Forbearance

03 : The Menfess Twooter

“You’re still hung up over it, Sen?” was what Herma asked, the one who was supposed to be Sean’s mortal enemy because of their IHS’s common discord. The two teenagers perched in front of a mini-market. Outside their respective school grounds, they were actually the best buds duo.

“Yea. That college senior is just too handsome,” replied Sean as he took a cola from Herma’s hand. Then he drank it before turned his face away and went back scrolling phone screen looking the feeds on his bluebird.

Herma shook his head in disbelief at his love-struck friend. He still remembered what happened two months ago. C’mon, Sean was almost straight out flattened by that barracuda right before his eyes, dude! And it almost shook him to death! But the critical shock got doubled when his childhood playmate... stared at his savior with a “swoon” in his eyes–unbelievably smitten–and what’s next? Sean showed clear signs of falling in love with that guy.

Honestly, this Herma Alfun Sudiro wasn’t surprised about Sean’s leaning towards the D instead of a box. No! Herma had been with this brunette since they were little, he knew there was a chance that Sean wasn’t straight. Well, this Sean had a stern face with wild hair that made him popular around the chicks, but he always said ‘nah’. And then he suddenly fell in love?! How delusional could he be to chase after someone who isn't even from Jakarta?! He was miles away damnit!

The tan-skin man waved his hand away to get rid of the memory of that day. He pulled the nearest chair, leisurely sat with drawing one knee in front of chest before throwing his question in, “So? Got any lead to find this big brother Hesa?” while opening his own cola can. He asked this in purpose to learn his friend’s love progress, who was now sitting cross-legged on a plastic chair and surfing his social media.

“Hm? I just commented on twooter and made a lot of status,” replied Sean lightly which made Herma choked and poured the cola out of his mouth. Looking at Herma’s antics, Sean who at first wanted to show his menfess*** twoot, made a step back, “the f**k? You’re so gross, Herma.”

Herma could only hit his chest and fought for his breath. It hurt, goodness! His chest burned! But, oh s**t, man! His friend wasn’t any help! Instead, Sean only gave him that ‘ewwww’ judging face.

After successfully calmed himself down, Herma quickly stood up. His eyes filled with annoyance glared at Sean before snatching his cola and without warning, he dumped the liquid on that perky face. It was of course ticked the brunette teen of and in seconds, their simple drinking and hanging out switched into fist fight.

The cashier girls inside the mini-market could only turned their face away, picked up the phone and called the nearest police station.

***

Meanwhile on the side of another province, right at a room filled with cables, Intregated Circuites, modules and other electronic stuffs… there was a group of people busied themselves with their new project until late-night. Some of them were drawing their designs, meddling with the row of words in their programs, and some were taken up with their solders.

Andre, one of the few who were taking a break even though his friends were up in their spirits. He was leaning against the cold wall under a big open window and engrossed in surfing the web. To be precise, he was enjoying reading stories and shitposts in the infamous app: filebook (sss).

The protest they coincidentally took part of had was still a hot topic amongst the netizen, even though two months had passed since then. Even worse, too many memes made spiced with juvenile’s wild imagination that took that protest as the setting. Meme which .... he was supposed to call it as ‘doujinshi’.

“Ndre, you set the switch on NC*, right? So why won’t the system start? It isn’t on NO**?” is the voice that forced Andre to stop his feeding before raising his head up. The person who started up a conversation with him was someone who had become a trending topic on web, but the person himself didn’t know about that. Well, Hesa simply had that ‘don’t care’ attitude for the cyberspace lifestyle.

“I set it on public, so you can read there’s someone out there looking for you,” replied Andre airily which of course far from answering Hesa’s question. The so very smart yet a digital illiterate (maybe intentionally) Hesa could only knitted his brows and asked, “Huh? as the sentence ‘the hell are you talking about’ clearly shown, yet remained unspoken from the calm-face man.

