June 2012, 09:29 AM

Late.

When it came to being late, some would deny such a fact. Some would claim they took the cake or crowned themselves as the king of tardiness. Others would say they were just neutral and cared nothing about it.

Generally, I would always come earlier than what was planned. School, work or even hangout with friends, I would always be there before the desired time, even arriving the first. That was why my friends often dubbed me as the early bird of the bunch. Regardless of the nickname I got, I wasn't always an early riser.

Today, which marked the first week of summer break, Seb had invited me to Gelato Cafe to have some leisure time. It was one of the most popular cafes in town, and coincidentally, it was also the same place I worked at. Unlike last year, I decided to take a month off this holiday, including my other job in the factory. The manager even asked me to go back in August instead of July.

Seb planned to meet at 9 am, but the watch on my wrist showed that I was beyond the desired time. Well, it was only for 30 minutes, and as expected, Seb started bombarding my phone with unnecessary texts. I only read the first 4 messages and didn't bother checking the rest.

Ed where the heck are you dude

Im at the cafe like 40 minutes ago and you havent even showed up

It's already like 9:30

God this is the first time I see you this late LMFAO

The bus rocked as its wheels hit against a pothole, but I managed to maintain my equilibrium. Both of my feet had limited their movements by locking themselves in their positions. One of my hands seized tight on the handrail, further steadying me in place. Meanwhile, the other people in the bus almost lost their balance from the impact, but they recovered pretty quickly.

Once the bus had gone through the obstacle, I paid attention back to my phone. I scrolled down through Seb's sea of rants and let out a sigh in frustration. I released my hand off the clamp and punched in my answer.

I'm on my way Seb. Be patient.

Sliding it back to my pocket, I silently stared outside the bus window, watching random cars and buildings passing by. The sky was crystal clear; there were no signs of clouds to cover the brilliant sun. The moment I stepped outside my home, its scorching rays mercilessly seared my skin. Obviously, at this point, it was better to stay in my room instead of going out.

Minutes passed, and I came across a familiar road. Almost immediately, I punched on the stop button to alert the bus driver. As the vehicle came into a stop at the station, its doors opened, allowing a horde of people to come in. I managed to slip through the crowd and disembarked.

The drastic change of temperature really took a toll on me. The sweltering heat instantly hit against my body, replacing the cool air that I have back in the bus. I have to go somewhere cold now or I'm toast.

Gelato Cafe was just across the street, so it was a relatively short trip.

I decided to cross, not caring about the fact that the green light was blinking. Fortunately, the roads were pretty empty of any cars.

As I pushed the door of the cafe, there were chimes of the bell, which signalled my arrival. Cold blasts of air freed me from the heat outside, causing me to breathe in relief.

"Hello, Edward. What brings you here?" A voice interrupted me before I managed to find Seb.

I came across the owner's daughter, Christie, who was dressed in her employee uniform. Her dark blue hair flowed smoothly across her back, with two hair clips holding her side locks in place. As she held the empty tray close to her, blue eyes glinted in recognition.

"Just hanging out with a friend. He's already here, though," I replied.

"I see. By the way, my father told me that you won't do your shifts until the next 2 months," she twirled on the strand of her hair, "is that true?"

"Not really. I'll resume working by the end of July," I corrected her, "besides, my shifts are on the weekends, so they aren't really that tiring."

"How about your other job?"

"Well, it's supposed to be a month off, but my manager told me to return by August," I shrugged, "so, it's exactly 2 months for that."

"Wow, that's certainly a long break right there..." Christie seemed amused at my response, "that's one kind manager you have. You're lucky to have him as your boss."

I looked away, "I guess so."

Christie then responded to a waving hand of an old lady that was sitting in the corner. She then gave me a thin smile before leaving, "I would be right back. Just find your friend, and once I'm done handling this, I'd take your order."

"Sure," I muttered and silently watched as she hurried towards the friendly customer.

During my shifts, I found myself constantly interacting with Christie and her twin brother, Christian, a lot more than the other coworkers. Even though they were younger than me, they taught me all the general rules and the peak times where service was urgent. It isn't all that bad though.

The hardest part for me wasn't dealing with an upset customer, but the fact that I had to smile while I greeted people. By the cafe's policy, it was mandatory to do so to make the customers comfortable, so no objections could be made. Christie had criticized how my smile looked so forced, and Christian told me that I looked like a serial killer preparing for manslaughter.

And so, they thought that lecturing me about smiling was a great idea.

Rena, on the other hand, had always complimented my smile; she said it already looked great and perfect. I stiffened at the random thought, and cleared my mind off it.

What the hell am I thinking?!

"Sebastian! Oh my God! Is that you?!"

I was in a trance when someone decided to squeal right behind my ears, so I was startled by the unexpected scream. It turned out to be two random girls who recently entered the cafe and were standing behind me the whole time.

