36

“No.”

The brief and simple answer came from Jeremy’s beloved brother Khalil’s mouth when Jeremy requested him to come to the Drama Club’s meeting that evening.

“C’mon, why not?” if possible, Jeremy didn’t want to sound like a whining kid, but that was how it came out. Nothing he could do about.

“I’ve given you the script, right? That’s enough!”

“But if you come, the crew and actors would be more thrilled…”

“Is this your club or mine?”

“You’re the founder, right? It’s your club too!”

Khalil lit a cigarette. It looks like the stress dealing with this kid could only be relieved with nicotine. Jeremy waited for the first blow of carbon monoxide before receiving a reply.

“Until when do you want to be in another’s shadow?”

Jeremy was silent. Hate! Why is the sentence so cool? Note it down…

“I gave you the script because of desperation. Because there are other agendas. If not, I wouldn’t want to meddle in your club’s business,” said Khalil.

Seeing Jeremy look as if he was on the verge of snapping, Khalil sighed. Can’t this kid read between the lines?

“It’s not that I’m annoyed with you or anything. But this is your club’s business. You should handle it yourself, not other people. Not even me.”

Jeremy smiled slightly. For better or worse, Khalil pitied the kid a little. It’s not easy going through school life when you’re different from others. That’s the problem with the school system – in reality, nobody appreciates uniqueness. Why must everyone wear a uniform? Why must every male student have short hair and female students aren’t allowed to shave their head? So that everyone looks the same. So that everyone was controlled the same way. Anyone who was different would be criticized, isolated, beaten.

“If you want me to sit in, sure. But I’ll just watch from afar,” Khalil relented.

This made Jeremy grin without him knowing that stepping into the auditorium was something greatly traumatic to Khalil.

Khalil sat in the middle of the auditorium that evening, just like the old times – he was the first person to arrive. It became a habit for him to arrive at the location at latest five minutes before the set time.

The first person to arrive after Khalil wasn’t Jeremy. Instead, it was a girl whose cuteness level was enough for her to make a gwiyomi video on YouTube and would at least get a hundred ‘Likes’.

The girl saw Khalil’s figure and walked towards him with a huge smile. What now? I’m in no mood to chat, thought Khalil.

The girl sat next to Khalil. “You are… Khalil Abdullah, right? You’re the one who wrote our script?”

Khalil simply nodded.

“Jeremy said that you… are a film director and scriptwriter. Is that true?”

Khalil even felt like laughing. The irony of the entertainment world: a director or script writer would first need to be identified. Who people would definitely recognise are the actors. There was that one time when Khalil discovered about an informative entertainment website (or so it says) that displayed his biodata – but the picture was of someone else’s.  It’s clear they didn’t do any research… bullshit informative!

But again, Khalil simply nodded. The girl was seen inching closer to him. Hmphhh…

“It must be fun, meeting artists?”

Oh God, how funny! Khalil didn’t know why, but he felt like laughing after hearing a celebrity being called an artist. To Khalil, artist means a person of art[1] . A celebrity isn’t necessarily an artist – unless posing beside a swimming pool is considered art.

Khalil smiled, simply being courteous.

“The popular actress, Hanni Maisara, used to attend here too, right? Is she in your batch? This kid is good. Not wasting time. Not too flowery. Now she’s showing her thorns.

“Yeah. We staged a show once,” answered Khalil, slightly longer.

“Really? On this stage?! Oh wow, how fun! Sharing a stage with Hanni Maisara!”

Not just a stage kid. We even shared a bed. But as a super senior with high calibre and character, Khalil answered, “You gotta start somewhere. Why not high school, right?”

The girl nodded energetically. “That’s right. I want to be like Hanni Maisara too. That’s why I’m beginning to familiarise myself with the acting world.”

Oh boy, kid… your answer is already like one of them!

The girl suddenly put her hand intimately on Khalil’s thigh. “By the way, my name is Qaseh Raihanna Ilyana Sofea.”

Is the ritual of shaking hands already replaced by placing hands on thighs? And what happened to names with lengths that don’t require two ICs? Those were among the questions that came to Khalil’s mind while Qaseh was rubbing his thigh.

“Nice to meet you,” replied Khalil while pretending to check his Twitter account.

“Qaseh feels like… she really wants to be an actress. Feels like… it’s my destiny, you know?” she said while swinging her body towards Khalil – revelaing her not-so-deep cleavage.

“Good for you.” What name do you want to use? Qaseh Raihanna? Or maybe Raihanna Ilayana? Perhaps Ilyana Sofea? Qaseh Ilyana is fine too.

“After you watch my acting in the drama you made, you’ll see my capability. Who knows, maybe your new film would have a character that suits me,” Qaseh Raihanna/Raihanna Ilyana/Ilyana Sofea/ Qaseh Ilyana immediately persuaded with a coy voice akin to Ella.

“I’m not the one who decides who starts in my film,” replied Khalil. Let’s see the result of this social experiment.

Immediately, Qaseh’s hand stopped its work. “Oh? Then who?”

“The producer. If it’s a telefilm, it’s the TV station who would decide them. They wouldn’t want a no-name,” explained Khalil.

“Oh… I see…” and as simple as that, Qaseh was no longer interested in Khalil.

Khalil cynically laughed in his heart. If he lied, he would get a sleeping partner that night. But days like that had already passed for Khalil.

Jeremy entered the auditorium a few seconds after that, immediately making the awkward situation between Khalil and Qaseh disappear. 4-5 more people entered after Jeremy and Jeremy started the training. It seemed like those were the only members of the Drama Club – pitiful!

But the characters in the script weren’t that many. What’s important was that the message would be received. More than anything, Khalil really hoped that the script’s message would be received…

[1] Ok. In this sentence, the orginal word for artist is ‘artis’ while ‘person of art’ is originally ‘seniman’. In Malay, when you say ‘artis’, it usually means an actor, a singer or anyone in the mainstream entertainment industry that you know. A ‘seniman’ is, as mentioned, a ‘person of art’. They’re technically the same thing, probably, but, well, it’s a bit hard to explain. Let’s just say one is a model and the other one is a… poet. Yup. Let’s go wth that. … … did you get that?