I started to settle in Viv’s place. She has already handed in her resignation letter. Initially she tried to negotiate a sabbatical leave with her team but they didn’t agree. I found it quite surprising considering she has worked for them for 10 years. That’s why I always felt suspicious when the hiring team empathized loyalty — it barely got compensated and it was never the deciding factor in the corporate world. If you can’t provide a sound rational to what you are looking for or just be a smooth faker hiding your true intentions, I’m not going to waste my time with you losers.
This will be Viv’s last two months in Hong Kong before she left for a gap year. She traveled a lot during this period. I was by myself for more than half of the time in her apartment. Still I felt a bit unease to intrude in her space. I scheduled a lot of viewings with property agents and found nothing nice within my budget. Seeing me meeting agents back to back, Viv looked at me, “I’m not going to chase you away. Take your time. It’s important to find a place you really like. You will live there for at least 1 year or 2 years.” Then I thought of Chris and Theo making fun of me that I will live with my friend for months back in Colca Canyon. It did happen.
Viv loved cooking. When Viv was in Hong Kong, I was always called in to be her kitchen hand. “Make yourself useful.” — When in Rome, do as the Romans ask you to do. I jokingly referred to my two-month stay at Viv’s as a live-in cooking course. Viv showed me how to cook and how to bake. We finished several batches of granola and did delicious sausage rolls. For the first time, I had interest for the kitchen. Even when Viv was away, I would find recipes online and experimented some new things by myself. When I was invited to anyone’s home party in those two months, my self-baked pastry was the gift that I would bring. I hope it didn’t scare some guys as this was such a typical overcompensating behavior. I guess I just didn’t care.
Viv had a lovely apartment. My favorite spot was sitting at the dinning table in the kitchen. It was by a big window with a nice view of the little park downstairs. The floor was not high so I can just see the trees when I looked out. I usually brought my laptop there and poured myself a cup of tea. I used to question the point of paying a premium for a view. Now I totally got it how good and peaceful a nice view can make you feel. But of course it’s my first time ever to spend so long time at home in the daytime.
When I came back to Hong Kong, I only had a suitcase with me. Most of the stuff was hiking gear. I needed to fetch something from the warehouse as I won’t move in to my own place any time sooner. Last year when I joined my previous firm — a real estate private equity firm solely investing warehouses, I thought warehouse was such a remote concept in my life. It didn’t occur to me that I would become a constant visitor to warehouses when I left that job. For the sake of not spending on necessary stuff while I was unemployed, I even dug out foundation cream and cotton buds from piles of boxes stuffed within a 5 square meters space. That’s how organized a Virgo can be. Among the 15 boxes in the storage, there were 2 boxes worth more than the rest combined. These two were marked “Bags” and “Heels” respectively. I never opened them during my gap time. They were clearly a bad investment.
Another benefit of living at Viv’s place was I can run into D. D was the single most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen in the real life. He happened to live in the same building with Viv. I got out twice with him before I went to Peru. I didn’t feel he was serious and thought I would be better off to cut the distraction and focus on job hunting. I started ghosting him when I came back. I usually lacked the subtlety on this matter. He didn’t take it quite well and would give me a super long face when we ran into each other in the neighborhood. As much as I thought he was petty, I still enjoyed seeing that beautiful face from time to time. Dany laughed at my absurd excuse to focus on job hunting, “You better find a good one.”
Will lived across the hallway on the same floor. He was a bit serious and it took time for him to warm up around people. So when I heard the typical pop music outside his door, I teased him, “I though you would listen to classical music!” Viv rolled her eyes, “He is not that cultural.” As there were only two apartments each floor, we can hear each other quite clearly from the hallway. Once I tried this, I didn’t think I wanted to live so close with my friends. It reminded me of the days when I shared the apartment with a few flatmates and you knew how they sounded in sex. Nothing was quite like that in this occasion, but still let’s have a little more privacy.
From Viv’s place at 11 High Street , I started a very special time. No school, no work and no routines for the first time in my life. It was odd but also very precious. I stopped thinking how the life should be like. It’s the way it should be.