Koon Chai Cafe

Chapter Eight - Apprehension & Algebra

Park

"Argh, I just don't get it!"

Kopter lay spread eagle across my bedroom floor, his head resting on his hands and eyes intensely focused on my calculus notes. He let out a wistful sigh, let his head fall onto his forearms, and gave me a dejected look. The sunlight streaming through my bedroom window cast golden highlights onto his brown hair, making half of his face glow.

I rolled my eyes at him, smiling. "Lemme have a look then." I leaned over and grabbed his exercise book and began deciphering his work. He propped himself onto his side and began doodling small silver clouds in the margins of my notes while humming softly to himself. At this rate my notebook would soon be more clouds than calculus.

Ever since our chemistry project, Kopter would come round everyday after we had a shift together to do our homework like this. Sometimes we studied, sometimes we tutored each other (his Mandarin was considerably better than mine and vice versa with math) and sometimes we just watched the best/worst dramas Netflix had to offer on my tiny hand-me-down laptop. He'd introduced me to the world of supernatural Thai TV shows and I'd proudly welcomed him into the absurd universe of Korean dramas.

Despite Kopter spending almost every school-day afternoon at my house, he never stayed the night. He learnt his lesson the first time and always snuck out before six, before Mom could inevitably corner him into staying for dinner.

I circled the third line of his working in red pencil and chucked his book back at him, "Two times minus three isn't negative one, dumb-ass." He picked up his book in disbelief and groaned, rolling onto his front dramatically.

He whimpered into the floorboards woefully. I leant over and patted his shoulder with sarcastic sympathy. "There there, the bad math can't hurt you now." He caught my hand mid air and held it. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight as I absorbed the always-present warmth from his hands.

"The bad math will always find me" he sighed, turning his head to face me. After a few seconds, I yanked back my hand and felt my cheeks blush as I picked up my Mandarin textbook. Another thing to add to the long list of differences between me and Kopter. He's extremely affectionate.

He was just like my cousins back in Korea. For some reason, Asian men were way more affectionate with each other than any Western counterpart. Patting, thigh-squeezing, and shoulder-rubbing were all completely normal ways of showing fondness to him. I'd love to take it personally, but I'd seen him do the same to Darius, much to Darius' surprise, so I know I'm not an anomaly. I think he's slowly cottoned on to the fact that we don't really do that much here. At least he's never attempted the hugging or butt-smacking that my cousins and their friends tease me with.

Kopter stretched his arm out towards me and tugged at my wrist, indicating he wanted to look at my watch. I obliged and twisted my wrist so that he could see the watch face. "Crap, I gotta go." He said, grabbing a slice of apple from the snack plate as he began hastily packed away his notes and pens.

I looked down at my own watch, confused. "It's only five-thirty," I argued, "We've still got at least another half hour. Plus, it's Friday, so you can always stay over if you want."

Kopter gave me an apologetic look. "Sorry bud, can't today. I gotta pick up something for Bianca for this regatta thingy tomorrow."

My heart sank. Of course, his infamous date. Just as I managed to forget its existence, someone would always bring it up again. The news spread like wildfire across the entire school campus after it'd happened. I'd even heard teachers talking about it in the hallways between classes. A match made in heaven, fire and ice, cat and dog, and trans-continental lovers were all terms that had been thrown around to describe the pairing. I relished the fact that at least there was no good ship name for them, both 'Bopter' and 'Kianca' sounded like '90s cartoon villains. It seemed like the only silver lining to this daunting, Bianca-shaped cloud.