Restore Your Smile

Cold Guys and Noisy Girls

A young man found an empty chair in the outdoor section of a cafe and sat there. He then took a sip of the warm coffee that had just been in his message.

This cafe has become a place to hang out because it is quite close to the campus. And as usual, he was enjoying some leisure time after half a day of being confined to campus to study.

The ringing of the phone in his pocket bothered him. Lazily, he reached into his HP and saw who was calling. Apparently father.

With some force, he answered the call. "Yes?" said.

"Where are you?" ask for a voice across.

"Just finished writing, "the answer was short.

"Just be in good health, right?" ask The Father.

"healthy." If you are not healthy, how can you? he added in heart.

"Winter vacation this time can go home?" The same question every year.

"Of course." He answered as if.

"Go home, Son .... It's been more than five years that you haven't stepped in your hometown. Papa knows your reluctance. But until when do you want to escape? Sooner or later, you should go back and work here, right? Especially this is your last year of college there. You need to start socializing with your friends and business colleagues here, so that when you graduate, you can directly work in the company, "persuade the father again.

"Liat will be .." he said after a moment of silence.

"No need to look around anymore! Papa asked for a vacation this time you have to go home .... Start looking for tickets from now on! Moreover, your winter vacation this time coincides with your cousin's engagement event. A large family will gather. This is also important for your future if you want to work in the company!" papanya.

If you want to work for a company, right? If not ? But that sentence could only be stored in his brain. He did not have the courage to go against the flow.

Not getting an answer from his son, his father's voice began to rise. "Did you hear me?!"

"Yes! Aye!" sewot.

"Good! Well well you're there. If you have less money, tell Papa. Later Papa transfers."

"Yes." Yeah."

The phone is also turned off.

The young man turned his gaze back to the scene before him with a blank look. He sighed. Mind wanders.

When it comes to finances, his father cares about him a lot. Since he went to school, he has never lacked. His father's deliveries always came on time, in excess quantities.

When it comes to the attention and affection of the Father, he cannot deny that he knows and feels it too. In that case he knew enough to be grateful.

But this could not be equated with his father's request for him to return. He was in the middle of that family. He is more comfortable here, even if he has to live alone.

But he also knew, he did not have the courage to go against his father's orders. He did not have the courage to decide his own life. He is comfortable with his life now. There are and enough. He could not imagine that he had to return to life like his childhood was all short of.

Where is my hometown? Is this country not his hometown? This is where he was born and went through his childhood with his mother and grandmother.

The young man took his breath back. He twisted vague memories of a childhood that he could still remember. How he grew up with the simplicity of a mother who worked as a waitress for a small restaurant to make ends meet and his sickly grandmother. How lousy their lives were that sometimes he had to endure hunger for having only a piece of hard bread to eat.

Things only improved when he was five years old. His mother brought a man home and introduced him as her father.

Apparently all this time his father did not know his presence in the world. The reason he only found out later after he was a little more mature. Apparently the Father already has a wife in his home country. Her mother who from the beginning already knew the fact, deliberately hid her pregnancy to her father because she did not want to be a destroyer of people's households.

After all, the meeting brought about improvements in their lives. Their economy began to improve because his father sent money on a regular basis. Every six months or at the latest once a year, his father would definitely come to visit him. Those were the two happiest years of his life.

In the third year, things changed again. Her mother is sick, not what. Maybe TB or pneumonia or lung cancer, he doesn't know. He was only seven years old at the time. As he knows, his mother has a high fever, coughs, sometimes even coughing up blood.

But unfortunately, his mother forbade him and his grandmother to tell his father about his illness. He did not want to make his father worry.

By doing medical treatment, his mother endured the suffering alone, until he lost his life. Her father only learned of her mother's death after two months of her mother's death.

This event brought a new chapter in his life. Her elderly and sickly grandmother gave her care to her father. His father agreed to this and took him when he returned to his home country. It was the first time he met his father's legitimate wife, his stepmother.

Living in a big new house, does not bring happiness to him. An unfamiliar atmosphere, an unfamiliar language, and also a less friendly attitude, he got from every resident in the house. Only her father was kind to her.

He was not treated harshly. The basic needs such as clothing, food, and education are also well managed. He just feels isolated. No playmates or people talk to themselves. They always looked at him with cold eyes. It is only natural, what can be expected from the presence of a child out of wedlock?

His father was the only entertainer in the house. How he always looks forward to his father's return so he can tell stories. The problem is, his father always went to work early in the morning and only came home when it was night.

His educational journey also brought his own difficulties for him. First of all, it cannot be directly schooled due to the use of different languages. He only mastered his mother tongue, which is French. Therefore, as a temporary education, he must undergo homeschooling while studying English as an international language, and also Bahasa Indonesia, the national language in this country.

After finally he was able to be educated at the International School, he got the second difficulty. The European face he got from his mother, made himself into months at school because of his appearance that is rarely found in this country. Indeed, he did not experience physical violence, but the rubble he got from his classmates was quite exhausting mentally.

Until finally after he graduated Junior High, he decided to return to Paris, his hometown. On the grounds of wanting to continue his education there as well as reminiscing about his childhood, he asked his father to send him to school in the fashion city.

And here it is now. Five more years he has spent SMU and college here. He also took the time to scavenge his childhood, visit his old home and find his grandmother. But it's all for nothing. The time that has been rolling is long enough. Things have changed so much and no one knows about her grandmother.

"QUOI?! Tu veux rompre parce que tu trouve une meilleure femme que moi?! (MEAN: WHAT?! You want to break up because you've found a better woman than me?!) A cry from the side scattered his daydream.

He glanced at the table on his right. An Asian woman was sitting there alone and having a conversation on the phone in a riled up tone.

"Bien! Je peux aussi trouver for homme meilleur que toi!" (meaning: Fine! I can also find a better man than you!) The woman then turned off her phone.

"Br*ngs!! You think a handsome guy is just a doang?!!" The woman curses her phone with familiar language. A language he rarely hears in his day in the country.

The young man got up from his chair and chose to leave the place. The contemplation and calm atmosphere he craved was destroyed by the disturbance of the noisy girl who seemed to have just decided by her boyfriend.

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