CHAPTER 8 — BOOK IV
Distance
(Late 2017)
Distance arrived the way weather did in Sydney.
Not as an event.
As a shift.
It began with calendars.
A work commitment that landed on Geoffrey’s desk with the blunt certainty of someone else’s priorities. A meeting time that did not care about birthdays or routines. A ticket purchased without ceremony. A suitcase pulled from the closet, unzipped, and set on the bed as if it had always lived there.
Embong watched Geoffrey fold shirts with neat precision, each item flattened as though order might keep the world from moving too quickly.
“You’re doing it like you’re leaving forever,” Embong said.
Geoffrey didn’t look up. “I’m doing it like I won’t have you there to fix it later.”
Embong’s mouth twitched. “I’m not your valet.”
Geoffrey held up a sock. “You are spiritually my valet.”
Embong reached across the bed and took the sock from him, rolling it once, tighter.
“Wrong,” Embong said. “You do it wrong.”
Geoffrey smiled, quiet and grateful, and let him.
It was a small exchange, trivial enough to be meaningless to anyone outside the room. But it landed in Embong’s chest with an unfamiliar weight.
Not fear.
Not grief.
Something like recognition that even the safest things in life were not immune to movement.
At the airport, the goodbye was ordinary on purpose.
No dramatic embraces. No declarations. No final words heavy enough to crack the floor.
Geoffrey adjusted the strap of his bag.
“Text me,” he said.
“I always do,” Embong replied.
Geoffrey nodded, then hesitated—one beat too long, as if he wanted to add something and had decided against it.
Instead, he leaned in and pressed a brief kiss to Embong’s temple.
Embong stiffened instantly.
Geoffrey’s grin flashed.
“Fraternal appreciation,” he said, already stepping back.
Embong’s eyes narrowed. “Do not start.”
Geoffrey’s laugh followed him as he walked toward security. Embong watched until he disappeared, then exhaled slowly, as if he had been holding something he hadn’t noticed he was carrying.
The house was quieter without Geoffrey’s noise.
Not silent.
Just… calibrated.
Embong continued as usual. Work. Errands. The small mechanics of living that kept time from swallowing you whole.
He cooked dinner for one without making it a point. He ate standing at the counter once, then sat down the next night simply to prove he could. He washed a single plate, dried it, placed it back in the cupboard with precision.
He did not miss Geoffrey in any dramatic way.
He missed him in the way you missed a familiar sound when it stopped—only noticing the absence when your body went looking for it.
At night, his phone lit up with messages.
Geoffrey: landed
Geoffrey: customs line = chaos
Geoffrey: send help
Embong: you are thirty-three
Embong: survive
Geoffrey: rude
Geoffrey: i miss you
Embong: eat something
Geoffrey: that’s not the same thing
Embong: it is for you
Embong stared at the screen a moment longer than necessary, then set the phone down.
Across the courtyard, Fayrani’s light was still on.
She was studying more now, not frantically, just steadily—books stacked, notes reordered, the quiet industry of a girl who had decided she would not be caught unprepared by the future.
When Embong walked past her door one evening, he heard the faint scratch of a pen and the soft tap of keys. He paused, listening.
He did not knock.
He did not interrupt.
He only continued on, because he understood the discipline of being left alone with your own goals.
Later that week, the phone buzzed again.
Ibu.
Embong looked at the name until the screen dimmed.
He called back, as he always did, but not immediately.
When he did, he kept his voice calm.
“Assalamualaikum, Ibu.”
Her reply came quick, familiar, threaded with concern that sounded like authority.
“Wa alaikum salam, Embong. Embong kat mana? Kenapa susah sangat nak jawab?”
Embong leaned against the kitchen counter and closed his eyes briefly.
“I’m at home,” he said. “I was busy.”
A pause.
“Busy dengan apa?”
Embong could hear, beneath the question, the real enquiry: Who are you with? What are you becoming?
He answered truthfully, because it was easier than defending himself.
“Work. Life.”
Another pause, sharper this time.
“I heard you went out again.”
Embong said nothing for a beat.
Then, evenly, “Sydney has events.”
His mother’s sigh travelled across oceans like a familiar weather front.
“Embong,” she said, quieter now, “jangan lupa diri.”
Don’t forget yourself.
Embong’s grip tightened around the phone.
“I haven’t,” he said.
He meant it.
But he also meant: I am not only yours to define.
When the call ended, he stood still for a long moment, phone in hand, listening to the hum of the house.
Distance was not just geography.
It was the space between expectation and permission.
It was what arrived when you stopped asking to be understood and began insisting, silently, on being respected.
A week later, Geoffrey returned.
He came through the front door with the same careless energy as always, dropping his bag with a thud that made the house feel inhabited again.
“I’m back,” he announced.
Embong didn’t move from where he stood in the kitchen.
“You’re loud,” he said.
Geoffrey appeared in the doorway, eyes bright, hair slightly out of place.
“You missed me,” he accused.
“I missed the silence,” Embong replied automatically.
Geoffrey walked into the kitchen anyway, as if drawn by gravity, and stopped close enough that Embong could smell airport air and unfamiliar soap.
Geoffrey didn’t hug him.
He didn’t need to.
He leaned his shoulder lightly into Embong’s, the smallest contact in the world, and Embong let it happen without flinching.
Then, as if to make sure Embong didn’t notice what it meant, Geoffrey said, “I brought you something.”
Embong’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”
Geoffrey grinned and pulled a ridiculous souvenir from his bag—cheap, oversized, unnecessary.
Embong stared at it.
“This is terrible,” he said.
Geoffrey’s grin widened. “You’re welcome.”
Embong took it anyway.
Not because it mattered.
Because Geoffrey had come back with proof that he’d been thinking of him, even across distance, even in noise.
Across the courtyard, Fayrani’s light was on again.
She looked up when she heard Geoffrey’s voice return to the house, and for a second her expression softened—almost relieved, though she didn’t know why.
Distance, Fayrani was learning, didn’t always mean losing someone.
Sometimes it was simply the space life required in order to keep moving.
And sometimes, the return was quieter than the leaving.
Embong placed the ridiculous souvenir on the bench as if it were something valuable.
Geoffrey watched him and smiled.
Nothing had broken.
But something had shifted.
And the house, without announcing it, adjusted.
<< Back to Chapter 7 || CHAPTER 8 || Continue to Chapter 9 >>
Copyright © 2026 All rights reserved. Omar Onn
No comments:
Post a Comment