I had to get up quite early just to get ready for the flight. I feel mixed emotions, I'm both excited and scared. I can't predict what awaits me in my homeland, the country that I'm from and the person I truly am. You are probably thinking "What could I be possibly afraid of, it's my home". To tell you the truth, I've forgotten Thai,
I can barely introduce myself, because I've lived in China, Beijing almost my whole life, since five to be exact. I can only speak Chinese and I'm extremely worried about how I'll be perceived as and how will the locals treat me. "You are twenty now, it's time to grow up" Is what my dad keeps repeating, but I obviously know it very well myself. What's not to know or understand?
The flight leaves in a few hours, but luckily we live close to the airport, yeah I completely agree, it really sucks, the amount of times those fucking airplanes almost burst my eardrums together, I can't even count and it made me go insane. Couldn't even study nor listen to music, because that annoying sound went through all of my headphone layers. I begged my parents for new headphones almost every year, but none of them worked, me and my sister Lalita even got on our knees asking to live further away, but our father never wanted to move, since it was mom's dream house.
Did I forget to mention that I'm probably the only one in my whole family that is unable to speak Thai fluently? I spent so much time studying to get into college, that I even forgot the most common and easiest words to ever exist. I only know a few of them to this day, I speak worse than a person studying Thai for a few hours. It's actually horrible. And the only time I actually asked for help with Thai was the time when I was finally free from all of that work in school but nobody helped me. I wouldn't help myself either to be honest, with all that stress in school I was such a brat and so rude, that I pushed away every person that tried to help me, gladly I've changed now. Since I've heard the news, that we were moving back to Thailand, I started studying every single day. My pronunciation eventually got better, but can't even be compared to the fact that I'm literally Thai. It's embarrassing. Thing is, I can understand what people say around me, but I can't say the sentences myself, how does that make sense?
By the way my name is Jing, it means Peace, more precisely - Peaceful. I can write like a confident person because I know people won't read it, but I barely speak in front of people. I get insane anxiety every time I have to speak in front of a group of people or even express my opinion. When I was younger my head would always start spinning, I couldn't concentrate everytime I had to say anything, and I mean anything. Anything, as in literally saying my name out loud. The only thing I can do is express feelings and inside thoughts in a notebook that I do not want anyone to read.
But sadly, that was the problem with me and my notebooks, or books that you could call diaries.
When I was sixteen I found a great group of friends, I was so excited and started writing my feelings in that diary, I used to carry it in my backpack and never showed it to anyone, I can confirm that it was very well hidden and people that searched through my books or just anything in my bag never ever saw it.
Or that's what I thought.
Those friends were the best point of my life, because of them I learned how to take care of myself, I learned to be more confident and started speaking a little more than usually. There were four of us in total. We met when we all started high school, they were my classmates and were very welcoming.
It was a group project, since I was quieter than others I barely had friends. As expected. That was daily life for me and I've never complained, it was peaceful but a little bit lonely, but that's completely fine, I'm fine with being left alone. Trust me.
As I said, it was a group project, the required amount of people in the group was four people, but those three friends couldn't find a last member. Then suddenly one of them, the one that I'll always remember the most, was this guy - Jai. I'll always remember him the most even with the things that he has done to me, he was the loveliest of them all, of all people In the world. He was the true joy in my life, the life that he suddenly changed. He had a beautiful face, the second he came up to me, something started moving in my stomach. I couldn't understand a thing and got confused, I said to myself "It's probably my anxiety" and calmed myself down a little.
Lost in my thoughts I couldn't hear a thing he said. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers to get my attention and I went back to reality.
"Hey there, can u hear me?" Jai repeatedly asked.
"Oh yeah, sorry I can" I apologised quietly like an idiot. His voice was quite calming, that's why I apologised, I didn't want to have a bad impression, even if I don't usually care about that. I freezed and forgot to blink, just blankly started staring at the table infront of me and didn't move an inch looking his way. It felt rude, but that's who I am, I'm not comfortable with anyone, probably just my sister, but I could never admit it to her. She is younger than me and I'd look stupid.
"Well, I'm Jai, nice to meet you" he put his hand in front of my face and waited for me to greet him. I just sat there quietly, slowly forgetting how to breathe.
"Are you okay, you look pale, do u want me to bring you water, hold on" he quickly grabbed a bottle out of his backpack that was hanging on the table behind me. He put the bottle on my table and waited for me to drink it. I took a look at it, noticed that it had cats on it, but those didn't tempt me.
"Well I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to join our team for the project"
"I'm Jing" I've finally answered. Even that answer made me crash out in my head, everything I said was wrong. My tone, it was either definitely loud or extremely quiet, so quiet that I couldn't hear myself. I just wanted to cry and run out of that classroom. My whole day was ruined, that calming voice of his didn't change a thing, if anything, it made my blood pressure rise more.
