Chapter 03 - Chengyu's Three Phases of Extreme Pain (Part 2)

The date is 30th May 2007, 8:55 am.

Chengyu is on his way to Block 27 of the ICT Cluster for his first lesson of the day. He was supposed to be taught basic storyboarding for his Principles of Animation module. On his way there, he reaches the lift lobby connecting the two blocks, and all of a sudden, a sharp pain starts to act up as he sees a green-haired youngster standing inside a glass room.

“That was the campus's eGarage – A special room designed for IT Students to develop projects there. But this pain...... why does it act up now?”

Chengyu decided to take a look, and finds that the green-haired youngster that has a ponytail tied to it, is actually a guy!

“Something is really wrong with the campus regulations...... I thought this campus doesn't allow long hair for guys in the campus?? Why does he allowed to have that kind of hairstyle here!?”

Suddenly, his pain accelerated, forcing himself to stay away from the room and ran for the lift lobby and took the first lift that came onto that place. Fortunately the lift was going up and he successfully reached the 5th storey of Block 27 and starts his lesson on Principles of Animation.

During the lesson, Chengyu listens as the lecturer for the module, Mr. Andrew Low, teaches the students about doing basic storyboarding and asked the students to draw up a single storyboard depicting a scene they want to see in their animation after the entire lesson, which will take about two hours.

As the time for the storyboard drawing came, the students were focused on drawing their ideal picture that they want to be part of their animation. Chengyu tries to convey his own message that he has been trying to convey since that assault incident back in 2005, but wasn't sure which scene to use for to depict it.

“Making an animation seems easy, but the real challenge has to come from the drawing of the storyboard. I myself don't have the ability to translate the aesthetic sense of images in my mind onto a piece of paper, that can impede me into doing a complete storyboard, furthermore this storyboard has to tell the people who are watching this the message inside my mind, or the purpose of the storyboard will be defeated! I really have to......”

Chengyu put in all his effort to create a drawing with the best of his effort. When he finally submits his own drawing, the other students' works have been easily understood by fellow students. But the work of Chengyu that depicts the somewhat crude drawing of a young man getting hit by a spike right into his chest which is bleeding profusely, has all the students bewildered, not being able to understand what message he is trying to convey. Even the lecturer has difficulty understanding what he drew really mean. However, as he is unable to speak as and when he wants, he writes down the meaning of the picture at the bottom-left hand corner what the picture means. The students have some idea on what he meant and showed somewhat uncomfortable faces, but Mr. Low still doesn't understand the entire picture behind such a devastating image that he has conjured up.

But as he looks at Chengyu, he somehow knew that he won't be able to talk as and when he wanted to, so he graded all their works except for Chengyu's work. After the students including Chengyu have left the classroom when the lesson is over.

The date is 30th May 2007, 11:05 am.

After his lesson, Mr. Low decided to go up to his office floor and looks for Mr. Jonas Chua, mentor for Chengyu's class to see if he can understand what he did for his storyboard.

“Jonas. I have something to talk to you.” Mr. Low starts his conversation at the conference room with Mr. Chua. “It's about one of the students in my Animation class, Chengyu.”

“What's wrong. Did he do something unusual in class this morning?” Mr. Chua asked him.

“Take a look at what he drew here in my class this morning.” Mr. Low showed him Chengyu's artwork that he submitted as part of the Principles of Animation lesson assignment. “Up until now I don't have any idea what's going on in his mind when he drew this... even after I've read what he wrote at the bottom right-hand corner about what he is drawing...”

But Mr. Chua obviously was not very shocked at the way he draws the image shown to him, especially after he has read what Chengyu wrote about the meaning of the picture.

“I guess this may be how he feels about himself right now... or rather, what he is right now...” Mr. Chua calmly noted.

“Jonas, I think you know something about him that I probably don't.” Mr. Low said. “If I guessed it right, the identity of this young man in the picture that has a thorn on his chest is none other than the person that does this drawing himself, am I right?”

“I believe so, Andrew.” Mr. Chua nods his head. “This boy's heart, or rather he himself, must've suffered way too much from what he had experienced in secondary school two years before that this happened to him. I told you before days after I met him for the first time that he cannot talk as and when he wanted, right?”

“Yeah. You mentioned to me about that.” Mr. Low replied. “Maybe he might just be trying his best to express his past using that kind of gory drawing since that may be the only other option that he is able to communicate with other people?”

“I guess what people think as incomprehensible gore...... is actually as real as his own past because that was exactly what happened to him two years ago.” Mr. Chua starts to understand his work. “The gory depictions were merely an expression that tells stories about what happened to him at that time......”

“Is that so, Jonas... you have any idea what happened to Chengyu before he came here?”

Mr. Chua thought for a while, and decided to explain to Mr. Low about what he knew about Chengyu's past, which he heard from his former student who was a teacher in Chengyu's former secondary school where he took his 'O' Level Examinations. After hearing the sad story about his past, Mr. Low starts to get a clearer picture in the meaning of what Chengyu drew for his storyboard.

“Okay, Jonas. I guess I can start grading his work now that I know the meaning behind him doing such work, now that you told me something about his past that caused him to draw up something like that.”

Mr. Low starts grading his work after he has returned to his office.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chua thinks about the pain that Chengyu is still experiencing right now.

“I hope that he attends the counselling session today at the Student Services Office and opens up to the counsellors there if he can...... I really hope that if he can open up a little, they might be able to find a way to allow him to talk properly.”

The date is 30th May 2007, 2:00 pm.

Chengyu has exited the lift on the lift lobby and was walking towards Canteen 3 when he met Mr. Chua there, who approached him as soon as he saw him coming by.

“Good afternoon, Chengyu. How are you feeling today?” Mr. Chua places his hand on Chengyu's left shoulder while asking him.

Chengyu however did not respond to Mr. Chua's actions too readily, but at the same time did not repel any of Mr. Chua's actions as he didn't sense any malicious intent from the lecturer.

“By the way... is your chest all right?” Mr. Chua asked him this out of the blue.

“Wait! When he asked this question...... does he know something about what happened this morning??” Chengyu was thinking about the time he first arrived at the eGarage and felt pain in his heart as he saw a guy with green-coloured hair.

Chengyu immediately nodded his head to avoid anymore suspicion by Mr. Chua as he still couldn't trust his own class mentor completely right now.

“I thought that you suffered a heart attack this morning, but I may have worried a little too much...”

It is pretty obvious that Chengyu refuses to talk about the incident this morning with his own mentor as he wishes to deal with it completely on his own.

Meanwhile, at the opposing block, a student with orange hair is looking at the two from a distance, but the real focus in his eyes was on Chengyu himself.

“My predictions were spot-on this time. That Li Chengyu really went into this Polytechnic to study...... I guess all the pain that he went through before he came here had his speech affected in a way that he wasn't able to speak whenever he wanted to......”

But all of a sudden, another voice inside his body speaks out about the situation.

“Is it just my intuition or do I feel some kind of enormous power inside that Chengyu guy you're looking at right now. I feel that power is still somehow asleep right now while waking up rudely at times to be unleashed...... I myself have no idea whether he even knew about the existence of this power inside him......”

The orange-haired student seems to understand what the other voice inside him is talking about.

“I guess we need to make more observations about him to find out for ourselves......” The student said before leaving the scene.

