陽光大衛私房粉絲網

沒錯，那個Yvette把part II 貼出來了，比Part I更長，不過當然也是必讀，還有，她還預報下面還有part III，大家請期待。

forarchangels

Part 2

“What?”
“I’m… having… lunch… with… David!”
“… oh!”
“Yeah, I’m so sorry, I’ll explain everything later, OK?” I panted out.
“Oh, OK…” Gowri replied, slowly.
“OK, bye!” I gasped, then I immediately ended the call.

The afternoon sun was scorching, and I was running so hard that by the time I’d rushed through the sliding doors back into the mall, I was sweating ridiculously.
I chose not to run in the mall less I wanted one of the security guards thinking I was a shoplifter or something – but the walk to the skating rink area was pretty long (the mall is HUGE)… and with every agonizingly slow step I took, I became more and more panicked.

What if I showed up late?
Like really late; that it would be too late for me to order anything??
Yuen-See would just tell me I was too late and that would be OK; I could just leave, and not trouble anyone… yeah, that sounded good…
Gah, what a mess!

I finally made it to the Dragon-I restaurant.
Then I wanted to die again.
It… was… a Chinese restaurant.
Oh, no, no, nooo…

But I was already wasting too much time standing outside the restaurant, staring pointlessly – and helplessly – at the Chinese menu out front, so I took a deep breath, tried to pull myself together as much as possible, and headed in.

It was quite crowded in there.
I glanced around, trying to spot a recognizable face. I couldn’t find any.
Panic was setting in again.
Oh, no, what if this was the wrong restaurant?!

Then I noticed there was some sort of secluded section right at the back of the restaurant – to the left, behind a wall of dark wood – and I thought, maybe…
I anxiously made my way over there… and when I finally turned the corner, I exhaled hugely in relief.

Sitting at a long table were Yuen-See, a few other people whose names I never got around to ask ; a young woman in red from Singapore was some sort of PR, a middle-aged man with long hair tied in a ponytail, a slightly older-looking woman with strikingly bleached, spiked up hair, and this other really beautiful young woman in a sunny yellow top (I wasn’t sure who those three worked with, yet) – and, last but certainly not least, Ray.

Someone was missing from the picture.

Someone extremely important.

David.

He wasn’t there.

“Finally, you’re here!” Yuen-See said, when she saw me. “Come, sit here.”
There were two empty seats in between her and Ray.
She made me sit next to her.

OK, so I guessed I’d misunderstood. Again.
I was having lunch with them. Them, as in the DiGi and Sony crew – and Ray, too – but not David.

Oh… well, OK then.
I wasn’t disappointed or anything.
No, I’d kind of expected it.

I mean, how could I possibly be that privileged to have lunch with David Archuleta?
And now that I had the time to think, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to eat with him around anyway. I already had trouble speaking coherently with David, how in the heck would I be able to even chew on something with him there?

So it was… good, I guessed, that he wasn’t here. I could feel normal again – well, not that normal; Ray was there, oh my gosh – and also extremely relieved, too, that David wouldn’t be seeing me eating Chinese.

OK, really quick fact about myself (sorry, I know you guys don’t really care):
Here’s the thing – I’m not really a local.
Well, I am Malaysian, but I’m not, like, local local.
See, my mom’s side of the family is purely Chinese while my dad’s is… not. And since I was around my relatives from my dad’s side of the family most of the time, I was heavily influenced by their Western culture… and not enough by the Chinese one.
The end result is this: I can’t speak or understand Chinese (used to when I was really little; impossible now).

And I rarely – as in, almost never – eat Chinese food.
So now you kind of know why I dreaded going into the restaurant so much, earlier.
OK, enough about me (sorry, sorry, sorry for boring you guys), back to lunch…

“Hey! There you are!” Ray said, grinning at me. “Where were you?”
I blushed, embarrassed. “Oh, um, I was heading back to my hotel… I didn’t realize I was supposed to be having lunch with… you know…”

“Yeah! We were wondering where you’d gone to,” Ray told me. “We came back into the room, and no one was there, and we were, like, ‘Hey! Where’d she go?’”

When Ray said ‘we’, I'm sure he meant him and everyone else who was at the table.

Not David.

Because… well, honestly, as if my whereabouts would be of any interest to David Archuleta. Plus, he wasn’t here, so…

Oh, and I didn’t dare ask Ray where David was.
I mean, it’d be totally weird – not to mention disturbing, in my case – if I were to ask, “Hey, where’s David?”
And I definitely didn’t have the right to ask about his whereabouts, of course. David was most probably having his own separate lunch in a high-class restaurant somewhere else, probably with someone more important, someone more worthy of his attention…

Yuen-See handed me a menu.
I was pretty relieved that the food hadn’t arrived yet; I hadn’t shown up so late after all.
A waiter arrived about a minute later and asked me if I’d like anything to drink. I automatically chose iced lemon tea, which was my favorite. I spoke to him in English, and the waiter couldn’t catch what I was saying. Yuen-See had to translate for me – gah, embarrassing! – and I knew she’d already pretty much guessed what my problem was.

Yup, this was so not going to go well.
I went through the whole menu in a couple of seconds – none of the dishes catching my eye; I eventually gave up trying to make a choice – and when Yuen-See saw that I’d put the menu down, she asked, “So, what would you like to order?”

