Chapter 02 - Student Emotions on Collision Course (Part 5)

The date is 20th May 2007, 4:55 pm.

The minute he reaches Bedok Bus Interchange, he alights from the bus and made this his final stop to collect donations before heading back to New Hope Polytechnic to hand over his donation can. For the next 30 minutes, he stood there silently, hoping for people to donate into his can. But the people there are either too busy doing their own thing at where they are or they are in a rush going home via the public transport services in the Bus Interchange as well as the Bedok MRT Station nearby to even notice him.

“Looks like when the evening rush hour is approaching, only the food outlets and shops are the only ones busy at this time. No one would even bother to do anything else rather than eat, shop, or making their way home......”

By 5:30 pm he decided to give up without having a single coin inside his donation can for that period of time and head towards the Bedok Station and takes the MRT train back to Clementi Station where he can catch a bus back to New Hope Polytechnic.

“I don't know whether I can make it in time to return the items that were issued to me this morning...... Hope they don't close out on me......”

The date is 20th May 2007, 5:10 pm.

While Chengyu is standing at Bedok Bus Interchange waiting for donations, Reika and Lina made it back to New Hope Polytechnic in time for the collection of the donation cans to commence. It is stipulated in the licence that donation collections cease at 5:00 pm for all students, and the students can start making their way back to the Polytechnic to return their donation cans as well as their licences and sticker sheets at the Convention Centre.

Upon receiving the cans from the students. The staff there will seal up the coin slots in each of the cans while asking them to fill up the paperwork required for the students to hand over the donation cans, licences and sticker sheets properly as stipulated by the relevant Government regulations pertaining to donation collections before they are allowed to leave for home.

Reika and Lina also lined up to do the same, and once they have completed the paperwork and was allowed to leave the Convention Centre and head together for home. But it was at this time Reika saw a familiar figure approaching her.

(Note: Dialogue shown here that are spoken in languages other than English are marked with the language spoken in brackets.)

“(Japanese) Reika!”

“(Japanese) Kentaro-san!”

Reika rushes to meet her childhood friend.

“(Japanese) How are you doing in this school?”

“(Japanese) Still trying to get used to the pace here, I think...?”

“(Japanese) Oh? You found a friend so early in school here?”

“(Japanese) Yeah. She's the friend that I met on the internet half a year ago. I've never believed that I could meet her in the flesh and study in the same Polytechnic as her! Let me introduce you to my friend, Lina Tam-san.”

Lina brightly extends her hand.

“Nice to meet you, I'm Lina Tam.”

Kentaro immediately switches his dialogue to English.

“Oh, nice to meet you, Lina-chan! My name is Kentaro Matsumoto.”

But this makes Lina shocked, then annoyed.

“Why did you add a 'chan' to my name for no reason!?”

“Sorry, Lina-san. That's Kentaro-san's bad habit.”

“This is crazy! Adding suffixes to people's names as and when they want is so rude, you know!?”

“Yes, yes. I'm very sorry for the un~courteous behaviour, satisfied?”

Lina glances at Kentaro with sharp eyes.

“One look and he is a sure womaniser...! Good thing Reika doesn't go out with him now. Otherwise she'll be the one that will be hurt the most in the end...!”

Reika then resumes her conversation with Kentaro in Japanese.

“(Japanese) Kentaro-san, are you also finished with the donations already and returned the items to the committee?”

“(Japanese) I just returned those items a few minutes ago.”

“(Japanese) That's a relief... Anyway, we need to make our way home now since we have also returned ours as well.”

“(Japanese) Aren't you going anywhere else after this? Like going to places to know more about Singapore and such.”

“(Japanese) My parents and myself haven't completed all our arrangements in our new residence, so that'll have to wait for a while.”

“(Japanese) I see... Well, we'll keep in touch then. If you need anything, just let me know, okay?”

“(Japanese) Okay!”

“(Japanese) Bye then. See you in school tomorrow morning!”

“(Japanese) You too, goodbye!”

Kentaro went ahead of the two girls on his own, and Lina now turns to Reika.

“I thought you have rejected that Kentaro's advances, why do you still talk to him?”

“Well, since we've known each other since childhood. We can still talk to each other. Despite me rejecting his advances, we still agreed to remain good friends after that, so he shouldn't stand a chance this time. Kentaro-san has also said that he will support anyone who is successful in going out with me whether he is in Japan or here, so I don't worry about those things at all.”

“That's good for you, though. But I don't really like the way he looks. He really looks like a womaniser who likes to flirt around among women.”

“Well, you can't judge him just by his looks. Once he is committed to a relationship, it is very hard to pull himself out from it. He had been on two relationships back in Japan, but those relationships ended in less than a year. Later I realised that the so-called 'girlfriends' of his are even bothered to sleep around with rich old men just for financial gain. What a shame that he fell for those kind of girls. The second one was extremely infuriating for Kentaro-san as he found out that she is already pregnant with the child of a middle-aged man who is the owner of a large company there. That really broke his heart completely.”

“Does that happen before or after his confession to you?”

“That happened nearly a year before he confessed to me.”

“That must hurt a lot for that Kentaro though...”

“You're right. That's precisely the reason he wants to look for romance here instead, because other than me, he can't trust any other Japanese woman to go out with him after all that has happened to him before.”

“Hmm... that's not going to be easy for him though......”

“Why is that so?”

“I guess you didn't know how materialistic Singaporean women are until you really meet with one. They can be much worse, if not as worse, than the two Japanese women you told me about earlier.” Lina says while sighing. “I see too many Singaporean women liking only rich foreigners that owns more than a landed property or a company or their sons so much so that if they were to choose between a good-natured, good-looking, but not-as-rich Singaporean or a rich foreign expatriate's son, they'll definitely choose the latter without even thinking. Because in their eyes it is not easy to go by without a lot of money, that's why I fell ashamed of our own women here! They value their own social and financial status more than anything else in their lives. Even older women were willing to have May-September Romances^[2] with ones much younger than them as long as he has millions in his bank account or is the son of a magnate tycoon. Finding a really good soul-mate for him is far harder than finding a needle made of gold in the Pacific Ocean.”