“That morning, I saw you looking at the eGarage and was seemingly curious about what's inside there, maybe if you're interested, I can show you inside the eGarage to better understand the workings of this as you might be using it in the near future.” Mr. Chua made an offer to show Chengyu around the place.

Chengyu didn't say anything, so Mr. Chua took it as a yes and brought him to the eGarage. However, since only the final-year students doing the Final-Year Project and Intern-ships are allowed access to this place, Mr. Chua has to use his staff pass to get them inside.

“So this is the inside of the eGarage, huh......”

Chengyu looked around and saw only tables and a special large-screen computer with a tablet on the side on one end of the room, and two game consoles on the other end of the room.

Mr. Chua told him that the large-screen computer is for Multimedia & Animation Students to create digital artwork and animation for Final-Year Projects and the consoles there are used for annual game competitions organised by the faculty's Student Council.

“For this time of the year, the current final-year students will be handing over the leadership of the ICT Cluster Student Committee to the new students and there will be an election to choose the new candidates to fill in the seats in the Committee itself. After all the members of the new Committee are elected, there will be an internal election to select the leadership of the various sub-Committees to complete the formation of the entire Student Committee.”

“Hearing what he said just now, I have sufficient reason to believe that guy with a hairstyle problem is most likely to be involved in that Student Committee elections...” Chengyu starts analysing the situation he is in right now. “...the question is, in exactly what way...?”

Chengyu looked around and saw a small green-coloured booth that has a large photograph of what was seemingly the face of the guy he saw this morning, as well as an electronic caption that read: “Vote for your Sunshine Candidate! Vote for Kentaro Matsumoto for the Student Committee!”

“I guess that was the name of the student with that hairstyle I saw this morning, huh......”

Then all of a sudden, the owner of that booth popped his head out of there and saw Mr. Chua.

“Good Afternoon, Mr. Chua! You came to visit the booths?”

“Yes, Kentaro. Also to show this student around here as well.” Mr. Chua replied, pointing to Chengyu.

This made Kentaro somewhat glad that someone is willing to visit this place and possibly support him in his candidacy in the Student Committee.

“Hi there! Nice of you to drop by! My name's Kentaro Matsumoto! Nice to meet......”

However, that kind of “kindness” automatically triggers his emotional defence mechanism inside him and showed a very angry face to his kindness, which startled Kentaro a little.

“What's with that attitude of his......?!” Kentaro's annoyance is showing in his face now as a response to that.

Looking at the situation, Mr. Chua suddenly remembers something that Chengyu has written on the paper as a means of communication to him when they met face-to-face for the first time:

“These skills are never talents because they took years to extremely harsh training to develop and grow so that I can tell good persons from bad ones and avoid harm as much as possible. Due to the skills that I have developed all by myself, I have absolutely zero tolerance for grey areas in a person for fear of betrayal and the eventual irreparable damage that it will cause. It will be “Game Over” immediately for a person who dares to attempt this heinous act.”

“However, there's a downside to these powerful skills that I have learnt do far: Any attempt of hostility or kindness will automatically trigger my internal defence mechanism that is powerful enough to repel anyone who dares to come near me. Close contact will elevate this mechanism to hyper-drive where I won't hold back in taking down anyone who show hostility, no matter who he or she is!”

“I would guess that's what is going to happen when Kentaro is trying to get close to Chengyu in his current state......” Mr. Chua is thinking about what he wrote to communicate with him, and tries to intervene between the two of them.

“Kentaro, I think you should stay away from Chengyu a little......”

“Why? What's wrong with him?” Kentaro is a little surprised at Mr. Chua's sudden reversal of plans.

“Chengyu here is suffering from pain caused by the betrayal of his friend years ago, and he's still hurt even till today, so please don't try to put any pressure on him, okay?”

However, Kentaro doesn't seem fazed about what Mr. Chua said about him, or so it seems...

“That's weird! I've never seen anyone with that kind of attitude after losing a so-called friend due to things like that! If you lose one, you just simply find another one to replace him or her......”

But hearing those words made Chengyu immediately clench both his fists and started growling in extreme anger!

“Friends come and go anyway in life, right? It's not too healthy to take these things too seriously that you get yourself too immersed in those that you forgot about what you really want......”

The angry clenching of Chengyu's fists got even tighter to such an extent that he had to literally force himself to speak after all this!

“You...... moron......!! How...... can...... you...... take...... friendship...... so...... lightly......!!”

This made Kentaro and Mr. Chua equally shocked at Chengyu's extreme anger!

“Friendship...... helps you in ways...... family...... cannot...... help...... Friendship is not a game that you can say 'Game Over' as and when you feel like it, and feel as if nothing happened!!”

“W...what the...!?” Kentaro's shock was obvious for the fact that no male in his life has ever been so hostile to him as Chengyu right here.

“The things you've said clearly shows that...... you never feel anything when you lose someone you cherish before......!! Have you!?”

The words that Chengyu said now has stirred the emotions of Kentaro, his past that he tries to forget before coming to Singapore to study is starting to catch up with his present time once more, and with it delivering a painful and painful shock to his heart!

“Losing friends because you've given all that you've got to maintain it, have you even felt about that kind of pain that you can inflict to them as if it happened to you when you give them up in the first place!? Do you!?”

This shocking words seems to remind Kentaro of his past relationships back in Japan, and was taken aback so much that he inadvertently fell backwards in shock!

“Chengyu, calm down! Please!” Mr. Chua brings him to a corner and tries to calm him down. “I know you're in constant pain but it's not right to simply criticise others before understanding how they feel.”

However, these words only increase the anger in Chengyu's heart and showed it in a very angry growl in reply! And Mr. Chua immediately saw the emotion in his eyes.

“Those eyes of his...... they seem to show feelings of immense sadness and anger, which might stem down to what Kentaro just said earlier, but......”

“Try to calm down, Chengyu!” Mr. Chua grabs his arm in an attempt to cool his heating anger, but this only served to activate his emotional defence mechanism in hyper-drive and exerts a powerful force that even Mr. Chua's own strength was unable to handle. This strength caused him to swing his arm downwards and roared loudly, causing a powerful tremor on the floor and the force of that pushed Mr. Chua five metres away from him before falling on his back, while at the same time, Chengyu's body has generated a blue-coloured energy field that covers his entire body.

However, the emergence of strange energy from Chengyu's body has been unexpectedly felt by someone nearly 150 metres away. The student with the orange hair is sitting on a seat inside the Atrium when he and his other self inside him felt the emergence of the hidden power inside Chengyu there as well.

“Hey partner, did you felt some powerful energy coming from over there??”

“I feel that same thing as well. Probably that power is from Chengyu and it has been awakened at the least expected time......”

“But why now......?”

Back at the eGarage, Chengyu looked sharply at Mr. Chua with fearsome anger in his eyes for a few seconds before opening the door of the eGarage and ran off.

At the same time, Kentaro was still shell-shocked after what Chengyu said earlier about taking friendships for granted, which is exactly what Chengyu was trying to put across all along.

“(Japanese) Yo...ru...ko......!” Kentaro seems to have some memories of his past back in Japan coming back to him. “(Japanese) Is... this... why... you... left... me... on... my... own... back... then...?”

After that, tears start to well up in his eyes and he started sobbing in silence. But after a few seconds, his mobile phone rang and he takes the call after he saw the caller's name on the screen.

“(Japanese) Hello...”

“(Japanese) Good Afternoon, Kentaro-san! It's me, Reika.”

