Happy Early Friendship Day!
Wednesday evening was raining with gentle breeze. I was rushing to meet an old friend in Pavilion. I was really looking forward to meet her although we were just one month apart. She was definitely my best friend throughout my past twenty years. Precisely, she was all I can recall from my memories of secondary school back in Sarawak. My school life was gloomy and boring but she was the brightest and warmest spark that will always be the special one in my life no matters how long we never meet or talk to each other.
After spending about one hour on bus and train, I reached Pavilion but spent another ten minutes looking for her and her mother in the mall. Finally, we noticed each other in front of Gucci.
“Dora!” I called out with excitement. She replied with a broad smile. I gave her a big hug. On that moment, I realised I actually missed her so much.
We started chatting on each other’s current state while strolling out of the mall. Since I was not that familiar with Bukit Bintang area, we decided to have our dinner somewhere else. Dora said that she came to Kuala Lumpur for a scholarship interview for Kuok’s Foundation the next day. To prevent any unforeseen food allergies or food poisoning, I planned to play safe and treat them to Chinese food.
We took monorail train to Imbi where I am more familiar with. I brought them to Kim Gary because it may be the most familiar restaurant for me in KL (My brother loves it and brings me to Kim Gary branch every time we meet.) We had a nice meal. They told me on how they were shocked by the long queue of traffic stretching down the road in Kuala Lumpur and they were stuck in a traffic jam on the way to meet me. I empathised with them because that was exactly what I felt when I first came to Kuala Lumpur.
After dinner, we started shopping while waiting for another friend, Edwin, who was stuck in a traffic jam on the way to our meeting point. Back in secondary school, I seldom talked to him and most of our interaction was on borrowing my homework for reference. However, we went to the same university and took the same course. Our interaction is now more like friends studying in the same class instead of just classmates. Maybe it was because he was the only person I was kind of familiar with in the new environment. Although our conversation is mostly about academic doubts that he questions me and homework or the last minute study group before final examination, he is a reliable and gentleman friend.
We eventually meet him at almost 9p.m. and took him to a late dinner. We chattered on our university life but basically nothing important. We did not get to do much for that day since Dora has a morning interview while Edwin and I have a morning class the next day. By 10p.m., we bid each other farewell and headed home, looking forward for the coming semester break (actually still a long way to go).
I was glad to meet, chitter-chatter and have those two memorable meals with them. Even after years apart, we have been growing up and changing but we still can feel the closeness when we see or listen to one another. I guess that is what true friends made of. Happy Early Friendship Day!