The bus didn't go very fast. Safety seemed to be something the driver was particularly strict about. Every life on the bus was in his hands. His dignity was no different from that of a pilot piloting an airplane. The only difference was that Wit was the only passenger on that bus! The slowness was making him restless. He wanted to reach his destination as quickly as possible. He only realized later why he hadn't hired a taxi or Grab car in the first place.
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The rain had stopped, but the window was still foggy. The water droplets spread out and reacted with the air, making the transparent material around the cabin cloudy to the point where he could barely see anything. Wit tilted his head and leaned down. He blew into it once to make the fog thicken and turn it into a white mass.
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"m..i..s..s.."
The word that his index finger carefully wrote.
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A moment later, the depressed young man started staring into the mirror. Of course, what he saw was his own reflection. But behind him, deep inside! He saw nothing but emptiness. It should be Prao sitting next to him. They had never been apart since the beginning. Even when he didn't have a job and had to take the bus, this seat position would always be the spot that Prao chose to occupy.
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"Heh...heh...sob...sob...oh...sob...oh..."
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He clasped his hands to cover his mouth to hide the sound. His strong head tilted to rub against the backrest of the seat in front.
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The dim, gray atmosphere was stimulating. The little light in the cabin seemed to block him from sympathy. It became a private world of bitterness. His body trembled, hard to notice even through the rearview mirror. The air was freezing cold, the water from the air conditioner was pouring down. Many factors made Wit want to escape by closing his eyes! His mind was in need of a refuge, and he was too weak to endure the karma of this longing.
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"If you don't sleep, you can't escape from the real world.."
"But if you sleep... you have to dream... and when you dream, it will come out!"
The young man tried to think logically. If he slept, he was afraid of ghosts. If he woke up, he would be so sad that he would die. This is a duel between "suffering" and "torture"
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After about 2 hours, the road began to change its appearance. From 8 lanes, it was reduced to 4 lanes. The number of electric poles gradually decreased. This was a sign that the car was moving away from civilization. The smell of the countryside was about to replace it. From concrete roads, it became paved roads. What's more, when he tried to look through the window, he didn't see a single car coming!
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Wit quickly wiped away his tears. He realized that the car was starting to turn more often. He heard the sound of the engine accelerating every now and then, along with the angle of the vehicle starting to tilt up as if it was running up a mountain. To prove his hypothesis, he used his hand to block the glass again. It was strange! Because instead of seeing the scenery outside or his reflection, he saw the shape of someone standing grimly in black behind him instead!
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"Heyyyyyyyyyy!"
It's a blessing that he didn't scream.
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But when he regained his composure and looked closely, the dark shadow was the bus boy who was about to bring him a blanket.
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"Wowwww!.. What a relief! I thought it was a ghost!"
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"Sorry, bro! I just wanted to bring you a blanket. I didn't mean to scare you!"
The 18-year-old boy quickly explained. He looked very flustered because he was afraid that the driver would scold him.
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"I mean... I thought you might be cold. I saw you shaking and shaking your seat by yourself. Our car is like this. If there are no passengers, the air conditioning will be very cold..~"
The dim light made it impossible to see what he looked like. But judging from his body language and words, the boy seemed friendly.
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And that's what made Wit think of something good. He quickly grabbed the boy's hand and pulled him to sit on the empty seat next to him. Please don't misunderstand because this is not a gay novel or a gay romance novel. Wit's intention was just to have this boy sit and talk with him all night. Because if he did that, he wouldn't be lonely, he would stop feeling depressed thinking about Prao, and he wouldn't fall asleep, when he didn't fall asleep, no devil would be able to attack him. This was a brilliant idea.
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"Come on! Young man, sit down here. Sit and talk with me. Thank you so much for bringing me a blanket."
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"Brother, but if you do that, the driver will scold me?"
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"Hey! It's fine. Sit down first. The seats are soft and comfortable. Why sit on the seat next to the door and make your butt hurt? I have many questions to ask you. Come on, sit down!"
He urged with all his might until finally he couldn't dissuade him.
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Then the conversation between the two of them started. It immediately changed the atmosphere in the car. Random stories poured out nonstop. Wit was already good at talking. He just had to be careful not to make the same mistake about ghosts like the old guard did. The fear and eerieness in the car disappeared completely. He also gained important information for this trip. That is, Wit will arrive at his destination in 3 hours, but this car will not take him to the bus station as usual?
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"Hey, why is that, brother?!"
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"It's not worth it, brother! The driver said that it's a waste of gas for one passenger to drive into the city."
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"Shit! Where are you going to drop me off? It's past 11 pm now. If you count another 3 hours, it'll be 2 am. That's crazy!!!"
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"I'm not crazy, brother! We do this all the time. I can't help you. If you don't agree, you can talk to the driver yourself. Don't forget that we didn't kick you out in the middle of the road. We only dropped you off at another place. You can't complain to us!"
The young man shrugged, opposite to Wit who was thinking hard. It made the sad story of missing his girlfriend a piece of cake.
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The tour bus continued to make several more curves on the winding road. The longer it went, the higher the angle of the car became. It made one wonder if Prao's hometown was on a mountain or something. And maybe this is also Wit's fault for never having visited his girlfriend's hometown. So there are so many obstacles and problems.
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"Okay, okay! But where are you going to drop me off so I can prepare myself?"
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"My old bus station! It's a bit deserted, located outside the city!"
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"......!"
Hearing the words deserted and 2 a.m. made the listener jump!
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At that moment, Wit started to wonder if he was right to choose to come alone instead of coming with the HR staff the next morning. In his mind, he thought of the words "2 a.m. horror" because it was the same time he went down to tell the security guard a ghost story and he came to an end. Now he had 3 hours left, so he still had time to prepare himself, check his phone signal, check his internet signal and GPS. 2 a.m. was late, but if he thought it would be morning soon, it wouldn't be so scary.
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"Okay, kid! No problem! Go ahead, I'm ready. A person like me has been through a lot and been hurt a lot, man!"
"Ha..ha..ha..ha..ha..ha..ha, ah?!"
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Shocked! How could I not be shocked! Because the time we had planned was 2 a.m., but we hadn't even talked for half an hour and the guy who provided the blanket had already fallen asleep. He hadn't even slept, but he had even leaned over to lean on Wit's shoulder.
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"Huh...."
The young man could only smile. He felt the most amused by his fate.
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He had been afraid of sleeping all along, but look at him now! There was a child who didn't know anything and fell asleep on him! This guy really picked the right person to lean on.