"Aku naik bas dari Penang pukul 5 petang. Aku tak bawa telefon sampai bateri habis. Aku cuma ingat satu benda: aku taknak jadi suara dalam telefon kau. Aku nak jadi laki yang pegang tangan kau."
His name was Irfan. She’d met him in a random gaming chatroom three months ago. He lived in Penang; she was in Johor Bahru. They had never seen each other’s full faces—only carefully angled profile pictures and voice notes sent under the cover of night.
She laughed, the sound cracking with relief. "Tengoklah usaha, bang." -Awek Melayu Phone Sex-
He didn't say anything. He just raised his phone to his ear and smiled. She did the same, even though they were face to face.
She froze. "What?"
Aina scrolled through her phone for the hundredth time that night, the blue light illuminating her worried face. The clock struck midnight, and still, no reply. Her Awek Melayu pride told her to just lock the screen and go to sleep. But her heart, tangled in the wires of a phone relationship, wouldn’t let her.
It was the first time silence on a phone call felt exactly like the word home . End of generated text. "Aku naik bas dari Penang pukul 5 petang
"Aina... aku kat luar rumah kau."