I pulled my key out of the ignition and rushed back into the store. It was the first and the last time I did so in a full-set raincoat. Seeing the subtle reflection of myself on the glass door, I felt like I was walking in a glob of mysterious substance of some kind, just like one of those monsters I used to see in cartoons, although none of them I remembered came in bright, cheerful yellow as my raincoat did.
"An umbrella, Pram? You can use mine if you want to," Raka said without the slightest bit impression of being surprised by my appearance.
"Stupid! I came here by my scooter! Besides, why would I need an umbrella on top of a raincoat? I'm looking for some cat food." I knew exactly where the cat food was: above the duck tapes, under the men's briefs and undershirts, and flanked by some other bunch of craps that none of the people here, including Raka, seemed to have an idea what category all this stuff fell under, and therefore decided to put them together on this one big shelf that if they had to label every section in the store, this one would only be titled "others" out of confusion and laziness. Well, at least that's what I thought. I didn't find any, although by no means I was wrong. It was supposed to be there, except that particular small space where it usually sat in just happened to be vacant.
"Ka! There isn't any right here! Are they out of stock or you guys have moved it somewhere else!?" I couldn't help but sounded a little bit uneasy.
Raka stood up from a stool behind the counter. "Which one do you need?" he asked.
"Anything would do. Hurry it up, Ka. It's drizzling already."
"Isn't that why you shouldn't be even heading out at all!? That's what convenience stores on the side of the road are there for, young boy!" Despite the grunting, he still trotted his way up to the shed on the second floor, which one could enter through the white door at the back of the store.
I gazed out of the front glass façade to find the spanish cherry trees along the median strip being harassed violently by the raging wind. The thin asphalt layering the parking lot was being beaten by the merciless water drops, now no longer microscopic. To my surprise, there was still nobody filling up the empty chairs on the porch. I stared, stared, and stared at the highway, but didn't manage to spot even a single bike passing by. The downpour had probably descended somewhere else before it did here, I thought, and most people had already found themselves a roof to take shelter under. I could already feel sweat streaming down my back as I began to hear Raka's footsteps from behind me.
"Five-thousand and five-hundred," Raka said, looking at my face briefly as he entered his workstation. He then scanned the barcode and toyed the keyboard for a bit without asking if I was okay with his choice: a mackerel one in a pack the size of his hand, usually enough to feed two, unless the cat was really emaciated like the one I was going to feed. I walked my way towards the other side of the counter and handed him a ten-thousand banknote.
Laughing, he asked, "You still going home?"
"I'll tell you what, Ka. This place is one of my favourites in town until it's packed with a dozen-plus of rain-soaked refugees. Plus, I'm not the biggest fan of standing more than half an hour straight."
"Can't stop coming up with those bizarre little quirks, can you?"
"I'd call it common sense."
He laughed. "Alright, alright, your change is four-thousand and five-hundred—oh, welcome to Alfa Mart! Happy shopping!"
I felt the need to turn my head, just slightly, towards the source of the 'ding-dong', which could be no other than the opened door. Being blurred by the humming of the thunders and the noise of the rain piercing the ground and the roof, the chime was the weakest one I had heard that day. Uncommonly, the door was pulled instead of pushed, the first of the kind I had seen that day. It took the first person to step in for me to comprehend the reason behind the action: it was a gesture of respect, done only to those who had deserved themselves by means of status, or money, or the quality of being loved. Having completely entered the inside world, the first person moved to the left a little, so as to not getting in the way of the door opener, and then stopped. To comprehend this one, I needed to hold my gaze until the second person stepped in, too. Surely, the first person, which was a girl of my age, wished to walk not in front, but beside the second person. The wish of the girl was more than granted, as after the second person had crossed the door entirely, her hand was snatched, but gently, and the two started walking again. The whole series of movements was done swiftly yet so naturally.
I turned my gaze back to Raka and then to the change and the receipt in his hand. I took both, put them along with the cat food in the right pocket of my raincoat, and looked back to what now appeared to me as a couple, since the second person was a man, and of my age, too. This time, I needed to turn around as they had turned left from the door towards the hot water dispenser, sitting right next to the refrigerator of the soft drinks. Preparing two hot drinks, albeit being a simple task for a full-grown adult, was apparently hard enough to be done with one's hand entwined to someone else's. There was almost no interval between them arriving at the machine and the man resting the first cup under the faucet, as if the choices had all been planned out beforehand. All the while, they seemed to be talking to each other, although I couldn't hear a thing being this far away.
Without saying anything else to Raka, I walked my way towards the door, pushed it open, and once again brought myself back to the outside world. It was now raining cats and dogs. The cat was still on that same table, now facing the rain in bread loaf position. I looked up at the sky. The usual purplish tone being blotted out by countless of the littering rain clouds, it was as gloomy as it could be, although not much like what a proper evening sky would look like. The sun was still there, I thought, perhaps only a few minutes away from hitting the horizon. I wanted to check my phone but didn't feel like going through all the hassle with my raincoat for a second time. But I couldn't be more certain: the sun was still there. I shifted my gaze to the parking lot. There was my scooter, surrendering itself to the mighty rain. Sitting next to it was an E39 that I didn't see before. For a car more than a decade old, it was in pristine condition, and despite carrying some newly-earned murky water on the wheels, the side-skirts, and the bumper, the shiny metallic-grey and the gleaming sidewalls of its tyres made it clear to me that the owner had just gotten the thing out of a car wash. Back on the porch, there was an umbrella, leaning against the pillar closest to the stairs, smearing the floor around it with some traces of the rain. It was a thin, transparent one made of plastic; the one you'd see colouring Japanese streets on rainy days.
"Excuse us," said someone from behind me.
I looked back. It was the girl. She was halfway through opening the door, and being half a meter in front of it, I prevented her from getting the job done. I turned around. Behind her was the man, his hands clutching the two cups of coffees instead of the girl's hand this time around. The girl's oversized sweatshirt, its shoulders bearing some tiny raindrops that neither their umbrella nor her hair managed to retain, was perfectly hiding the scout uniform underneath, the only exception being the collar and a bit of the red-and-white scarf encircling her neck. But there was nothing to hide the dark-brown skirt, the knee-high black socks, and the black leather shoes, all of which I was more than familiar with. Her beautiful face carried a smile, although it wasn't the kind of smile you'd see from someone who finally gets to meet a lover they've been expecting at a cafe or something. It was rather a courtesy smile—the one you'd give when you accidentally make an eye-contact with a neighbour you caught gardening on your way to school in the morning; that one smile you'd only give to strangers. But even that began fading away as soon as our eyes met. She froze. I didn't.
That person was none other than Anastasia Angkasa.