CHECK MATE

I stole several glances at him. He was too engrossed in the game. After all these years, he still looked good. I tried not to catch his eye. His hair, with streaks of white, gave him a matured look, far beyond his age. My heart skipped a beat. I felt like a teenager gushing over my idol. Memories came flooding back.

I was just a child when we first met. We came from a totally different background. He was streetsmart, a wise guy and me, an overly protected, whiny child. We met at an age when rebellious blood ran through every veins of our body. I noticed that he was different from the rest. In his own quiet ways, he managed to make people believe in him. Others recognised him as the leader of the pack. Someone whose thoughts and ideas mattered. Someone who could challenge ideas, who dared to be different. A natural-born leader.

Nonetheless, I never took a liking to him. I found him a bad influence. He was constantly telling others to do things that was far beyond our time. I could not accept that. I realised now that it was because he was simply different. We just could not get along. I could not accept his ideology of doing something different although our objectives were the same. I was brought up believing that following the traditional method would NEVER go wrong. Any alternative method was simply taboo. To think of alternative ways was beyond me. I could not accept the risk of going wrong, the risk of failing.

As years passed by, we went separate ways. I was deep into my world and he was in his. And then fate brought us together under such strange circumstance.....*to be continued*