“(Japanese) Oh, Reika. What's the matter?”

“(Japanese) Um... is it okay if I can come over to help you in the booth preparations?”

“(Japanese) It's okay, I can manage on my own...”

“(Japanese) That's not like you, Kentaro-san. You always welcome people to help out whenever they want to. What's wrong?”

Kentaro remained silent about this.

“(Japanese) It's okay. I'm always here to listen and try to help the best way I can, Kentaro-san.”

“(Japanese) You're a good person, Reika...”

Kentaro told Reika over the phone about what happened a few minutes ago, which surprised Reika after hearing it.

“(Japanese) Chengyu-san did what?? I really need to talk to him to find out why he did such a thing......”

Meanwhile, Chengyu has kept on running until he reaches the staircase behind Block 27 of the ICT Cluster, panting hard and his blue aura vanishing from his body.

“What's happening to me!? Why am I doing things I don't intend to do at all!? WHY!?”

Chengyu immediately looked at his watch and the time reads 2:25 pm.

“This is not good...! I have to reach that place by 2:30 pm!”

Thinking about the appointment, he went down the stairs and walked towards Block 4, where the Student Services Office is located.

Chapter 03 - Chengyu's Three Phases of Extreme Pain (Part 1)

The date is 29th May 2007, 5:55 pm.

Chengyu had finished his lessons for the day and is waiting for the bus, but is feeling uncomfortable in his chest. He feels a small and sharp pain in his chest, pinpointing to the frozen thorn stuck inside his heart. The thing is that, before he was enrolled in New Hope Polytechnic, he had tried several times to pull the thorn out of his heart unilaterally, but ended up with pain so severe that he fainted in some of those attempts. After which he did not try to pull it out again to prevent a repeat of that horrifying time he had experienced. But at the same time, there has been episodes of pain right at the spot where the thorn is. But this time to note is that the pain, he feels, is going to be the most severe yet to come.

“I don't know what's happening there, but I need to get back home as soon as possible to try and rest and let the pain subside all by itself. Because I don't have any other method of stopping this pain that has been coming up intermittently over these past few months...... If I don't make it what will happen to the work I have been putting for the past 17 months......?”

So he decided to try and point his chest with his thumb to try and numb the pain temporarily so that he can at least push himself onto the bus when it comes and try and recuperate. However, this was not meant to be as the pain there just forces its way out of its own.

“!? No... don't come out!!!” Chengyu tries to contain that pain with his heart using his willpower, but the more he tries to do it, the worse the pain shoot itself out of his chest. But Chengyu knew that if this was not contained promptly, it can be too severe for him to even regain consciousness and may be in difficulty, so he won't give up even if it means his life would be lost.

“There's no way I can lose to this pain! Never!!” Chengyu kept on suppressing the pain as hard as he can using his thumb, but it is as though the pain itself have been testing the limits of his supplanting power towards it, the pain starts to go into hyper-drive, causing so much pain all over that he totally lost control of his ability to suppress the pain and lets out a deafening scream before he finally fainted on the spot.

The people around him saw and heard this event happening, but of them were seemingly too afraid to even go near him, need to say help him. Around 5 minutes after he has fainted onto the ground, a girl walked towards the bus stop to take the bus home and found a unconscious Chengyu lying on the floor while still carrying his bag.

“Oh no! What happened over there??”

The girl immediately rushed to his side and was surprised to see the face of the person who collapsed on that spot.

“Isn't that the 'Chengyu-san' Reika told me about at the clubroom three days before??”

She immediately tried to drag him to a corner so that he doesn't obstruct the human traffic that are about to accumulate there, but his weight may have impeded her in doing so. So she had to remove the bag from his body and move them separately.

“This bag's pretty heavy for a guy like him...... did he actually put a entire week of studying materials inside that bag??”

She places his bag and notebook case next to him and tries to wake him up.

“Chengyu! Chengyu! Please wake up! Are you all right?”

The girl shook him a few times, and Chengyu slowly regained consciousness. But the first image that hit his vision had him by surprise!

“Ugh!! Where...... am...... I......??” Chengyu thought in his head as he is still unable to speak as and when he wanted to. But the one that saved him this time is a completely different person now. The one that saved him this time round is a golden-haired girl with bright blue eyes and fair skin, although it is a little darker compared to Reika's that he saw during Flag Day a week ago.

“What the......! A blonde girl this time......??? Which world am I really in right now???”

He tries to look around the place he is in now and realizes that he is at a corner seat at the bus stop that he fainted just now.

“Chengyu! Chengyu! Are you all right?”

Chengyu tries to open his mouth, but nothing came out as expected, so he closed and opened it immediately to stare at her.

“What's wrong, Chengyu? Oops! I forgot that you can't talk as and when you want to, but you can listen to what I say, right?”

Chengyu nodded his head, trying to catch up with what happened.

“You fainted just a little over 5 minutes ago, and I helped you here so that you won't obstruct the human traffic that has formed over there. I was shocked that the so-called 'kind person' that Reika talked to me happily about actually fainted right there. I hope you're okay now......”

“Did she just say that Reika talked to her about me??? How did she know Reika in the first place???”

Chengyu used all his strength to push himself into a sitting position, trying to get a grasp of the situation at hand.

“This girl must've just saved me from the crowd that has just formed over there by dragging me to a corner at the bus stop...... I remember when I fainted, I don't feel any response from anyone for about a few minutes, then when I started regaining my senses again, I was here and this blonde girl is looking at me, asking me if I'm alright, and now this......!”

Chengyu then realised that he was not wearing his bag anymore, and tried to look for it only to find them sitting nicely next to his right side. He reached the bag for a paper notebook and started scribbling without thinking while the blonde girl looked on.

“Amazing...! That's how Chengyu communicates with people......”

Chengyu immediately showed the writing to her, which reads: “Thank you for your help just now. Why do you know Reika in the first place??”

“Oh? Reika? She's from the same club as me. I've heard quite a lot from Reika about how you're so kind as to help her out during the Flag Day though, but I wondered how she is able to communicate with you if you can't even talk, and I finally realized the reason behind it now. By the way, don't mention it.”

Chengyu immediately wrote his next dialogue that read: “Same club? What exactly is that??”

“Oh, all foreign students are encouraged to join the Overseas Students Club, a club set up by New Hope Polytechnic's Student Services Office to help foreign students like Reika and myself to learn the culture here and accommodate better to the school life here. I'm also running for the club's Student Committee as a representative for the American Countries zone.”

“American Countries? That sounds like those who are from the American Continents... So that means that blonde girl might possibly be from that club she just mentioned as well......”

“So... are you all right? Do I need to take you to the doctors' for a check?”

Chengyu nodded his head and stood up slowly.

“I'm glad you're all right.” The girl smiled at Chengyu, which he didn't notice. Then she saw her bus coming into the bus stop.

“I have to go now. My bus's here for me. See you, Chengyu!”

She runs towards the bus, but turns back all of a sudden and runs back to him.

“Oh, I almost forgot! Please ask your foreign friends to vote for me for the membership at the Club Committee, okay?”

She hands him a leaflet that she took from her own bag before running off to board the bus.

As she left this place on the bus that she boarded, Chengyu starts to look at the leaflet that she gave to him before she left.

“Hmm... this looks like a leaflet to promote herself as a candidate for the Overseas Students Club's Student Committee membership that will take charge in running the club with the aid of a staff to help in coordinating events for the club.”

