The Charming Max Read online

  Chapter A: Meet Mr. Charming

  The vending machine is acting up again.

  Sybille kicked the machine several times out of frustration. Why is it that every time she needed something, it would never be delivered? Now even the Vending Machine God also joined the rest of the world in a conspiracy to make her unhappy. Well at least give me my 1 dollar back! She then shook the coin exchanges. Nothing was there! Evil machine! She shook and kicked the vending machine a few times more.

  “Hey, hey, young lady, is there a problem?”

  Sybille jumped. The machine talked!

  Then she realized that the voice came from a man who suddenly appeared from the left side of the vending machine. He’s tall, athletic, quite good looking with soothing amber eyes directly beamed to her. They melted her heart immediately.

  “What has this poor machine done you wrong?” he smiled the sweetest smile. Sybille suddenly forgot about her troubles.

  “Um, eh …”

  “It’s broken, isn’t it?”

  That’s right! Suddenly memories came flooding back to her. “It won’t dispense my drink but it swallowed my money!”

  The man sighed. “We poor citizens always have to suffer the anarchy of the institutions.”

  Exactly! This man speaks out my mind! Sybille thought of him as her good friend already.

  “Tell me about it. And all I want is just a simple cup of mocha latte.” She pouted.

  And the man answered like every true gentleman would. “Why don’t we go to the café in the second floor and I treat you your cup of java?”

  Thank heavens for gentlemen!

  The gentleman was called Max, fourth year computer engineering student in the university. In addition to pulling chair out for her, he also brought her coffee to the table. Sybille had long forgotten being treated like a lady and she found it very nice.

  “So, you are from economics major?” he started a conversation.

  “Yes and second major in statistics.” She answered with eyes still ogling the steaming creamy and thick coffee in front of her.

  “It’s very cool to do two majors. You are a smart girl.”

  Nobody called her smart before. The nicknames her friends gave her usually lie somewhere between mediocre and downright dumb (or sometimes even animals). Sybille found herself floating the clouds. “Not really …” she beamed.

  “I only do one major and I found white hair on my head already!” he cracked a joke.

  “My hair was white for the first major but gone back to black for the second one!” responded Sybille.

  They laughed.

  The coffee break only lasted for 10 minutes. He didn’t even ask for her number, so unlike those sleazy guys who pretended to be nice just to hit on girls. After coffee, they said their friendly byes and then went their separate ways.

  For the rest of the day, Sybille found herself humming cheerfully.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Sybille complained while fixing her makeup in front of the mirror. Her roommate and best friend, Cora, didn’t listen to her and instead concentrated on putting extra padding into her bra. “Listen chicken,” she said with authoritative tone. “I’m going to crash the senior party with or without you. This is probably our last chance to check out those cool senior guys before they graduate this summer. After they’re gone, what left to date will only be useless immature first, second and third years who never even wash their socks!”

  “But this party is for seniors only, if we get caught …”

  Cora turned around and put both of her hands on her hips arrogantly. “With this boob size, you think they will know that we’re only first years?”

  Those were 50% padding! Sybille wanted to say, but she still had the common sense to hold back some of her harshest opinions in order to keep her head intact.

  So our two adventurous girls went to the common hall where the exclusive party for the senior years was held. Cora was right. Those fourth years were nothing like the babies (Cora’s term) in the first or second years. They held their glass elegantly; they kept their hands in their pockets and laughed like adults. They wore Armani shirts, so unlike the torn Gap sweaters the first year boys usually sported. Cora and Sybille looked at the elegance around them with awe.

  “Hey,”

  They turned around and saw a group of cool, sexily dressed fourth year girls looking at them suspiciously. “Do we know you?”

  Crap. The fourth year bitches! Cora and Sybille quickly said their prayers. “Um, I don’t think so.” Sybille came up with some ideas. “We’re from Medicine.” These shallow vixens couldn’t be majoring in anything deeper than art history or English literature!