The others who had been enjoying their peaceful moment got distracted too. Most of their eyes were on them, including, obviously, the boy that they were referring to: Sebastian. Some returned to their business, but some wandered their gazes to my best friend, who simpered at the sight of the girls.

"Oh my God, it IS him!" One of them screamed. They decided to run for him, avoiding me and some dirty looks they received.

Ugh, it's probably his fans. I thought and groaned inwardly. I had experienced this situation countless times, especially at the mall. Sometimes, Seb had to hide his identity from being revealed to the public, but that was only if required. Hell, he and I once escaped an obsessed fan who kept on stalking and taking pictures of him.

I shook my head and decided to approach Seb's table, who seemed proud to be talking with the girls. I also took notice that he had ordered french fries and a chocolate milkshake, although it was only an empty glass now. I stopped just an inch from them, observing the interaction between Seb and his fans.

"Oh, when's your next dress coming out? I wanna wear it for my next party!" A girl with a brown ponytail asked too excitedly.

"It will probably be up by next month," Seb replied with a smug look, "make sure to check my blog for updates, I put them all there. Watch out though, the dress is really limited."

"Imma order it before anyone does!"

"Can I have your autograph?!" Another girl with black curly hair asked, lending him a marker along with a magazine with his photograph in it.

"With pleasure, cupcake," Seb gently took the marker from her and signed right on the cover of the book. The marker shrieked loudly as he drew a large smile, before bestowing the signed book back to the girls.

"Thank you!!!" The girls exclaimed their gratitude in unison, before they left him alone. I watched as they whispered to each other and giggled simultaneously. Even when they were trying their best to be as faint as possible, I couldn't help but to eavesdrop their conversation. Well, my hearing was unusually stronger than my other senses, so I really couldn't control it.

"There you are, Ed. What took you so long?" I snapped out of my thoughts when Seb called me. He was sitting with his legs spread out on his chair. He didn't even bother to rub off his irritating conceited expression, which urged me to do it for him instead. He's so full of himself.

"Get the fucking smirk out of your face," I told him off, pulling a chair across the table and settled myself down, "it's getting on my nerves."

"Why?" Seb chuckled, taking a lone french fry from the basket and gobbled it fast, "it's just my way of showing how lovely today is."

"Yeah, another day where your huge ego is leaking out of your brains," I grumbled, "I wished the way you build your pride is the same as how fast you study."

"... I don't know what you're trying to say, but that was a good one!" He leaned forward and playfully slapped me on my back. I didn't react to his obnoxious teasing, but I just mentally rolled my eyes. Fucking idiot.

Silence quickly fell between both of us, probably because Seb was gazing at me longer than usual. His eyes were boring two holes through my body, and I couldn't help but to stiffen and feel a little bit jumpy. I tightened my lips together, before turning away.

"I see you have a change of fashion style," Seb announced, "a black shirt and shorts, huh? I hate it but to say they are a match this time."

I snorted, "why the fuck do you always think I'm wearing a hoodie?"

"Probably because you always wear a hoodie no matter what season it is," he answered.

"...People change over time, Seb," I muttered under my breath, but it was loud enough that he could hear. He said nothing, but fortunately, it seemed like he was agreeing with me. Meanwhile, Seb's summer style remained the same as usual: a shirt with rolled up sleeves and a pair of shorts.

"So why did you come so late?" Seb interrogated, "you know, the last time I checked, you're always earlier than me."

I let out a deep sigh while I received the menu from a server that I had never seen before. He managed to give me a brief grin before setting off, "I was planning to wake up late today, but then I remembered about our meetup. When I looked at the time, it was nine past five."

"Dude..." Seb tried to hide his amazement by tackling another french fry, "this is the first time I see you forgetting an appointment. What's wrong? Are you eating too much bread your brain got stuffed with it?"

"You told me when I was half-asleep. It was fucking 2 am," I narrowed my eyes, and didn't even bother staring at his face.

"Well, it was unplanned. Forgive me!" Seb laughed it off as if it was something normal. He dismissed it by waving the back of his hand, resulting in another eye-roll from me.

I was scanning through the menu for food and beverages to fulfill my grumbling stomach. I was looking at the croissant section when I remembered that he would insult me for eating too much of these kinds of foods. To avoid his mouth from spurting out more bullshit, I decided to settle my breakfast with chicken schnitzel and an English tea.

Minutes after serving a lot of customers, Christie ultimately approached our table with her pen and paper ready. I proceeded to state my orders, and she scribbled it down quite fast. As she left to go to the kitchen, I turned my attention back to Seb, who was typing something on his phone.

"So, what brings us here?" I initiated the conversation. His brown eyes trailed towards me, although he was still facing the phone's screen. When he realized that I was finished ordering, he instantly slipped his phone back to his pocket.

"It's probably not much of a thought for you, but what are you going to do for your summer holidays?" Seb asked, grinning impishly, while his fingers played merrily with his straw.