There is a photo of her in her normal clothes and posing for the camera that was printed on the leaflet. But this reminded Chengyu of something...

“Isn't the clothes that she wears in that photo...... the exact same one that she is wearing when she was waking me up when I fainted just now......??”

The photo showed her with her beautiful smile, wearing a maple-coloured sleeveless blouse coupled with a golden wavy skirt so short that more than half of her thighs were exposed in that photo, even though the image in that leaflet crops itself at where her knees are.

“What the heck are she selling to her would-be supporters to get her elected for that Student Council seat anyway......?”

The leaflet also shows the Canadian Flag flying next to the image.

“I guess she must be from Canada, huh...... That means what she said about being a representative for the American Continents is correct because Canada is indeed one of the countries belonging to the North American Continent. But whether she gets her wish is anyone's guess...... Furthermore, only the overseas students who are members are allowed to vote for her if she wants to get elected so this doesn't get me related to that extent either......”

Thinking that since he doesn't know any friends that are overseas students, he feels not compelled to do anything about it, but he almost missed the candidate's name when he browsed through it one more time before he discards the leaflet.

“So that blonde girl's name is Nicolette Sorens, huh...... She really is a true-blue blonde girl after all judging from her face. I don't seem to sense any unpleasant energy from that Nicolette girl but I know that she knows that Japanese girl somehow...... could it be???”

On the bus, Nicolette thought about the reaction Chengyu made when he heard about Reika's name when she talked about him from her, and giggled.

“That Chengyu guy's a pretty cute one, looking at the reaction he makes when I said I heard from Reika about him. Especially when he had to resort to writing to communicate with me... Looks like it's going to be an exciting year for me right now......”

The date is 29th May 2007, 7:50 pm.

Nicolette has already been home in her student campus in Bishan for an hour now, she had finished her dinner and has just stepped out of her bathroom after a nice shower, fully clothed in her home clothes.

She went to her desk and switches on her own notebook computer, and immediately opens her Campus Chat-room program that allows chatting between New Hope Polytechnic students over the internet.

The New Hope Polytechnic Student Chat-room is an extension to the existing campus e-mail system used in the Polytechnic for a few years now. All students need to use this extended program are to obtain the campus e-mail address of the people that he or she wants to chat with, and a special password to request connection to the e-mail account of the student. Once the other party receives the notification of the chat request and allows the connection to be made, they can chat on the program immediately just like the commonly used Chat-room programs made available by major internet companies here. Each student has been issued with his or her own campus e-mail address together with their own password used specifically for the Chat-room Extension and is different from the passwords they use for their main campus e-mail account. The password to this Chat-room Extension is made entirely of numbers and can only be reset via the Administration Office for security purposes.

All textual conversations in the Chat-room Extension may be subject to monitoring if needed to prevent trouble and the students using it are required to agree to a 20-point Guidelines of Engagement before being allowed to use the program for the first time. Currently staff teaching in this Polytechnic are not allowed access to this Extension so they are still required to communicate to their students using the standard e-mail system itself.

After Nicolette has logged into her e-mail account, she clicks on the 'Chat-room' under the Extensions tab, which opens up a small window that allows her to enter in the account details of the student she wants to chat with over this program.

“Maybe I can talk to her again......”

Nicolette decided to enter Reika's e-mail address followed by the numerical password used to send a request to her e-mail account to make a connection to enable chatting. Once this was sent, a message box will pop-up to notify Nicolette if Reika agrees with making the connection and enables the chat. Otherwise, if the person doesn't respond to the request sent within 5 minutes or has refused access, an automated reply in the same message box stating that the person is currently unavailable or has rejected the request respectively will be sent back to her.

“Hope she's using her computer right now and sees this......”

Fortunately, a message box pops up within 2 minutes of the request sent to her e-mail account, saying that the request to connect has been accepted and the connection is made almost immediately. The login window automatically changes to the chat window similar to the interfaces found in major chat programs used worldwide. And Reika starts the chat going with her first message of the conversation.

	Reika:	“Hello there, Nicolette-san! How are you today?”
	Nicolette:	“Hi there! I'm fine here at the hostel.”
	Reika:	“So you've reached back home already?”
	Nicolette:	“Yes. I've just finished my shower and had my dinner before logging on to chat with you.”
	Reika:	“That was fast. It is good that you live a shorter distance from campus than mine.”
	Nicolette:	“By the way, that so-called 'kind person' named Chengyu you mentioned earlier to me, I just met him on the way back home less than 2 hours ago at the bus stop where we take our buses home.”
	Reika:	“Really? You met him there??”
	Nicolette:	“But he was in a not-so good shape there, you know. Why didn't you come and help him since you like him so much...”
	Reika:	“W...wait! (blushes) I didn't say I like Chengyu-san!! Nicolette-san, please don't spread rumours that are untrue, you may hurt someone without knowing, you know.”
	Nicolette:	“Okay okay, I won't do that. I don't want my own reputation to be smeared for no good reason.”
	Reika:	“Well... what happened to him there?”
	Nicolette:	“Actually he somehow fainted at that place for no apparent reason. I helped him out by dragging him to a corner where he doesn't impede on the human traffic that was forming there, and waited until he woke up.”
	Reika:	“Is that so? I hope he's all right after that......”
	Nicolette:	“Enough talk about him. How's the things going for the elections?”
	Reika:	“You mean the club's Student Council elections? It's been going quite okay so far for the leaflet distribution. By the way, I have sent the design of your poster to your campus e-mail address just now. Please take a look at it and see if there are any alterations to be made. If there are, please let me know as soon as possible so that I can amend it in time for submission next week.”
	Nicolette:	“Wow...! You're pretty fast in doing those things, Reika! I knew I can count on you on this! I'll be sure to take a look at the designs you've made for the poster.”
	Reika:	“Thank you.”
	Nicolette:	“Once the poster's been approved by the staff at the club, the campaign will kick off for about 4 weeks before all of the club members will cast their votes on 10 July. If there are no problems, the results of the election will be announced on 13 July and then we can celebrate!”
	Reika:	“Please don't count your chickens before the eggs hatch, Nicolette-san. Although you have a high chance of getting that seat you wanted, but I hope you're prepared in case you couldn't make it to that seat.”
	Nicolette:	“You may be right......”
	Reika:	“But I will still try my best to help galvanize support for you whatever the result. Isn't why we work so hard for for the past two weeks?”
	Nicolette:	“Thanks, Reika. You're a real friend.”
	Reika:	“Oh, my mum's calling me now. I have to log out of the chat program. Have a good night and see you in school tomorrow!”
	Nicolette:	“Oh, okay. See you tomorrow.”

Reika logs out of the Chat-room Extension and Nicolette does the same. Nicolette then opens up the email sent by Reika before she accepted the connection for the extension earlier, and looks at the promotion poster for Nicolette's election campaign for the Foreign Students Club's Student Committee seat representing the American Countries.

“Wow...! I thought her designs were good, but not this good! I really need to discuss this design with the election team and see if they accept this. If they do, I can ask her to submit this one as the official poster for my bid next week. Like she said before, this is no easy contest as I have to bid against another 2 competitors for that seat in the Student Council.”

The date is 29th May 2007, 11:00 pm.