  “We are from Science and Dentistry. But we never saw you around the senior parties.” One of them replied, now even more suspiciously.

  Shit! Now the girls were finished! Some brilliant ideas you had, Cora scolded Sybille with her killing gaze.

  “Why aren’t you hanging with Deborah and the rest from Medicine?” they continued cornering the girls. “Are you actually seniors?”

  Just when Sybille wanted to disappear into the ground, someone came into the picture and broke the tension. “Sybille! Great to see you here!” Max beamed, full of friendliness. The other girls seemed surprised to see him so friendly with their suspects. Sybille didn’t waste the chance. “Max! How you doing, man!” she high-fived him, to his bewilderment. “Good party, yeah?” she drove him away from the suspicious vixens, and Cora quickly tagged along them.

  “Some nerves you have to crash senior parties!” Max laughed.

  “It’s Cora’s idea.” Sybille was about to introduce the two, but Cora was faster than her. She already grabbed Max’s hand. “Hi, I’m Cora, Sybille’s roommate and most trusted confidante.”

  “Have some champagne to celebrate your brevity.” Max handed out glasses of the bubbly to the girls. Then they toasted. “For the first years!”

  Sybille and Cora chuckled. They had a lot of fun. Just when they thought things wouldn’t get better, Max spotted a group of his guy friends nearby. “Hey, those are my classmates from the comp-engine.” He motioned the two to follow him. “Let me introduce you to them.”

  And Cora was having a ball with the senior guys she always dreamt about.

  “This Max guy rocks!”

  It was the next morning. Cora and Sybille were hanging out in their hall’s dining room, haggling cups of coffee to nurse their hangover. Sybille smiled triumphantly. “Isn’t he? You don’t expect I would have cool senior friends don’t you?”

  “He’s really cool! And he introduced us to all those cool senior guys. One of them already texted me this morning! I think I’m gonna have a date soon!” Cora ignored Sybille’s gloat.

  Sybille nodded and smiled. Max was indeed the coolest guy she ever met in school. Friendly and not sleazy. He’s a keeper. She’s so lucky to find a friend like him.

  The next time she met him was in the library. She wanted to pick a book placed on the highest shelves and he helped her. Then they decided to have lunch together and he treated her tonkatsu bento set from the popular Japanese food stall. They never ran out of conversation topics. They talked over the current news, gossiped about people in the campus, even tips on internship search. “It’s never too early to think about what you want to do after graduation.” He advised. “That would help you choose the right internship over the summer break. I think the most successful people are the ones who stay on their career path and move up the ranks.”

  “Have you bagged a job already?” she asked curiously.

  “I got two possibilities, junior analyst at Cap Gemini or engineer at an IT startup. I think I will pick the Cap Gemini one.”

  “Why? Isn’t engineering maj
or job is supposed to be engineer?” Sybille asked innocently with her big puppy eyes.

  He smiled. “I didn’t know what I wanted first. Then I tried a few different internships during all my summer breaks. Through the internships I found that I fit better as management consultant than strait-jacket engineer. “

  “That’s why I recommend you to start thinking what you want, because the earlier you know, the lesser time wasted on so-called ‘wrong internships’ or God forbid, ‘jobs’.” He continued while pouring coke into Sybille’s empty glass.

  Sybille never had big brother, and now she knew how nice it was to have one.

  When a group of her girlfriends passed by and joined them for a while, Max didn’t even seem awkward. He introduced himself to them and immediately blended in the conversation. “I saw Crystal from the Business major walking with another guy today. I think he’s from engineering. She’s really cheap!” giggled one of the girls.

  “Ah, I heard about Crystal. She’s pretty well known among us the engineering guys.” Max chipped in.

  The girls beamed. A guy who understood gossip! He immediately became their buddy.

