Part 3

I want to apologize about a few things first.
I am sooo sorry about the extremely huge delay. I was waiting for DiGi to upload something on their site; I needed it for Part 3. But after TWO MONTHS I’m really tired and I’ve pretty much given up waiting; I’m shoving all that stuff to Part 4 (hopefully, DiGi would’ve uploaded that clip by then).


Another huge apology to those who’ll find this part of my recap extremely boring… I admit, there are some things here that are pretty pointless and redundant, but… *sigh*… I’m just writing what I remember…


Last, but certainly not least, to David – I AM SORRY FOR BEING THE CREEPIEST FAN ENCOUNTER YOU’VE EVER HAD. IF YOU’VE ALREADY FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT ME (I’m sure you have), THEN I’M GLAD, I CAN BREATHE MUCH EASIER.


Thank you SO MUCH for letting me share with you guys.
Happy reading!



OF SHOPPING, COMMERCIALS AND AAM
… and I noticed we were moving kind of quickly through the restaurant.
I’m kind of a klutz, so – especially in crowded places with narrow spaces, like classrooms or restaurants – I have to move slowly and really carefully or I’d crash into something or somebody, and it’d be really embarrassing.
And David was walking so fast.
I wanted to keep up with him but when I bumped into this little girl’s chair, and the family at that table stared at me, I had no choice but to slow down.
I fell about ten feet back, and I actually panicked because I was afraid that David and Ray would walk off without me.
But then I made it to the front of the restaurant, and saw David standing there at the entrance, waiting patiently for me, gentle smile and all.
Um, OK, can I die now?!

No sooner that I had caught up with him and Ray that we were moving again, and this time twice as fast, through the mall.
The mall was quite empty today – it was a weekday, after all, and also past office lunch hour – so it was easy for us to walk around.
I was wondering why we were walking so fast – I was almost jogging to keep up with David’s pace – and then I noticed that David was kind of keeping his head down, too, while we walked.
I immediately remembered David saying, in his interviews, that he had to move really quickly, and even wear disguises sometimes, whenever he was in the mall, to avoid being spotted.
Oh, OK.

It was kind of unfortunate, though, because at the rate we were going, David could only have two seconds maximum to glance at a store, and – since there were stores on the left and right – David was constantly whipping his head back and forth to look at them, too.
Doesn’t he get exhausted doing that? I wondered. Poor guy…
And then I thought, heck, it should be ME that I’m worrying about!
What if I got too exhausted trying to keep up with him? What if I got too tired, and got left behind? That would be embarrassing, of course.
Oh, but then again, it’d be ten times more mortifying if David were to realize I wasn’t fit enough (a.k.a fat and totally non-athletic here) to keep up with him and – being his sweet, caring self – he’d actually slow down for me.
So, yeah, getting left behind was OK…
“… how about that one?” I managed to catch Ray saying to David. He was pointing at a clothes store just up ahead.
David nodded quickly, and he detoured so suddenly towards the store Ray had pointed out, I nearly tripped over myself trying to follow him. I was SO disoriented.

Gaaaah…

I didn’t even get to catch the name of the store.
David strode real quickly inside – making the salesgirl behind the counter go into shock at the sight of him (she completely froze in the middle of doing her nails, and I totally couldn’t blame her) – and he attacked the closest aisle at once.
He flipped through the clothes really, really fast, too.
I was pretty surprised; I never knew David could actually move so quickly (he always seemed so relaxed yet careful with the things he did), and yet here he was hurrying – as in, really hurrying – through the line of shirts that I wondered how he was even able to look properly at the designs.
By the time the salesgirl had recovered, David was already turning around and heading back out the store. And we’d only been in there for… two minutes, or less.
“Nothing?” Ray asked, as David approached him at the doorway.
David shook his head, smiling apologetically.
“OK, then…”

And then we were walking real fast again.
I managed to look back at that store for half a second – the salesgirl stood at the front of the store, gaping after David. Gosh…
We passed a lot more stores, though nothing caught David’s eye for a while.
Some of the other shoppers in the mall who walked past us in the opposite direction – especially the women, ha ha – did double takes when they caught sight of David.
It was kind of puzzling at first; those women stared at him, but they didn’t look, like, surprised or anything to see a celebrity, and they just continued walking the other way after a while.
And then I finally figured out that the female shoppers that passed us were not staring at David because they recognized him, but because he was naturally good-looking and they were all ogling him on reflex.

And David still doesn’t think he’s good-looking?????!!! Ai yai yai…

Ray pointed out another store to him after a while, but when David went into that store, he barely even glanced around before turning right around on the spot and heading back out again.
OK, is it just me or does David have some sort of hidden superpower that he can see a whole bunch of things at once and process the images in his brain ten times faster than a normal human can…?
Plus, I had to make a new rule for myself that afternoon, which was ‘KEEP A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST TEN FEET BETWEEN YOU AND DAVID WHILE SHOPPING’, because when he spun right around and strode back out with the speed of an F1 racecar, I was still walking forward… and I ALMOST CRASHED RIGHT INTO HIM.

