C14 Her Condition Worsened
Raja wakes up early today. After praying, she helps her mom cooking for herself and her siblings too since her mother and father already drove to their respective workplaces at 6.31 in the morning to avoid jams on the way there. Her mother told her to cook vegetables too for dinner later. She said okay while nodding and heads to the kitchen as well as starting to make breakfast.
She makes scrambled eggs and grilled sausage with butted slices of toast for her three sisters and brother while playing her favourite song in her head. All Exile Generation songs in a playlist. Aside from that, she makes a jug of tea too to perfect the breakfast. She then makes scrambled eggs for herself too while toasting a piece of bread. Once done, she sits at the dining table and eats the toast while making another. After the last toast, she adds scrambled eggs and put them on the toast and munch it slowly as it is still hot. She takes a cup on a rack and pours the tea she made earlier also sip it until it is two over four right after she munches the toast. She drinks while thinking about what to do, making a list of various house chores from vacuuming all rooms to cleaning the spider web on the ceiling. But her assignment is due next week. “What to work first?” She asks herself then covers all the foods with a red food covering and walks to the fridge. She takes a bottle of detox and pour it into the cup and moves back to the seat.
So many thoughts run in her brain right now but she chooses to ignore them and think about her assignment instead. It will be her first choice after all. She has to send all of it by Wednesday morning which is on another 3 days. Thinking about the last art she needs to draw and colour. She pushes the start button on a washing machine containing yesterday garments and sits back on the dining chair. It is going to take more than half an hour. "What should I draw?" She carries on thinking questioning herself while hands on her chin tapping it like a detective.
"Sir Azlan says to draw any fruits so... I guess apple and rambutan?" She guesses while thinking another suggestion.
"Wait... no. Rambutan has too many colours. Hmm, what fruit has only one colour other than apple? Um, haa! Orange??! Yeah... orange. Let's go! Orange, it is" She smiles while nodding her head up and down fivefold.
“Okay! A set of an apple and ow-range! Hope I could finish it early. By today or might be tomorrow? I bet tomorrow” She shrugs her shoulders and swallow the detox little by little.
While drinking and staying put for her washing machine to stop, she looks at the wall, the clock and washing machine twice back and forth. It is already at rinse and spin level and another 1 minute to wait. Once done, she put all the clothes in a basket and brings them outside. She begins hanging all shirts, trousers, uniforms and Baju Kurungs on the hangers and clips the remaining clothes which are undergarments on the clothesline. While hanging, her eyeballs travelling around at her mother's plants such as Tomato, Papaya, Berry, Etlingera elatior, Screwpine and Lime. She heads to her room upstairs and starts to work on her assignment. She finds and collects her art stuff first in her hands before putting it on her desk. Preparation is her habit since secondary school as she might forget where she put a few of those things somewhere. Rather collect than has to find one by one when she working on her assignment.
8.01 a.m
The task starts. But before that, she opens Youtube and presses the play button on her phone after she picks one of her favourite playlist. A Japanese song titled Love You More by Generations from Exile Tribe begin playing on her speaker. Her head follows its beat each second joyously. Her hands moves on the A1 paper and starts to draw an apple and orange. It takes her two hours or so to draw them perfectly in a nice shape to make it looks 3D. She takes a box of 24 pencil colours and begins colouring after. She colours the apple with a green colour all over it and a little bit of white in the middle on the right side. Plus, a tiny black colour on it. She then colours the orange with an orange colour all over it and a bit of black line in the middle on the left side. Also a tiny white colour next to the black line.
"Raja... oh Raja!" First one calling her name with a deep voice.
"Assalamualaikum, Raja!" The second one with a quite high pitch voice.
"Raja!" The last one with a gent voice at first but deep at the end.
She is so into it that she did not hear people are calling for her outside with the Youtube playing non-stop. A pop song echoes next making her halt from her work thinking about the lyrics as it is familiar. She startled when the unwelcome guests shout her name one more time. Her eyes narrow thinking maybe it is her sisters' or her brother's friends. “What are they doing here? Mak aih, don't they have things to do at home?” She sighs. All of her sisters are watching a thriller series on Netflix in the second oldest's room beside her room while her brother playing games downstairs in his room too. There are so many Raja in this house yet she is the one who opens the door every time(everyone in this house has Raja as the first name except for her mother). The responsibility of the eldest itself is such a headache adding this makes her infuriated.