  After the lunch, they parted ways. Sybille went with the girls and Max on his own. But before that Sybille managed to fish out his number. “For future contact in case I also want to get into management consultancy!” she reasoned. And he happily gave it to her. He said that he could even give her contacts from his previous consultancy internship. Sybille’s future was secured.

  “I think he’s interested in me.”

  Cora looked up from her nail painting session. They were in their room, Sybille was browsing consultancy jobs and Cora was deep in her manicure pedicure ritual.

  “Who?” Cora asked loudly, like she couldn’t hear.

  “Max. That’s why he’s always very nice, you know?”

  “Um, he’s always nice to people it seems.”

  “But I think he’s especially nice to me.” Sybille smiled dreamily. Cora looked at her suspiciously. “You better reduce the size of that big head of yours.” She grumbled. “There’s no way someone so charming, successful and fourth year on top of that, interested in flat-chested first year with borderline grades.”

  Sybille threw her a pillow. “Hey! No grade talk!”

  Chapter B: Reality BitesBut is this Max actually really interested in her? Or is Sybille just imagining things?

  …8…7…9….8…2…3….

  Sybille stopped. She suddenly got nervous. But what should I say?? She put down her mobile phone.

  But…hesitantly she glanced at the phone with the corner of her eyes. It’s been a week without meeting Max at all. She did everything she could to try to catch him. Camped out at his (suspected) usual hangouts, haunted engineering building day and night, even went so far as camouflaging as engineering student and attending the lectures (bad idea, until now she’s still recovering from the dizziness caused by a certain engineering mathematics session @_@). She knew that Max was fourth year student and thus very busy, but it’s been a week … it’s driving her crazy. She wanted to see him, see him, see him … so badly!

  So she picked up her phone again and redialed the number for the umpteenth time.

  Max picked it up at fourth ring. “Max here.”

  THUMP! Now she wanted to throw the phone and run as far away as she could. He’s there! He’s there on the other line! What should I do??

  “Um…um…hello Max …you busy?“

  “Kind of. Who is it?”

  He’s busy! Sybille so wanted to bang her head on the wall. What did I say? It’s a bad idea! the angel in her head scolded. Stop chicken out you moron! scolded the devil in her head. Sybille couldn’t stand her own internal fight, and decided to end the agony.

  “Um…never mind then….bye….”

  Silent for a while. Then she heard Max said cautiously, “Is it Sybille?”

  Bingo! She let out a nervous laugh.

  “I’m sorry for calling you when you are so busy …”

  “It’s OK. How are you? I haven’t seen you for a while. At the moment I’m rather busy with wrapping up my FYP. Got to submit next week or else I will be fifth year student!” he made a self-depreciating joke. They laughed together. It made her lose her uneasiness. Now both the angel and devil in her head went *poof!* and only left Sybille alone, happily chatting with her favorite friend.

  “Then what do you do after FYP?” she asked, now without any nervousness.

  “Still got a couple of courses to attend. Bu they are nothing. It it’s basically gonna be smooth sailing. Then final exams and adieu, l’ecole!”

  She giggled.

  “In that case why don’t you join Cora and I for dinner after you submit your FYP? We’re planning to try out this new Korean BBQ place in the city.” The idea just immediately came out from her mind. She needed to see him, no matter what. She needed to cure this acute longing. The feeling had cancerously spread all over her body, with symptoms of weakness, impatience, moodiness, and general laziness.

  “Great! I love Korean. Text me again the exact time and place later on yeah!”

  How happy…Sybille was floating on cloud nine. He didn’t reject her impromptu invitation. Even though he’s busy, he still answered her call. He’s really nice … he’s really nice … he’s really nice … Sybille was so high up on the clouds she’d started to forget to come back down to earth.

  When Cora came, she immediately broke the news. “Make your next Friday night free. We are eating Korean.” She said authoritatively to the bewildered Cora.

  “Eh???” Cora stood paralyzed on the door, looking confused. “I don’t like Korean!”