New Fact #10: David has extremely sharp reflexes

As in, before I could even think “gah!”, David real quickly and really smoothly sidestepped around me, and when I whipped my head around, he was already walking off again.
For a second, I was like, ‘… huh? What just happened?’
And then I felt like a total idiot again as I quickly spun around and broke into a jog to catch up with him.
We continued walking for another two minutes or so.
And then, David’s head suddenly lifted, and his eyes became really adorably bright, and he pointed to a store in the distance that had caught his attention, “Can we go there?”
“Yeah, alright,” Ray said, nodding in approval.
As we approached the shop, David started randomly singing, “I wanna go there…!”
Of course, I automatically started smiling.
It was just a phrase, and AT THE TIME, I thought it was just a tune he’d spontaneously made up, because I hadn’t heard of it before (AT THE TIME), and I also thought it was quite an awesome tune and could actually become an amazing song…

At the speed we were moving, I think I only managed to catch a part of the name of the shop – ‘TOUCH’ – before Ray ushered the both of us inside.
And, like at the first store, David immediately jumped at the clothes, attacking the very first rack in the left corner of the store. There were only jackets hanging from that rack, and they were of dark, warm colors – muddy brown, olive grey, dark orange, etc.
But in less than twenty seconds, David said, “Oh, I like this one!” and he was smiling and extracting this dark orange, plaid jacket from the rack. His eyes went even wider, in delight, as he looked the jacket over more thoroughly, and he added, “It’s got a hood! Cool! I like that…!”
New fact #11: David likes hoodies in particular
There were two shop assistants this time – a man and a young woman. And the salesgirl had dashed out from behind the counter the moment we’d come in, and was now standing right next to David, and her eyes were, like, really really big.
The male shop assistant, meanwhile, had just started grabbing a whole pile of hooded jackets and was holding them all out to David.
Wow, talk about, um, good customer service.
There was a mirror on the wall right next to the rack.
So, David went in front of the mirror – the salesgirl automatically moved with him, like an invisible chain was suddenly attached to the both of them, it was kind of funny – and eagerly tried on the orange hoodie.
He was smiling softly to himself as he adjusted the sleeves of the jacket, but when he looked fully at his reflection, his expression became a little pinched for a few seconds… almost like he was wishing he didn’t have to look at himself in the mirror to see if the jacket fit him or not… and I instantly remembered David saying in his interviews that he didn’t like looking at himself… that he thought he looked weird…
Seriously, WHAT?
By the way, when he put on the jacket, the first thing I thought was “Oh my gosh, AWWWW!” because the jacket was kind of big on him, and the material was one of those soft, lightweight, squishy types (sorry for the lame description, but I am so not a fashion pro, and I can’t think of anything else, ahehe), and David just looked really, really, really HUGGABLE wearing it.
You know, like how Paula Abdul kept saying, “I wanna SQUISH you…!”
And then he ducked his head, reached behind him and briefly pulled the hood up.
David in a dark orange, checkered hood.
OH MY GOSH.
The inside of the jacket was black, by the way, so altogether the hood gave David this mysterious, haunting look. But, oh yeah, it was SO hot.
But just HOW the heck did he… do that?! How did he go from oh-so-huggable one moment to dark and mysterious (and maybe even a little alluring; ok, very alluring) the next?!
Probably the same way he turns into this other person that can jump wildly around on stage and do killer head-whips while performing Zero Gravity.
And I don’t know how he does that either.
Then David snagged the hood back down, and – poof! – he was all smiles and adorableness again as he straightened back out his slightly flattened hair.
I found myself actually letting out a puff of disappointment when David took off the jacket. I just really liked seeing him wearing it! Oh well…
“How is it? Is it too big? Wanna get a smaller size?” Ray was asking David.
“No, I like it,” David replied, checking the price tag. I didn’t manage to see how much the hoodie cost, but David seemed OK with the price. He nodded at Ray – and let me just say that it is SO CUTE when he nods; he does it, like, real quickly, and his face is all quiet and smiley.
“Alright, we’ll take it,” Ray said to the male shop assistant.
Immediately, the salesgirl’s hands shot out, and the look on her face was pure ecstasy as she took the jacket from David. And when David looked away, she… well, the way she held the jacket for him was just a little too… weird, I guess, for me; she was sort of hugging it to her chest.
OK, never mind, maybe that was normal, and my mind was just blowing things sadly out of proportion…
Moving on…
The male shop assistant kind of urged David to try all the other jackets he was holding, and even when David politely told him, “No, thanks,”, the man was still grabbing more jackets from the aisle and trying to pass them all to David.
It was only when David told him that he wanted to check out the shirts now that the shop assistant instantly stood back and let him pass.
And the salesgirl trailed after David, like there really was something tying the two of them together…
And David was either really unaware of that or just politely ignoring the way she was acting around him. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter; I was sure he’d been politely trying to ignore my obsessive-fan-creepiness since morning.
I really didn’t want to be like the salesgirl right then, so when David moved to the back of the store, I chose not to follow after him. I just lingered at the front of the store, watching him as discretely as I could.
David started flipping real quickly through the shirts – all of them dark colors, though there was an occasional brighter hue – and while he was at it, he suddenly started singing again, “I thought soooo…!”
AT THE TIME, I thought, Hey, that’s another really nice tune! Did he make that up, too? Or is it from a song?
But I couldn’t think of any song that had that particular melody that David had just sung, and it kind of frustrated me.
I had absolutely no idea then that I’d probably just become the first fan to get a sneak preview of David Archuleta’s duet with Miley Cyrus.
[And I was wondering ‘WHY does the song sound so familiar in some parts?!’ when I first heard ‘I Wanna Know You’… it was only, like, two weeks later that I remembered and I was, like, OH MY GOSH! LOL!]
AT THE TIME, still frustrated that I couldn’t figure out where that tune David had sung came from, I tried to distract myself.
Ray was standing there.
Without thinking twice, I asked him – or I think I asked him, because the subconscious part of my mind suddenly decided to take over right then and what happened is still a little fuzzy to me, and because we were in a clothes store, and the focus of basically everyone’s attention at the moment was clothes – “Who picks out David’s wardrobe for him? Like, when he’s onstage and stuff… does someone, like, help him choose an outfit?”
I thought he had a personal stylist or something.
Ray looked at me, all calm and friendly, and he replied, “Well, David has a friend, back in the states, and she’s a designer – she helps him out, gives him tips on what to wear… he’ll call her up and all that…”
I blinked, “Oh… wow,”
New fact #12: David’s friend, who’s a designer, picks out his outfits for him
And I think the friend’s name is Dawn. I think.
David was still going through the really long line of shirts.
And it was getting pretty… um, disturbing (sorry, can’t think of any other way to describe it) the way the salesgirl moved around him. She was almost like a magnet. Every movement David made – like, he’d maybe shift a little to the right, or he’d lean to the side so to get a better look at a particular shirt’s design – and the salesgirl would move with him, automatically repositioning herself around him each time.
