Rona’s POV.
I could feel my blood rushing to my face the moment my phone’s screen displayed a name I feel would always slip-off easily from my tongue: Hanif. After a few breaths, I swap the icon upwards.
“Hi.” He sounded awkward as he said it, but not the awfully awkward tone you might think it is. For one thing; I could feel how he still was afraid of disturbing me at such a late hour. I don’t mind taking calls at midnight, actually.
Or maybe it’s because it’s him?
“Hi, uh,” I was confused on what to say next, “just… chill Han, loosen up.”
“No, no, I am. Aneh ya suara gue?”
“Sorta, hahah. It’s fine.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Kenapa jadi okay-okay gini?
“What did you want to talk about?”
The relentless wind I heard across this call brought me to one conclusion: he was outside, probably stressed enough with that group project. “No exact reason, sih. Just wanted to talk to you.” He started walking around. “Gue dari jam 8 pagi sampai sekarang — 16 jam lebih, ya? Ngurus maket kayak life force gue dikuras habis-habisan.”
Conclusion number two: he’s insane. Though I understood, I’d do the exact same for something like what he’s working on.
“Berarti belum tidur selama itu?”
“Belum. Pengen sih, tapi temen gue juga belum ada yang tidur.”
“I don’t know if you’ll listen to me or not, but I feel the urge to say it. Don’t overwork yourself. Your body needs enough time off from everything. Gue ngerti penting banget alasannya, tapi diri lo juga gak kalah penting. Nanti kalau sakit, lo juga kan yang repot? Have boundaries, Han. You’re just as important as the project. Plus the project won’t go on smoothly with one of the team members getting sick.”
The grip on my phone tightened once I heard him let out a faint laugh. “Kok ketawa?” He didn’t answer immediately, he still continued laughing. He completely put me on my nerves tonight.
“Lucu aja,” I could hear him trying to catch his breath. “Lucu? Gue ngingetin lo dan lo bilang lucu? Nothing’s funny here, Han. I was worrie-”
“Gue enggak bilang lucu karena lo ngingetin gue, and not ‘lucu’ as ‘funny’. It’s the other one.”
I felt both my heart and jaw drop the moment I realized what he meant. “Apaan sih.”
“Iya, iya. Hahah. Maaf ya Rona. I’ll consider what you said.” I chose to ignore him.
Though he noticed too quickly.
“Ohh, gitu. Gue didiemin ya ceritanya.”
The deafening silence that slowly falls upon us leaves the ticking clock on my bedroom wall filling it; makes it less tense for him, I guess. That very moment I realized how easily I fell for him when we’ve barely even talked for the past two weeks. I thought of love as something ridiculous for all the years I’ve been treated by people. But that thought vanished until I saw my best friend in such a healthy relationship with her boyfriend; even at the hardest moments they always managed to get things on hold. I wanted to portray my future relationship with the right person like theirs. Maybe even better than theirs. A relationship purely based on love with the said feeling lingering around my soul, far from what my father wants.
Because of all things pure, his voice is my favorite.
I’m sure one can differentiate another’s tone in talking; whether they don’t want to talk to you at all, and whether they’d love to spend hours talking to you. Not to be too confident with all this, but he surely was the second one. And so was I.
He finally chose to break the long silence between us by asking, “Have you eaten, Na?”
“Still not talking, huh?” I smiled through his next sentence. “Then I’ll wait until you’ve cooled down.”
“Yes, yes I have eaten. Alot. Did you?”
“That’s good. Or else I’d be scolding you the way you did to me. And I have, too.”
“Was it too much?”
“What? The scolding?”
“Yeah.”
“No it isn’t. Keep scolding me.”
“Wouldn’t I sound like your mom?”
We both share a laugh, as he pockets big chunks of time and eats them slowly as if he owns every tiny bit of it. We talked about each other’s pasts, our families, our exes (surprisingly he didn’t have one), things we adored — movies, TV shows, music, people — basically any information we could dig out of each other. Hanif took the opportunity in the midst of how busy he was to call me, which was quite captivating. Though I wasn’t sure yet, — was this an act of his; taking many steps forward because he was really in love with me, or was it just because he easily broke my guard down with his words and acts; making me think he feels the same way? As much as I started to love him, the fear of failure between us haunted me as well.
But let’s try working this out.
Hanif’s POV.
“Kak Diza disana kerja?”
“Iya. Dia di creative team perusahaan gitu. Tapi besok- eh hari ini, pulang.”
“Kok pulang? Atau emang suka pulang gitu setiap tahun?”
“Gak tau, I think there’s something going on between her and her boyfriend. To be brutally honest I’m scared for her.”
The next few seconds she lowered her tone; making herself sound sweeter than earlier. “Oh, don’t worry too much. Kita berdoa semoga dia baik-baik aja.”
There are countless little things in life that aren’t little to me. Getting out of bed, texting people who think are important just to talk about the silliest things that happened in a day, Bunda’s late visits to everyone’s room in the house, words of praise and appreciation even when you failed or lost, and how Rona could have told me to pray for my sister on my own — namun ternyata dia enggak melakukan itu dan memilih untuk menempatkan ‘kita’ di dalam kalimatnya.
“Aamiin.”
Kita udah membicarakan banyak banget hal sampai gue sendiri enggak sadar udah berapa lama gue di depan rumah Abby. “Na, lo ngantuk gak? Ternyata udah jam setengah empat,”
“Serius?”
“Iya. You might be tired, so… yeah, thanks for all this talk.”
“Thank you too, untung gue besok gak ada kelas. Keep working on that maket of yours, ya. Jangan nyuri-nyuri waktu begini lagi, kasian temen-temen lo.”
I laughed and walked a few steps back to get a good sight of what my friends were doing in the living room, and of course they were all dozed-off in dreamland. “They’re all asleep.”
“And you should too. Yaudah ya, rest well.”
“You too, Na.” I watched How I Met Your Mother for years and one of Ted Mosby’s lines came to mind when she hung up:
‘Nothing good happens after 2 AM.
I don’t believe it at all now, for this happens to be one of the best nights I’ve ever had.