At Reika's two-storey landed house in Hougang, Reika is studying for the lessons tomorrow in her own room, but she has been a little lost in focus lately, probably because of what Nicolette said about Chengyu fainting at the bus stop outside the campus.

“I don't know he actually fainted again. This is the second time he has fainted in public. I don't know what is wrong with him that I can help with, but I really hope that I can be around in case he faints again. But then I was too busy giving out leaflets to even notice. Fortunately, Nicolette was there to help him out this time. I really should repay her by helping her win that Student Council seat with my best effort possible.”

Having thought that, Reika decides to focus on studying for the lessons tomorrow before heading to her bed to sleep.

Chapter 02 - Student Emotions on Collision Course (Part 5)

The date is 20th May 2007, 4:55 pm.

The minute he reaches Bedok Bus Interchange, he alights from the bus and made this his final stop to collect donations before heading back to New Hope Polytechnic to hand over his donation can. For the next 30 minutes, he stood there silently, hoping for people to donate into his can. But the people there are either too busy doing their own thing at where they are or they are in a rush going home via the public transport services in the Bus Interchange as well as the Bedok MRT Station nearby to even notice him.

“Looks like when the evening rush hour is approaching, only the food outlets and shops are the only ones busy at this time. No one would even bother to do anything else rather than eat, shop, or making their way home......”

By 5:30 pm he decided to give up without having a single coin inside his donation can for that period of time and head towards the Bedok Station and takes the MRT train back to Clementi Station where he can catch a bus back to New Hope Polytechnic.

“I don't know whether I can make it in time to return the items that were issued to me this morning...... Hope they don't close out on me......”

The date is 20th May 2007, 5:10 pm.

While Chengyu is standing at Bedok Bus Interchange waiting for donations, Reika and Lina made it back to New Hope Polytechnic in time for the collection of the donation cans to commence. It is stipulated in the licence that donation collections cease at 5:00 pm for all students, and the students can start making their way back to the Polytechnic to return their donation cans as well as their licences and sticker sheets at the Convention Centre.

Upon receiving the cans from the students. The staff there will seal up the coin slots in each of the cans while asking them to fill up the paperwork required for the students to hand over the donation cans, licences and sticker sheets properly as stipulated by the relevant Government regulations pertaining to donation collections before they are allowed to leave for home.

Reika and Lina also lined up to do the same, and once they have completed the paperwork and was allowed to leave the Convention Centre and head together for home. But it was at this time Reika saw a familiar figure approaching her.

(Note: Dialogue shown here that are spoken in languages other than English are marked with the language spoken in brackets.)

“(Japanese) Reika!”

“(Japanese) Kentaro-san!”

Reika rushes to meet her childhood friend.

“(Japanese) How are you doing in this school?”

“(Japanese) Still trying to get used to the pace here, I think...?”

“(Japanese) Oh? You found a friend so early in school here?”

“(Japanese) Yeah. She's the friend that I met on the internet half a year ago. I've never believed that I could meet her in the flesh and study in the same Polytechnic as her! Let me introduce you to my friend, Lina Tam-san.”

Lina brightly extends her hand.

“Nice to meet you, I'm Lina Tam.”

Kentaro immediately switches his dialogue to English.

“Oh, nice to meet you, Lina-chan! My name is Kentaro Matsumoto.”

But this makes Lina shocked, then annoyed.

“Why did you add a 'chan' to my name for no reason!?”

“Sorry, Lina-san. That's Kentaro-san's bad habit.”

“This is crazy! Adding suffixes to people's names as and when they want is so rude, you know!?”

“Yes, yes. I'm very sorry for the un~courteous behaviour, satisfied?”

Lina glances at Kentaro with sharp eyes.

“One look and he is a sure womaniser...! Good thing Reika doesn't go out with him now. Otherwise she'll be the one that will be hurt the most in the end...!”

Reika then resumes her conversation with Kentaro in Japanese.

“(Japanese) Kentaro-san, are you also finished with the donations already and returned the items to the committee?”

“(Japanese) I just returned those items a few minutes ago.”

“(Japanese) That's a relief... Anyway, we need to make our way home now since we have also returned ours as well.”

“(Japanese) Aren't you going anywhere else after this? Like going to places to know more about Singapore and such.”

“(Japanese) My parents and myself haven't completed all our arrangements in our new residence, so that'll have to wait for a while.”

“(Japanese) I see... Well, we'll keep in touch then. If you need anything, just let me know, okay?”

“(Japanese) Okay!”

“(Japanese) Bye then. See you in school tomorrow morning!”

“(Japanese) You too, goodbye!”

Kentaro went ahead of the two girls on his own, and Lina now turns to Reika.

“I thought you have rejected that Kentaro's advances, why do you still talk to him?”

“Well, since we've known each other since childhood. We can still talk to each other. Despite me rejecting his advances, we still agreed to remain good friends after that, so he shouldn't stand a chance this time. Kentaro-san has also said that he will support anyone who is successful in going out with me whether he is in Japan or here, so I don't worry about those things at all.”

“That's good for you, though. But I don't really like the way he looks. He really looks like a womaniser who likes to flirt around among women.”

“Well, you can't judge him just by his looks. Once he is committed to a relationship, it is very hard to pull himself out from it. He had been on two relationships back in Japan, but those relationships ended in less than a year. Later I realised that the so-called 'girlfriends' of his are even bothered to sleep around with rich old men just for financial gain. What a shame that he fell for those kind of girls. The second one was extremely infuriating for Kentaro-san as he found out that she is already pregnant with the child of a middle-aged man who is the owner of a large company there. That really broke his heart completely.”

“Does that happen before or after his confession to you?”

“That happened nearly a year before he confessed to me.”

“That must hurt a lot for that Kentaro though...”

“You're right. That's precisely the reason he wants to look for romance here instead, because other than me, he can't trust any other Japanese woman to go out with him after all that has happened to him before.”

“Hmm... that's not going to be easy for him though......”

“Why is that so?”

“I guess you didn't know how materialistic Singaporean women are until you really meet with one. They can be much worse, if not as worse, than the two Japanese women you told me about earlier.” Lina says while sighing. “I see too many Singaporean women liking only rich foreigners that owns more than a landed property or a company or their sons so much so that if they were to choose between a good-natured, good-looking, but not-as-rich Singaporean or a rich foreign expatriate's son, they'll definitely choose the latter without even thinking. Because in their eyes it is not easy to go by without a lot of money, that's why I fell ashamed of our own women here! They value their own social and financial status more than anything else in their lives. Even older women were willing to have May-September Romances^[2] with ones much younger than them as long as he has millions in his bank account or is the son of a magnate tycoon. Finding a really good soul-mate for him is far harder than finding a needle made of gold in the Pacific Ocean.”

“So, is it really impossible to find a suitable girlfriend for Kentaro-san?”

“It should be pretty obvious, Reika. But anyway, we should get back home now.”

“Okay. We'll part our ways at the bus stop outside the campus, because we're taking different bus services home.”

“Okay!”

After the girls reached the bus stop, they parted ways when the bus service that Reika was supposed to take arrived at the bus stop. Lina also boarded the service she takes to go home when it arrived.

The date is 20th May 2007, 6:20 pm.

Chengyu finally arrived at the Convention Centre in New Hope Polytechnic after almost an hour of MRT train rides and a short bus trip here.