Oh, GOSH, I hoped I didn’t do that with him.
If I did… GAH!!!
I’d have nowhere to hide my face.
I tried to distract myself again.
And, so, yeah, I turned to Ray again. And I kind of ended up talking to him about the weather.
I got Ray to explain to me about the different climate zones over in the states, and I actually discovered a new thing or two about him in the process.
New fact #13: Ray is from Florida, and just recently he bought a house in California
Hey, he and David are from the same place originally! Maybe that’s why they get along so well… or something.
OK, never mind…
I looked back in time to see David hoisting around half a dozen shirts from the rack.
The male shop assistant readily pointed out to David where the changing rooms were, and offered to hold the extra shirts while David went to change.
Again, I could’ve just been seeing things, but the salesgirl seemed to be scowling at her work partner.
A few seconds after David had closed the dressing room door, I felt my phone vibrate.
I pulled out my phone and saw that I’d just gotten a message.
From Gowri!
How’s it going? she asked.
And she also told me that she was watching Merlin on YouTube back in our hotel room to pass the time.
I was busy texting her back when I heard the door to the dressing room creak open. I looked up as David emerged, hair slightly tousled, in a pale orange shirt that had the words TOUCH on the front in rock-stylish, jagged letters.
Ray headed over to David for a closer look.
I stayed where I was. Stupid, but… yeah.
David strode over to the nearest mirror to check out the shirt.
“Hmm… I like this one,” he said, and then he made another one of those tiny, adorable laughs of his before adding on, “It’s orange!”
One of his favorite colors, yeah…
“So, we’ll take that one, too?” Ray asked.
David thought for a while, then he nodded, “Yeah!”
The next shirt he tried on was dark brown (I think it’s the same one he wore when he was having those meet-and-greet sessions the next day, the morning of the showcase), and he liked that one too. Then he tried on this really dark purple one with shiny, black designs on it, and, OH GOSH, this shirt was tight.
Not tight as in it was too small; the hem of the shirt actually reached all the way to his thigh, but the upper part of the shirt was stretched tight over David’s chest, and OOOH GOSH, did he look BUFF.
… I can’t believe I just wrote that, but it was what I was thinking at the time (NO JOKE), and I try not to change anything, so…
And David liked that shirt, too.
He also tried on another purple shirt – but with white graffiti on the front, this time – which he was also OK with.
At one point he tried on this figure-hugging, dark olive, buttoned-up shirt.
“I don’t really like the sleeves,” David said, tugging nervously at the short, tight sleeves that were showing off a lot of arm muscle.
Well, I thought the shirt was nice.
“I think it looks OK,” Ray told David simply, folding his arms and shrugging.
“Ummm… I don’t know…” David mumbled, still nervous about how short the sleeves were.
“You look good,” I offered, truthfully.
David glanced at me for a second, then he turned back to the mirror and just stared at it silently, trying to decide.
OK, had the way I’d complimented him sounded really weird or something? Ugh…
In the end, David decided to buy that shirt, along with the pale orange one, the dark brown one and the two purples ones.
After he’d changed back into his own shirt, he moved to the girls’ section of the store. I knew he was looking for things for his sisters.
I was watching David flip hurriedly through the rack of girls’ clothing when I heard Ray mutter, “These look really good. I always look for a new one. How much do they cost…?”
I glanced over my shoulder momentarily. Ray and the male shop assistant were standing over a display of big-sized watches and leather wallets.
New fact #14: Ray likes shopping for either watches or wallets… or both.
Meanwhile… nothing was catching David’s interest.
The selection of girls’ clothing was pretty limited, anyway – as if David was going to get his sisters those seriously short, denim miniskirts that took up more than a quarter of the line.
The way he totally ignored – as in, wouldn’t even look – at those skirts had me shaking my head and smiling like a HUGE DORK again.
“There are new arrivals here,” the male shop assistant said as he walked past me towards the right-hand corner of the store.
Unfortunately, David didn’t hear him.
“Um… David?” I called, and I felt really nervous all over again because I just wasn’t used to calling him by name, yet.
David paused and looked around at me, eyes bright and curious.
Why does he have to be so cute?
“There are some new arrivals here,” I repeated, pointing.
David’s face lit up, and then he was heading in my direction… really fast.
But I’d already gotten used to the speed at which David moved now, so I just quickly took one huge step to the side.
And David went zooming past me, smiling excitedly and singing randomly again, “That’s not my name! That’s not my name…!”
I automatically started giggling.
The Ting Tings?
I didn’t know he listened to them, ha ha. Wonder how that song got into his head…???
Oh, and yay, we didn’t crash into each other!
SUCCESS!!!
David was still going through the sets of new arrivals when Yuen-See and that woman in red from the restaurant stepped into the scene; they immediately went over to Ray and whispered something to him. I thought I heard “… behind schedule…” somewhere in there.
Ray nodded, whispered something back, then called out, “David,”
David looked up.
Ray tapped his watch then jerked his head in the direction of the store’s entrance, signaling to David that shopping time was up and they had to leave now.
“Oh, OK,” David said, smiling softly as he strode back towards the front of the store. “I wanna come back here, though! This place has, like, everything I need.”
“Yeah, OK, we’ll come back. Later,” Ray assured him. He then turned to the shop assistants. “We’ll be paying for the clothes now…”
While Ray and David went up to the counter, I hovered at the doorway. Glancing out, I saw the pretty woman in yellow sitting nearby; a few shops down, Seong was pacing with a phone in his hand.
It struck me as peculiar. What were they doing? If they were waiting for David or something, why were they waiting so far away from the shop?
Ray finished paying for the clothes.
The salesgirl took great care in folding and slipping David’s new clothes into the shopping bags.
And then, for some reason, when David reached out to take the bags from her, she quickly held them away. She whispered something to the male shop assistant.
The man stared at her for a second, then turned to a very puzzled David and said, “Uh, it’s… our custom to escort you on your way out.”
“Oh! Oh, OK…” David replied, smiling again.
[Anyone want to go to that TOUCH store and check if that custom applies to all customers? XP]
Ray shrugged, then turned and made his way towards the front of the store again. David automatically followed after him. And the salesgirl rushed out from behind the counter with all the shopping bags, falling into step with David and joyfully walking side-by-side with him until they’d reached the doorway.
“Thanks!” David said, grinning at the salesgirl as he reached out for the shopping bags.
The salesgirl giggled.
Ray offered to carry the shopping bags; David let him, except for the bag that had the hoodie in it. He really wanted to hold on to that jacket.
We thanked the shop assistants one more time, then started walking real fast through the mall again.
Yuen-See and the woman in red walked with us this time.
Looking around, I saw that Seong was following us – at a distance of at least fifty feet, and he was also pointedly avoiding eye contact with us. The woman in yellow trailed even further behind.
It was strange… at first.
And so we were walking… and walking… and walking…
David continued to look hurriedly at all the stores we passed…
Ray was talking with Yuen-See…
Then, quite suddenly –


