The hostel was a community of spirits.  Most of the time, its inhabitants lived in a state of spiritual high – an intoxication generated by the avalanche of activities from sports and games to art and culture simmering in a melting pot of social drama.  So when John dragged his heavy heart through the bustling dining hall and cheerful corridors, David was the first to notice that something was wrong.

Now, did I promise to introduce you to David?  Right.  David is a name originally associated with royalty.  The image it conjures is one of strength as well as vulnerability.  But it is an overused name.  So beloved is that name that everybody wants to call their sons David.  So in case the name has been diluted by the countless numbers of overzealous fathers, let me jolt your memory of the little David that stood up to Goliath.  Yes that’s the kind of David that I’m talking about.

When David first came to the hostel, he was mobbed by a horde of enchanting girls.  Not physically, of course, but socially.  They were attracted by his large sensitive eyes, they were seduced by his shy but mischievous smile, and his lean and athletic physique.  They made him introduce himself to them one by one.  They were intrigued by his unusual accent and wanted to know which part of Malaysia he came from.  And it was Jennifer who first declared to John that David was her little blood brother.

Now, wait there a moment.  I do not have the time and space to introduce Jennifer to you as well.  Suffice to say that Jennifer considered John her endearing classmate and insisted on introducing John to her little blood brother.  That was how their trinity of blood brothers and sister began.

As I was saying, David was the first to notice that something was not right.  For two days, he caught glimpses of John at the dining tables and found him strangely uncommunicative.  He wondered why John was not at the swimming pool or the billiards tables.  Even the little midnight supper gatherings could not entice John out of his room.  And Jennifer did not know what was irking her classmate either.

When David finally knocked on John’s door and let himself into his room, he found John hibernating in his neotenic winter and hiding behind his pile of blankets.

‘Are you ill or something?’ No beating about the bush for David.

‘No, I’m okay,’ the blanket stirred a little, ‘just tired.’

‘Tired?  What have you been doing?  I haven’t seen you around for days.’  David sat at the foot of the bed.  John’s face was tilted towards the wall and David could not see his expression.  ‘Is something wrong?’

Silence.

‘Hey, what is wrong?’ David was worried.  He had never seen his buddy in this state before.

‘Test results?’

No answer.

‘Family problem?’

No answer.

‘Girlfriend problem?’

‘I just want to be alone for awhile,’ John mumbled to the wall.

‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ David declared smugly.  ‘Girls!’

Silence.

‘You’ve been dumped, haven’t you?’

John cringed behind his blanket at the other’s insensitivity.

‘You let her walk all over you and now she’s walked out on you.’

The words were not kind.  They cut like razors on an open would.

‘You’re a sucker for love.’

‘Shut up!’ John turned over, kicked at his tormentor and pulled himself into a sitting position with his blanket held tightly to his chin.  ‘Shut up!  You’re good looking, charming – girls run to you.  You don’t know that it’s like.’

‘All right!  Tell me what it’s like,’ David challenged.

John breathed in sharply.  What was it like?  How were guys supposed to feel when their love is spurned?  The bookstores are filled to the brim with love stories about women written for women.  When a girl is heartbroken, she shares her pain with countless other heroines in paperback.  But who writes love stories for guys?  John was not sure what guys normally feel when their love is rejected.  He did not know whether he was less a man for feeling such anguish.

He was emotionally exhausted.  He had no more energy left for anything.  He could not eat, he could not sleep, and at night, when he wallowed in self-pity, his chest was so heavy he felt he could explode – yet, at the same time, there was an emptiness, a hole in his heart that left him feeling as if he could not breathe, that he had not enough air – and the tears welled up in his eyes silently and flowed in painful rivulets of salt into his pillow.  But how could he tell his buddy all this.  His heart-wrenching histrionics would be greeted by more smirks and jesting.

‘It’s painful,’ he finally answered. ‘I wish I could cry, but I can’t.’  Yes, he had to preserve some measure of self-respect for himself, albeit a false one.

‘Hey, there’s nothing to worry about,’ David softened his tone.  ‘There’s plenty of other fish in the sea.  I’ll fix you up with a new date.’

John threw his head back and pulled his hair in exasperation.  He was not interested in a new date.  He was not interested in any date.  He was in pain.  He had a vacuum in his heart and had no energy left to entertain any date.  His blood brother was too immature to understand.

‘Just leave me alone,’ John muttered through his clenched teeth.  ‘It’s not fair!  I tried so hard, but it didn’t work.  Nobody cares for me.  Nobody!’  John shook his head in despair and rolled over like a foetus, withdrawing into his little cocoon of self-pity.  ‘Just leave me alone.  I want to lie here where I can feel the air seeping out of my lungs and the blood draining out of my body.  I just want to die.’

Now his last few words drew an immediate reaction from David.  It went against his male psyche to speak of dying or to surrender to failure.  Self-pity and self-doubt are the masochistic luxury of women.  Men just had to grit their teeth and get on with life.  With one sweep of the arm, David pulled John’s blanket away.

‘Get up, lazybones,’ David commanded.  ‘No more talk about dying.  We’re going for a swim.’

He stood with his arms akimbo, looking disapprovingly as John curled up into a ball and groaned.

‘Come on, you’ve been moping around with your tail between your legs long enough,’ David declared, as he rummaged in John’s drawers for his swimming trunks and towel.  ‘Some exercise will be good for your.’  He threw the necessary apparel into a plastic bag.  ‘Ten laps.  Maybe twenty.’

The ball of meat protested.

‘Uh-uh,’ David shook his head resolutely. ‘The word “no” does not belong in my vocabulary.  Come on, get up.’

And he pulled, shoved, prodded, pushed and marched the ball of meat to the swimming pool.  Well perhaps he did not need to exercise that much pulling and prodding.  But for all his tough-talking, no-nonsense manner of speech, David cared enough to be there when his buddy needed some emotional support.  Perhaps this is modern day male bonding at its most sensitive.  Not the macho, violent, gun-toting cowboys or the revengeful martial arts expert.  But the more mundane, unexplored kinship of shared trials and tribulations.  And that kinship was what John needed to salvage his wounded pride and refill the hole in his heart.

L