As he entered the hall inside where the donation cans are collected, he was asked to hand over the can as well as the licence and the sticker sheets followed by filling up the paperwork to hand over those things properly. Chengyu didn't utter anything during the entire process. And the queueing crowd at this time has been reduced to a sparingly few students doing their paperwork there, meaning that almost all of the students have already handed in their items and have returned home.

“It's finally over, isn't it......”

After the paperwork have been completed and was released from the Convention Centre, Chengyu walks towards the bus stop outside the Polytechnic all alone and boarded the bus that he uses to take him home. Throughout the journey, Chengyu thinks about the people he meets today, and how these meetings could impact the future days of his life in this Polytechnic. Thinking that he might need the experiences now in the future when he does his final-year project two years from now, he took out his notebook computer to run using its own battery power, opened up a word processor and started documenting his experiences that he faced today, starting with the headline: “Student Emotions on Collision Course”.

He documented the day's happenings that he faced throughout the bus journey until he got back to his home in Sengkang and saved it into the hard drive before keeping it back into his notebook computer bag.

“I hope what I have experienced today may be able to become useful information when I get to do my final-year project in the future......”

The date is 20th May 2007, 11:20 pm.

Chengyu, who is back at home and typing away in his notebook computer, continues documenting his journey in the same file that he has saved earlier.

“Documenting all these happenings today into a journal-style essay is not an easy task... but I feel that I have to start somewhere because I knew very well the precise reason that I enrolled into the Multimedia & Animation Course in this Polytechnic......”

Chengyu reminds himself of the decision he made before he enrols into a Polytechnic. His L1R5 total of 17 points for his 'O' Level examinations is good enough for him to get into a neighbourhood Junior College, and that seems to be a faster-track to get into University to study the course he wants.

However, after tours to a neighbourhood Junior College and a Polytechnic subsequently during his last year in secondary school forced him to re-think about whether he wants to take a fast-track 2-year course in Junior College and then to University to study the course he likes just based on his 'A' Level results after he completes his National Service which will commence as soon as he receives his 'A' Level Certificate; or start learning the very basics of the ingredients and skills he needs to achieve this immediate goal of creating an animation that negatively portrays the impression of bullying and keeping potential gang members away from the street gangs that used to proliferate his old secondary school, which will be the perfect answer to those bullies as well as the schools who are too lax on tackling the bullying problem in their own compounds.

“During the tour to a neighbourhood Junior College shows me the immense depth of the teaching abilities of those staff, but there I unwittingly became witness to a serious assault incident involving half a dozen second-year Junior College students beating up a first-year student. One of them was even wearing a prefect's tie while assaulting the young student. That incident reminded me of myself in that old secondary school when I was assaulted in school and was hospitalized. That student had absolutely no defences or weapons to protect himself, and was already bleeding very profusely. The students who were around didn't even lend a helping hand for fear of reprisals from both fellow students and staff, especially when potential students of that cursed school like us were visiting this place. My fellow students that are part of the group were too busy knowing the good aspects of this Junior College to even see this atrocious case of bullying and I was extremely unfortunate to be the only witness to see this taking place. I was thinking then that other than trying to make it to a school that can help me realise this ideal via making the 2D Animation that can spread the message far and wide, I also have to start learning defensive martial arts, something I can defend myself with in the event that I became a victim of bullying all over again. People like that Zhiwei won't be around to save me every time I meet with those kind of bullies, so if I manage to learn those techniques that are strong and powerful enough to be of a deterrence to those morons, they'll definitely think twice before even trying to take me down. That is the only way I can protect myself if the staff are too powerless to stop them because if these things happen, I won't be defenceless anymore, just like those in my old secondary school where the police have to be involved in the matter before the matter is considered closed.”

As he continues typing, he is reminded of the black-haired girl named Reika that he has helped on that day, as well as her friend Lina.

“I don't know what that Japanese girl is up to by offering to help me, but why is that I don't seem to sense any unpleasant kind of energy around her......? As for that Lina, I also don't sense too much unpleasant energy around her despite her attitude towards me earlier...... I really don't have any answer to those, and until I find out the reason why, I won't have any reason to trust any one of them!”

Chengyu continues to enter in more details of the day's happenings for another hour before he completes the data and switched off his notebook computer and goes to sleep.

“Counselling will start in 10 days' time, and I don't know if I'm even prepared to talk about my own past to more strangers and not get damage to my heart at the same time...... I'm personally hoping for the best outcome, but also be prepared for the worst thing that'll happen. I sincerely hope that I would not need to use the set of powerful martial arts skills I've learnt over the past 15 months on anyone in this new school......”

Author's Notes:

[2]	May-September Romances are relationships in a way that the female is much older than their male partners. Usually the age gap of those romances are of at least 10 years and above and the female party is at least 35 years old can be considered as a May-September Romance.

Chapter 02 - Student Emotions on Collision Course (Part 4)

The date is 20th May 2007, 2:30 pm.

15 minutes after Chengyu has passed by the MRT entrance in the basement and went up to the mall on the ground level, two girls came out of the same entrance having boarded a train to this MRT Station.

“The mall upstairs should be a good place to start collecting donations again, maybe we should try to aim for the eateries on the first level, don't you think?”

“Umm... okay.”

Lina and Reika went up the escalator and started collecting donations on the first level while not knowing that the person that Lina hates so much is actually in the same mall as them! And it is quite obvious that Chengyu himself isn't aware of the existence of those two despite having heightened senses while heading for the third level of the mall.

The game of hide-and-seek lasted for more than 30 minutes before there are traces that both sides start to notice.

“Please wait here while I go to the ladies, okay?”

“Okay.”

Lina walked towards the female toilet at the ground level and was passing by the entrance when she backtracks herself back to the entrance of the mall to find that Chengyu is actually waiting for people to donate into his can right outside the mall where the entrance to the underpass is! Her usually calm mood that she regained after the incident at Yishun suddenly reverts back to anger once again.

“Why is that stupid jerk here of all places......!! How on earth did he know we'll be coming here after that incident!?”

Lina cancelled her trip to the female toilet and ran back to Reika, who is surprised at her sudden return.

“Lina-san, what's wrong?”

“We have to hurry and get out of here! That stupid jerk is already here in this mall!!”

“What?? What jerk?”

“You should know! That jerk who stalked us back in Yishun!!”

Reika then is reminded about Chengyu.

“Uh? Kind person-san??”

“I must've been lucky! I've been meeting such a kind person twice in a day! Thank goodness!” Reika thought as she said those words.

Lina tries to grab Reika's elbow.

“Come on! Let's go already!”

But Reika shakes her head.

“Actually, I've been wanting to talk to him ever since he helped me back in Ang Mo Kio, but didn't have the chance to, he just doesn't seem to want to talk whenever he wishes to...... maybe that's why he opened his mouth to talk only once in several occasions, something must've been preventing him from talking whenever he wanted to. Remember that time you almost tried to attack him?”

Lina remembered the time she tries to attack Chengyu for stalking them, instead of retaliating he just dodged by jumping further back.

“When I try to attack him he doesn't seem to want to retaliate at all...”

“It's pretty obvious that he would rather dodge away rather than hurt you. A normal person who is very angry would retaliate at that kind of attack but he didn't do that at all.”

Lina also remembered that when Reika grabs her to stop her from attacking Chengyu, Chengyu just simply stayed there without moving an inch, remaining in his defensive stance until they are out of his sight.

“Hmph! I think he is too scared to face me for what I did to him!”

