Melati slowly blinked her eyes. She was still trying to regain consciousness. She looked around every corner of the room. It had already grown dark. It seemed to be nighttime.
Melati had no idea how long she had been asleep. Still only half-conscious, she rose from her slumber and walked over to turn on the light.
The room brightened. Melati walked into the bedroom and immediately grabbed a towel. She had to freshen up so she could calm herself down.
Melati spent twenty minutes cleaning herself up. Just as she stepped out of the bathroom, she heard her phone ringing. Of course, she quickly reached for it.
When she saw the name displayed on the screen of the rectangular device, Melati swiped the green icon and held the phone to her ear.
“Hello? Where are you, Mel?” someone on the other end snapped.
Melati pulled the phone away from her ear. At this rate, her eardrums might burst.
“Hello! Mel!”
“What’s with all the yelling? Are you in the middle of a forest or something?” Melati asked sarcastically, her face annoyed.
“I’ve been calling you forever, Mel. Where have you been?”
Instead of answering Melati’s question, the woman named Resa asked one of her own. Resa really had been trying to reach Melati for a while, but Melati hadn’t answered.
Melati let out a harsh sigh and gently massaged her temples.
“I fell asleep.”
“WHAT? Don’t lie, Mel! There’s no way you slept that long,” Resa said, sounding incredulous.
“What’s your problem? All right, I’m going to rest.”
For some reason, Melati wanted to end the call as quickly as possible. She felt extremely tired, even though she hadn’t done anything all day.
“Wait! Hold on a second. I’m on my way,” Resa said.
Melati’s eyes widened. “Don’t joke around! It’s already nighttime. I’m not accepting visitors.”
Silence followed. Melati looked at her phone screen. No wonder it was quiet—Resa had ended the call unilaterally.
Melati merely let out a soft sigh. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, her gaze vacant.
Not long afterward, the doorbell rang. It had to be Resa. That girl really was stubborn.
Reluctantly, Melati got up to open the door. Sure enough, Resa was standing outside.
“What took you so long, Mel?” the girl huffed as she followed Melati inside.
Melati didn’t answer. She immediately dropped onto the sofa.
“Mel? Are you okay?” Resa asked, studying her.
Five years earlier, Melati had met Resa. For some reason, the girl had been so kind and willing to be friends with Melati, who had no one left. Since then, whenever anything happened to her, Resa was always the first to know. Melati was grateful to have such a wonderful best friend.
Melati let out a long sigh. Slowly, she looked into Resa’s eyes as her friend waited for her to speak.
“I got fired, Sa.”
The next second, tears began streaming down Melati’s cheeks. Her shoulders trembled.
Resa immediately pulled her friend into her arms. She gently stroked Melati’s back, and Melati once again broke down, crying into her friend’s shoulder.
After dinner, Reno went straight to his home office. It was on the second floor, right beside his bedroom.
It looked like Reno would be staying up late tonight to finish some work. He had been dealing with far too much lately. Sometimes, he even had to bring home work that should have been finished at the office.
Reno was completely focused on the glowing laptop screen. Once he started working, the man often lost track of time—especially when something needed to be finished immediately.
Reno didn’t realize that Astri—his mother—had been standing in the doorway for some time. The worry etched across the elderly woman’s face was unmistakable.
Since Reno still hadn’t noticed her presence, Astri finally walked over to her son’s desk.
“Mom—”
Astri snorted in annoyance, then went to sit on the sofa in the room. Reno followed her.
“Is your workload really that heavy, Ren? You still have to work even when you’re at home?”
Reno smiled faintly. “Just a little, Mom,” he replied with a laugh.
“If this keeps up, when will you have time to find yourself a wife?” Astri teased.
Yes, Astri had repeatedly urged her son to find a woman to marry. As far as Astri knew, Reno had never dated anyone. But now that Reno was old enough to get married, she was becoming increasingly worried that her son cared too much about his work.
“Oh my God, Mom!”
Reno chuckled. He never knew what to say whenever Astri brought this up. His usual tactic was to do his best to change the subject.
“Oh, right. You took your vitamins, didn’t you, Mom?” Reno asked, as if he had just remembered something.
Astri shot him a sharp glare. He always did this. But tonight, she wasn’t going to give up so easily on talking to Reno.
“Don’t change the subject, Ren! You still haven’t answered me about what I said.”
Astri folded her arms across her chest and waited for Reno to speak.
“Mom, if you want to talk about this, please not tonight, okay? I’ve got a ton of work, Mom,” Reno said, trying to make his mother understand.
Astri let out a long sigh. Once again, there was nothing she could do when Reno got like this.
“Okay. But don’t stay up too late, Ren. You still need to take care of your health!”
After saying that, Astri left Reno’s office. She returned to her bedroom to rest.
Reno went back to his desk as well. He leaned his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes for a few moments.
A few seconds later, Reno opened his eyes and roughly rubbed his face. It seemed he really needed to start thinking about the matter Astri had been bringing up for the past few days. The problem was, finding a woman willing to become his wife certainly wouldn’t be easy.