CHAPTER 5 — BOOK III
Salt Air and Unsaid Things
(International College of Management Sydney, Manly, 2005)
The building rose from the hill like something that had once belonged to silence.
Stone façade.
Pointed arches.
Tall Gothic windows framing the Pacific as if it were stained glass.
The International College of Management Sydney still carried the posture of its former life as a seminary. Corridors held echoes longer than necessary. Staircases widened into light. Even the air felt structured.
Yet beneath those arches, students debated hospitality margins and global markets with sand still clinging to their ankles.
Embong liked the contradiction.
Old stone.
Salt wind.
Young ambition.
Below the hill, Manly Beach stretched open and unapologetic.
He hadn’t realised how much he needed openness until he stood there.
The Hill Walk
He began walking down toward the promenade after classes.
Stone steps.
Wind pressing lightly against his back.
Voices rising from the sand.
Students moved easily here — Hospitality, International Business, Event Management — overlapping timetables without obligation.
Beach balls cut bright arcs across late-afternoon sky.
Laughter didn’t sound defensive.
It sounded unfiltered.
That unsettled him at first.
Then it softened him.
Leif Bauer
He met him in the cafeteria queue.
Not in class. They weren’t in the same course.
They reached for the same soy sauce sachet.
“You first,” the blond said.
“Thanks.”
A pause.
“You’re Hospitality?”
“Yes.”
“International Business,” he replied. “Leif. Leif Bauer.”
The name landed simply.
Grounded. Unornamented.
“Embong.”
A nod.
That could have been the end.
Except it wasn’t.
Because they kept noticing each other in the spaces between lectures.
Library tables beneath Gothic arches.
Cafeteria windows facing the ocean.
Lawn benches in the lull between classes.
Because they weren’t forced together, every conversation was chosen.
That mattered.
The Beach Ball Afternoon
The picnic wasn’t formal.
It simply happened.
Towels.
Plastic containers.
Music low and unbothered.
A small boy — no more than six — slipped free from his mother and ran straight toward one of the female students.
He stopped in front of her, utterly certain.
“I love you,” he declared.
The group paused.
Then he added, solemnly:
“You’re beautiful.”
Laughter burst outward — not mocking, just delighted.
The girl crouched gently to meet his eye.
“Oh no,” she said, smiling. “I’m taken.”
The boy blinked.
“You are?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
She pointed vaguely toward the sea.
“Him.”
The boy studied the horizon with grave consideration.
“Okay,” he said finally. “But I still love you.”
She laughed again.
“Well, thank you. That’s very brave.”
The moment dissolved into wind and sand.
Leif stood beside Embong, watching.
“Efficient,” Leif said quietly.
“What is?”
“Say exactly what you feel. Immediately.”
“That only works when you’re six.”
Leif tilted his head slightly.
“Does it?”
The wind shifted between them.
Embong looked toward the water instead.
He did not answer.
Jonas
Jonas was easier.
Louder. Confident. Uncomplicated.
After a shared joke during a guest lecture, it felt natural to say:
“We should grab coffee sometime. Can I get your number?”
Jonas smiled politely.
“I don’t think so.”
No cruelty.
No embarrassment.
Just a door that didn’t open.
Embong nodded.
“All good.”
But something recalibrated.
If he could misread Jonas — who seemed obvious —
What else was he misreading?
The Joke That Landed Wrong
Later, during a discussion about operational discipline, Embong joked lightly:
“German efficiency. Very… Third Reich precision.”
Leif set his pen down.
“It’s not funny,” he said quietly.
No anger.
Just weight.
“Many innocent people died during World War Two.”
Embong felt the correction settle.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you didn’t mean it.”
Respect deepened.
Not weakened.
The Cross-Dressing Night
The theme night at the ICMS bar was announced simply:
“Drag.”
The Gothic corridors that once carried hymns now echoed with laughter and heels against stone.
Male students in dresses and wigs.
Female students in oversized suits and pencilled moustaches.
Confidence everywhere.
Embong arrived in jeans and a button-down.
“Where’s your outfit?” Anna demanded.
“I am,” he replied solemnly, “a female-to-male cross-dresser.”
Laughter erupted.
At the bar, a tall bartender in full drag slid him a soda.
“And maybe your number,” Embong added lightly, “so we can go out later.”
The bartender didn’t blink.
“No.”
Flat. Unbothered.
Embong placed a hand theatrically over his heart.
“Rejected at a cross-dressing party.”
“You’ll survive.”
Leif watched the exchange.
“You enjoy testing reactions,” he said later.
“Only safe ones.”
Leif nodded once.
That mattered.
The Pen
It happened on the stone path between lecture blocks.
Late afternoon.
Salt air moving gently through the courtyard.
Embong was mid-sentence when the pen slipped from his fingers and clattered against the stone.
Before he could bend down, Leif stepped forward and crouched.
Unhurried. Instinctive.
He picked up the pen.
Looked up.
And smiled.
Not broadly.
Not teasing.
Just steady.
He held it out.
“Careful,” he said lightly.
Embong took it.
Their fingers brushed.
The contact lasted less than a second.
It lingered longer.
Two German students walking behind them exchanged a glance.
“Er lächelt anders.”
(“He smiles differently.”)
Embong didn’t understand the words.
But he felt the shift.
Leif stood again, brushing invisible dust from his hand as if nothing had happened.
Maybe nothing had.
Maybe everything had.
The Decision
On his final evening, they stood overlooking the ocean.
“You’ll stay in touch?” Leif asked.
It was an opening.
Embong felt it.
Embong assumed, in his fear, that asking for Leif’s email or number would end the same way it had with Jonas.
Jonas had been enough. He didn’t want to be humiliated twice.
Jonas.
Fear.
The calculation completed itself.
“There’ll be time,” he said.
Leif held his gaze half a second longer than usual.
“Of course.”
Only one of them knew it was ending.
Leif
Later, alone against the stone railing, Leif replayed the pauses.
The pen.
The retreat.
The almost.
He understood.
Embong was stepping back deliberately.
Not because there was nothing.
Because there was something.
Leif did not chase.
Because if someone must be chased—
It isn’t chosen.
The Last Walk
Embong walked down the hill alone.
The ocean kept moving.
Beach balls still rose.
Students still laughed.
Manly did not pause.
He had chosen.
Not because he didn’t feel.
Because he felt too much.
And he wasn’t sure he could afford it.
He assumed there would be time.
There wasn’t.
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