“I, um… actually have no idea. I can’t make up my mind,” I replied, feeling so stupid. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK – we also ordered a spread,” the young woman in red spoke to me for the first time. She seemed real nice. And, yep, definitely Singaporean. I recognized the accent.
“Oh, OK! That’s great,” I said, slightly happier.
(For those who don’t know, a spread is, like, a selection of food that’ll be put in the middle of the table for anyone to pick from – it’s like what they do at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, you know? For the Chinese, if you don’t want to order something for yourself, you can just pick from the spread, then.)

And then, Ray said in a voice that I guessed was meant to be calming, “It’s alright – relax, take your time…”

Oh my gosh, was it really that obvious how nervous and tensed up I was?
So freaking obvious that even Ray had to tell me to relax?!
And David wasn’t even there!
Sheesh, what was wrong with me?

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Yuen-See asked.
I shook my head, “No, I’m fine. I’ll just eat from the spread later.”

“OK…” Yuen-See looked over my head, then she said, “Ah, they’re back…”

I blinked, wondering who Yuen-See was talking about.
Then I heard the sound of a chair scraping against the floor… and it was coming from right next to me.

I looked around.

OH… MY… GOSH.

The very first thing I saw was a pair of wide and extremely gorgeous, hazel-green eyes.
And they were staring right back at me.
I completely froze in my seat.
I could feel my heart starting to pound in my chest, my jaw going slack, my knees going weak…
Oh my gosh, those eyes.

Let me just say that those eyes were the most unique, most mysterious pair of eyes I’d ever seen; there was just… just something about those eyes that immediately had you TRAPPED in their gaze, that you could NOT look away even if you wanted to…

OH MY GOSH.

David Archuleta was pulling back the chair right next to me, and then he was casually plopping himself down on it. And he was looking at me.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!

DAVID ARCHULETA WAS HERE!

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?!

IT MEANS THAT HE’S HAVING LUNCH IN THIS RESTAURANT!!!!
AND… AND… OH GOSH, IT MEANS THAT I AM HAVING LUNCH WITH HIM.
I WAS HAVING LUNCH WITH DAVID ARCHULETA.

And because my brain went into overdrive, I reacted wildly again.

“Hey!”

OK, this is where I almost died again – not exactly because of embarrassment – because David and I had said “Hey!” to each other right at the same time.
And the way I’d said it, I’d sounded extremely breathless – so it’d kind of went like “Heeeeey!” instead, you know? – and the thing is the way David says “Hey!” sounds almost exactly like that, too… so we’d both spoken the same word, with almost identical tones, right at the same time.
Like, synchronized.

And David was smiling that gorgeous, friendly smile of his again. Which, in turn, brought about a HUGE STUPID GRIN on my face.
Somebody please slap me.

OH MY GOSH, DAVID ARCHULETA WAS SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!!!!
HE WAS SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!!

Get a grip, get a grip, get a grip…!

“Thanks, Seong,” David said, appreciatively.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Seong – who’d been accompanying David (oh, so he had been given the task of being David’s personal bodyguard, wow) – went to sit next to the pretty woman in yellow.

Get a grip, get a grip, get a grip…

… oh, and BREATHE, for crying out loud!!!

And I did breathe.
Like, I took a really deep breath.

Which was probably the umpteenth dumb mistake I’d made today, because YOU DO NOT TAKE A DEEP BREATH WITH DAVID ARCHULETA SITTING RIGHT BESIDE YOU.
… I smelled clean soap. And fresh, clean cotton.
And something else that was kind of… sugary.

OH… MY… GOSH.

Oh, no, I did NOT just… oh my GOSH, that was just… did I just… oh GOSH!

No, no, NO, I did not just smell David Archuleta. No, no, no, no, noooo…

Oh, but he smelled really clean. And kind of… sweet.

OH GOSH!!! SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That had just been SO WEIRD.

And, oh my gosh, the second I… you know… smelled him, I actually shivered a little – and there were goosebumps forming on my arms – and that just made me feel so EMBARRASSED.
I could feel the back of my ears starting to grow hot. Not good.

Freak, freak, freak, I chanted to myself. Stop being such a freak…!

“Have you taken your order yet?” I heard David ask.
I gave a start when I realized he was speaking to me. Oh gosh.
OK, now what?!
“Um, uh… I didn’t actually… order anything,” I replied, nervously. All the while, I stared at the dark spots beneath David’s eye. I was so not risking eye contact again if I could help it.
I saw the corner of David’s lips turn down in a tiny frown – he was confused, I guessed, about why I hadn’t ordered anything.

“Well, I took a look at the menu and couldn’t decide on anything, so I just gave up, because I’m, like, really terrible at choosing, and I usually just eat whatever’s been put in front of me, I don’t really care. Ughhh, I really can’t make up my mind sometimes,” I turned my head to stare at the wall in front of me as I blurted all that nonsense out in one breath. And then – out of habit – I closed my eyes and groaned; I did that everytime I was appalled at how unbelievably spectacular I was with making situations dang awkward.

I could feel David still staring at me.
Which was nerve-wracking – it was as though his eyes were just penetrating my skull.
Please, please, PLEASE don’t think I’m weird…
Then the drinks arrived.

David had ordered warm barley with lemon.
I noticed, as he reached out to take his drink, there were a few droplets of water on his arm.
And then I remembered that David washes his hands before and after he eats.
Oh, so that was why he hadn’t been there at first when I’d shown up. He’d gone to wash his hands. And Seong had accompanied him all the way to the men’s room, then back.