“He is scared all right, but most likely not against you, Lina-san.”

“What??” What Reika deduced from his actions surprised her best friend.

“I think he is really scared...... about hurting anyone in that kind of place...”

Lina's hard-line stance starts to soften a little.

“Reika... you really have a kind heart, you know. And that has made a lot of people being kind to you as well. But I don't really want people to take advantage of that kindness of yours and harm you in return. I don't want to see you get hurt.”

But Reika holds Lina's hand to assure her best friend.

“It's okay, Lina-san. You are very nice to me already. But please trust me on this one, okay?”

Lina finally gave in to Reika's request.

“Okay, Reika. Getting him to drop his guard against us won't be easy, so be very careful and let me know if he ever starts attacking you, get it?”

Reika nodded her head, knowing that Lina won't try to attack him without any provocation. So they went together to try and look for Chengyu.

Chengyu was also looking around for donations around the area at this time.

“Hmm... It's not easy as compared to earlier locations that I've been to before......”

But suddenly, a white shadow passed him by without warning, which forced Chengyu to turn around.

“What's that white shadow......”

Chengyu tries to look around, but couldn't see anything resembling it, instead he found Reika and Lina walking towards him!

“No!! How can they follow me all the way here!! I must get out of their sight before they catch onto me!!”

Chengyu quickly ran without thinking, looking for a place he can hide. As for his pursuers, they hasten their steps as soon as he starts running.

“Hey wait up!”

“Kind person-san! Please wait!”

But as soon as they reach the place Chengyu once stood a few moments ago, he was already nowhere in sight as he has already went to hide behind a standalone sandwich bar 15 metres away.

“Let's split up to look for him.”

“Okay.”

The girls went in two separate routes to look for Chengyu.

And Chengyu, who is hiding behind the sandwich bar, heightens his ears' hearing ability to try and hear out the locations of those two girls.

“Hey moron! Come out, come out, wherever you are......”

“Kind person-san! Please come out and see us. We don't want to hurt you anymore, so please don't run away from us, okay?”

“Darn it! They're too persistent already! I know I can no longer get any information from them regarding what happened at the hospital 2 years ago anymore, but why are they now looking for me instead? I may have to wait until I find a way to be able to open my mouth and speak whenever I need to before I can even talk to them, otherwise I'll end up being treated like an enemy by those girls!”

Just at this moment, he hears the voices starting to get louder by the second, signalling their presence is near. Chengyu immediately dashed around the rears of the standalone stores set up around the east side of the shopping mall to try and dodge the girls looking for him.

“Where is he......??”

Lina rushes to where Reika is.

“Any luck?”

Reika shakes her head worryingly.

“I'm afraid if he gets desperate in trying to run away from us, he may try something silly and gets injured somehow...”

“You still have time to worry about that?? We have to get to him before he tries another great escape again!”

Then Reika suddenly sees Chengyu trying to run towards the pillar not far away from them.

“Look! Kind person-san's there!”

“Where!? Where is he!?”

Reika points to that pillar where Chengyu is hiding at and the girls walk towards it. Chengyu, who was hiding there, was seemingly angry at himself.

“That girl that I helped must've spotted me!! Had I decided not to place the coin in her donation can back in that place and just leave her alone, I wouldn't have ended up in this very ridiculous mess!! Looks like I have to utilise my special time-slowdown ability one more time just to get out of here and escape to the bus stop right in front of the mall. I hope this time won't cause the sharp pain I always have when I overuse this power. I have only one last shot at this, and if I make it I should be able to get out of this place!”

Chengyu tries to concentrate his energy on that one burst of his abilities that slows down time and utilises it all at once, successfully slowing down time very drastically and takes that short time space to turn across the pillar he is hiding and run full-speed before the girls even came close enough to it.

“Alright... just one more burst of speed and a straight-line route to the bus stop to go!! I have to make it! Now!!” Chengyu thinks as he pushes hard way past his limit, but the result of this came almost immediately in the form of a very sharp and serious burst of intense pain in his heart.

“Aaarrgggghhhh! What the......! Don't come at this time now......!!”

Chengyu realizes that time has slowly resuming its normal speed, meaning that the ability that he used is gradually losing power. But he was unable to reverse that and the most serious shot of pain seared through his heart, and he lets out a loud scream before losing consciousness and falls to the ground, the place where he fell only less than 10 metres from the bus stop outside the mall.

“NO!! If I fall here means it's all over......!!”

The date is 20th May 2007, 3:40 pm.

Chengyu starts to regain some of his consciousness but his eyes remain closed.

“Am I dead already? But what I'm feeling right now seems to suggest otherwise...... It's completely different from the place I fell, or is it......!?”

He tries hard to regain control of his five senses, and as he regains control of his hearing, he starts to hear a voice that he believes may have heard it before somewhere.

“......-san! …...-san! …...person-san!”

“What...... is...... that...... voice......?”

“......person-san! Kind person-san! Kind person-san!”

“Huh......? Kind person-san......?? Who...... exactly is that??”

Then he regains control of his sense of feel, and realises that his shoulders are being shaken gently.

“It looks like someone is shaking me, and I can somewhat sense...... some kind of a fragrance...... something like...... strawberries......”

As the voices continued, he feels the shaking starts to increase in speed and strength, although the increase is very little, and by this time he starts to regain control of his eyes again.

“Okay, I need to know what's going on, now!!”

He uses all his focus to try and open his eyes, which shows a blurred image when he starts to open them.

“Kind person-san! Kind person-san! Are you awake?”

The blurred image slowly starts to sharpen after a few seconds, which slowly showed a large patch of black and a spot of red above it.

“What exactly am I seeing here......!!”

He tries to focus on sharpening the image he sees with his eyes, and the patch slowly sharpens to see a picture of a girl with black hair and a red ribbon.

“Kind person-san! You're finally awake! Thank goodness......”

The girl seems very happy in his perspective. However, due to his inability to speak whenever he needs it, he was unable to utter a single word out of his mouth.

“Are you okay? How do you feel?”

Chengyu looks around and realizes that the two girls that he is desperately trying to hide from are now by his side, but he does not feel injury in any way except for the heart attack when he fell. He also realizes that he is now in a different place than the one that he fell on. He is now on a bed that looks like those in a hospital, but doesn't have any medical facilities other than the bed itself. The environment is completely different this time. Furthermore, Reika is sitting right next to him looking at him while Lina is sitting a short distance away looking in another direction.

“Where is this place......!?”

He starts to feel his chest as he suffered from a heart attack before he fell, and the pain is felt immediately, although it is now of a reduced intensity as compared to before he fell. As he feels his chest, Reika places both hands on his shoulders.

“Are you okay, kind person-san? Are you hurt anywhere?”

Chengyu shook his head hard.

“Thank goodness...... Luckily this mall has its own infirmary room that can allow people to come in in case of emergencies, you fell just outside the mall in front of the bus stop and some passers-by brought you here and we've been tending to you ever since, well...... at least for the last half-an-hour though......”

Hearing this, Chengyu quickly reached for his watch and the time is displayed as 3:45 pm.

“You were unconsciousness for more than half an hour before waking up. And it seems that you don't have any heart problems as far as we know, so it should be okay.”

“So I was brought here while I was unconscious, huh...... but why did she try and save me, instead of simply leaving me alone as I am......”

Thinking that, Chengyu tries very hard to get up and starts getting down from the bed. Reika tries to help him out of genuine concern.

