NS13

I've always known bus 39. It passes the back of my house but I only ever took it to my cousin's and then best friend's place, both somewhere in Tampines. I dropped at the same bus stop to get to either because they're just across the street of each other.

I've gone to one end, being a constant loiter spot during secondary school. But the name of the other interchange that it terminates always intrigued me. Never been there, didn't even know which Line it was on. Maybe once or twice, because we had distant relatives living there. Just not enough for me to remember how this place looked, not enough for me to know my way around if I was ever abandoned there.

As luck would have it, being in a polytechnic on the other side of the country opened so many of these doors. Having friends who studied in Nanyang Poly helped, giving me chances to cross stations I would otherwise have no business in. In 2013 alone I came here several times, enough to know where the cinema and bookstore and all the other stores are like the back of my hand.

It is symbolic to me I came here with my then best friend I mentioned, all the way on the other side of her place. At that time I was living in Paya Lebar, so I didn't get to take 39 home with her but the train. A few days later I came again with another best friend, looking for a new pair of shoes for him. We separated on the platform, where both our trains came at the same time.

These two days were more than four years ago, back in the simple days of Year One. Just like old times the girl held my arm and I acted as her bodyguard, being a head taller than her, while the boy kept apologising because his hand wouldn't stop brushing against mine.

But the most life-changing memory that involves the holding of hands was my twenty-second birthday, with the one I called hurricane. I was still sceptical about him, after the hundredth time he left only to come bouncing back.

We watched mother!, a movie that he would never have watched on his own accord. I lived for its symbolism and couldn't stop guessing what it was about. He told me that for once, he was thinking hard about the meaning of a film, because it wasn't direct like his preferable movies always were.

He got me ice-cream from a claw machine, something I hadn't seen before. What an unnecessary waste of three dollars, but the laughter at his many failed attempts was what made it priceless. It was the simplicity of walking around that reminded me how easy it was to fall back into place.

In the past five years Yishun wasn't a stranger anymore. No longer just a name in pixels on the front of bus 39, but a place that against all odds was filled with chances. Sparks between two old best friends, a boy and a girl who would later like each other, and a flame and hurricane who reconciled after half a year.