“What’d you guys get?” David asked, interestedly, looking around at everyone else’s drinks.
The woman in red spoke first, swirling the stems at the bottom of her drink around with her straw, “This is water chestnut,”

“Water… what?” David said, staring wide-eyed at what must’ve looked like a glass of yellow-green plant sap – with dark, feathery-looking stuff at the bottom – to him. “Chestnut…?”
“It’s a Chinese water plant,” the woman explained.
“Oh,” David said.

He turned his attention to Yuen-See’s drink. “And… what’s that?”
Yuen-See was drinking lo han kou.
“What’s that white, round stuff at the bottom?” David asked.
I giggled before I could stop myself. Oh, gosh. White, round stuff…
“It’s longan,” Yuen-See replied.

Again, for those who don’t know, longan is an Asian fruit that’s really sweet and used a lot in desserts.

“So what else is in there? What does it taste like?” he asked again.

“Well, there’s also winter melon in here… and, um, how does it taste…” Yuen-See looked at me then. And I instantly knew she was expecting me to reply for her, since she wasn’t able to.

Panicked, I shook my head quickly at her.

I couldn’t remember what lo han kou tasted like, I hadn’t had it in years…

Fortunately, Yuen-See got another idea; she pushed her drink towards David. “Why don’t you try some? Go ahead.”
“Oh… can I? Thanks…” then, with a slightly nervous but eager look, David took a sip.
Everyone else at the table fell silent, watching him. They were all waiting for his reaction, even Ray.

Then David looked up again, and he had this really surprised expression on his face.
And then.

“Mmmm! It’s yummy!” David practically gushed in amazement, eye still wide.

And everyone else around the table immediately burst into laughter.
OH MY GOSH. I COULD NOT BELIEVE HE’D JUST DONE THAT.
And I was sitting right there, that BIG STUPID GRIN on my face again, and I was biting down my tongue to keep myself from erupting into guffaws like everyone else had. I didn’t want David thinking I was laughing at him, because – honestly – I would be.
His reaction had been the most HILARIOUS thing I’d ever seen.

“It tastes like… caramel and popcorn!” David went on, smiling.
That made everyone stop laughing and stare.
And I had to go and be the oddball in the group that gasped, “Oh, yeah! Except the taste is more diluted…!”

I shut my mouth when I realized the others were giving me weird looks.
David passed the drink back to Yuen-See, then started asking if there were any mysterious, medical properties in any of the drinks – that including his own.

“Yes!” the pretty woman in yellow finally started talking. “The barley you’re drinking? It’s good for you when you’re heaty. Oh, wait, do you know what heaty means?”

Only in Malaysia and Singapore is the word ‘heaty’ recognized in the English dictionary.

Without thinking, I jumped in, “Like, you know when you take Thai food and it’s really spicy and you feel hot all over from it?”

David turned to look right at me again and my heart just went ballistic as I took in all the colors in his eyes – oh my gosh, why did they have to be so bright and clear and… and sparkling?! – and tried to finish what I was saying, “Well, you… uh… take barley to counteract that.”

“Oh!” David replied, and then he was grinning again. He looked away, and my heart rate finally lowered. “Oh, then I should’ve taken some last night! I had Thai food last night,” he added, absent-mindedly.

“Oh… well, that’s good,” I said, gladly. Yay, he finally got to eat his favorite food…
“Yeah, I was just waiting to have some!” David went on, happily. Then he looked at my drink, and still grinning enthusiastically, he asked, “What kind of drink did you get?” He was expecting another bizarre Chinese tonic or something.

I felt like a total idiot as I replied, “Um… it’s just… iced lemon tea.”

David blinked, “… oh.”

Obviously, I was dying of embarrassment again.

“Hey, is that apple juice?” David asked quickly, looking past me.
I followed his gaze. Two people sitting at the other end of the table were having tea. I understood why he’d said ‘apple juice’ – the drinks were the same yellowish brown color…

“No, it’s Chinese tea,” I explained hurriedly. Chinese restaurants didn’t even serve apple juice, by the way.

“Oh… well, it looked like apple juice,” David said, shrugging and smiling softly.

Then David looked away, and picked up the black packet of wet wipes next to his plate and started examining it really closely. The words on the packet were all in Chinese, so I doubted he knew what he was actually holding.

(In Chinese restaurants here, they don’t prepare napkins. Instead, they have wet wipes.)

I was still so upset over myself that I hung my head again and muttered, “I am such a banana.”
“Huh?” David looked around at me again. Seriously, would I ever get used to the feel of his eyes on me?
Luckily, the woman in red had also turned to me, so I could direct my attention to her instead, “What?”
“Banana,” I repeated to her, but this time I spoke in the rojak accent I’d managed to develop over the past two years.
“Oh, ya lorr!” the woman immediately replied, snapping her fingers at me, her hidden suspicions about me confirmed. “Yellow outside –”
“Putih inside, ya,” I finished for her, feeling a little better that another person understood.

Here comes another Malaysian-Singaporean fact:
‘Banana’ is a term for the Chinese people in the community who are very well-versed in English and heavily influenced by the Western lifestyle but know almost nothing about their own culture. Those kind of Chinese – like me – are yellow(-skinned) just like the others but on the inside, we’re… white.

Like the outside and inside of a banana, see?

David was looking blankly from the woman to me, pretty much not understanding a thing we were saying.
Then some of the food that they’d selected for the spread started arriving.