  Ah…

  How nice it was to be in love. The beautiful Friday night atmosphere in the riverside restaurant, the neon city lights sparkled around them, the chat and laughter from fashionable people along the riverside promenade, and above all … Max’s laughing face, right in front of her, looking so happy among the BBQ meats, lettuce leaves, soups and kimchi sides. Sybille rested her chin on her palms while fixing her gaze at his handsome face. It’s so dreamlike, this happiness.

  “This is such a great idea!” Max beamed. “The food here is cheap and delicious. Buffet on top of that. You girls are marvelous!”

  Sybille grinned happily at the compliments, ignoring Cora who has been putting on sour face the whole night.

  “We should come here again!” she suggested.

  “Sure. Count me in!” Max agreed easily.

  Now she had him in the palm of her hand! Sybille was dancing on the clouds.

  Her obvious happiness invited suspicions from Cora. On the way back to their room, after Max safely returned them to their hall after their long dinner, Cora finally decided to interrogate her.

  “Are you in love with Max?” she eyed on her suspiciously.

  Sybille jerked. How could she see that? I thought I had everything under control! “Obviously not!” she denied, rather too strongly.

  Cora still kept her suspicious gaze on her. “Well, you better.” She finally let her go. “Christian Skyped me the other day. He asked why you are always offline nowadays.”

  Her last words were like a bomb to Sybille. It immediately evaporated every last bubble of happiness she’s been in. she knew, she just knew … dreams would eventually end and realities would bite in. she was just hoping she could dream a little more.

  “I’ll Skype him later.” She answered short and cold, then went into the room.

  Cora only stared at her back without saying any more words.

  “Hello…”

  “Hi Sybille! Are you there?” A boy’s face appeared on the Skype video screen. He’s about the same age as Sybille, cute in a way with glasses and unkempt hair, sat facing his computer in his black Megadeth t-shirt. Sybille sighed at the familiar face she knew too well. “Hey Christian…”

  “How are you… hey, turn the video on!”

  Lazily, she turned on her camera and let herself being seen
from the other side.

  “Where you been? You haven’t contacted me for weeks!”

  “Sorry, very busy with studies.” Sybille replied easily, ignoring Cora’s angry glance upon hearing her blatant lie.

  “I miss you …” Christian’s voice mellowed down. But suddenly he seemed alerted. “Is Cora there?”

  “No.” another lie came out of Sybille’s lips easily.

  “I miss you like crazy, you know…” he then continued his mellowness. Cora seemed uneasy sitting at her study desk. She started to consider leaving the room.

  But Sybille didn’t really feel anything by his words. Maybe she’s cold, maybe she evil, but you couldn’t fake these feelings. She just sat there, listening to him opening up his romantic side. “When are you coming to Germany?”

  “Christian, we both know when.”

  “I was hoping you could still change your mind and make it this summer instead.” He sheepishly reasoned. “It’s so boring here without you. I got studies and all, very busy, of course, but I still miss you sometimes, you know.”

  “I will go for Christmas like planned.”

  “I can’t wait that long.”

  “So what do you want? I got school too.”

  “I…sorry, Sybille, I shouldn’t throw it out on you.” He held back and smiled sadly. “It seems like I’m still not used to you being so far away, unlike in high school when we were so near. Sorry…”

  Now Sybille felt a little guilty. It’s not his fault that Christian missed her so badly. She’s the one who got distracted and didn’t contact him for weeks like they promised before he left for his studies in Germany. But Christian being so nice as always, he put the blame on himself.

  “It’s precious, you know, the relationship you have.” Cora was trying to have some serious conversation with her later on, after the Skype date was over. “I think you should treasure it.”

  Sybille knew what she wanted to say, but pretended to not know anything about it. She just kept quiet.

  “You guys were together for two years already right? Since high school? And now just because he goes overseas, doesn’t mean that you can’t keep the relationship.”