[JEMMA]

Despite his flaws, my friendship with Alex blossomed quickly. He was a headstrong person, but a reliable friend. He can be stubbornly persistent at times, but that was the one good thing about him.

It was months after the badminton incident before I first invited Alex to my house for the first time. There was a school project to be done and Alex and I decided it would be more fun to share our workload. My mother was more than pleased to meet him as she rarely met any of my schoolmates.

“Hello. You must be Alex. James has told me so much about you,” my mother greeted him at our doorstep when I brought him home.

“H… H… Hello… Mrs. Ting…”

I couldn’t help turning and looking at him in surprise. I had never heard him stammer like that before. Alex didn’t even seem to notice me staring at him with cocked eyebrows. Mom, sensing his discomfort, quickly ushered him up the stairs and promised to come along with drinks and snacks later. By the time we reached my room, Alex’s face was as red as a tomato.

“Hey… What happens to you? Fever is it?” I teased him, knowing full well the effect my mom’s beauty had on any hot blooded teenage boy. We got to work regardless. And by the time my mom came up with the promised treats, Alex had regained enough of his composure to say a full ‘Thank you’ to mom. My mom just smiled warmly and excused herself.

For the rest of that week, Alex came home with me every day to work on the assignment. When the project was concluded, he still asked if he could come over my house to hang out. My mom was getting used to seeing him tagging behind me when we got home from school. She even started making lunch for him.

As our homework was usually wrapped up under a few hours, he usually had to leave at mid-afternoon. That changed when he brought a large box to school one day and then lugged it along on the bus ride to my house after. In my room, he unpacked the package. It was a Playstation 3 along with dozens of original games. He asked if he could store it in my house until further notice. My heart leapt for joy that day.

From that point onward, Alex stayed over until the evenings when my father got home. The only times he didn’t come over was when he or I had to attend extra co-curricular activities. He would bring a new game every now and then. Mom insisted that we finished all our homework before playing. We would comply and then spent entire afternoons mashing buttons in front of the living room TV. For someone who owned a PS3, Alex was an extremely poor player. Sometimes I felt he could do better if he wasn’t so distracted by my mother. I didn’t even notice that he was gradually allowing me to play longer than him. In a few weeks, I was usually the only one playing and he seemed contented to just watch. As to what he was actually watching, I had no idea. I was too busy killing digital monsters.