Custard buns are these round things that are deep yellow in color and would kind of look like rubber balls but it’s just bread with custard fillings.

The pork broth dumplings are… well, they’re dumplings but instead of the usual meat in them, there’s soup inside – so they have to be eaten very carefully and quickly, because the skin is very thin and can easily tear, and once that happens, there goes the soup, spilling out all over the place…

Everyone started picking up their chopsticks and picking from the spread.
I was lifting a custard bun onto my plate – praying that I’d be able to eat it without choking myself, because of how crazy I was feeling right then – when I noticed David hadn’t moved.
His hands were in his lap, and he was still just staring blankly at the food. He glanced briefly at Ray at one point, who in turn was busy with his phone, then stared at the food again.
What’s he waiting for? I thought.

“Um… are you gonna eat anything?” I asked him, hesitantly.
David sort of gave a start at my question, then he hurriedly replied, “Oh, yeah!”
And only then did he pick up his chopsticks.
Strange, it was almost like he’d been waiting for a cue or something.
And then I vaguely remembered reading something somewhere about David being unsure about the customs in other countries…
OK, I got it.

And then I almost had a panic attack again… when I felt David staring at me while I was eating the custard bun. As though he was observing the way I was eating or something.
Um, like… AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Oh my heck, I had never felt so conscious about my table manners before in my entire life! I was actually even worried about the way I was chewing, in case it looked wrong to David or something.

Most tragically, eating the custard bun required me stuffing the whole thing into my mouth almost at once, because the filling inside could easily spill out once you’d bitten into the bun, so I must’ve obviously looked like an animal… gah!

David eventually looked away, and I hastily grabbed my drink and gulped down as much I could. I was scared that if he looked at me again, especially if I happened to be drinking at the time, I’d choke and--
I told you I’m nuts.

It was about a minute later when I remembered.
“Hey, um… David?” my voice was shaky as I said his name, because it just felt so unreal to actually be calling David Archuleta by his first name.
And then David looked right around at me again – David, have you ever thought about the devastating effect your eyes have on people, especially your fans?!) – and I had to suffer a two-second blank out before I could continue, “Um, well, I couldn’t help overhearing you earlier about getting your siblings souvenirs and stuff… so, um, I thought… well, your sister, Jazzy, likes anime, right?”
David looked puzzled – probably wondering why the heck I was talking about that – but he nodded and waited silently for me to continue.
“Um, OK, well – there’s a lot of anime-slash-manga in the bookstores here in KL,” I told him hurriedly. “Especially in Kinokuniya… which is at the Petronas Twin Towers…?”
David’s mind sort of registered the words ‘Petronas Twin Towers’, and he sort of blurted out very quickly, “Oh, I wanna go there!”
And then he was quiet again… and staring…
“Uh, yeah, well – I’m just suggesting, you know, if you’re interested in getting anything like that for your sister… um, yeah,” I finished lamely.

I waited for David to say something.
But, for some reason, he was still staring silently at me.
About three seconds passed.
… uh oh.

“Are you… getting anything… I’m saying?” I asked, nervously.
David finally responded, nodding quickly at me, “Yeah, yeah!”

“Speaking of souvenirs,” Ray spoke up. “Are there any toy stores here?”
I shrugged, then looked around at the others. I wasn’t from KL, I didn’t really know…
The woman in red eventually named a few stores to him.
Ray apparently wanted to buy some special toys for his stepsons that “you can’t get anywhere else, only in Malaysia. Like, in Japan, they have Lego? And you can’t find that anywhere back in the States…”

While Ray was discussing with the others about what kind of toys he could get for his kids, David – right out of the blue – asked me, “Do you have any siblings?”
“Uh… yeah! Two younger sisters,” I kept my answer real short. I wasn’t about to load my whole family background on David or anything like that; he wanted to know, of course, but not that much. Right?

The separate orders finally started arriving.
I wasn’t talking anymore. I mostly listened as the other people sitting at the table explained to David what kind of food they’d ordered.
Most of the dishes had pork in them (Chinese love it, so…) and – well, it could’ve just been me imagining things – David looked pretty unenthusiastic about that.
Oh, so I guessed David didn’t like pork much…?

David had ordered rice cooked with peas, carrots and corn.
I tried not to notice that the veggies in his rice were of his favorite colors – green, yellow and orange.

Like, seriously, this was just getting waaaay too out of hand.

“Wait… what is this?” David asked, frowning. He picked at the bits of meat that’d also been cooked in with the rice, and pushed them towards the edge of his plate. “Is this pork…?”
“Hold on,” the woman in red said, picking up the bits of meat with her chopsticks and tasting them. “Yeah, it’s pork.”

“Oh,” David said, and then he was mumbling softly, “I don’t think the waiter heard me when I said I didn’t want ham…”

Well, in general, Malaysians don't really use the word ‘ham’.
I was pretty sure the waiter had heard David; he just hadn’t understood David’s request.

“Don’t worry, they’re serving chicken later,” the woman in red informed him.
David’s face immediately brightened up – that sweet, cheerful grin back in place – and he exclaimed happily, “I like chicken!”

New Fact #5: David likes chicken, but not ham.

And David spent the next minute or so sifting the rest of the meat from the rice, pushing them all to the edge of the plate, before he finally picked up his spoon and started eating.
And, oh my gosh, the way he eats is just so, so sweet.

Yes, it was my turn to watch the way he was eating now, and I was sooo enjoying what I was seeing. And so taking in every tiny detail I could catch.