“So, is it really impossible to find a suitable girlfriend for Kentaro-san?”

“It should be pretty obvious, Reika. But anyway, we should get back home now.”

“Okay. We'll part our ways at the bus stop outside the campus, because we're taking different bus services home.”

“Okay!”

After the girls reached the bus stop, they parted ways when the bus service that Reika was supposed to take arrived at the bus stop. Lina also boarded the service she takes to go home when it arrived.

The date is 20th May 2007, 6:20 pm.

Chengyu finally arrived at the Convention Centre in New Hope Polytechnic after almost an hour of MRT train rides and a short bus trip here.

As he entered the hall inside where the donation cans are collected, he was asked to hand over the can as well as the licence and the sticker sheets followed by filling up the paperwork to hand over those things properly. Chengyu didn't utter anything during the entire process. And the queueing crowd at this time has been reduced to a sparingly few students doing their paperwork there, meaning that almost all of the students have already handed in their items and have returned home.

“It's finally over, isn't it......”

After the paperwork have been completed and was released from the Convention Centre, Chengyu walks towards the bus stop outside the Polytechnic all alone and boarded the bus that he uses to take him home. Throughout the journey, Chengyu thinks about the people he meets today, and how these meetings could impact the future days of his life in this Polytechnic. Thinking that he might need the experiences now in the future when he does his final-year project two years from now, he took out his notebook computer to run using its own battery power, opened up a word processor and started documenting his experiences that he faced today, starting with the headline: “Student Emotions on Collision Course”.

He documented the day's happenings that he faced throughout the bus journey until he got back to his home in Sengkang and saved it into the hard drive before keeping it back into his notebook computer bag.

“I hope what I have experienced today may be able to become useful information when I get to do my final-year project in the future......”

The date is 20th May 2007, 11:20 pm.

Chengyu, who is back at home and typing away in his notebook computer, continues documenting his journey in the same file that he has saved earlier.

“Documenting all these happenings today into a journal-style essay is not an easy task... but I feel that I have to start somewhere because I knew very well the precise reason that I enrolled into the Multimedia & Animation Course in this Polytechnic......”

Chengyu reminds himself of the decision he made before he enrols into a Polytechnic. His L1R5 total of 17 points for his 'O' Level examinations is good enough for him to get into a neighbourhood Junior College, and that seems to be a faster-track to get into University to study the course he wants.

However, after tours to a neighbourhood Junior College and a Polytechnic subsequently during his last year in secondary school forced him to re-think about whether he wants to take a fast-track 2-year course in Junior College and then to University to study the course he likes just based on his 'A' Level results after he completes his National Service which will commence as soon as he receives his 'A' Level Certificate; or start learning the very basics of the ingredients and skills he needs to achieve this immediate goal of creating an animation that negatively portrays the impression of bullying and keeping potential gang members away from the street gangs that used to proliferate his old secondary school, which will be the perfect answer to those bullies as well as the schools who are too lax on tackling the bullying problem in their own compounds.

“During the tour to a neighbourhood Junior College shows me the immense depth of the teaching abilities of those staff, but there I unwittingly became witness to a serious assault incident involving half a dozen second-year Junior College students beating up a first-year student. One of them was even wearing a prefect's tie while assaulting the young student. That incident reminded me of myself in that old secondary school when I was assaulted in school and was hospitalized. That student had absolutely no defences or weapons to protect himself, and was already bleeding very profusely. The students who were around didn't even lend a helping hand for fear of reprisals from both fellow students and staff, especially when potential students of that cursed school like us were visiting this place. My fellow students that are part of the group were too busy knowing the good aspects of this Junior College to even see this atrocious case of bullying and I was extremely unfortunate to be the only witness to see this taking place. I was thinking then that other than trying to make it to a school that can help me realise this ideal via making the 2D Animation that can spread the message far and wide, I also have to start learning defensive martial arts, something I can defend myself with in the event that I became a victim of bullying all over again. People like that Zhiwei won't be around to save me every time I meet with those kind of bullies, so if I manage to learn those techniques that are strong and powerful enough to be of a deterrence to those morons, they'll definitely think twice before even trying to take me down. That is the only way I can protect myself if the staff are too powerless to stop them because if these things happen, I won't be defenceless anymore, just like those in my old secondary school where the police have to be involved in the matter before the matter is considered closed.”

As he continues typing, he is reminded of the black-haired girl named Reika that he has helped on that day, as well as her friend Lina.

“I don't know what that Japanese girl is up to by offering to help me, but why is that I don't seem to sense any unpleasant kind of energy around her......? As for that Lina, I also don't sense too much unpleasant energy around her despite her attitude towards me earlier...... I really don't have any answer to those, and until I find out the reason why, I won't have any reason to trust any one of them!”

Chengyu continues to enter in more details of the day's happenings for another hour before he completes the data and switched off his notebook computer and goes to sleep.

“Counselling will start in 10 days' time, and I don't know if I'm even prepared to talk about my own past to more strangers and not get damage to my heart at the same time...... I'm personally hoping for the best outcome, but also be prepared for the worst thing that'll happen. I sincerely hope that I would not need to use the set of powerful martial arts skills I've learnt over the past 15 months on anyone in this new school......”

Author's Notes:

[2]	May-September Romances are relationships in a way that the female is much older than their male partners. Usually the age gap of those romances are of at least 10 years and above and the female party is at least 35 years old can be considered as a May-September Romance.