WHEN I FELL IN LOVE

Chapter 1

My name is Bento, just Bento. No first name or last name. I don't know what motivated my father, until he named me after a bastard in a song by a musician, Iwan Fals. Not that I don't like that name, what else with Iwan Fals. I am his number one fan! Didn't believe? You guys can test me. Call the title of the song, I will mention in which album the song is located. But ... lest you say my name three times, like Mr. Beni, the math teacher when I was in Junior High. Mr. Beni always mentioned my name three times when he was passing me on, and of course, my friends in the classroom greeted him by shouting, “ASIK!“

I live in Bandar Lampung, Lampung Province. A city developed, with a variety of tribes in it. There are Lampung, Batak, Sunda, Java, Aceh, Padang, Papua, and many others. I'm 26 years old. I was born on August 17, 1993. Same date as the anniversary of the Indonesian nation.

I am the eldest of two brothers. My brother's name is Fitri, still in 12th grade school. Her hobbies are watching horror movies, reading horror novels, and discussing the ghost of the school waiter with her friends who are also horror fans. Fitri once asked me, What kind of death do I want? Just imagine, what kind of sister thinks about the way her brother died?

I was born into a simple family. My father is Supriadi, a man from Java, 55 years old. My father worked as an employee, in a bottled water company. My mother, a woman from Lampung, is 52 years old. Name, Meliana. My mother is a housewife who has expertise in making pastries that taste no less when compared to pastries sold in stores. Because of this, my mother often get pastry orders from neighbors, or close relatives.

I have a hobby of playing music. A hobby that I hope will make me rich in the future. But what is power. Is it because there are no connections in the music industry, or am I less talented? The hobby that I had been in since Junior High, never enriched me, and one year after I graduated High School, I made music as a hobby.

Speaking of my music career. Actually Fitri once advised me, to go to a crossroad and make a pact with the devil. According to him, the way is quite powerful and often used by western musicians, in order to become famous. But, the thing is, if I go and stand at the crossroads near my house, it's not the devil I met, but death! Because the only crossroad near my house is the Sumatra crossroads. The place where the inter-provincial buses and container trucks passed by (after a year had passed, I felt the advice Fitri gave me was quite ridiculous, and the most ridiculous part of it all was? I had thought about doing it).

My job requires me to be able to speak and be able to argue, when my trading products are compared to the products of competitors. This is clearly compared to my personality which tends to be quiet and closed. But, what can I do? In life, sometimes we have to be willing to be in a very uncomfortable condition, in order to survive.

However, not everything related to my work is unpleasant. One of them, because of my work, I was able to meet a woman, the son of the owner of the largest cake shop in my city, the Source Cake shop. Her name is Nurlela, I used to call her, Lela. Lela is a recently graduated English literature scholar and is now struggling to find work.

Quoting a poem from a Sufi named Jalaluddin Rumi, which reads: be quiet! Love is a jewel that you cannot throw like a stone. So, I made sure that my gem would only be given to Lela.

To be honest, Lela is not the prettiest girl in my town or a woman whose beauty is like an angel. I don't need to dramatize the shape of his face just to be called a lover. Lela, that's just an ordinary woman. An ordinary woman who is able to make me willing to do anything, to see her happy.