"Well sorry to ask you again, but would you like to join us, we are short in group members, and it would be great if you could be apart of this"
I wanted to get over it and finally answered his question
"Okay" I completely bugged out. Why did I even answer, I could've just worked on my own or something, this is fucking hell.
Finally, I was forced to leave my seat and came closer to the new group for this project. It was a project for geography, we had to pick out a country and make a presentation for it. THAT'S not the worst part of it, we had to dress similar to the country's culture, that means i would've needed to speak in front of a completely new class, a class with nobody that I knew of.
Before picking the country, the people in that group introduced themselves.
"Hey buddy, I'm Zixuan, what about you?" this guy with a cool outfit started the conversation. This whole group was filled with interesting, rich, cool guys. That is probably the worst possible concept of men to ever exist, my heart started beating more, it felt like it'll soon stop and I'll die of a heart attack.
I didn't want to answer this at all, I just wanted to leave, gosh what could be worse than this whole situation, I'd rather just die on the spot. Who even created the concept of group projects, get me out of here.
"He's Jing " Jai answered before me, I had a feeling he read my mind or just understood me this fast in some way.
"Wait where the hell are you from? You don't look Chinese" the other guy asked.
Forgot to mention, I have no idea why, but I'm the only one with a Chinese name, my sister's name is in Thai, as-well as my parents. That does make sense to be honest, I'm the only one that isn't able to speak Thai. It's like my parents knew that I'd forget that hell of a language anyway and just called me a name in Chinese that meant peace.
"Hold your tongue, Feng, that's rude"
"I'm Thai" i answered as I was looking down at the ground
From that conversation I barely talked, but after fighting the urge to talk in-front of all my class while giving the presentation I felt a little more relaxed. I started speaking to these new friends of mine and eventually we became close. There was a time where I felt a little something towards Jai.
I realised I fell in love, I felt something that I've never fully understood, my feelings and my heart helped me realise that love exists and that's what I've been feeling since the day he helped me fight that insane stress and anxiety. He for the first time hugged me and held my hand while I was speaking about Japanese culture, wearing that dumb kimono on my slim, weirdly shaped body. I calmed down and finally felt comfortable with the people that weren't my family.
I wrote all of my feelings, all of my thoughts in that diary that I bought after the day that I fell in love, after writing things that have been running around in my mind i realised he was truly my first love.
But then, after a few months, after we became friends, I and those amazing three friends went to have lunch at a coffee shop nearby. I bought a delicious pie and an iced tea. Jai and me shared it and I realised that my feelings weren't casual at all, I started to believe that maybe my love for him wasn't one sided. I quickly ran to the bathroom, put on some perfume to smell better, but when I came back, I saw people, who I finally started being comfortable around and called them my friends, reading a book. The same book, that was my diary, the diary that I thought I hid perfectly, and the diary I wrote all of my feelings in.
My heart stopped, it broke and was torn apart, I knew that it would never ever get fixed again. My eyes became full of tears. All of them looked shocked and didn't say a word, I ran to them, took my bag and the book back, used my full strength, that even the pages from the diary tore apart, but I didn't care, I didn't look back and ran back home. After this day I didn't go to school for a few months or even once left my room. Lalita tried to talk to me but I didn't answer.
Finally, my parents resigned me to a new high school, where I didn't find a single friend and stayed quiet until I became nineteen. I never trusted anyone again and realised that there is no person that deserves to be called joy to my life, happiness to my peace. I'll never write my thoughts and feelings into a book that could be read by anyone, without my permission. I'll just slowly write these words right into my head, that nobody will be able to see and that nobody will know of.
Well that was quite a lot. This story was probably boring right? It was quite a long time ago, but my opinion hasn't changed and will never change. That's how it is.
Let's go back to present
Well, actually, I didn't wake myself up, it was my sister that came into my room and pulled me down to the ground from my bed.
"Get up, little kid" Little kid my foot
"Let me sleep for five more minutes"
"You act like a child and I'm the younger one" Lalita is seventeen.
"And I'm your eldery, so listen to me" I can barely speak while still having my eyes closed.
"God, how old are you again" she opens the blinds and the sun shines right through my eyelids, what are they for then?
Then she proceeds to pull me out of the bed and I hit my butt on that hard, old floor.
"Fu..Frick you Lalita!" I scream as loud as I can as she leaves the room braiding her long hair.
I finally wake up after getting thrown right to the floor, and start getting ready. I want to feel comfortable for this long journey so I put a blue sweater on my white shirt and wear comfortable shorts. It's the end of the summer, it's neither cold neither hot, so it's the perfect weather. Oh how I love the warm air.
