The two got back with their decently filled-stomachs and hands interlocking, a sign that made the footballer’s eyes show enough retention to the two hands. Cay shied away from the momentary prying eyes as Judas took the whole situation as normal. On the contrary, there should not be anything abnormal about two males holding hands.
“Talk later, heading upstairs.”, Cay said it after letting lose of the hand and greeted the greeter. Went upstairs and beyond giddiness.
Judas only smiled at the fleeting sight of Cay, the latter’s shadow not visible in the dim-lit room.
Wishing for the expected could not be granted, the reason was due to unexpected variables. How would a person be excited before becoming elater or disappointed if not for the unforeseeable present life offered? We were trained at a young age to remember the artificial structures of humans, the stoic and numerical language by teachers, reading chats and percentages during adulthood, and die with most of us leaving a grain of sand in the world. Only later to have been swept away by the daily breeze of human motion.
“Trust me”, Cay once said to Jenna. He would never let her down, he promised from the bottom of his heart but not his gut. “Put more trust in yourself”, Alexandre once told that to a younger and wide-eyed Judas. “Trust me, I know it happened.” As Haze switched from one page to the next while reading the news, his thumb thrusting the thin and grey sheet of black & white to the other, left elbow on the solid oak table. “I trust that you’ll take care of her.”, Kuan had told Cay the first day he met Jenna’s parents, the girl pretending not to overhear the sentence.
It was not love that should have been proven had not been the impulses of our animal instincts, trust had always been the real answer and the father of all issues. That was how a wold had been cast from its’ pack and a friend from his or her circle of people too familiar with the former. Tested faith was nothing compared to blind trust, the motion of yourself falling backwards, wondering between small panic breaths that someone ought to break the fall for you. The excitement, anxiety, fear, and elation could only be felt when a trust was placed on someone, not something.
The love that Judas entrusted to Cay, from the hands that were stained with blood and human flesh to someone that he met drinking at the Orange Rooms of the unexciting city of Southampton. To Judas, he had known himself of doing such cruel deeds. The hand he felt on his way back from a random street of Luxembourg city was the same hand he held after dropping the bloodied stone beside him. He would trust himself to Cay like he had when he bashed Jake’s skull in. It was all the same to him at least. The death of the boy was to be kept a secret from anyone, maybe he would trust Cay enough to tell him someday when Cay had put all his trust in him.
As the day moved to night as the hot feeling felt when the two held hands, from the sparkle touch on Cay’s cheeks to his tanned neck, to the occasional breeze blowing pass the interlocked fingers, the hold inseparable. Trust as a lock pad and a key.
It was love that paved the way to everything, the author Simon Montefiore once mentioned in his work. No, sir. It was trust that paved the way to either temporary happiness or a destructive satisfaction.
*
“Just do something you like.”, Cay’s mother told her son before he ended the call one morning in Southampton. His friend’s rented house stilling itself on the quiet street of Cedar Road.
He never really put too much thought about what she said, he still had two months to go before home-bound in Malaysia. He went about his morning, brushing his teeth and went out for a stroll. He had been on idle ever since quitting his job in Bath and moving to this vacant semi-detached house conveniently close to the Highfield campus of the prestigious university.
He would wake up and spend some time at the university’s gymnasium, a way to consume his vacant schedule rather than achieving an ideal physique. The library seemed always open for him every time he felt like entering it to pick some materials from its’ catalog of books. That day was just like any day after he had moved, invitingly cool and warm during high noon hours. He would wander to the shopping street just ten minutes’ walk away from the house to buy groceries or to sit in a café, there was always a freshly brewed cup of coffee to keep his hands warmed as he cupped them around either the ceramic or paper-like surface.
Weeks went by and he felt a little bit frustrated about the monotonous routine but still somewhat glad that he was not spending much of his savings: the rent were handled by his friend and the latter’s housemates as they had taken care of it when the contract started. He had met Judas during one of those weeks at the Orange Rooms, their respective contact number stored in each other’s phone. Only a few messages had been exchanged, nothing beyond that.
Until one evening as he came out from the gymnasium’s door that an idea struck him, he made haste back home event though there was nothing visibly worth the hassle. He came out of the shower fifteen minutes’ later and switched on his laptop, the screen dusty and marked by occasional hand sweeps, and typed. The more he searched online, the more excited he had become. The possibilities were endless, Cay thought giddily as more contents of foreign lands showed up on the monitor and the browser tabs seemed like a long queue. He went to bed late that night.
The next day, he was stirred awake by the lightest of sounds emitting from the opened window of his room. He found his phone on the other side of the twin bed and grabbed it with sleepy precision, he found his mother’s contact on Whatsapp app and pressed the call button.
“Good morning, son.”, it was comforting to know that his mother took notice of the different time zone that he was in.
“Morning, mum.”
“Anything happened?”
“Oh, just that I have an idea.”
“What Idea?”, Cay’s mother sounded briefly nervous as his response was not what she had expected.
“I’m planning a trip across parts of Europe before coming back.”
There was a momentary pause on the other end of the phone call, his mother returned to him shortly after.
“Are you sure? Do you have enough money to do that?”, his mother sounded concerned then.
“Yes, mum. I still have enough in my savings.”, he reassured her.
“Alright, but please update me on your progress. You need to plan first, is that right?”
“Yes, mum. Thank you for telling me to do something that I would like.”
“Yes, but…”
“Talk to you soon, I have to get back to researching.”, he ended the call before she could respond.
He looked for Judas’ number on the application and dialled.
“Hello?”, his acquaintance from the bar sounded surprise.
“Hey, Judas. You free next month?”, Cay could not contain his wide smirk, excited by the possibilities of his coming trip and to be rid of another tedious month.
Thank you, mother, for this wonderful idea. Cay thought giddily.
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