"Double Happiness"

“Still haven’t finished this pack?” -- My friend asked me about the cigarette pack that another friend of mine brought back to me from Hongkong.

“Well, it reminisces me to Hongkong”

“Blah blah, You never went to Hongkong anyway” 

“Ahaha, you know me well” Yet, I have never been to Hongkong, although I think that it could be cool - even though I kinda hate Wong gar Wai because of his overrated film that pretentious cool cinephile kids always love. Yet, my friends said I never like anything because I criticized everything if I could.

I lit the light to smoke the cigarette, its brand called ‘Double happiness’. It sounds sarcastic to me because I’ve been depressed nowadays. Every time I get this brand’s pack, it’s always the peak moment of depressedness of mine. I’m not sure if I never was happy or it was just a coincidence. 

My relationship has been failed as always. Sometimes I even wondered if I did things wrong, or it's just them, or it's just my weird sexuality and gender when I said I never conformed to the idea of being gendered. Either girls or boys, they left me for no reason. Or maybe, they got a reason that they didn't want to tell me.

This time, as well, I wondered if it was because I have been abstinent for too long or I still lingered on those feelings for one of the broken relationships that left since April. It wasn’t anything because it happens most of the time in my life. I’m fine but just depressed as always. 

I got some weird feelings going on every time when I smoked cigarettes in someone else’s room. Especially for today in his room, my best friend. There’s a butterfly inside my stomach that makes me nervous and excited at the same time. I think it's because of his room - his smells - the books from his favorite author - the poster of his favorite films, and me.

I fell from his balcony

It was my 7th death already.

That man stared as I fell down like I was an abyss.

I stared at him back, I could never forget his gaze through me.

His eyes were like an abyss of mine, a black hole that sucked me in. It makes me crave more, I am attracted to his senses consciously, and unconsciously. He moved towards me without any intentions. I couldn’t even acknowledge his internal organs.

His cold heart beat like an avant-garde drum style. It got no direction. I sat there in his intestine and flowed with his blood, lymph, and sewage there.

His mouth opened and I regained my own consciousness

“Anyway, why do you come here today?” He asked -- and left me to boil the ramen -- the instant noodles that spiced with a semi-structural failure of capitalism plus a semi-struggled being a middle class.

“I just miss you” I mumbled with my poker face staring at the sky as a defense mechanism. So he couldn’t know what I really felt.

“Haha, miss you too, bro,” He said as if it was funny, but I couldn’t know if he was telling the truth or not. Since I tried not to see his true feelings. I got scared by the truth every time.

“So do you want ramen?” He asked me that lost in the wild, couldn’t escape the things inside. I tried to collect my body, internal organs and senses that being closed like a room without a door.

“sure”

“Toooo late man, I boiled it just one pack, so you have to eat with me.”

“Haha, you just want to eat ramen with me in the same bowl at the first place anyway” We tried not to take it seriously, even though we all know we did cross the path many times. We chose directions apart, the maze just kept us back together. But we have never known our feelings for each other.

He walked into the unknown wild -- the same kind as me. However, we never met each other intimately. He never lost, he never ever thought of exiting this wild. For him, that wild makes him surprisingly comfortable. I was there and enchanted by his magic that makes everything silent.

“Why did you like to smoke” He sat on the balcony next to me.

“I don’t know”

“One said they smoked because they’re unhappy. How about you?”

“Well, I’m fine. Just a little bit depressed.”

The awkward moment came in. My body felt I was bondage to the bed and almost dying -- like I was a corpse in a hotel that is left for investigation -- like a paralyzed that being diagnosed in the freeze-closed room of the truth.

“Did you being a sadboi right now?” That guy friend said. There’s nothing happened ever and ever. My memories are being haunted here with our simplistic complicated relationship. I don't know if I should tell him the truth or not. I tried to escape those feelings of mine. I finished smoking and walked to the room.

“Just for sometimes, by the way, the ramen is sluggish.” the bowl being left without ownership -- the anarchist ramen with a corpse-like dream that making people desire and die.

“We should hurry then” we consumed the instant ramen. We sat in front of each other like an opposition -- a black/white and color picture, capitalism and communism, me and him. The gazing game sucked me into the consciousness of somewhere else. I was back here again inside his intestine, full of instant noodles. I wondered if I could be a little monster that disturbed his intestine - his mind and body. At least, he could remember me since then.

“So why do you come here anyway?”

“I said already, I miss you” I walked away to keep our friendship close inside my heart. Walked away to the truth of my feelings that are too deep -- deep inside and locked it so that it could never see the light.

Then, I smoked another cigarette.