Warning: The following story contains violence and swears.
Ruyi was in an extremely good mood that day. Normally, she was cheerful, but this time, she was in an even better mood than usual. She skipped into the office and was actually singing under her breath. Singing. The Ruyi I knew didn’t sing. She greeted me, logged on to her computer and then started transcribing the interview from her phone.
I approached her desk. “Ruyi… is everything OK?”
“It’s more than OK! I’m going on another date tonight!”
“Wait—you went on dates?”
Ruyi and I didn’t talk about our love lives. Mine was non-existent, of course, but it seemed rude for me to pry into my intern’s personal life. Besides, I had to keep things somewhat professional between us. I was her superior after all.
“Yes, it’s the cute boy from The Astute Gentleman magazine,” she blushed.
“You mean Caleb Tan?” I shook my head. That boy was bad news. All right, he hadn’t done anything terribly notorious and I could see why Ruyi liked him. He was well-dressed (duh), had different cufflinks for every day of the week, and spoke with a snooty British accent like that Benadryl Kumquat actor she liked so much. That must be it—the freakin’ accent. In all of my experience, anyone who dressed so impeccably had something to hide. The last I heard, Caleb had dated another girl from CityLife magazine and the whole affair ended in tears.
So no. As her protector and guardian of sorts, I did not approve.
“What—something wrong?” she asked.
I shrugged. I didn’t want to rain on her parade.
“Where are you guys going?”
“I’ll text you his address,” she sighed.
We stared at each other in awkward silence.
“I’m happy for you. Stay safe, all right? Call me if anything happens. You have my number.”
She rolled her eyes at me and nodded.
“We’ll be fine,” she said.
*
It was almost midnight when I received a text.
“Helyd89f” it read.
I knew she was in trouble. Good thing I could conjure a somersault cloud when I needed one. I hurried to her place and saw a few lights on. Crossing my fingers, I floated up the twelfth floor and sure enough, she was struggling.
“Get off—mmff!”
“Your darling mentor isn’t going to look after you now,” he grinned.
I smashed through the window and hurled into him. Glass shattered.
“How dare you! How bloody dare you!”
He gurgled in agony and I gave him a tight slap.
“Let’s see how it feels when you’re the victim! What did you do to the other girls? Was it like this as well?” I wrung his neck before letting go. He gasped for air.
“Winston. You asshole. I’ll make sure you never work in this industry again.”
“Not if I see to it first.”
We glared at each other. In the moonlight, he looked kind of pathetic in his checkered boxers. I wanted to laugh but I spun around and looked at Ruyi.
“Let’s go,” I told her. She blinked for a while. I grabbed her phone, bag, and clothes. She couldn’t move so I shoved her towards the exit. Then, I wrapped her up in my jacket and we took a taxi to my place.
She sat on the sofa and was quiet for a long time. While she sat there, glassy-eyed, I made tea. As I handed the tea to her, she burst into great heaving sobs and cried so loudly that I thought the world was ending. The scream-crying got louder and louder, and it ascended to howling. I wasn’t terribly surprised—I had seen and heard people do that before. But she was Ruyi. Even if she wasn’t related to me, it felt like she was my sister. She made me feel less alone. And in this misery, I understood her. The boy of her dreams turned out to be an asshole. It took one to know one.
“Why is every guy I date a jerkwad?” Ruyi screamed.
I had no answer to that. I, too, was a jerkwad, now that I thought of it.
I patted her on the back.
“It’s all my fault! You tried to warn me—”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“What?”
“He shouldn’t have done whatever it was he tried to do to you.”
“You can’t even say it,” she gave me a wry smile.
“It’s too horrible, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he, you know—”
“Almost.”
I cringed.
We sat there in silence for the longest time and she stared blankly into space. Eventually, I asked her if she wanted to get up and sleep and she nodded. Quickly and quietly, I led her to the spare room in my apartment where she could sleep.
I think I finally understood why I was here, and it wasn’t to be some cleaner of altars or a Buddha.
Featured image by Shelley Low