“OH MY GAAAAAAAAAWSHHH!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKK…!!!!”


Squealing.
Really loud, really excited squealing.
David’s head whipped around, his eyes widening.
The woman in red made a low sound of annoyance.
It took me a second to pinpoint the source of the squealing.
Three teenage girls – all tall, all slender, all pretty and dressed up – had completely halted in their tracks and were gawking in amazement as DAVID ARCHULETA and his entourage headed their way.
To my utter dismay, the second David and Ray took notice of those squealing teens, they started walking even faster. And my fast walk literally became a light run as I fought to keep up with them.


Oh my GOSH, we were running away from fans. It was just crazy!


Because:

#1 – I was not an athletic person here.
#2 – Never in my life had I ever expected to be running in a mall for that reason! And…
#3 – I was running away from MY OWN PEOPLE (the fans; I felt like a traitor or something…)
I wasn’t able to look back to see whether those squealing teens followed after us or not.
We were moving too fast for me to.
And we moved at that alarming speed constantly for another five minutes – I was absolutely sure my leg muscles were going to hurt like heck the next day – until, finally, the entrance to the hotel loomed into view (did I mention the hotel and the mall are right next door to each other, that all you need is to go through a doorway to get from one building to the other? OK, well now, you guys know… moving on…).
David slowed down considerably, and I almost exhaled loudly in relief. My heart was pounding loudly in my ears from the run and the back of my neck had started to sweat again. Sheesh, I was that wiped out.
Next time, David’s people should really put it in the Terms & Conditions that the fan who wishes to spend the day shopping with David must be an athletic person, more specifically a fast runner.
Otherwise they’d end up like me. Dang it.