Andre sniffed at Hesa’s reaction before snatching the laptop with a program in it, the one that showed a series of blinking perplexities inside. He then looked again at the shown sequence , trying to figure out whether the analog system sequence was right or wrong and why it wouldn’t run Hesa’s digitization. 

Can you guess what was their faculty and department? Yep, correct. The Electrical Engineering.

Long story short, Andre admitted his mistake. From the rushed system and calculation he had done so the components inside won’t fell through, it was true that he set up the wrong switch type. Scratching his not-so-itchy head, he apologized to the older man. As for Hesa? Somehow his face had clearly shown an expression of ‘I knew it’. Shucks.

“So, Hes, don’t you check the socmed lately?” asked Andre, trying to bait his luddite friend who decided to sit down next to him and fixed the coding he had created. The curly haired man beside Andre glanced before returning to the task at hand and answering, “if you’re asking me to join a pointless thing again, I refuse.”

“What the hell! I haven’t said anything!” Andre rolled eyes in annoyance before puffed up his cheeks. “Anyway there’s no more protest since then, right?!”

“Well, you, the last time you told me to check on it, I had became a protest coordinator out of nowhere. Even though we had come to Jakarta for a competition. You’re so full of s**t!” retorted Hesa as he glared, countering the blatant irritation his partner in crime.

Well, so, Andre could explain...

The story went like this, their trip to Jakarta had had not to join a protest, but to attend a Robotic Competition. And then, bam! There had happened this Criminal Code Law draft and the s****l violence bill (RKUHP-RUUKUHP) drama. Somehow, too used at fanning the fire, Andre agitated his friends to participate and support the other students to stand up, so the House of Representatives could stop their wrong doing on Indonesian's democracy. 

It was good that they have a lot of robotic team members and each brought their own alma mater coats, so it was a matter of tacking two birds with a stone. And because Hesa was the former leader candidate of the student union who failed to get to the last round due to stomachache and ended up abstaining the hearing.... he was suddenly and one sidedly appointed as the coordinator. Everybody bemusedly agreed. 

Yes, that was the start of all these drama.

“But Desta Aaron Mahesa... this time it isn’t about the protest! Just go check out the socmed, someone has been looking for ya!” Andre stubbornly plead to his friend to check his socmed out. To tell the truth, he already knew for a while that... Hesa’s act on treating the wounded IHS kid had made the kid fell in love on set. Andre also had oversaw his developing timeline feed and his guess was on spot. That IHS kid had tried real hard to find his Cinderella who had left an alma mater for a glass shoe.

How did he knew the kid had tried? Whoa. The kid broadcasted it on every socmed. A photo of  the blue alma mater coat was uploaded even on blue bird timeline, sss, and so many others. Even the kid had commissioned a doujinshi which depicting their first meeting so the college student would notice it. However... yea... that Hesa was... he didn’t want to connect with socmed anymore than necessary.

“Buy me internet package, I’ll check on it after these are done,” replied Hesa at last while looking away, then he rose up from his seat.

“Meh. You’re always using the wi-fi, why even asking for an internet package?” added the buzzcut man while pouting his lips. He snorted roughly, annoyed with his best friend who were walking away with his innocent upfront and let Andre's words flew past by.

Robotic activities were usually carried out at night in this B University and would be finished around a third before dawn. Just like the days before, after finishing the club activities Hesa chose to stay over in the campus. He was too lazy to go back to his apartment. The truth was, this apartment of his wasn’t that far way from campus, it just got separated by one very wide Brantas river. Of course, sarcasm inserted. 

Turned out though, this time Hesa felt he had chosen wrong. He should’ve gone home instead. Why? This kunyuk (monkey) named Andre Bima Sujhendra had terrorized him to check on his socmed, at the very least the twooter. That half Sundanese-Javanese human, who wasn’t even the electronic lab assistant like him, brought over a sleeping bag and took a sleeping spot next to him. He even told their junior, who is the lab assistant and had the right to sleep on the lab, to move their asses so he could have a larger place to sleep.