David ate quite slowly, carefully, and, gosh, very very politely. He ate in quite small amounts, and he chewed really slowly and quietly. And all I could think of while watching him right then was, wow, that’s REALLY good table manners.
I also noticed that David sort of always kept his head down while he ate, like he didn’t want the person sitting across from him to have to watch him chew.
And that too, I thought, was just so, so polite.
Sometime later, another thing occurred to me.

“Hey, did you manage to try any of the Malay food here yet?” I asked him, curiously. I’d heard him on the radio days before – on Hitz.fm, talking about how excited he was to come to Malaysia and try the roti canai and nasi lemak… so I just had to ask…
David was just about to scoop some more rice into his mouth. When I spoke, he automatically put the spoon down – stopped eating altogether – and looked directly at me again.

Why did he have to do that?!

OK, I knew he was just being extremely courteous and extremely thoughtful, but, gaaaah, his eyes…!

“Oh, well, tonight, I’m actually gonna be trying… um… wait, what was it again?” David asked, turning to Yuen-See with this adorable, sheepish expression on his face that made me want to smile like a huge dork again. “What am I eating tonight…?”
“Nasi lemak,” Yuen-See replied.
“Yeah!” David said, and then that enthusiastic grin of his was back, and Heaven knows why but the whole place just seemed to light up around me each time he smiled like that.
Then he suddenly asked, “What is, uh… nasi… lemak… again? Is it healthy for you?”

Oh my gosh, the way he’d pronounced nasi lemak… like, “naaah-see… (pause)… luh-muckkkhh…”
IT… WAS… SO… CUTE!!!!

“Um… no,” I finally replied David, after there was a long uncomfortable pause (probably because no one wanted to explain to him that nasi lemak to Malaysians was what a bucket of fries and a double cheeseburger would be to Americans). “Actually, if you were to literally translate the words nasi lemak into English – nasi means ‘rice’ while lemak actually means ‘fat’, as in, like, fat content – ”

I was going to explain to him that the rice and sauce was cooked in a lot of oil, and it was really delicious but really bad for you at the same time – but then David suddenly spoke, “Wait, so it’s… ‘fat rice’…?” and he just had the most baffled look ever on his face.
I couldn’t fight it any longer – I burst out laughing.

Which was really, REALLY stupid, because I couldn’t continue my explanation, and the pretty woman in yellow had to take over for me.
“Remember what we told you yesterday?” she said to David. “The special rice, with the sauce that’s quite thick and sweet and spicy…?”
And David looked like he’d finally understood something out of all the crazy information that was being thrown at him throughout lunch today. “Oh, yeah…!”
“Yes, that – and it’s usually served with anchovies, hard-boiled egg, and fried peanuts.”
“And chicken,” I added, quickly, having newly discovered David’s liking for that type of meat. “But you’ll have to ask them to add that in.”

[Btw, it made me laugh when I first saw the picture of him having nasi lemak for dinner and there was chicken on his plate, ha ha]

The next few minutes passed in silence.
Well, it was complete silence between me and David, that is.

Everyone else was conversing with each other – mostly in Hokkien, so I had no idea what they were talking about – as they ate.

At one point, though, I’d asked him where he’d be headed off to after KL (I hadn’t known it was Cleveland at the time), and David had smiled real brightly and answered in this really adorable, hyper voice, “Ohio!”
And the way he’d said it, it was like “Oh-HI-o!”
Ray had probably misunderstood the amused look on my face for confusion, and he repeated, “Ohio. It sounds like a Japanese word, huh?”
“… uh… oh, yeah – hey, wait, it is a word in Japanese!” I said, laughing in surprise. “Ohayo (sounds exactly like Ohio) means good –”
“– morning! Yes,” Ray finished for me, smirking. “Have you ever been to Japan?”
I shook my head. “I’d love to go there, though.”
“Yeah!” David said, still smiling really brightly. I immediately remembered that a place David would like to go to someday would be Japan. Oh gosh…
“You should,” Ray told me. “I’ve been there several times. It’s beautiful there. Really worthwhile.”

New fact #6: Ray, David’s manager, likes Japan… and everything Japanese.

Even though I might’ve been able to, I didn’t want to engage David in anymore conversations after that one.
Because each time I talked to him, he’d immediately stop eating to look at me (because it was courtesy), but I wanted him to eat, and – unfortunately – I couldn’t make him do that and talk to him at the same time, so… silence it was.

I think it was because I hadn’t eaten more than one custard bun, one dumpling, and a bit of spinach that – OK, and this had been seriously unexpected, I hadn’t realized he’d actually NOTICED – David stopped eating again and looked right around at me again and asked, “Aren’t you gonna eat anything…?”

And, OH MY GOSH, he actually looked worried.

“No, it’s OK, I’m fine,” I assured him quickly.
David still continued to look concernedly at me. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah!” I gasped, and I was really starting to panic inside, because the last thing I needed was for David Archuleta to think there was something wrong with me, “And, besides, I ate quite a lot this morning.”

Which was kind of true.

“Oh… what’d you eat?” David asked.
Um, OK, and why did he want to know about that…?
“Um… eggs and French toast,” I replied, nervously. It just felt weird telling David what I’d had for breakfast (like, why would it even interest him???). And when David gave me this look that just said ‘that doesn’t sound like a lot’, I got so nervous I started rambling again (aargh, the horror!), “And I also had a whole bunch of Dunkin’ Donuts that my dad had bought last night. He likes buying them, I don’t know why. And this morning, he was, like, ‘Here! Finish ‘em!’ and I was, like, ‘Ugh, Dad…!’”