It was so unexpected, I was seriously surprised, when David suddenly looked around at me and asked in a very conversational manner, “So, where do you like to shop?”
Definitely had not seen that one coming.
Totally unprepared – and my mouth was working faster than my brain, again – I replied him honestly, “Um, actually, I don’t really like to shop.”
“Oh,” David said.
And then it just got really, REALLY AWKWARD between us.
There was this look on David’s face like he was thinking seriously about something, and I was trying real hard not to freak out; I was extremely worried that he was actually thinking about how much of a weirdo I was, this girl who didn’t like shopping…
Ugh, dang it!
Well, I did like to shop, but for books, not clothes… and since I was kind of sure David meant clothes when it came to shopping…
I tried to think of something else to say. And quickly. My brain was practically screaming, DAMAGE CONTROL! DAMAGE CONTROL!
I added after a few seconds, “But… it’s mostly either Body Glove or Billabong,”
Which was true. I mostly bought from those stores.
David nodded, a hint of a smile returning to his face. He still didn’t say anything, though.
The awkward silence was reaching an unbearable level.
I was seriously desperate for something to say; I so did not want to leave the conversation hanging awkwardly like that. “Um… I, uh, heard that you like to shop at Buckle?”
Oh gosh.
I FAIL.
SERIOUSLY.
David’s face lit up at the mention of his favorite store. “Yeah, yeah!” he replied, enthusiastically.


New Fact #15: When David goes “Yeeaaah!”, it means he’s happy you get what he’s thinking; when David goes, “Yeah, yeah!”, it means he’s interested in what you’ve just said.


So… I guess do not fail?
Yet.


And then I noticed that there were other people joining us.
Seong and the woman in yellow had caught up to us. And so had some big-sized men clad entirely in black.
They were closing in on us, almost like they were forming a human barricade…
And then my jaw dropped when I saw that woman in yellow retrieve a walkie-talkie from under her blouse. Now I knew why she was with us – she was a security guard in disguise!
She and Seong, and maybe those other men surrounding us now, I guessed, had been walking at separate distances all around us during the shopping trip in order to keep a better lookout for David, as well as not draw too much attention because one would think something was up if a really huge group comprising of bulky men carrying walkie-talkies were to walk by…
Wow.
That was just… cool.
I’d never had an actual security team looking out for me before.
OK, they were looking out for DAVID, not me, they wouldn’t care if I got shot in the head right there or something, but – yeah, you get the point.
“Is it pouring?” Ray asked, looking out the front glass doors of the lobby.
We all looked.
Yup, it was raining pretty heavily.
It must’ve started raining while we were shopping, I guessed.
So we were heading towards the elevators… when more security guards suddenly rushed out of nowhere and blocked our path.
Huh? What… YIKES!
They’d stopped us so suddenly, and David was standing just slightly in front of me, that I almost CRASHED into him again.
“Tak boleh! Tak boleh!” the guards said quickly to Yuen-See. “Orang tu dah sampai…”
[English translation: “Negative! Negative!” … “Those people are already here…”]
“Oh,” Yuen-See turned to Ray, “the AAM people are here…”
Did I just hear… AAM?????


ARCHULETA AVENUE MALAYSIA?


“S’karang kita buat apa?” Yuen-See asked the security guard. [“So what do we do now?”]
“Boleh ambik lif bomba?” the guard replied. [“Take the emergency elevator?”]
“’K lah,” Yuen-See replied. She turned to Ray again, “We’re taking another elevator.”
So we took a detour, towards the closest emergency EXIT doors, security guards on alert all around us, voices crackling out of dozens of walkie-talkies.
Only after we were behind those doors and waiting for the emergency elevator to arrive, that David asked Ray curiously, “What’s going on?”
“You know those people from the airport? Archuleta Avenue Malaysia?” Ray said.
“Oh!” David said excitedly, his whole face lighting up, at the time I gasped, “Oh my gosh, I LOVE AAM!”
David looked right at me, his face just glowing with anticipation, “Yeaaah!”


New fact #16: David loves AAM (this is for you guys!!! 8DDD)


“I’m a member of that site,” I continued enthusiastically.
David’s grin went impossibly even wider, “Oh, really?”
My heart was singing.
And not only because David was flashing that huge, bright smile of his at me and making my insides melt – although, yeah, that could be the main reason why – but because AAM was here!
AAM, the Malaysian Arch Angels!
Ultimate fans of David Archuleta!
FINALLY, I wasn’t alone!!!
Seriously, the whole morning – and afternoon – I felt like such a freak because I was the only Arch Angel in the entourage. But now other fans – my people!!! – were here!!!
YAAAY!!!


Gosh, I couldn’t wait to meet them and go into crazy fan mode (full-force) with them!!!!!
Oh, but wait, were we taking the emergency elevator because of them? What? Whyyyy? It’s not as if they’re all gonna jump David when they see him, are they? C’mon!
Ugh, never mind, we’d meet them soon enough…
The elevators door slid open with a soft ‘ding!’
Everyone looked around at David – except me; I’d lowered my eyes to the floor (it’s a weird habit, can’t explain it, sorry) – waiting for him to go in first.
… he didn’t.
He just stood there, like he was waiting for something else to happen first.
Confused, I glanced up at him.
… and I saw that he was looking back at me, expectantly.
Again, I was thinking bewilderedly, huh? What…?
What’s going on? What did I do…?
Then it hit me.
Oh.
David was being the perfect gentleman again and waiting for me to go in first.
Duh!
My face was growing hot from embarrassment as I hurried into the elevator. David followed in after that, along with Ray, Yuen-See, and the rest of the entourage.
One security guard accompanied us; the rest all remained outside.
All was silent as the doors slid close and the elevator headed up to the twelfth floor.
And then, as were passing the seventh floor, David suddenly burst out singing again, “Take one step at a time…!”
Everyone else erupted into laughter.
“Wow, we have elevator music!” the woman in yellow teased.
David just smiled sheepishly.