We finally get to the airport, I've packed my luggage a few days ago so I didn't need to rush at all, but at the same time Lalita went crazy packing it last minute. Such a joke.
We get to the airplane after getting thru security and finally get our destination after five long hours of flying.
We'll be living in Pattaya City, luckily we have family here that we'll get to visit, because I get along with my cousin and grandma pretty well. The city is absolutely beautiful, our house is in Jomtien neighbourhood, its views are drop dead gorgeous and I can't take my eyes off of them. I will miss the old city that we lived in, but this one looks like it'll be memorable and bring me a little more luck. Let's hope for that, but avoid putting any of that trust into those thoughts, it'll get jinxed.
The weather is much more warmer, but feels amazing either way. Since it's getting darker already, the sun up there looks pretty. The sky changes colours and clouds change shapes, creating all kinds of patterns. I can't take my eyes off them, nothing is more beautiful than the creations of nature. Nothing.
When we arrived at the new house my mother suddenly told me, like she forgot something to mention. I am not a big fan of sudden surprises. They don't end well..
"I've found u a tutor, to help you learn Thai better" my heart suddenly dropped, after all those years I'll be forced to speak to other people much more than I used to, just to learn a language that I was always supposed to know.
Yikes, I've brought that to myself and now I have to suffer. Fucking dumbass, really.
"From what I've heard the house he lives in is quite beautiful too, so I bet you'll feel amazed" yeah you bet. Who cares about some house. That's not the biggest issue here, hello?
I'm such child to be honest. A grown man scared of speaking up, like actually? I'm embarrassing myself. God who even made me like this?????????!!!!
"First session tomorrow don't be late"
"Yeah no chance, you are trusting this little kid? To not be late?" Lalita carrying her things inside hears our conversation.
What kind of ears she got to be hearing this from that far away? That life near the airport must've been a bigger hell compared to me, no one has bigger ears than this little brat.
Who raised her like this? Could never be me. To be honest, I'm quite proud tho, I've done everything for her since the day she was born.
She better be the one changing my socks in a nursing home, even if our age gap is only by three years.
"Shut up" I whisper to myself
"You shut up, go study Thai or find something better to do instead of arguing with me" she goes up to me and takes my box that I didn't bother carrying. I'm quite weak but not THAT weak. Come on.
I carry my things inside and start unpacking, my room is quite big, it has a huge bed and a lot of space. Finally, after all this time I've got my own room, that I won't have to share with little big ears.
I've wanted to move since the second I turned eighteen, but my parents are strict and could never let me leave. I've begged every single day, but they never listened, they told me that I'll be living with them until I leave college. Just because of that, I do really wanna leave the college I've claimed to be very excited about. I want my personal space, my personal home, where I get to be myself. But that won't be happening anytime soon, only in about four years.
The house we'll be living in from now on is fantastic, definitely much better than that loud, old one, where we lived for 15 years. It's a three story building with a huge pool outside. Incredible.
"You'll be learning Thai every single day until the end of the summer, for two hours" my mom comes in my new room while I'm hanging my clothes in that huge closet.
"…" no answer from me
"Then, when you start college, it'll become into one day per week session"
"…"
She leaves the room while hoping to hear an answer from me. I have nothing to say.
When I finally finish unpacking, I put up some posters in my room. A lot of them include my favourite artists, favourite movies, favourite authors and my favourite colour blue.
It's almost midnight, the tutor has already texted me the time my session will begin. I'm so tired, i remove my shirt and put on my pj bottoms. What a day. Oh how excited I am…
I had to wake up at 10 am, my session starts at 12, but I slept through. It's 11 am and my sister had to wake me up once again.
"Shit, you sleep like a dead person" she comes in and starts punching me with her knuckles.
"Seriously" I answer in my usual morning voice, which is half clogged and hella dry.
"Can you ever get up"
"…"
"How can u even be so tired?"
How would I know, I say to myself. I always think about life, just anything before going to sleep. These thoughts always help me fall asleep, but I always wake up tired. I can't understand why..
"Just get up and go to that person, that's supposed to teach you the native language you were supposed to know, NOW" she screams right into my face while I keep yawning.
I regret not screaming back, with all that screaming I do not feel like the older brother myself.
I dress up and make myself a coffee, nobody is home. Parents went to their new jobs and my little sister just left the house to walk around the town and find new friends.
I wonder how it feels like. It's weird that we are so similar, yet so different. I am probably the quietest person, while she is the loudest. I have no friends and I love listening to music while reading, but she loves hanging out with her dearest friends while having the time of her life. That's my wish. My wish to be normal.
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Ongoing, written and created by me, tempo:)
Sorry for my English, I'm not that great, u can tell me if you find any mistakes I'll try to fix it as fast as possible.