Not good, not good, not good…!!!

“So where’s your dad right now?” Ray asked.
“Oh, um, he’s at a PC fair somewhere in town,”
“Is that what he does – computers…?”
“Oh, no – he’s an architect, but in his free time… you know… he likes getting into computers… and hardware and stuff,” I explained, still feeling really nervous because David was still staring at me.
“Hey, my father’s also an architect!” Ray said, smiling.
I was surprised, “Oh! Really? Cool.”

Then Ray was asking me which part of Malaysia I was from, and after that he was telling me about all the other places he’d visited for work…
And David basically wasn’t able to press me any further on whether I was eating right or not.
Whew.

Sometime later, Eric – the rep from DiGi who’d been the one to call me up that dreary Monday after I’d come home from school to tell me that I’d won the SMS contest and then have his eardrums explode when I’d freaked out on the other end of the line – came to check on how things were going.

He stayed only for a minute to say hi. A few moments after he’d left, I suddenly felt my phone buzz again and I fished it out my pocket to see who’d sent me a text.
It was Eric.
And in the text, he said I’d looked really starstruck.
…WHAT?
Oh gosh, I looked star struck?!
Wait, I think what he really meant was that I’d looked like I was freaking out. Which I so was.
It was that obvious!!

I wondered how long David would be able to be patient with me – he was the most amazing guy on the planet, but I was pretty sure he’d still crack sooner or later and ask Ray to get rid of me.
I suck.

Moving on, now… the chicken finally arrived!And the way the chicken had been prepared – they’d minced the meat, rolled them into tiny balls, fried them, then mixed them up in a pile of dried chilies for the extra hot, spicy flavoring.

When David saw the dish, the first thing he said was, “Can I eat the chilies?”
“NO!” almost everyone else – including me – yelped.
You don’t eat the chilies, not unless you want to feel like a hole’s been burnt through your tongue.
“Oh, OK,” David said, looking a little startled. Oops.

“The chili’s only meant for the flavoring,” someone explained to him.
“Oh, I see…”
Before David touched the chicken though, he decided to have some of the spinach from the spread.

And here came another awkward, OH-MY-GOSH moment.

David reached out to pick from the plate of spinach right at the same time I did.
I swear to you all that this had been completely and absolutely coincidence.
I so had not plan on taking from the same plate that David had wanted to at the same time that our chopsticks would end up colliding into each other’s.
Um, yeah, so our chopsticks basically collided, and I immediately jerked my hand back, embarrassed. David had quickly pulled his arm back, too.
“Sorry!” both David and I said right at the same time.
Again, this had been completely COINCIDENCE.
And, OH MY GOSH, was I blushing…!!!!!!!

“Um, you go first,” David said, with a smile. He was simply being a gentleman. Stupidly, I didn’t realize that at first.
“Oh, no – it’s OK! You first!” I practically squeaked, still embarrassed.
David didn’t budge.
I think it must’ve been drilled into him or something, that even when he was in a foreign country and unsure of how differently things were done there, he still clung with a somewhat-like death grip to the principle that it was always ‘ladies first’.

In other words – he wasn’t going to take anything until I had.
Given any other time, I would’ve been so, so impressed… to the point of drooling.
Now, I was wishing so badly that I could just kick myself in the butt for making things freaking AWKWARD again, while clumsily piling spinach onto my plate.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, but my voice was so low I doubted David heard me.
Anyway, a short while after the spinach-chopstick fiasco, David finally reached out to pick from the plate of chicken. I sort of started to notice he was having trouble trying to pick them up with the chopsticks – he was picking at the plate a little longer than expected – and then I saw that everytime he tried to pick up a piece, he couldn’t get a good grip on it and the chicken would slip out from between his chopsticks and fall back onto the plate.

But it wasn’t the fact that David was struggling with the pieces of chicken that were too small for him to pick up that had me thinking this was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen and at the same time made me feel really bad for him – no, it was that look of COMPLETE AND UTTER CONCENTRATION on his face as he kept trying to pick them up.
Like he was just determined to get them onto his plate before lunch was over.
I obviously wanted to help him out, but I wasn’t sure how.
Teaching him how to use the chopsticks right – which meant having to hold his hand and guide his fingers – was practically OUT OF THE QUESTION. NO WAY WAS I GONNA TOUCH HIS HAND.

Maybe I could just offer to put the chicken on his plate for him…
But just as I was thinking of that, David gave up.

Well, I thought he’d given up. He sat back, and just stared at the chicken.
I decided not to ask him if he needed help, because I was afraid he might feel embarrassed about it or because he probably didn’t want the chicken anymore.

So I turned away… and was about to join in on a conversation that Yuen-See and the woman in red were having about how some people licked the seal on envelopes and whether that was disgusting or not (huh, not sure how that topic had come up) when – and it happened in a flash, I barely caught it out of the corner of my eye – David suddenly attacked the plate of chicken, using his chopsticks and fingers this time, and in less than three seconds he had managed to scramble a handful of pieces onto his plate.

I froze at first, dumbfounded.
And then I had to look away so David wouldn’t see that BIG, DORKY GRIN on my face again.
OH… MY… GOSH.

And just when I thought everything would go back to normal – David nibbled a little on a piece of chicken, and then put the thing back down… and made a face.
Oh my gosh, David had actually MADE A FACE.

