Defying Expectation

Arman

When I was in Lower Form Six, a form for eighteen and nineteen years-old pre-university students, I noticed a boy, Khairul, at the corner of the back of the classroom, his head bowed. I didn’t know why he was in that pose, but it was the pose I would see everything I looked back. At that time, he struck me as someone unattached from the real world. Why shouldn’t he, with his quiet demeanor and close-to-none reaction from everything happening in the class? It seemed like he had a world of his own, and it made me think of him as a lonely person.

During recess time, after I had eaten my lunch, I sometimes went to the school’s block in which my classroom was located. I went to the back of it to smoke the cigarettes I had stuffed into my pocket. At that time, I thought I was alone, having occupied half of the block. The block wasn’t entirely straight—it was L-shaped, but I didn’t hang around at its other half. One day, however, I did, out of curiosity. Who knew, perhaps there was someone else smoking there besides me.

What I saw was something I wished I didn’t see. In front of me were a group of senior students bullying Khairul. He lied on the floor with fetus position, clutching his stomach with agony shown on his frown. He gritted his teeth as if he was bearing the pain—I assumed they kicked his stomach—but he never cried behind the big spectacles shielding his eyes. He did say ‘stop’ whenever the bullies—one as big as watermelon while his other two complicit underlings tall and short respectively but similar in thin frame—prepared to aggrieve him, but they never listened.

I, like a coward, went back to my usual hanging area, fished a packet of Sampoerna 16 from my pocket, took out one piece, and stuck it into my mouth, lighter ready in my other hand. My hands trembled slightly because of my erstwhile witness of something rather unpleasant, but I managed to get the cigarette lit. I smoked until what was left from it was its butt, but the vivid scene of the bullies kicking Khairul’s stomach, each of them taking his turn, stayed stubbornly in my mind. Eventually I threw the cigarette at the huge dustbin far from the block, went to the toilet at second floor, and sprayed mint into my mouth.

I thought by ignoring the Khairul’s suffer, everything would go back to normal: I would smoke surreptitiously as usual, my hands not shaking as they were before. That was what I thought before I got an unexpected visit from Khairul in the library a couple of days after my curious exploration. It was after-school hours; the library was still open until an hour after three p.m. He made me jump out of scare as he let out a low ‘hey, Arman’ from the back, and I lost hold of the Two’s Company novel I was reading. Taking my silence as me being fine with his presence, he sat beside me and looked at the novel I tried to hide under the table.

‘Jill Mansell’s novel, eh?’ he said, nodding. ‘Surprising, considering you don’t seem to be into chick lit novels.’ There was no teasing in his voice, just acknowledging a side of me he didn’t expect.

‘What do you want?’ I asked irritably, deciding not to look at him. Knowing that hiding the novel was futile now, I took it out under and laid it onto the table.

‘I saw you the other day, looking as if you stepped into hell, unable to do anything,’ he said. He didn’t bother to put butter on his words; they were as direct and simple as a naked bread. ‘What a shame,’ he added.

He didn’t explain what he meant by his last words, but I was sure as heck he was mocking at my lack of action. I gawped at him. ‘What do you suppose me to do, help you? There were three, one of them a size of a giant. Do you think I can beat them?’ My hands gripped the book tightly. ‘I prefer to be safe than sorry, thank you very much.’

He didn’t reply back that instant. His mouth only curled downward. Eventually, he let out a long, heavy sigh. ‘If you were in my shoes and I were in yours,’ he said, ‘would you wish I helped you? Or do you rather want me to stay out of it and let them bully you?’ The question surprised me; I was speechless. ‘Of course you wouldn’t—I wasn’t as strong as you, the school’s beloved football team captain. Surely you don’t want to let the society down by doing something contradictory to what it expects from you, do you?’

With that said, he left.

I was furious, to say the least, partly because he got the last word out of our conversation, but mostly because his words struck me deep to the heart. I had worked hard to actually being put into the school’s football team before I went up the ladder to being the team’s captain. It was all I could do to gain fame and popularity—to gain attentions from everyone, especially from gorgeous girls. If I dared myself to help Khairul, I was sure to be beaten by his bullies, who I knew were also in my classroom, and everyone would laugh at the helpless state I was in. I couldn’t risk that, not even when I knew...

I shook my head. No, it wouldn’t happen. Everything I had built would crumble if I played the noble savior in a battle that was clearly not in my favour.

Khairul

Enough was enough. The bullies had to be taught a lesson. I was tired of being their play toys when I knew I didn’t have to. My parents’ word to stay out of trouble in school could go to the deepest river; I didn’t care anymore. They were exhausted having to deal with me in the previous school, but that was their responsibility. I had done nothing wrong; the bullies had. Just because of my thin frame, my big spectacles, and my minimal reaction to what occurred in the surrounding, it didn’t give them the right to do as they pleased to my body. I needed to handle this matter with my own way, eventually, and not succumb to their expectation that I wouldn’t do anything to fight back, to be despondent.

