arrived at Kuantan from his college after a 2 hour drive, and immediately went to his workplace. But to his surprise his co-worker was still there, manning the counter. That’s weird, he thought, as their shift ends at 7 in the morning.

However, before he managed to say anything his co-worker came up to him and apologized, saying that he was sorry for not coming to work yesterday, as he had an emergency.

His words shocked Safwan so much that his eyes bulged. His mind was scrambled and he struggled to give him a reply, so he just went ahead towards the back room where the employee’s locker was, and retrieved his smartphone. There it was, some missed calls from his co-worker and the owner, also some Wazapp messages from them as well.  All of them was received at around 11 p.m.

Meanwhile his co-worker was babbling about how his brother was racing his bike and lost control which led to the accident and all that, which he ignored. Then he dropped another bomb on him.

“Come on,man. It’s an emergency okay. My brother was in an accident, so I need to go to the hospital. You also ignored me and went straight home when I came in this morning.”

“What? I was here when you came?”

His mind was blank. He was sure that he ditched this place before six, but if his co-worker wasn’t here, that means that there was at least an hour where the store was empty, but when his co-worker came at around 7 a.m, he saw him at the counter, but before his co-worker could say anything, ‘he’ just went and leave.

That means that he met and interacted with someone who impersonated his co-worker, and his co-worker also met someone who impersonated him, or it was one person or ‘thing’ that can impersonate anyone.

After that was a blur. He gave an excuse to his co-worker and immediately left the store. His head was empty, his body moved on autopilot, driving through the Kuantan roads and 15 minutes later he was here, at the beach, safely.

He leaned back and rubbed his face hard with his hands, before letting out a loud and long sigh. He felt very weird right now, a mixture of fear, awe, anger and curiosity. 

The feeling of fear was about the weird old man and his sudden easy to anger self, what did he do that awakens this side of him? What will happen in the future if he remains like this, will he be this way forever?

But he was also weirdly in awe about his encounter with the old man. He looked like the warriors of old, during the glory days of the Malay Sultanate. One where they fought only with silat and keris.

Then his mind began to wander, how would he survive if he was sent back in time, how dangerous would life be when every argument can be settled with a duel and how the strong and skilled can throw their weight and fist around while the weak could only watch in envy.

Well, some of the stories he read didn't make much sense to him. How can someone who was socially awkward can suddenly become a harem master and exudes so much charisma in a day just because he was sent to another world? How did a society who believed anything miraculous had to do with witchcraft suddenly become so open minded to accept scientific concept and modern theories?

Then he was suddenly reminded of himself, how his behaviour changed a bit after meeting the old man. Is that it? Did meeting some deity or someone powerful change your soul and grant you courage or charisma? Is that the untold power that was given when you were transported to another world or reincarnated?

'Well, it's not that much different from today anyway, the rich and powerful can and always will bend the law to suit their own purpose, and society can change drastically if some tragic event occurred. It will always be the weak and powerless who would get trampled.'

He sighed again as the words from the old man resurfaced in his mind.

'The last time I'll view the world as a ordinary human, is it? The hell did that supposed to mean?'

Whatever it was, he will discover it later when he opened his gift in his locker. For now, he needed to relax.

The sound of waves and rustling leaves calmed his mind for a bit, although the  piercing rays from the Sun started to make him uncomfortable. It was almost noon, and no matter how much the sea breeze blew against him, he could still feel the heat. 

After several more minutes, he stood up and stretched, rotating his upper body left and right, cracking his back. He took another long look along the serene beach, before walking back towards his car. Even though this day-off wasn’t the best at calming his heart and mind, in fact it even added more things to his plate, but having some time alone did manage to clear his head a bit.

Well, for now he needs to try to enjoy his day and what better way than having some nice Nasi Kukus Ayam Berempah and spending the rest of his day at the mall or arcade.

And having planned that, his phone rang.