The woman in red caught his expression, too.

“Too spicy?” she asked.
“No,” David shook his head, and then put his chopsticks down. “I don’t really like the skin… sorry,”
“Oh, you mean the batter? Well, fried food is always cooked like that…”
David smiled sadly, “Yeah, I know…”

New fact #7: David doesn’t like the crispy outer layer that comes with fried food

Further proof of that fact: I watched, eyes wide, as David started using his hands again – this time to actually peel off the crispy layer surrounding the meat. He had to do it slowly because the skin was kind of sticky, too.

I was watching David Archuleta eat with his hands.
Oh… my… GOSH. SERIOUSLY.
And he looked so… unbelievably cute doing it, too.

The pads of his fingers became deep orange from the spices, and were covered in tiny crumbs. And after he’d finally peeled off all the skin, David popped the meat lightly into his mouth, like it was a walnut instead. As he chewed, he picked up the second piece of chicken on his plate and started peeling the skin off ALL OVER AGAIN.

I got used to it after a while, though. Normal conversation continued – now Yuen-See and the woman were discussing musical artists they’d tried to get to come to Malaysia before.
“… we wanted to bring Jordin Sparks to Asia, too, but her management wouldn’t let us,” the woman was saying. “Her songs were such big hits on the local charts last year – she would’ve gotten a really good response…”

Then David – his whole face lighting up – jumped in, “Oh, I love Jordin Sparks! And I really like her song, One Step At A Time…!”
And right there, at the table, David started singing, “…take one step at a time… there’s no need to rush…!”

You know where you have this habit that when a person starts singing randomly, you tend to, like, subconsciously join in…? Yeah, well, I’m one of those people who have that habit.

“…it’s like learning to fly… or falling in love…” I sang softly.

Then I noticed David had gone all quiet. And he was staring pointedly at his food.

Uh oh.
Dang it.
Had I sounded… bad?
Yeah. I had.
Shut up.

“Yeah, One Step At A Time is quite popular here,” the woman went on. “But No Air was an even bigger hit; it had loads of airplay, and it dominated the charts for weeks…”
Again – “Oh, I love No Air, too!” David gushed.

“It was also thanks to No Air that Chris Brown became popular in Asia,” the woman continued. “We wanted him here, too – initially – but the government here and their rules about censorship…”

I felt a bit uneasy, because discussing Malaysian-Singaporean politics with David Archuleta didn’t exactly sound like a good idea. Luckily, the woman didn’t touch anymore on that.
“… they barely played Chris Brown’s songs – it was only after his collaboration with Jordin Sparks that he became real popular, and people started looking up his other hits, like Running and With You… it was No Air that literally put him on the map, finally made him popular in Asia… and then – !”

I stared – and so did David – when the woman actually slapped her hand onto the table, “He had to go and beat Rihanna up,” she muttered, looking pretty pissed off.

“Hmmm…” David said real quietly, and he was wearing this smooth expression that didn’t reach his eyes.

It was kind of obvious to me (because my obsessive mind just had to pay so much attention) that David was upset, but he was trying not to show it.

New fact #8: David really doesn’t like it when people badmouth others (so please don’t criticize anybody in front of him, EVER)

“Totally ruined his reputation…” the woman continued to mutter.
I knew I had to do something.
So I cleared my throat. Loudly.

The woman stared at me, then she got my message and stopped talking.
“Hey, let me try one of that!” Ray suddenly called down the table.
I’d almost forgotten he was there, again. He’d had his mouth full most of the time, so he barely joined in on the conversations at the table, and a lot of times he was answering messages on his phone, too.

Ray was pointing to the two last custard buns in the middle of the table.
Someone passed one of the buns to him.

I watched, waiting for Ray to get around to eating the bun, because I wanted to warn him that the custard could easily spill out of it. David had gone back to peeling the skin off the chicken with his fingers.
OK, so I didn’t realize Ray eats that fast and takes really huge bites – I hadn’t expected him to eat the bun so quickly; not to mention, the first bite was real huge.
“Whoa! Careful!” I exclaimed in alarm. I was a second too late.
I was vaguely aware of David jumping in his seat – I’d yelled kinda loudly – and whipping his head around quickly to see what had alarmed me.
The custard spilled out of the bun and all over Ray’s jeans.
“Oh, oops there…” Ray said, and then he was looking around for something to wipe up the mess.
Someone managed to pass him a packet of Kleenex.
“Ah, thanks…”
“Sorry!” I told Ray, feeling guilty. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were gonna eat it that fast – I would’ve said something sooner…”
“Don’t worry, it’s all fine,”

David then looked warily at the last custard bun.
And later, when Yuen-See asked David if he wanted to try it, his eyes went wide and he immediately shook his head and said, “No thanks!”
I think he was worried he’d have custard stains all over the front of his jeans too.

So Yuen-See made me eat the last custard bun, because I pretty much hadn’t eaten anything else. At least this time David didn’t look at me while I ate. Whew.

David finally finished his chicken, then excused himself to go wash his hands again.
Seong, again, got up and followed him out of the restaurant.

While David was gone, Ray tried one of the pork broth dumplings. The dumpling almost fell apart when he picked it up, and – heeding our advice – he quickly stuffed the whole thing into his mouth, just as the soup was about to spill out.

I actually laughed in relief.