"You're abusing your power as senior, Ndre!" Hesa scold him, but it seemed that it didn't matter for Andre. Instead listening to Hesa, he whined, “Open your twooter pleassseee,” with a pair of puppy eyes as they were getting ready to sleep.

“I’m so soo sooooo sleepy. Can’t I just do it tomorrow?” grumbled Hesa while pulling up his saroong blanket to his shoulders.

“C’mon Hesa! There’s free wi-fi here! Free! Unlimited! Open your socmed! Pleaaasee?!” replied Andre unyielding.

Andre’s parrot-like chatter made the owner of that pair brown eyes reached out his hand to the coffee table in the assistant room. He took his phone, he opened twitter app, and ...after it was opened... he turned off the screen.

“The f**k! That’s just flashing! Read your timeline too!” spontaneously Andre cursed and rose from his laying position. He looked vexingly at his friend next to him.

“You’re just saying to open it, not to read it. Now I want to sleep, if you keep being loud just get out of here!” tutted Hesa after throwing a want-to-skin-you glare at Andre. He turned back around and was on his way to lalaland, leaving Andre behind–who could only gape in disbelief.

Letting out an irritated huff, Andre took his own phone and started replying menfess twooter he had bookmarked. He quickly ran his fingers before finally ditching it for sleep.

[CM****]

To: IHS student who almost got hit by police car

From: Buzzcut haired big bro, a friend the brother who gave you his blue alma mater coat after you almost got hit by police car.

Bro, the man you’re falling half-dead head over heel for is still in his cave and he’s getting comfy in it. An advice from me, get over here, just tell him what you want. You already knew what’s our university from the emblem, rite? Hurry up! If you’re manly that is.”

Which was a reply to this twoot...

[CM]

To: Brother who gave me his blue alma mater coat after I almost got hit by a police car

From: IHS student who almost got hit by police car

Big brother... Where are you? With whom? Doing what?

Please DM me, Brother. I’m searching for you in this vast social media! I miss you.

Which also had gotten thousands of retweets and its screenshot was spread wide on other social media by the fujodanshis.

***

Meanwhile, in a two stories home in the capital, a person went inside the room with a sour face. One can easily guess the reason why he wore that expression. Sean’s family was a ‘conglomerate’ family. Surely Sean got berated by his parents for disrupting their busy schedule just to ‘pick him up’ from the police, just because he picked a fight with Herma in front of a mini-market. Ha! The one who actually picked Sean up from the police were not even them.

“Dog’s luck to have them as my parents,” cursed Sean and tossed his jacket on the table. “Not concerned enough about their son or why I ended up there, they lectured him with ‘Why are you so inept at taking care of yourself and ended up being a burden to us! You can’t do anything right blahblahblah! Why can’t you be a little more like your brother, blahblahblah’ What a shitfest...” he commented, remembering all the things his parents had shoved at him through video call in the living room.

“I’ll just skip on school tomorrow. I don’t care I’m in senior year, don’t care if they got called to school,” his rants continued on, even though now he was taking off his clothes until the only thing was left was his boxer. Then moodily the teen walked to his bed after taking his phone in his pocket.

“Where should I go tomorro—“ this rant was cut off, his eyes went wide open as he saw a notification. Suddenly Sean forgot how to breathe again, his heart beat fast.

Hurriedly he opened his post in menfess and a wide smile bloomed on him. Briskly he replied to a comment from a certain college student.

[CM]

To: Buzzcut haired big bro, a friend the brother who gave me his blue alma mater coat after I almost got hit by police car.

From: A smitten IHS student

Roger, bro! I’ll be there tomorrow!

*[tbc]* 

 --------------

glossarium : 

*NC : Normally close (it means that basic logic of the component on the virtual board is 1/connected)  

**NO : Normally open (it means that basic logic of the component on the virtual board is 0/not connected).

***Menfess : mention confess

****CM : collage menfess