My imaginary boyfriend

4 : Sun

Chapter 4

Sun

I woke up before my usual time the next morning.

I remembered that the first night that Klong had stayed with me, I had also woken up before my usual time just like this. As soon as I opened my eyes this morning, the sky wasn't bright yet. I glimpsed the silver and golden light gleaming the horizon and immediately realized that the moment in which I had met Klong again at the swing in the deserted playground wasn't just a mere dream.

It was real.

Have you ever woken up early in the morning just to be in a daze and wondered whether some moment in your yesterday's memory was real or just a dream, especially for the moments happening two to three hours before heading to sleep? The memory that forms during that time when the sleepiness incorporates with reality we're facing will cause us confusion on whether the moments happens in a dream or in reality.

However, the fact that I woke up before my time ensured that what had happened last night was certainly not a dream, even without rolling myself to face him who was lying down beside me. Anyway, my feeling of having somebody sharing my bed with me was still the same. I was still the same person who was not used to it. If there was somebody lying beside me, I would always wake up before my usual time. I needed to admit at this point that I used to have someone sharing my bed. 22 years of my life hadn't always been so simple and there had been ups and downs. Even if it hadn't been so breathtaking as riding a roller coaster, my life hadn't been anything like riding on a freeway either. I'll put it this way, there had been guys coming to my life and some of them had spent the nights with me. There was no need for that many guys to make me realize through experiments that I was a human who wasn't made to be used to having somebody sharing the bed with. No matter how hard I had tried, I just couldn't get used to it. It had been years since the last time I allowed a man to share the bed with me before Klong. Even though Klong was just a friend in imagination who's nonphysical and insensible, I woke up with a shock before my time. At this rate, I would have to scrap the idea of trying to share the bed with a real person. Seriously, I would be forever alone on my bed.

"You're awake, Phai?" He was squinting his eyes to look at me.

"Yeah, I'm not used to having somebody lying beside me." I replied. He nodded. I was not sure if I had ever told him about that back then when we were young. I now could look back at some parts of the memory so vividly but for other parts, they were more like staring at the turbid bottom of the sea which was visible but unclear and uncertain.

"Have to work today?" He asked when I was getting up from bed. I then got undressed and grabbed a towel to the restroom for my morning routine.

"Kind of. I have classes." I shouted at him from the restroom. Then, I started brushing my teeth. The cool sensation of the toothpaste was so good. I was now awake a bit more.

"Wait, you still going to school? You must be around 27, right? Why are you still going to school?" He asked. I completed my 2-minute brushing, gargled, then he replied.

"I'm studying my specialty. I'm a doc, Klong."

"No surprise. A smart guy like you must be a doctor, of course." His voice seemed to be so close to me and when I turned back and I was right. He was right behind me. Well, the towel was so far from me and I couldn't grab it to cover my chest so I stood there awkwardly, trying not to express any shyness while I was so shy of him seeing me half-naked.

"Being shy of me, still?" he laughed, knowingly.

Actually, where he was standing now was between me and that hanging towel and if I ever wanted to, I could just reach through him to get it. I decided not to do so since I thought of it as my misbehavior towards him.