We eventually reached our designated floor.
Just before the doors opened, the security guard whispered to Yuen-See, “Kena lekas sikit…”
We had to move fast again, he meant.
Yuen-See whispered to Ray, who nodded.
The doors slid open.
I was prepared this time as we spilled out of the elevator, and moved real quickly through the foyer towards the same lounge we’d spent the morning in.
I caught sight of a group of people in extremely familiar black shirts standing nearby.
AAM!!! They were here!!!
I was so relieved.
And then the AAM group saw DAVID ARCHULETA, and they started squealing.
Hey, no fair, not yet! I wanna squeal with you guys, too! I didn’t get any chance at all today! C’mon!
Dang it, we had to keep moving, though.
So the least I was able to do was to raise my hand and wave hello at them.
I doubt they even saw me; DAVID ARCHULETA was there, you know?
We went into the lounge, and David and Ray automatically went to put the shopping bags down on a table in the corner. I lingered near the doorway, the urge to meet up with the AAM members growing stronger and stronger with each passing second.


“OK, so you just wait for a while – I need to talk to Yuen-See about a few things first, and then we’ll let AAM in…” Ray was informing David, who nodded enthusiastically in reply.
So Ray headed over to Yuen-See, and the two began to discuss in whispers again.
David glanced cheerily around the room for a moment, then turned to me.
I’m not sure if he’d been about to strike up a conversation with me or something, because – and I know you guys will think I am incredibly stupid for doing that – I was already turning and walking out of the room, impatient to meet the people from AAM.
There they all were, in the black AAM shirts. Four girls and one guy. I immediately guessed they were the five moderators – Lily, Anne, Justine, Kylie and John.
I’d never met them in real before, just read all their posts and comments on AAM. It was seriously cool to be able to meet them for real…
“Hi!” I said eagerly, walking up to them.
“Hi,” the two who were standing closest replied. I later found out they were Anne and Justine.
[Gosh, Anne is just sooo pretty, by the way. 8D ]
Gowri : Agrees!!
And then they asked me who I worked with.
Wow, I didn’t know I looked that old. I was still in high school!
“Actually, I’m Yvette,” I told them, trying to fight the huge grin on my face. “From Penang.”
I wondered if they’d actually remember me from the e-mails I’d sent them before. I mean, there were a lot of us Arch Angels on that site.
Surprisingly, they did remember me.
“Oh! Hey!” Anne said, brightly. “Nice to meet you!”
“Yeah, it’s real nice to meet you guys, too!” I replied. More relieving, to be honest.
“So, how did you come to be here?”
OK, so the thing was, DiGi had – for some reason – told me not to tell anyone else that I’d won the SMS Trivia contest, so I hadn’t been able to tell the other fans on the site about it.
“Well, you know that entourage contest thing?” I explained, sheepishly. “Um, yeah, I won it.”
And as soon as I said that, I felt sooo elated; I had finally told other fans, and now I was finally free to gush like a crazy fangirl about how INCREDIBLY FLIPPIN’ AMAZING DAVID ARCHULETA IS…!!!
“So… so you’ve been spending the whole day with him???!!!”
“Yup,”
Anne grabbed my arm and started shaking me, “Oooh, this must be the best day of your life!”
“Yeah,” I replied, laughing kind of giddily.
“Why didn’t you tell us it was YOU?!”
“Sorry, but DiGi said I couldn’t tell anyone,” I apologized.
“Oooohhh… yeah, well, we were all wondering! Who won the contest, you know?”
“Yeah, I wanted to tell you guys, but, you know…”
“Hey, have you heard him, like, sing randomly or anything…?”
I gasped, “Oh my GOSH, he sings ALL THE TIME. He never stops…”
And then I was gushing about everything that David had done today that had been so friggin’ AMAZING, and we were all fangirl-ing right there – except for Kylie and John, because they’re the older, much more mature adults, lol – before Ray came over.
Kylie – gosh, she is such a nice and warm and sweet and amazing woman! – stepped aside to discuss something with him, and the others followed.
I decided to turn around and head back towards the lounge; this was probably a confidential discussion they were having or something, and I didn’t want to intrude.


When I got back into the lounge, I found David standing alone at the window, gazing quietly out at the rain. I looked out, too. The rain had begun to lighten up.
Too bad David had to visit KL this time of the year – when the weather is seriously whacked out; one moment it’s bright and sunny, the next there’s a heavy thunderstorm, it’s crazy.
“Sudah nak henti tak?” I muttered under my breath. I was basically asking the rain if it was actually stopping or not; sometimes it’d look like it was going to… and then it’d get even heavier, instead, and then all the roads and underground tunnels in the city would start getting flooded…
“Hmm?”
I quickly looked around. Oops, apparently David had heard me.
“Oh, nothing,” I told him quickly. When David continued to look curious, I started stuttering, “Uh, um… it usually r-rains… a lot… around this time of the year… in KL.”
And then David was giving me that stare – the same one he had back in the restaurant when I was telling him about the wide variety of anime in the bookstores here in KL – like he was having trouble understanding what I was saying or something.
Oh my heck, I was talking about the weather.
Could I be anymore LAME???
“Um… never mind. Forget it,” I mumbled, looking away. And I was, like, thinking helplessly to myself, What the heck is wrong with me that he can’t get anything I’m saying???
“No, no, I get it,” David said immediately.
… oh-kaaay, that’d been strange. How had he known what I was thinking???
OK, again, either David was a mind-reader or he was just really good at reading people’s facial expressions.
In either case, gaaaah! David, can you please not do that???!!!
Just as I was deciding whether or not to really run away (because the longer I was around him, the more incredibly STUPID I made myself look, ugh!), David suddenly started singing to himself, “Tell me whyyyy…!”
Whoa. Can you say, ULTIMATE DISTRACTION?!


