Chapter 144 (1/2)

Chapter 144: Seven Friends: Brother Si

I'll try not to make this story hard to comprehend, but life is not something that can be explained with just words .

I remember a saying that goes: It takes three years to learn something good, but just three days to learn something bad .

But how can a thoroughly evil person become good?

My answer? Seven friends .

They walked in front of me, falling into the depths of the unfathomable abyss on my behalf in order to put me back on the right path and to make me cherish everything that I have .

If not for these seven friends, I might've turned out to be a complete bad egg .

When did I meet Whitey, you ask?

I would have to start from my best buddy because Brother Si is his brother .

Yang is my best buddy's surname, and that's all you're going to get because I would not reveal his first name .

A few days ago, I told him that I was going to write about his brother and I asked what name I should use in place of his real one .

”Just call me Yang Dalong,” he answered with a smile .

Yang Dalong got his name from his grandfather .

His grandfather had served the army and fought in the war .

He was stationed at an island for over ten years and he became a political party member upon returning .

He worked as an official for the ma.s.ses within the neighborhood committee .

People those days had little education .

Yang Dalong's grandfather was drafted when he was only about 15-16 years old . Being illiterate was his life's biggest regret .

It was a tradition for the older generation to name a newborn child .

Naturally, Yang Dalong's grandfather was the most qualified to name him .

He wanted a simple name .

I tried putting myself in Grandfather Yang's shoes as Dalong narrated the process .

It was definitely difficult for Grandfather Yang to come up with a good name since he was illiterate .

It was good enough that Yang Yi and Yang Er did not come up .

Surnames could not be changed, and Yang Dalong's birth fell under the year of the Dragon .

Two characters down .

He then flipped through the directory for half a day and finally settled on the last – Da .

”What if it wasn't the year of the Dragon?” Dalong thought to himself when his grandfather first relayed the story .

Was his name going to be Yang Daji instead?

Or Yang Dagou?

Or Yang Dazhu?

Compared to Dalong's Chinese zodiac, mine sounded much worse .

After explaining how he had obtained his name, Dalong went on to talk about his brother .

Brother Si wasn't Dalong's biological brother, which explained why his family name wasn't Yang .

I don't really know his name, but I have a lot of respect for him .

I would not be saying so much if Brother Si was just like any average person .

That year, when Dalong and I were in our first year of high school, Brother Si turned 25 and opened a video game shop in the city area .

There were all kinds of game consoles, handheld or not .

I stopped going to the arcades and s.h.i.+fted my attention to those handheld game consoles .

My dream at that time was to be like Brother Si; I wanted a gaming shop of my own so I could sell and play games at the same time .

I could purchase the latest gadgets and games without thinking twice . I could play games at home, through the night, without being shamed .

Brother Si's shop was situated in the city center .

I considered how my friends.h.i.+p with Dalong was driven mostly by the fact that I could freeload off of it in Brother Si's gaming shop .

The most successful I had been was when I introduced myself as Dalong's best friend .

I got a ca.s.sette tape for a cheap price, a free soda, and I even managed to hog the game console on display .

It became my routine during summer break .

It was also then that I got to learn of Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox .

Before moving on, I must mention that Brother Si had long, luscious black hair .

He had trouble moving about and he seldom traveled elsewhere apart from his shop and apartment .

That was how he grew his hair out .

Truth be told, before I met him for the first time, Dalong warned me repeatedly, ”Don't be surprised by his appearance . His hair is a little long and his legs aren't great . Don't stare . ”

I did not think too much of that back then since I, too, had plans of growing my hair out . I wanted to go for a look that could fully express the artistic part of me .

I changed my mind, of course, upon seeing Brother Si's hair .

It swept over his shoulders down to his b.u.t.tocks .

How's that a little long, Dalong?

Brother Si had a medium build although he had a masculine face . Well, masculine if we disregard his long s.h.i.+ny hair . He looked pretty darn attractive from the back .

Yeah, I know .

The term 's.e.xy back' brings me bad memories up till now .

Because of Dalong's prior warning, however, I kept my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself .

I just believed that a man without personality is no different from a salted fish .

Whenever I was about to meet Brother Si, Dalong would remind me not to bring up his hair and legs .

Of course, the more forbidden, the more curious .

One day, Dalong finally shared that Brother Si was plagued by a disease when he was very young .

Hemophilia: A rare disorder in which blood doesn't clot normally, causing the patient to bleed longer than usual and bruise easily .

I wasn't aware of the link between that illness and Brother Si's legs at that time . It was only a long time later that I realized the effects of the disease include disability and muscle contraction . Movements would become more challenging especially for those above 30 years old .

At that time, whenever we were gamed in Brother Si's shop, I would see him stretching his left leg .

I observed how he had to use a lot of effort just to get up or even change position . He would also be in charge of accepting parcels, and carrying those heavier ones made his legs limp .

I feel pretty embarra.s.sed to say this, but I've taken quite a bit of advantage of that shop . I was really poor and simply had no money for games . I remembered feeling remorseful over the fact that I wasn't able to render Brother Si any a.s.sistance in exchange for my freeloading .

Although I was not sure if Brother Si really liked us, he would always greet us kindly when he saw us . I also tried my best not to point out his health problem or even look straight at his long black hair .

Dalong and I would usually game until five or six, or until Brother Si had to close his shop . We always had a hard time leaving .

Brother Si wasn't the one to set the closing time in the beginning; it was his father, also the husband of Dalong's aunt, who would drive over to pick Brother Si up .

We would watch him close up the shop and enter the car before taking the public bus home .

We were neighbors, but Brother Si's house was on the other side of the city .

I heard that Brother Si's parents, also Dalong's aunt and uncle, absolutely abhorred his hair .

They had tried many ways to get rid of it but to no avail . They were even on the verge of disowning their son because of it!