It was the year that Mat and I were warned not to commit any more mischief behaviour because early that year, we were suspended from hostel and because both of our houses were quite far away from our school, we had to skip school for the period. Mat somehow didn’t mind and in fact, he enjoyed the two-week ‘holiday’ but I was kind of traumatised.
I remembered that Mat told me he had super fun days where he went to Pulau Batam in Singapore with his grown-up friends I never had contact with. I had no clear reason why and how he managed to go there but I didn’t give a damn because I really had had enough with him and his shenanigans. Mat and I were labelled as “juvenile delinquents” by teachers and wardens and maybe some of students’ parents here.
I was studying for our Chemistry test that coming next week late that night in my dorm’s study corner. It was only me who was wide-awake. It was raining so heavily and at times, storm and thunder could be heard. I had my mp3 player that I sneakily brought from home so it could accompany at nights because what I wanted now, to stay away from Mat if he were to make any monkey business.
My bowel movement decided to screw me up but being known as an over-brave boy, I was never afraid to go out at this kind of time. Once, Mat and I sneaked out from hostel at 2 o’clock in the morning to smoke cigarettes and had some porn-materials hunting and managed to get back before everyone woke up. We visited the cyber café or the magazine booth in the nearest neighbourhood to our school two or three times every week. All the times we sneaked out, we succeeded to be safe, but one night that changed our lives and it was the transition of my life. It was the night we were caught by a guard when we were drinking beers and smoking cigarettes with some porn magazines with us behind science laboratory in a school block, which was pretty far from our hostel. My dad was extremely outraged and my mom was unusually sad and shocked to know the news and that meant they were highly disappointed with me and to be honest, I had never felt so guilty in my life when I saw my parent’s reactions, especially mom whom I loved more than I loved my dad. At that point (where we were suspended for two weeks from staying in hostel), I really, really told myself that I had to stop. Stop from being villainy.
My dorm was around 1km far from the nearest toilet, okay, I exaggerated, but to say, it was far, if I wanted to poop in the morning, I had to wake up as early as 5 or not, the students whom their dorms were near to the toilet would dominate. To add, I knew Mat and always had conversations with in the toilet before we got really close and dared to do juvenile sins together.
So, I ran to toilet and settled my business. As I washed my hands, I heard some people, maybe three or four people were kind of muttering outside the toilet. I didn’t understand the whole conversation because some people were talking in Chinese, sometimes mixed with Malay. I just kept silent. Who the hell are outside chatting at this fucking time? I went out and was shocked to see Mat and some of seniors were having a discussion and what made me shudder was when I saw a dead body on the ground in the middle of Mat and his senior friends. I almost fainted because I had never crossed something like this, it was so out of the blue for me to know that Mat was that violent and evil… and so inhuman. I couldn’t see whom they had killed but blood was all over his head.
“Fuck.” I heard it coming out from Mat’s mouth. Then I heard he said fuck over and over again. He seemed so surprised to see my presence since I firmly said to him that he could only talk to me if he had changed like I had. “Fuck, Azli, fuck!” I started to shiver like I was having a bad fever or in a Nordic country in winter without any coat and mittens. In blurriness, I heard his other friends were saying something in Chinese. One of Mat’s friends, which were our seniors I never talked to, quickly grabbed my hands and hit me really hard at my crotch and the next thing I realised that I was in a storeroom in a school block beside the lifeless boy.
It was Alvin, the boy who initially wanted to join us doing mischief things a few weeks before we were suspended but he was so careless that he almost made us in a big trouble so Mat ditched him. After that, Alvin threatened us that he was going to report to our warden. Mat and I were extremely angry and hit him once. Alvin kept his mouth shut after the incident, so I thought it was done, this case was no more an issue, but was I wrong! I was pretty sure too that Alvin, Mat and the seniors had done something big that I didn’t know. Like in Pulau Batam, Singapore. But I had no clue.
Realising that I had woken up, Mat walked from his position across mine and Alvin’s, the dead boy, he squatted so he could talk to me and removed the tape on my mouth, and said “I’m sorry Azli, I had to. Because you changed. And I’m still me, I can’t trust you, can I?” with laughter. My brain was starting to malfunction, it hurt so bad, so bad that I couldn’t think of any words to answer him. He taped back my mouth, stood up and spoke to his friends in Chinese. It was that night I knew he could speak Chinese, almost a year I was with him, he never once spoke in Chinese or mentioned to me that he was able to communicate in Chinese. It was unprecedented.
I felt that I had drank a lot of boozes because I felt so drunk. I heard some noises they made but I wasn’t paying attention but what I knew that Alvin wasn’t beside me anymore. I cried of fear. I was afraid that I was going to die, I was going to be killed. I saw mom’s face on the ceiling when I looked up. I just felt so hopeless. Suddenly, Mat came to me and told me he had hid Alvin in a school’s block and asked me to calm. I couldn’t of course. He and his friends left the room after awhile.
I was relieved that Mat didn’t kill me. I didn’t know the reason why, but he just let me in the storeroom until I could see some light coming from the door’s crack. I scooted my body a little by little, I was trying so hard to go to the door and when I arrived, I kicked the door with my feet but I guess it was locked from outside. I tried for five minutes but it didn’t work and I was so weak to continue but I still tried to knock at some points. I realised that it was a school day and all students were in school blocks, not in hostel. Tears fall from my eyes and I fall asleep.
I was pushed because I leaned on the door when someone tried to open the storeroom’s door. My body leaped a bit. It was the cleaner of my hostel block. She was shocked to see me in such condition and half screamed but I moved my body, trying to give her signal to shut up and asked her to untie my hand and open the tape on my mouth. She seemed to understand and did what I wanted her to do. I asked her to keep quite and told her this was just a prank and nothing’s big or to worry about. She laughed and said okay so I ran to my dorm.
I sat beside my bed and cried again. I didn’t know how I could even tear so much, I had never cried so bad before. I thought about the whole murder thing and what Mat had done. I felt so weak but I decided to shut my mouth and never say a word about this.
The next day, the school was shaken by the news of Alvin’s death. A boy from junior class found his body in his class locker. Questions played in my head were like “Didn’t anyone in the class even open the locker earlier?” or “Didn’t they smell anything suspicious?” but I really tried to ignore. I really did. Police came and everyone was asked. Our dorm and the others were checked and the funny thing was that it was the day I saw so many porn magazines and cell phones were confiscated.
When I was asked, I acted normal and tried to answer all the questions. I was aware that Mat was peeping and paying attention among the students when it was my turn, but I ignored and as I finished, I walked away.
The case remained unsolved. I didn’t know how the hell these police people and investigators couldn’t manage to catch the culprit. The case was pretty simple. I just couldn’t believe it but I refused to tell them the truth. Now it’s almost five months since the case and the year was ending soon, I felt so much relief. One thing I was dying to know what more secrets Mat hold but I couldn’t even see his face. I decided to move out from the school when the new year comes. I was so badly traumatised and I was certain I was never going back here…
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