Fiction: Group 4
whereas
I
have an entire
map
of this place in my mind.” He pointed to his head playfully. “I’m not in the
mood to mess with you, little boy. Do you even know how I feel?” she hid her sobs behind her assertive
attitude. “For the record, I’m three years older than you,
little girl.
” Summer rolled her reddened eyes.
“And you think I don’t understand?” Sebastian continued, unexpectedly shifting into a serious tone, “
My
parents have been
dead
for longer than you have
lived
.” He rolled up his sleeves, revealing a long vertical
scar on his upper arm. “You wanna know how I got this? I lived in an orphanage for most of my childhood.
Wasn’t lucky enough to get into one of the good ones; the conditions were worse there than anywhere you
could imagine. At least you had a father to look after you. I was always suffering just because I was the
weakest.” By now, tears were silently rolling down his cheeks as well. Summer turned towards him and
looked at him with her puffy eyes.
“I’m sorry, I never knew. I thought you had been living happily with Auntie and Uncle and were just an
arrogant little rich-kid who thinks that everything in life is free.”
Sebastian demolished all traces of seriousness in their conversation with his laughter; apparently Summer’s
first impression of him was absolutely hilarious. When he had finally calmed down, he put his hand on her
shoulder. “I’ll help you get through this. Let’s go home.” The sun was going down and their dark shadows
materialised on the pavement. Suddenly, a grin begins to dance across his face. “So, can I call you Sunny or
not?” Summer nudged him hard in the side with her fist. “I know you’re a nice guy, but don’t cross the
line. You’re well aware of what you shouldn’t say.”
Another week into the holidays Sebastian brought a handful of rowdy, sweaty monkeys to join him in his
addiction to pointless button-pressing on hand-held consoles. “Summer, meet Joseph, Ah Wai, Tim and
Eddy.” The filthy pigs reminded her of some of her late father’s co-workers at the construction site.
“
Wah
,” hissed one of them. “
Lei tiu leng lui bein goh ley ga?
” Who’s this ‘hot chick’, he blurted in slang
whilst leering at Summer, who instantaneously shifted her vision in the other direction. “Don’t even think
about it, she’s my cousin.” Sebastian warned, “you’re here to play video games, not to flirt.” The young
men cackled in unison like a choir of farm animals. “Cousin? We’re ‘
hing dai’
” ‘Brothers’. “Having known
you for so long we all know for a fact that you never had a cousin. More like your girlfriend, huh? Huh?”
Sebastian strode out the front door and gestured for them to follow: “I don’t feel like ‘hanging out’ with
you little swines anymore. I’m going for a walk with my
cousin
” he spoke calmly, emphasising their
cousinly relationship as if he was poking fun at his self-proclaimed ‘brothers’; “Now can you please kindly
get out of
my
house.” The situation was so amusing that Summer couldn’t resist a giggle, which lead to an
unnecessary explosion of excitement amongst the family members about her finally not acting so
depressed… and hostile.
By the last week of the term break Summer had finally seemed to have warmed up to her once-distant
relatives. Auntie Yuki had made some delicious
Yeung Chow Chau Fan
, a spectacular fried rice dish
invented in the Qing dynasty by Yi Bingshou, who was once the regional magistrate of the eponymous
region. They sat mesmerised by the moving figures on the screen before them, eating in silence save for the
chattering from the speakers of the device and the constant scraping of rice from the surface of their ceramic
bowls. Eventually, Summer makes the decision to speak:
“Auntie Yuki, Uncle Ronald, you remember the time when we were walking down
Rua do Cunha
? When
I wanted to ask you a question? It wouldn’t come out then, but I want to ask it now.” Auntie Yuki
embraced her niece passionately. “You can share anything with us, sweetie. We’re family, remember?”
Summer nodded with a small smile, small, but still slightly visible.
“You know, I’ve felt happiness here with you, in all the luxury of this brand new life… but if you had all
this ability, why did you never help us? Why did you never give us the assistance we needed when my
father was battling poverty on the war-field of the workplace?” Summer released her fragile side once again
through the tears that kept running from her eyes.
Uncle Ronald opened his mouth to speak, but his wife gestured to show that it would be better if she dealt
with the matter.
“
Sun-hei
, listen, okay?” Now that she was being addressed with her birth name, Summer suddenly didn’t
know what to expect. “I wasn’t always the successful woman you see today. Our childhood was also very
dismal; our parents were so poor that they had to put me up for adoption, as they knew they couldn’t raise
us both. I was lucky that a middle class family decided to take me home, and that’s why my life ended up so
