Mar. 10th, 2023 at 10:17 PM
Next door to him lived a charming mister, divorced gentleman, and sexy bachelor.
Whenever he thought about this, he would always stop what he was doing and poke his head out the window. He didn’t dare be too open about it, still feeling baffled and embarrassed by this degree of interest, only poking out less than half of his face and quickly and carefully stealing a glance, making new discoveries almost each time.
The man got up early, went for a morning run, and usually returned by the time he got up and passed by his lawn. His mother would usually be watering the flowers, ironing his dad’s shirts, and preparing breakfast at that time, so the man would always greet her. They wouldn’t exchange too many words, the man was courteous but not sleazy, not trying to curry favour or flatter her.
The man left home at nine o’clock wearing a three-piece suit, driving a car that was neither too expensive nor too cheap, with a different coloured tie for every day of the week. The man usually returned home at six o’clock, but sometimes he’d be a little late. One day, he saw the lights of the man’s car flashing past his window at ten o’clock as the man drove quietly into his garage, trying his best to not disturb the neighbours.
Had the man gone to a bar? He guessed that an adult would want to have a drink after getting off work, right?
He wrote everything down in his diary, his brief words assembling into a hazy yet strong impression. Smoke, sleeve garters, White Musk. The man usually held his phone on his right shoulder when making calls, and hung his coat from his left forearm.
The man’s dress shirts were more striking than his T-shirts, and his hair looked gentler when it was messy than when it was combed back. The man never slept in, but he was never tired, in a rush or ill-mannered. With a good mental state, punctual in both work and rest, and with self-discipline. The man did laundry on weekends and hung his bedsheets out to dry in the garden. When he ran into the man once, he nodded and smiled in greeting.
His mother joked at the dinner table, “The neighbour is a really handsome man.”
His father pretended to be offended, “I wouldn’t be any worse if I were ten years younger.”
He sat cross-legged on a chair, watching TV while listening to their chat, pretending not to care as he ate a mouthful of strawberry soufflé, crumbs falling onto the plate.
He stood up after he finished eating, put his plates into the sink, washed them, and opened the fridge with still-wet hands to take out a carbonated drink much to his mother’s criticism, but quickly fled the scene before the reprimand could reach his ears, “I’m going upstairs! Don’t call me if it’s not important!”
“You should play less games! Think about your entrance exams!”
He blocked the door with his shoulder, as if this would keep out the annoying preaching from outside, then opened the soda and climbed up the windowsill in one go.
When he spotted that shadow moving under the streetlamps, he flung all his worries to the back of his mind.
The man was playing basketball.
There was an empty cement lot between their two houses, the ground was smooth and there was a basket set up, turning it into a simple court. He and the guys from the street had once played streetball there, he’d fallen and scraped the skin on his wrists and knees, and his mother had scolded him for being so careless while applying medicine on him.
The man had no shirt on, just like the first time he’d seen him, and his hair was fluffy and scattered as he dribbled, took off, shot, scored, walked back a few steps, and caught the ball that bounced from the backboard… Repeating this ten times, with only one mistake.
This uninteresting cycle didn’t seem to be for fun, it seemed more like a catharsis to relieve stress. What was the man worried about? Must have been something different from him, an 18 year-old boy. Work? Family? Some old affair? His ex-wife? He didn’t know.
He was just a neighbour.
He fell into deep thought in the darkness. He hadn’t turned on the light, feeling that the few rays of moonlight were enough. The night wind blew, and he finished drinking the soda without realising. He turned his head to softly put down the can and, when he turned back, he discovered that the man was standing on the court under the converging lights, facing towards him, motionless.
His heart was suddenly drained.
The man who shouldn’t have seen him whistled at him in a clear and mellow voice as if laughing, the ambiguous, lingering sound echoing in the night.
“Fuck.”
He was so frightened he fell down from the desk, rolled to the side of the bed, and pulled the quilt over his head.