“Which Raja? Oih! Why does no one answer? Yeah, good. Am I the only one who have ears in this house? Such irresponsible and useless siblings”
She vertical and descends downstairs heading towards the front door with a frown on her mug. They know she has an assignment to do. They know it but the serial and game are more crucial. ‘I’m tired! Sh*t!’ She unlocks the door hastily and is surprised to see her best friend none other than Anne, who is the one calling her. The irate Raja is left now she is perplexed. Wait, just one person? Obviously, she heard like there are 3 people out here. 1000 per cent sure. But neither did Anne says anything about going to her house for visiting nor for other intentions. She is clearly befuddled. Anne seems fine as if nothing happen between them regarding her ‘fake’ crush. She smiles and gives her one box containing two slices of moist chocolate cake with 2 pieces of Cadbury Almond topping for each slice and caramel to decorate beneath them, Cadbury. Before she left.
'Why didn't she utter a word? I guess because of THAT incident. But she... she called my name earlier. Didn't she wanna talk to me? But...' Raja has weird thoughts the moment Anne gives her the cake and pauses for a second before she carries on sitting on her chair.
'Argh! I'm supposed to apologise to her when I had a chance just now. Why it didn't come out of my mouth? Now I feel bad since she gave me this' The scene earlier begin to flash on her mind.
Her mouth opened but then closed again. She was supposed to say sorry but nothing came out. She looked into her eyes steadily but the latter started to withdraw little by little. Only inhaled and exhaled oxygen she could do. She opened her mouth again to bind the rope of their friendship back yet closed it after Anne showed her back treading away leaving without saying goodbye. So dramatic. Is she sulking? D*mmit! "Thank you... Anne. Sor-" Halted for a moment as that is all she could say. She resumed the sentence in heave. “-ry... wha-what where?”
Speechless. She just murmured thank you but the latter was gone in a matter of seconds. She sighed not knowing what was wrong with her though the latter will always wave hi and bye to her. “Did she park far from here? So diligent la aih” Peepers wandering on her surroundings finding for her but not even a single human was on the road upfront her house. Where did she go? This fast, bro? She turned with the plastic bag in her hand shrugged her shoulders and walked to the main door twisted the knob. “She’s rare. Bet she wanna be The Flash 2.0. Hope she won’t accidentally join the drain with that speed” She is talking with herself while shutting the door and walking straight to the kitchen.
She grabbed a fork in the rack and excitedly brought the cake upstairs. Feeling peckish, she put them on her desk once she reached her room before sitting on her chair passionately opened the cake box and looked at it amazingly. With glint orbs seen on her face, she praised Anne and drool pretty much dripping out of her mouth. “My bad, I’m stunned. Couldn't wait to eat this. Yay! Sweets! Bismillah”
“I’m sorry, Anne. I’ll apologise and thank you after I’ve finished eating this, okay? Sorry” The scene earlier cease and she proceeds by eating slowly and graciously. She unconsciously moans in a loud volume as Anne's cakes taste marvellous as always and takes another bite until one over four of one slice cake left. Another slice is still untouched. She then resumes doing her art. She picks a light brown pencil colour and colours the stick of the apple adding a bit of white colour on the right side to boot. She does some stretching after that as her fingers feel numb for drawing non-stop for hours plus the colouring makes her feel it further in-depth. Thanks to Anne for coming by too. If not, she will sit on her chair and immensely colour the apple and orange for who knows how long it is going to take. Not even going to stand up unless for the loo. She takes a deep breath keeping on her work and puffing out the moment she picks a black colour for the line of the fruits and colours it with eyes closely gazing at the line.