I totally forgot what I’d been freaking out over just a second ago, just watching David as he sang contentedly, absent-mindedly to himself. Oh my gosh…
And, finally, I heard David singing one of his own songs!
All day long he’d been singing other artists’ songs… so it was real nice to hear him sing A Little Too Not Over You right then.
Oh, and I so could not wait to watch him perform on Saturday…
It was already sooo flippin’ amazing watching the YouTube videos of David Archuleta in concert – especially the shows from his first solo tour in the States, OH MY GOSH – and I went completely and utterly CRAZY each time I watched his performances of Zero Gravity, so to actually see him LIVE…!
Oh my GOSH, Zero Gravity… I immediately remembered the question I’d been meaning to ask David, if I’d ever had the chance…
“Hey, are you going to be performing Zero Gravity tomorrow?” I asked.
David paused, blinked a couple of times, then looked at me with this oh-so-adorable, sheepish expression and said slowly, “I don’t know… we haven’t exactly figured out what I’m going to sing yet during the showcase…”
“Oh,”


[Sadly, David didn’t perform Zero Gravity during the showcase. ):]


“My back hurts,” David said, out of the blue, and then he was reaching an arm around to rub his back.
Huh?
Dang, I was so caught off by his sudden change of topic, I had no idea how to respond.
Luckily, I didn’t have to.
Kylie, Anne, Justine, Lily and John had just entered the room.
David’s face broke into a huge, warm and friendly grin. “Hey!” he greeted them, cheerfully.
I thought, OK, time for me to step back…
I’d already had David to myself the whole morning and early afternoon – ugh, that’d just sounded wrong – so I was more than glad to let those amazing AAM-ers have David to themselves now.
I just stood in the back and watched…


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZMg_yQIK6Y&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmMneNvEtJg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbyppk9yUhI&feature=related


They also got David to take pictures with them, sign stuff and all…
After they left, a group of people from Hitz.fm immediately came in – with a whole bunch of recording equipment – and started issuing orders for all cell phones and any other sound-emitting device to be switched off and everyone to keep silent or take their conversations outside once ‘the recording’ had started, whatever that meant.
One of them also passed David a stack of papers, and David started reading whatever was on the first page intently.
They placed an identical stack of papers on the coffee table nearest to where I was standing. Curious, I quietly went over to read what’d been printed on those pages.
I realized it was some sort of script.
… oh.


So that was what all the recording equipment was for.
David had radio commercials to do now, for Hitz.fm.
Wow, this should be really cool to watch!
But nothing much happened for the next few minutes, except David going through his lines – and bursting randomly into song again every few seconds – and the Hitz.fm crew setting up the recording equipment.
I glanced out the doorway at one point… and saw that the AAM-ers were still here!
Instantly, I got up from where I’d been sitting at the coffee table, and shot out of the room. “Hey, you guys are still here…!”
Kylie asked me to do a recap of my day so far with David – on VIDEO, oh my gosh – so we went and sat down somewhere, and once the camera was recording, I talked and talked and talked… and talked some more… but I had to rush towards the ending because Yuen-See was calling me back into the lounge, telling me to prepare for my short interview with David.


OH MY GOSH, I’D TOTALLY FORGOTTEN!
THE INTERVIEW!!!
WHERE WERE MY QUESTIONS???
HAD I WRITTEN DOWN ANY QUESTIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE???!!!
OH NO! OH NO!!!
AAAAAAAAHHH!!!
I was so DEAD.


Yuen-See was impatiently dragging me back into the lounge, unaware that I was having a major panic attack. My heart was pounding and my knees had actually started to shake…!
And then I saw David, seated in front of a microphone, speaking real loudly and clearly as he read off a paragraph in his script, “… something really important… which is to stay in school!”
He ended that particular sentence in a bright, bubbly kind of tone, then he immediately frowned down at the script and mumbled, “Wait, that didn’t come out right… sorry!” he quickly apologized to the guys operating the recording equipment. “Sorry, let me try that again…?”
“Just sit and wait,” Yuen-See whispered to me. “He should be done in the next fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes.
Oh, thank goodness!


I still had fifteen minutes to think up some questions!
Gosh, I must’ve misunderstood what Yuen-See had been telling me, again. I thought she was hurrying me because the interview was going to take place now; instead, she must’ve known I hadn’t prepared my questions yet and was just reminding me to get to it.
So I sat down, pulled out the paper and pen from this morning, and resumed my impossible task of trying to think up questions for David that wouldn’t totally suck. I only had fifteen minutes, dang it, and although that was better than nothing, it still wasn’t enough time for me to generate not one, not two, but FIVE decent questions. And, I mean, GOSH, what was there left to ask him, really…???