"Nothing much," I replied, "just chilling at home, watching TV."

"...while eating tons of bread?"

"Whatever."

He guffawed, "that's what you usually do, man! Every time I visit you, you're either lying on bed or couch with bread all over you! I might sound cheesy, but if you're eating too much, you're gonna have a hard time losing all of that weight, especially when you rarely work out!"

I didn't incite any response, and I simply gave him a side glance. While Seb continued laughing out loud like an idiot he was, I constantly shot daggers at him. Meanwhile, Christie walked towards our table to serve my tea. Placing the tea on my right side, she threw me a lopsided smile before she went to a young man who was waiting to be seated.

After I suffered a full minute of hearing Seb's irritating chuckles, they finally died down, much to my huge relief, "how about your work? You said you will take a temporary leave?"

"Yeah I am," I leaned back against my chair, resting both of my arms on the armrest, "how about you?"

"I don't think I'll take a break," he started as he tapped his finger on the table, "there's a fashion week going on this late July, and I'm assigned to be one of their designers. I have to work hard, especially when my rivals are there too."

Obviously, with his arrogance, Seb had developed a lot of rivalry with the other young designers. Well, he was the most welcoming and friendly to most of his older contenders. Regardless, he always acted overly confident and boastful that sometimes I had the urge to zip his lips shut. I didn't really care about getting to know his opponents, but Seb had always told me about some of them.

"Let's see..." I recalled the names, "Lilian, Shane, Calista, Atticus and Cleo."

Those five people were such a pain in the ass for Seb, since he talked about them awfully a lot. Oftentimes, I was forced to hear him downgrading them, especially that of Cleo.

"Yeah, yeah. All of them are there, apparently," Seb rumbled, "Cleo is the worst of them all. An egocentric thirty-year old whose self-esteem is larger than the entire population of-"

"Says the narcissistic guy," I interrupted him. If I didn't, then he would start complaining about how unpleasant Cleo's fashion designs are, and how he had been extremely annoying. I didn't want to waste my time listening to his stupid tirade.

"At least my confidence didn't come out as annoying," Seb smiled in mischief, and this made me roll my eye for the third time today. The amount of hypocrisy on that one particular sentence was too much for me to define. Needless to say, he didn't detect the irony; he was too dense and oblivious. He grabbed 3 french fries, dipped them with sauce, and shoved them into his mouth simultaneously.

Christie appeared from the kitchen and approached us, carrying my food on her tray. She gently placed the plate in front of me, along with the knife and the fork.

"Enjoy your food," she whispered, before leaving once more. I ogled at the recently fried chicken schnitzel, which was covered with mushroom sauce. I really wanted to devour all of the food at once, but I resisted the temptation.

"So Ed, are you free around this week?" Seb asked while I was cutting the crispy chicken with the knife.

"What do you think?" I countered his question with another question. The reason why was because the answer was pretty much self-explanatory. He should have already known from our conversations earlier.

"Right, I catch your drift," Seb chuckled, scratching the back of his head. His body abruptly tilted forward, as if it was some sort of a secrecy. He also seemed hesitant at first, but he decided to go with it, "so... it's been like months since we visited Lynn's grave."

I was about to eat the chopped chicken, but his revelation caused me to freeze, stopping all of my movements. My fingers quickly felt all weak, so the fork was about to slip off. Regardless of it, I managed to get it together. My eyes gradually wandered towards him.

"...I mean, both of us have been so occupied with school and work that we kinda don't have the time. Now that we're slightly free, this is our chance to pay a visit," Seb explained, "we can also invite both Ren and uh... Alyssa."

While Seb was waiting for my answer, I was remembering that atrocious day. Even if that happened almost a year ago, all the images playing inside my head were still vivid: the crumbling machine, the pool of blood, Lynn's co-fuck, go away from my mind...

"Ed?" Seb called out, fortunately bringing me back to the reality.

"Yeah I'm fine, I'm fine," I repeated, looking straight at him.

He was silent for a moment, however. His eyes flashed briefly, expressing some sort of concern, but thankfully he didn't get in touch with it, "I was planning it to be tomorrow or maybe the day after. I don't know if Ren or Alyssa can come, though, but I hope they will."

"...Have you asked her family's permission?" I was still dazed, but I was able to gather my thoughts and kept my feelings hidden. My raging appetite had also dropped dramatically. Even staring at the mouth-watering food didn't help the situation at all.

Seb didn't answer my question directly, and instead he pulled out his phone. He swept his fingers throughout the screen, and then showed me a series of texts. I read them carefully, seeing his messages with Lynn's mother. When I hovered over the time stamps, I felt my eye go wide.

09:43 AM.

It was recent, like 20 minutes ago.

I looked back at him with traces of surprise written all over my face. He was able to read it like a script.

"Yeah, I asked her mother when you were ordering for your food," Seb revealed, smiling softly, "she allowed us."