The Equestrian

We spent roughly eight hours a day, five days a week, four weeks a month, twelve months a year for three years, three whole years of high school, breathing in the same room, working in gazillions of projects together. But somehow I only started to know him, just today.

He is bright. He has always been bright. His brain works at the speed of  light. He knows his maths and physics, and does his homework. He reads the papers and watches the news. He knows the world. He knows politics, economics, history, plus all their trivial facts. He knows bureaucracy. He's a teenager with knowledge, skills and experience like your father's. He drives like a racer. His passion is cars and dreams to devour them for a living, yet he ends up in medical school: Oh, we're gonna be spending another 4.5 years under the same roof.

It's been a year since we study together in the small 30-pupil sized classroom (compared to the current classroom which is 5 to 10 times larger). Nowadays we hardly talk, we barely meet. But just some time ago, he asked me to work with him. For a personal reason, I agreed to join his project, but I anticipated the horrors of working with him.

He used to be the most stubborn person who never failed to start an altercation with me. I always see him as an aggressive young man wearing a pair of twinkly round puppy eyes. He's thoughtful yet doubtful. Confident yet never willing to take the lead. Hardly makes decisions but argues over the ones I make. Enthusiastic but hardly ever committed.  I value him so much as a student, as a colleague, I trust him, I always put my hopes on his broad shoulders, but what's very likely to occur is he leaves them behind. His mind was too hard for me to read. Too hard to leave settled. Whatever I say, whatever I do is like setting a fire in an Australian bush in the midst of December. His persona leaves me questioning, sometimes crying over his painstaking choices of words, or his irritating intonation. Yes, of course The Equestrian has made me drop my tears. Several times.

I don't hate him. He's a good friend. Sometimes. Well yes he's irritating, he hurts me to the center of my heart. It's not an issue though. I just know that we don't go well together. Like an enzyme with the wrong substrate. It doesn't mean we're on war. We're at peace. I just know that it'd be better to stay away from him to avoid the quarrel.

That was a long time ago though. 

The Equestrian I perceive now, is somewhat different. He's not as aggressive as before.

His puppy eyes that I thought was fake, are actually true. We engaged in a small talk where he subtly but honestly stated his introversion. I was electrified. I thought he mislabeled himself. But then I realized that these years, I never really knew him to the core.