One day, in front of the class when the teacher wasn’t around, I trundled to the bullies’ place despite my nervousness growing as I made every move towards them. They sat at the back too but at the opposite corner, laughing and talking loudly between themselves. They didn’t stop when I was in front of them; they thought I was someone not significant enough to have their attention. It was true that no one befriended me, that I was an outcast. But that didn’t mean it was right, and that it should continue. No, it should end, and it couldn’t end any better than right now.

‘Bahri.’ That was the name of the biggest bully, the one with wrinkles on his face. He didn’t seem to hear me when he clearly should be able to, so I said his name louder. ‘Bahri!’ When that didn’t work, I bawled.

That apparently got his attention, as he turned to me with a deep frown, apparently unpleased of having someone shouting his name. The other two also stopped their conversation and looked at me, emulating their boss’ disapproval frown. ‘What do you want?’ Bahri growled.

‘Simple—I want you to stop. This bullying routine, it’s just so childish,’ I said, hoping to be as blunt as possible. ‘All of you are better than this, and there are so many better things you can do.’ I made hand gestures to further stressed my words as I would typically do. ‘I seriously don’t see a point of all this.’

Bahri looked around him, aware that everyone had focused their attention on them. I noticed it too. Like fools, they were expecting for a dispute to occur, and hoped it would lead to a fight. Seeing others victimizing the weak should bring sympathy out of them, but my experience in the previous school had proven that people nowadays preferred violence instead of morality. I was sure they wouldn’t maintain their preference when they were in my place, but that was just how hypocrisy and selfishness worked—two traits unfortunately easy to be attached to the people.

‘Getting smart, are we now, eh?’ Bahri said, the end of his word pronounced loudly. He stood and took me by the collar. ‘I’d do anything I want, and that includes putting someone like you in your place,’ he whispered, giving me goosebumps, but not because I was afraid of being tetchy. ‘You might be brilliant in class, but you’re such a weak-ass in reality.’

‘Better than being a dim-wit like you,’ I countered back before. ‘I’m sure even a dog is cleverer than you—after all, you have the smaller brain mostly unused.’

What ensued was what was expected—he landed a punch to my stomach, causing me to yowl, before pushing me back to the nearest table, hurting my back due to the contact. I fell to the ground, but quickly I went up and deliver a punch back to him, landing straight at his puffy cheek. He staggered backward but could still maintain his stability, and looked at me with widened eyes, as if he was seeing an alien. His two underlings stood beside him, poised to attack me. I smiled despite the pain, and gestured at them to attack me.

They did. The three of them fought me, and while I managed to deliver some punches and kicks to them, they managed to do more to me. The wound I inflicted on them was bearable compared to the ones I had at some of my body parts. I could feel the numbing pain on my face and taste the blood on my lips. I realized, unlike the bullies I had before, these guys had been doing it for years, and were susceptible to pain. I probably wasn’t their first victim to retaliate, although it might be a while after the last one. It dawned on my that despite my strenuous effort to beat them, they would still win because of their manpower.

With another hit, I fell to the ground. This time, my face didn’t face to the white ceiling but at my left—to Arman. If only he could help me, this fight wouldn’t be so one-sided.

Arman

Khairul looked straight at me, and I hated it. Then, his last words came unwillingly to mind. Surely you don’t want to let the society down by doing something contradictory to what it expects from you, do you? Recognition hit; everything was comprehensible at that time. Every piece of the puzzle had been put into its place. What he just did right now was defying the expectation. It didn’t matter if he was an outcast, someone who was friendless not just in the classroom, but in the entire school. It didn’t matter if people viewed him as being different from a normal person did, because what he did defined him. What he was doing right now was an effort to maintain the identity he had been jubilant with for a long time.

Khairul had branched his identity to more complex structures, developing it as he grew up. From a a white canvas, he splashed colours to it, uncaring to what people thought about it as long as it brought him smile. I, on the other hand, had lost that sense of wanting to be yourself. I sticked to having that white canvas painted with yellow, if that colour was preferred by people. Or purple, if yellow was deemed as ancient and purple was the trend. People decided my strokes, not me. I didn’t decide what had always been mine.

And now was the perfect time to change that.

I lunged to Bahri, knocking him to the floor. A synchronized gasp was heard from several students, while others kept cheering us to fight. The other two stood still, unable to cope with the sudden twist of event. Well, more advantage to us—Khairul and me. Getting away from Bahri, I went to Khairul and helped him stand up. He was injured, but not battered yet. His eyes were still a pair of clear mirrors of the soul, reflecting the determination I didn’t recognize was always there. Together, we fought Bahri and his underlings. It prolonged for several more minutes before a teacher finally came in and broke the fight. There was no winner at the end, but now the bullies knew Khairul was not alone—he had me.

And I wasn’t about to let our future fight uneven in numbers, either. Acceptance in society had been my aim all this time, but it didn’t mean, I realized, I couldn’t use what I had to to parry injustice. I had friends. I had connections. I had the entire football team. Who was to say I had no power over my army? Let the fools be mad to what I would do, and in return, I would watch their reactions in ample cheer. Let them look askance at me, and I askance reply: I’m nobody’s darling.

A/N: This story is an entry to Poetry-inspired Contest 2016. It is based from Be Nobody's Darling poem by Alice Walker.