“It's okay, take your time.” she said as she guides him out of bed.

Lina who is watching from a short distance, feels a little disgusted at what she saw.

“Reika at this time really looks like a nurse helping patients out of their beds......”

Thinking of that causes her to have a hallucination of Reika really wearing a nurse uniform, helping Chengyu off his bed in a hospital, which alarms her.

“Nonononono! This can't be happening!” Lina repeatedly shakes her head to get rid of that hallucination.

Meanwhile, Chengyu looks around for his belongings as he realizes that he is not carrying his bags or donation can when he woke up from the bed. Reika immediately knew what he wanted and guided him to a corner where his belongings are sitting nicely, including his donation can. While he reached for his things, he took out his paper notebook and wrote something with the attached pen on it. This made Reika curious.

“Does that mean kind person-san can communicate through writing when he is unable to talk using his mouth?”

After Chengyu wrote something on the page of the paper notebook, he showed it to Reika the words written on it which wrote: “Thank you. You're a good help in that situation. But earning my trust is another thing altogether, so you have been warned.”

“Ahahaha... It's still...... a pleasure though.” Reika could only laugh weakly after she understood what he has written.

Meanwhile, Lina finally looks at him with stern eyes and opens her mouth.

“Listen, jerk! You'd better pick all your things and get out of here as far as you can, don't ever stalk us up again!!”

An emotionless Chengyu simply wrote something on a new page and walked towards the entrance of the infirmary room where she is and showed her his answer: “You need to seriously do something about that attitude of yours. No man will want you if you keep this attitude of yours with you all the time.”

This really infuriated Lina and started scolding him.

“You'd better watch your mouth, moron!”

Reika could only giggle at her friend's reaction.

“Well, I guess he can be right about that......”

But then she realizes that she almost forgot her motive of looking for him in the first place.

“Oh, kind person-san! Please wait!” Reika tugged onto his T-shirt sleeve. “Is it okay... that I can talk to you for a little while? It won't take long, promise.”

“???” Chengyu was surprised by her request. “I knew she would try this one out...... I give up......!”

Minutes later, Reika was sitting beside Chengyu at the public seating area outside the underpass entrance. Chengyu has his paper notebook open and holding the attached pen.

“Kind person-san.”

“So that's what she refers me by......”

“Sorry to ask this, but......” Reika seems sheepish about her question. “Do you have a name......?”

“Is it safe for me to let my identity be known to this person......?” Chengyu thought about her question for a moment.

Deciding it to be so, he turned to a new page in his paper notebook and wrote his full name in English and Chinese on it. Reika took a look at what he wrote there, but wasn't able to properly read out his name. So he had no choice but to write the readings of his name in Katakana characters^[1] right on top of his English name and tore it out for her.

“Oh, Li Chengyu-san, am I correct?”

Chengyu nodded his head, even though the reading is slightly incorrect.

“Thank you. Chengyu-san! I will cherish this all my life!” Reika keeps the sheet of paper on her chest happily. “But I still don't understand why did you are so interested in us though...?”

“I need answers.” Chengyu wrote his answer without thinking, which made Reika curious.

“Answers? What answers are you looking for, Chengyu-san?”

His written answer: “Regarding your conversation with Lina.”

“No way... you actually overheard our conversation back in Yishun where Lina-san and I met?”

Chengyu nodded his head and wrote his next line of words: “You told your friend that you came here to Singapore 2 years ago for a transplant operation and received kindness from two people, is that right?”

Reika sheepishly nodded her head and explain what she knew at that time.

“I was warded at that time because my own bone marrow failed to function properly back in Japan. What my parents told me was that at that time, there was no matching bone marrow transplant in the country itself that can save me. My childhood friend also had his bone marrow tested, but did not match due to the difference in our blood types. I was warded in a Intensive Care Unit back in Japan for two months prior to this, and was informed only of a perfect match when my condition worsened all of a sudden. If a transplant does not take place immediately I could have been hit with acute leukaemia as a result. However, the matching donor is located only in Singapore so my doctor there had to make a painful decision to ask for an Air Ambulance to send me and my family to Singapore to receive the donation. That was around the end of May 2005 when the transplant took place.”

“Wait a minute! That was around the time I was sent to hospital because I was assaulted by those bloody morons. My mum told me then that I had successfully donated my own bone marrow to a foreigner from Japan that required the donation to live, otherwise she'll die in 48 hours! Then came the revelation about her bone marrow failing, which is so coincidental with what happened to me then. Is she the one that accepted my bone marrow donation?? I do not know for sure but the chances of that are seemingly very low......”

“After my successful transplant operation, I went out of the ward in a motorised wheelchair and lost my keychain somehow, but another kind person picked it up for me and returned it to me personally, but I don't understand what he was saying back then. I couldn't make it in time to thank the two Samaritans for that before my whole family have to go back to Japan within a week due to my dad's work-related matters.”

Chengyu was shocked at what she just said, especially with that Reika said may have tallied with what his own mum has told him about the beneficiary of his donation, but thinks that since there are no concrete evidence that she had any detailed knowledge about what exactly happened back then or even if this Reika here is actually the girl on the wheelchair two years ago, he decided to find out more about this from her by writing:

“Are you planning to locate the Samaritans who helped you in the short time you're in Singapore by coming here to study?” he worded this carefully so as not to sound her out too easily or arouse any of her suspicion on him.

Reika nodded her head sheepishly in reply, thinking about the kindness of those people back then.

Suddenly, Lina came back and called out to her.

“Reika! We need to go back to campus now if we want to be able to return our cans back by 5 pm today.”

“Okay, Lina-san! I'm on my way!”

Reika turned to Chengyu, took his writing pen and wrote something in his paper notebook before returning the pen to him.

“If you need to talk to me, please send a request in my campus chat-room and I'll try to connect to talk to you, okay?” Reika said to him before standing up to leave the place to join up with Lina.

Chengyu looked into the text she wrote and saw a e-mail address written there as well as some kind of numerical code below it.

“The first one obviously is the e-mail address she uses in the campus. But I don't know about the code written below it...... what purpose does it serve anyway? Anyway, I have a feeling this might be useful so I'll keep this for the time being......”

Chengyu decided to keep the paper notebook inside his bag and boarded the bus outside the bus stop while the girls went back to the MRT Station to board the MRT back to Clementi Station en route to New Hope Polytechnic.

During the bus ride which should take him to Bedok Bus Interchange in about an hour's time. He thought deeply on what Reika said about her previous visit to Singapore for the transplant.

“If what that Reika said was true, then there is a remote possibly that the bone marrow I have unwittingly donated while I was hospitalised... might have ended up in Reika's body. Although I don't have concrete medical evidence that proves this theory, I cannot rule this out until I can find medical evidence to prove otherwise!”

Author's Notes:

[1]

Katakana characters are core character sets used in the Japanese Language which utilises rigid strokes as compared to the regular Hiragana character sets used in the language. Katakana character sets are mainly used to describe objects or names that are used in foreign contexts or countries to differentiate items or names that are mainly native to Japan. In this case since Chengyu's name is considered a foreign name, Katakana characters are used to allow Japanese to be able to read the name properly, but using this has a drawback: If certain readings that exists in the foreign language are out of the readings permissible in the Katakana character set, it will be a challenge for Japanese to be able to read names properly without the required learning of that language beforehand.