The Fragility of Memories

Chapter 6

The next day, an annoyed Sarawat was sitting in a chair by the desk in his room. His hands were on top of the furniture and one of them drummed his fingers on the smooth white wood, the only sound in the room being the constant tapping. A heavy frown decorated his usually impassive face, and his eyes were fixed on the screen of a laptop in front of him. As mentioned earlier, he was annoyed, very annoyed, what was the reason for his irritation? The answer was quite simple: he hadn't gotten up on the right side of the bed. He was awoken early in the morning by the sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window, shining directly on his face. Once he opened his eyes, a massive headache greeted him within moments and he knew at that very instant that today would not be his day.

He was aware of the cause of his malaise; this was the result of the very stressful day he had yesterday. He partly blamed Boss for it because his best friend had pushed him to his limits with his shenanigans of the previous day, but the biggest culprit in his discomfort was Tine, the ghost —who turned out to really not be a ghost— of his dreams and the roller coaster of emotions this had provoked with his presence.

The young man was deep in his thoughts, preying on him like a stalker reluctant to leave his victim in peace. Yesterday's fortuitous reunion had definitely worsened the situation because if before he would reflect a lot on the man with a beautiful smile, now this was a constantly recurring thought. In other words, the only thing in his mind was him, so much so that he could no longer function as a normal adult and this was no exaggeration. He honestly felt like he was going crazy from thinking so much, without even meaning to, about a person who did nothing but dull his head with a cloud of enigmas.

Fortunately, he got a solution for the headache as he managed to find a box of paracetamol in the bathroom while getting ready for the day. He located the pills in a first aid kit that was inside one of the cabinets in his room's bathroom and immediately knew that this was his mother's doing. He also appreciated her attentive and cautious nature; thanks to her he wouldn't have to endure the ache until he could go get some in one of downtown pharmacies. Now he was waiting for the painkiller to take effect and meanwhile he opted to do some work to distract himself a bit and perhaps take his mind off thinking about the particular young man, he knew that working with a headache wasn't very advisable, but he didn't find anything else to do.

This was how we got to the opening scene. Sarawat trying to focus on his work, but the combination of the headache that was taking too long to be tamed by the medication he had previously taken and the constant memory of yesterday's incident made it impossible. This angered him greatly because Sarawat loved his job; he considered it the greatest achievement he had made in the last decade of his life. The path to attaining the status he was currently on was not at all easy. The accident he suffered years ago caused a delay in his schooling and the rehabilitation process was slow and quite complicated. Physically, he had not sustained major damages and was able to leave the hospital on his own feet, but his head, that is, his brain took the brunt of it. The severity of his lost memories had been more than he had anticipated and it took him years to recover most of them.

Despite this major setback, Sarawat was able to complete his studies and graduate with honors from Columbia University, where he received a scholarship. He obtained a degree in Business Administration and Management. The newly acquired knowledge gave him a great advantage in business management which made him an ideal successor for his family enterprise and his father had, on many occasions, invited him to start working in one of these companies. However, he hadn't had a shred of interest in the dealings of any of his parent's companies so he declined the offers.

What sparked his interest was his uncle's job; he was a renowned consultant in New York. Sarawat had been living with him at that time and during his stay there he observed and studied the field. The idea of a profession that would encourage him to excel frequently as well as enable him to acquire new knowledge and skills appealed to him. In addition, his antisocial and somewhat haughty character made it difficult for him to interact with ordinary people as his mind would subconsciously go on to judging them, and if he came to the conclusion that the person or persons were not worth his time if they didn't know what they were talking about or even worse, were willfully ignorant, he would get bogged down by the prejudice so there was no way to progress, not to mention the discomfort that such situations brought upon him. If he were a consultant, he would not have to worry about it since he would only deal with professionals. This is precisely what led him to become an apprentice in his uncle's consulting firm at the age of twenty-three. After a year and a half of apprenticeship, he became an independent management consultant, and thanks to his good work ethic, he managed to exceed in the field of work fairly quickly.