Do you like anything else besides Thai Food?
Lame.


Do you still do chores when you’re at home?
So lame.


What’s your favorite fruit?
The friggin’ epitome of lame.


What color is your bedroom wall?
Now you really are a stalker.


What shampoo do you usually use?
ARE YOU…........... NUTS???!!!!!!!!!


And it was pretty hard to focus with David sitting a few feet away, saying things like, “Hey, this is David – ! Oh, ugh, I think I said that too fast… heeeey! This. Is. David. Ar-chu-let-aaaa… ugh, no, I didn’t like that one either… sorry…”
OH MY GOSH.
“Need help?”
I looked around.
The woman in red had come to sit beside me, looking from the paper in front of me – and the seriously dumb questions I’d written on it then viciously crossed out – to my undoubtedly anxious expression with a sympathetic smile.
Hey, I was out of options here, any help was good. “Sure, thanks…”
The woman was actually quite insightful when it came to what questions I could ask. Her advice was quite general, but helpful all the same, and I actually managed to think up about seven questions that didn’t sound horrible. The questions seemed kind of boring, though…
Plus, if it weren’t for the woman, I would’ve totally been distracted by David as he read even crazier and ridiculously funnier lines.
“… mmmm! R – wait, how do you say this? Sorry…! Sorry, how do you say this…? Rrr…” and his tongue would really roll whenever he pronounced the ‘r’, “… rrr-uhn-dung… is that it? Rrrendang… OK… oh, and the other one here… ke-tu… ketu-PAT? Yeah? OK… Mmmm! Rrrreeendaaang… ketupaaat… ha! Betcha didn’t… aargh… wait…” a long pause, “HA! Betcha… ugh, no…” an even longer pause, “Ha! Betcha didn’t think I knew about all that, huh…?”
“Does he know about all that?” the woman whispered to me, eyebrow raised.
I shrugged and tried not to smirk.
[Rendang and ketupat are types of Malay food, btw, hence the ‘mmmm!’… oh my GOSH, the way David says “Mmmm!” is SO FLIPPIN’ CUTE…!!!]
“… Selamat… h-ha-rrri? Harrri Rrrraya…? Oh, yay, I got it right! OK… Selamat Harrri Rrrraya…!”
And, later…
“… heeey! Just wishing all my fellow… what? Ma… machas? Oh, OK… heeey! Just wishing all my fellow machaaaas a Happy Dee… Deepavali? Right, got it, sorry…”
[Macha is an affectionate, Indian term for ‘brother’]
He also did commercials for Father’s Day, Christmas, New Year’s Eve… and Mother’s Day.
“… there’s one woman who holds a special place in my heart… and that’s my Mom!”
OH MY GOSH, AWWW…!!!


New Fact #17: David slaps his thigh and says, “Ai yai yai!” whenever he gets really frustrated.


“Ai yai yai!” he huffed, slapping his left thigh loudly in annoyance, and everyone – everyone, including the guys working with the equipment – completely burst out laughing at that.
David looked up, confused at first, then he realized what we were all laughing at, and he flashed that tiny, embarrassed smile of his, and I so wanted to melt into a puddle where I sat.
But the one that almost made me lose it – like, go completely INSANE – was the lines for Halloween.
Imagine this – David Archuleta (whose name represents all that is sweet and bright and young and cheerful), deepening his voice – and, I mean, seriously deepening it – to match that of a spooky horror movie villain, and doing THIS:
“MUUUAAAAH HA HA HA HAAAA…!!!”
And, yeah, he did that same laugh over and over and over again till he finally got the whole ‘Happy Halloween’ greeting out right.
And then… it was over.
David was handing his script back to them.
He sighed, relieved, and then he laughed.
I LOVE HIS LAUGH.
I LOVE IT SOOO MUCH.
The men were placing a second chair next to David’s. And they were also fixing up spotlights and a video camera (you know, the huge, black, professional-looking one?).
Then Yuen-See came over to me again.
“Alright, Yvette,” she said. “I hope you’re ready.”
… uh oh.
The interview.
It was NOW.












Part 4 comin’… I hope.
(I’m waiting for DiGi to upload the interview! But before they can do that, they need Sony’s approval. And Sony, for some reason, still hasn’t given it. I have no idea why. *sigh*)

The Delay of Part 3..

Hello, guys, a great deal of apologies for the hiatus, but Yvette and I are currently busy with exams in school. As soon as the exams end on the 28th of May, we'll resume working on part 3. =D Thanks.




Love,
Gowri

Part 2 : Lunch With David

OK, warning about Part 2 – it’s probably twice as descriptive as part 1 was (I can’t help it, I remember a lot from lunch that day, almost every word that was said), and I like to write stuff in a story-like form, which so does not help matters – and this part is very long, too. Who knew so much could happen over lunch??? Or maybe I just pay too much attention to totally unimportant details… ugh, sorry!

So, a thousand sincere apologies in advance to whoever found this part of the recap extremely boring, and THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who’s read Part 1; thank you so much for letting me share my experience with you.



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…




Part 3 next.. Watch out!!