It's not Just a Fairy Tales
1242 Words
"I'm bored of this haircut, let's go to the salon, Troy!" said Mayang, who's holding small mirror that she carried everywhere.
After the incident this morning, Troya seemed to have returned to her usual character, relaxed and a little sleepy.
"Okay!" replied Troya lightly.
In fact, at the end, usually only Mayang got the haircut. Troya didn't like to cut her hair shorter. For some reason, she had a promise with Kai that she couldn't break.
It's lunch break. The three of them gather in the school garden. Mayang always brings food from her house. Even though Mayang seems spoiled, she is very good at cooking, and she always brings food for her two best friends, too. This time she brought sushi, a type of Japanese food.
Even though the ingredients were mostly just omelette and crab pieces, one of her friends ate them very greedily. Meanwhile, her other friend was still busy with his laptop.
"What are you doing, Li?" asked Mayang curiously.
"Oh, this is my big project. Oh yeah, so when school's over, you two will immediately go to my house. Troya, you just go there alone. Because I have to wait for Mayang until she finishes her basketball club. Later in class I will give you my house key,” said Liam. There's a plaster on his nose that covered the scratches caused by the incident this morning. But so far, he looked fine.
"OK!" Troya answered casually.
In fact, besides being busy chewing sushi with her mouth, she's also busy watching the movie Maleficent from her ipad.
"Why are you watching the movie again, we saw it last week? How can you not be bored? Besides, nothing's special about the movie, right?" Mayang asked, sneering a little at his friend's fondness.
In this world, nothing attracts Troya attention except bicycles, games and fairy tales. Three different things that oddly fit together so well in her mind.
But Troya didn't care her friend's opinion, "I like it, May."
“What's so good about sleeping beauty stories anyway? If we thought more deeply about it, there are no useless princesses in this world apart from sleeping beauty. Born perfect in the world, then fell asleep and only had to wait for the kiss of a prince who came to wake her up. Useless, right?" Mayang sneered back.
This time, Mayang got Troya's attention, so the girl pressed the pause button and turned her head, "May, if you don't know what you've just talked about, you better not talk." Troya sounded a little harsh actually.
Hearing that, Mayang was feeling offended, "Uh, these are my mouths, I could say whatever I want to say!"
"If you really want to talk, at least filter what you want to say first," said Troya equally fiercely. For some reason she's the type of girl who doesn't get offended easily. Mayang often talks without thinking. But usually Mayang's words never bothered her, they just passed by.
"You said that all my talk is trash?" shrieked Mayang.
"Just realised?" Troya replied in no way to defuse the situation.
This time, feeling the atmosphere was heating up, Liam stopped his work to intervene. "No need to fight just because of a movie," said him.
"ONLY you said, Li? It's more than 'just' a movie problem! Mayang might say that she doesn't like that movie, but what do you know about the feelings of a girl who had to spend most of her life sleeping, unable to fight her destiny? Maybe the girl still had many things she wanted to do!” explained Troya sharply, remembering her own experience exactly couple of years ago when she contracted the disease and could not get out of bed at all.
Liam and Mayang immediately fell silent when they heard this. They remembered the story from Ersamayori, Troya's mom, at the beginning of their friendship. And that's probably the reason, why teachers rarely got angry when this girl fell asleep in the classroom.
After that, Troya leaved the two of them. The disease had indeed recurred for two years. But because the disease has no cure, there is no guarantee that the disease will not come back to t*****e her life again.
***
Troya entered the classroom and sat in her own chair. Not long after that, Liam arrived in class and sat down next to her. There's silence between them. Troya's still busy with her tablet, this time she's playing a game and disn't pay any attention to Liam.
Liam doesn't use to be in this kind of situation, so he doesn't know what to do. Instead he just sat beside his best friend and busied himself reading textbooks. Soon the entrance bell rang and all the students entered the classroom.
The atmosphere remained boisterous in the classroom until finally the teacher came in and the students calmed down. Liam cursed himself. He wanted Troya not to get angry again, but no words came out of his mouth.
Suddenly all the sentences that had been arranged in his head just disappeared. And apparently, today's plans had to be canceled. It's disappointing, he already so prepared for today's presentation in front of his two best friends. Even though Liam knew that there's still tomorrow, it still made him sad and disappointed.
Liam sighed heavily. Suddenly, there's a sheet of paper that Troya handed it to him. A little surprised, Liam opened the paper and read it.
After school, I go straight to your house, right? You just pick up Mayang, I'll wait there.
And just like a drain that had been clogged and now flows very smoothly, Liam felt a great deal of relief and happiness. He turned to look at Troya and replied, "OK!"
***
According to the plan, Troya went alone to Liam's house right after school's over. His house was very close to school, an old white house with a large courtyard. This house was the house of his late grandmother.
Liam lost his father when he was five years old. Financial conditions had collapsed. So when Mrs. Liliana Hakim, Liam's mother, who was a professor in science, got a teaching job in Malaysia, she accepted it. Then, because she didn't know what conditions were like in a foreign land, Mrs. Liliana left Liam to be cared for by his grandmother and grandfather. And then when Liam was seven years old, grandfather passed away. So, it was just him and grandmother who lived in the house. Mrs. Liliana continues teaching in Malaysia and only comes home once a year.
When grandmother died a year ago, Troya and Mayang came to comfort and strengthen him. And when Mrs. Liliana started asking him to live together again, Liam chose to stay in Indonesia. Troya and Mayang were quite close with his grandmother. They both really liked grandma's cooking. Moreover, Troya was actually a bit greedy about food. Mayang even had exchanged recipes with grandmother.
Nothing's happened while riding to Liam's house. The distance from school is only one kilometer straight. Well, maybe there are a few turns and get through the market crowd.
Troya stopped pedaling her bicycle when she heard thunder booming deafeningly. She looked up at the sky and was a little surprised by the weather today. Until a few minutes ago, when she was still in the schoolyard, the sun was still shining brightly, not covered by any clouds at all.
"What's happening? It's so odd!" She muttered.[]
- Writer