She feels thirsty thus she goes to the kitchen half an hour later picking up a glass in the rack and treading to the sink where the water dispenser is. She pushes the cold water button till her glass is full and sips a tad. She brings the glass and goes back to her room freely sitting on her chair in a cross-legged position. She gulps down half of the water and continues consuming the last fork of one slice of cake she had earlier. Her throat is a little sticky feeling she wants to mumble a few words in a husky voice.
"Alhamdulillah, it's delicious. I shall save the other one for this evening"
It is too good to finish the cake so she decides to save one for later. She goes to the kitchen and put it in the fridge while yawning. Her sudden yawns make her sleepy and decided to take a nap before she resumes with her assignment. She reaches her room shortly laying on her bed shutting her eyes slowly. Dozes off.
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3.01 pm
Working on her art with black colour to make a thin line all over the remaining part of the fruits and a bit of shading under it too. It takes more than one hour to complete it all with concentration. Cracking her neck left and right, she stands and links both hands stretching her body while pacing to the stairs descending downstairs to the kitchen to get the last slice of chocolate moist cake as she is craving to eat the cake again. Woo! Anime time!
She takes it from the fridge with a glass of water and brings it to her room putting it next to her laptop. Plus, sitting and opening her laptop take a glimpse of the cake. “Fork? Ah, I forgot to put it in the sink after I ate earlier. Adoi lahai - Auch sigh” She then goes to the loo and cleans the fork rinsing it until it is clean and walk back to her room. While walking along the path, she heard her sisters shouting and swearing might be playing games now. She yells at them for being such noisy and sluggish sisters. “No need to scream b*tches! Bingit, bodoh! - Too loud, morons! Do your work la, slothful! Ya Allah!” She closes the curtains behind after entering her room and sits leisurely pressing the play button. The anime starts playing on the screen with one gigantic red monster and a quite small human wearing black clothing in its hand as a thumbnail.
"Ah, I forgot about the cake. I should eat it a tad while watching this" She whispers.
While watching after several minutes, she forks it in her mouth until it becomes one over four with eyes keenly on the laptop. Without looking at the box knowing where the cake is positioned, she lifts the fork to consume another one yet she unconsciously glances and suddenly sees about 5 faggots moving on the left side of the cake trying to move out as they are somewhat stuck in it. She automatically screams. Flabbergasted. The fork flying on the carpet. She immediately steps back be erect but when she looks at them one more time, they disappear. Perfectly gone. It was real but her heart said otherwise. She searches for her fork on the table and bed but it is not there. “Huh? Where it's gone?” She asks while scratching her head. Her peepers travel on the floor right after finding on her closet and makeup table but it is not there too. “Ha! There it is” She walks to the soft brown carpet behind the door picking up the sudden missing fork and paces to the loo washing it with clean water. "The h*ck?!! I really saw it with my eyes though!" She mumbles while twisting the pipe to save water after rinsing it thrice.
'Bit*h, how?!! Huh? It's somehow surreal. Maybe... I was just dreaming? Hallucinating?' She thought while treading back to her room proceeds with the anime and cake. Indeed freakish and uncanny. “Ya, I guess it's just a phantasm. Ya ya, it is” She says to appease herself after just about passing into her room but heard someone watching the television as the volume is audible in her ears. An action animation to be precise.
She thrusts her shoulders and her eyes roam at her desk, scanning the cake but her laptop catches her attention. Realising it is her anime making noise, not someone who is nobody watching the tv. She heaves sitting on the chair pressing the back button till where the faggots moment started and poking the fork on the cake. It is upright on the remaining chocolate moist cake as her intention. She pushes the spacebar and the anime starts playing then feeding the last fork in her mouth. Organ of sight directly and closely watch the screen. Upper and lower body immobile but lips. Chew, munch and chew. She feels nothing for the second chew but the third one makes her pause from munching. Feeling bizarre as she bit something hard like a stone. She stops in her tracks, it becoming odder the moment she tries to feel what it is and hastily spit it out in the cake box. A tiny rusty miniature nail plus a bit of her saliva land there. Mouth agape and gasping. Flabbergasted is an understatement as she could not believe her eyeballs with what she saw. Anne will never ever do this kind of thing to her. No way. Never. Nay!