Then David came back. He sat down next to me again, and I immediately noticed the change. OK, I don’t know – I felt some sort of, like, happiness when David was there. And whenever he left, his absence actually left this weird, bitter aftertaste… but one that I wasn’t aware about until it’d been removed.

OK, never mind, I’m not making any sense here…

“Mm, David, you should really try that,” Ray recommended, pointing to the dumplings.
“Oh, OK…” David said, slowly.
And then he did it again – he just sat there and stared at the dumpling.
Like he’d done with the chicken.

I reacted instantly this time, “Do you want me to help you?”
David turned and stared blankly at me.

Yuen-See was already passing the bowl to me.

“C’mon, I’ll help,” I murmured, picking up my chopsticks.

David finally stopped staring, grabbing his chopsticks and reaching out to take the dumpling as I was transferring it to his plate. My mind was fixed solely on making sure the dumpling did not fall apart, and pretty much nothing else, so it was only after I’d finished helping David place the dumpling onto his plate that I started to realize…

Americans don’t help each other like that, do they? I mean, sure, if you’re a mom trying to feed your kid, or if you just happen to know that someone well enough, but other than that…
No wonder David had stared blankly at me like that.
OH… HECK.

David then started nibbling on the top of the dumpling.
Here we go again.

“You should put the whole thing in your mouth,” I told him quickly.
Either David hadn’t heard me, or didn’t like stuffing his mouth full, or had just chosen to ignore me.

The skin tore, the dumpling fell apart, and the soup spilled out… all over his plate, at least.
“Oooohhh…!” everyone else – who’d been watching David – chorused, teasingly. “Ooooops…!”
I just sighed tiredly.

His cheeks were growing pink, like he was… embarrassed…
Oh my gosh, was David feeling embarrassed?!
I tried comforting him.

“Well… it’s OK, you can still… drink the soup…” I told him, and then I wanted to die again because that had just sounded so lame. And, of course, David stared blankly at me again.

Well, one thing I was kind of happy about later was that I got to indirectly show David that there were wet wipes in the black packets – I was the first one, I think, to tear open the packet and use the wipes. David saw me, and I think I saw a surprised look on his face before he opened his own packet.

OK, this piece of information is just pointless… why the heck am I even writing it down…?

How about a funny fact: when the waiter came to collect the empty plates, David looked directly at him – he does that with everyone, seriously – and politely told him ‘thank you’.
And the waiter sort of froze for a second, and the look on his face… oh my gosh, the waiter was starstruck.

The waiter.

And as the waiter walked away, I heard the plates rattling, because his hands were trembling.

Wow. Like, wow.

Well, David Archuleta has that ‘effect’ on everyone he meets, so I guessed I shouldn’t have been so surprised…

A while later, dessert came for David.
Honeydew and watermelon. There were ice shavings in the middle as decoration.
Again, I don’t know why, but everyone else wanted to tease him.

“Aw, I like watermelon!” David said, that brilliant smile on his face again.
The whole room was bright, I tell you…

“Oh, you can’t eat what’s on the side – it’s just for decoration,” the woman in yellow told him quickly, indicating the fruit. She was joking, of course. “You eat what’s in the middle.”
David, unfortunately, thought she was being serious.

His face fell, and then he said in a really timid voice, “Oh… but I don’t like ice.”
AAWW..

New fact #9: David doesn’t like ice.

And, oh my gosh, he thought he actually had to eat the ice shavings?!
“Yeah, so don’t touch the fruit,” the woman in red added, while the one in yellow ducked behind her to hide her giggles.

Ray was busy with his phone again.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, then told David reassuringly, “They’re just pulling your leg.”
Both women weren’t bothering to hide their laughter now.
David’s face was still unsure.

I just sort of knew he wouldn’t touch the fruit even if I reassured him over and over again that he could eat it, so I picked up one of the extra dessert forks and did the only thing that would make him convinced it was OK to eat the fruit – I ate a slice of his honeydew.
And then David finally picked up his fork and started eating the watermelon.
It was stupid and illogical, but I was worried he might stop eating if I did, so I just continued to take from his plate… to keep him eating.

And we basically kind of ended up sharing dessert.

Something occurred to David later on, and – because he was chewing on watermelon at the moment – he had to make signals at Ray to tell him what he wanted.
“Oh! Alright…” and then Ray pulled out a camera. David was still busy swallowing, so Ray explained to me on his behalf, “You don’t mind if we take a picture of the two you right now? David likes to keep photos of the fans he meets for memory…”

“Oh,” I said, through a mouthful of honeydew. “OK… wait, now?” I gasped, as Ray handed the camera to the woman in red, because she sat right across from me and David.

And the woman was already focusing the lens, “OK – smile!”

I had two huge slices of honeydew in my mouth.
David – no fair! – had already swallowed the watermelon he’d been eating just now.
So I smiled, with my mouth clamped shut and my cheeks bloated, as the picture was taken.

[I think some of you have seen that picture already – I look weird, right?]

A few minutes later, Ray turned to David, “So, you wanted to go shopping, right?”

David’s head flew up, and he grinned excitedly, “Yeah! Can we go now?”
Ray looked around, “I think everyone’s done – yeah, alright, we can go now.”

And David was the first to get to his feet.
OK, so I guessed he really wanted to go shopping…

But David didn’t move until I’d stood up – I was fumbling with the shoulder strap of my bag as I got up, so I couldn’t be sure, but I think he actually moved my chair back for me, too – and then he was walking after Ray, and I was following after the two of them…