บท 37: Where's my bike?

The next day, Bella Lim was awakened by the bells of her house. She woke up sleep-deprived with dark circles and unruly hair. Her already curled long black hair made her appearance spookier that it almost made the people who disturbed her unbeauty sleep jumped out of their skin.

Well, the situation was worse than that. In fact, the worst!

"Urghh, who is it?" she yawned while wobbled her way through to the door. Her hands slipped many times as she attempted to unlock the door. When it was finally opened, her eyes spotted a man's back view.

"What is it?" she asked again, eyes blinked several times to adjust to the striking light of the sunshine. Today the sun rose quite early. The blinding light made her eyes squeezed to decrease the amount of light that went into her eyes.

The man jolted in surprised before he turned around, eyes were looking down at the briefcase in his right hand while the other hand rummaged the inside of it.

He impatiently went through his stuff and after getting what he needed, he said, "Miss Bella, I'm Judy from Manic Automotive. Please sign here to complete your bike delivery process," he showed the two pieces of paper with a finger pointed to the part that needed to be signed.

Bella Lim was surprised as she didn't expect Eric Wu's early morning meant 6 AM. Nevertheless, she bent her body and signed the paper. The man took the customer's copy and was about to give it to Bella Lim. He looked up and smiled, saying in an excited tone which after a while sounded terrified.

"Here is your cop...y! Oh my God! G-g-ghost!" the man screamed as his face paled, hands shaking. He stepped back only to fall onto the ground with a groan. Still terrified, he struggled to get up and ran, dismissing the pain from the fall earlier. On the way, he screamed, "Y-your bike is just right there!" while pointing to the area on Bella Lim's front, right side. The paper in his hand was already on the ground with dirt all over it.

Looking at the man escaped with so much drama, Bella Lim slowly shook her head as she lazily walked down the steps. She squatted and took the piece of paper that was smeared by dirt and read its content. Her eyes bulged in shock when she saw the figures shown on the paper.

"one, two, t-three, f-f-four... f-five... six," she counted the digits as she swallowed her saliva with each count. She almost faint when she counted the eleventh number.

How... how was she going to slave herself to pay this amount?

That was the first thing that came to her mind after seeing the million AD shown on the paper. She got up with so much effort and walked to the bike that was parked not far from her.

"Whose bike is this!" she screamed as she rooted in her current place, not daring to take a step forward. Her sleepy mode was now completely gone as the one she saw was no longer her old, faded green bike.

In that instance, she thought that the workshop might have made a mistake. She opened her fist and revealed a piece of crumpled paper. Her eyes scanned the paper for the workshop's contact number.

The number was unreadable for dirt as well as the crumpled state made the numbers unrecognizable.

Then, she ran to her room to take her phone, scrolled for Eric Wu's name and dialed his number. There was no hesitation as it was only anxiety that she felt at the moment. He was the only person she could ask at the moment.

"Mr. Eric, I'm sorry to disturb you this early. But, do you have Manic Automative's customer service's contact number? They delivered the wrong bike," she asked as soon as the phone call was connected.

"Good morning," Eric Wu's usual toneless voice rang. Bella Lim swallowed a mouthful of saliva as she beat herself mentally for forgetting the basic courtesy.

"M-morning," she went back to zero as her usual stuttering voice had returned. Once again, she gave herself another round of mental scolding.

"M-Mr. Eric, about what I s-said just now…" damn… when would she be able to rid of the stutters? Was this the side-effect of their early encounter? Bella Lim unconsciously chewed her bottom lip.

"Miss Bella, your old bike was no longer usable. Apart from the oil leakage, the engine would anytime break down. Since I promised to repair your bike, knowing its condition, using a new one is better for your safety," the man on the other side of the phone answered lazily. Yet, he made the listener became dumbfounded.

Bella Lim blanked out. Wasn't this such a highway to hold responsibility! Who would have thought that Eric Wu would give her a new motorbike just because her old bike was 'dangerous' to use? Wait... did she misheard? She hoped so.

"M-Mr Eric, I-I'm sorry but I'm already thankful for you to send the bike to the workshop. The rest should be handled by me. I-I'm afraid, I couldn't afford the one that was sent to me. The price is too expensive," she expressed her concern. However, the other simply ignored her plea and reminded her that the cost of fixing her old bike could be higher as it would frequently crash.

As Bella Lim listened to Eric Wu's justification, she walked out of her room and went outside, now face to face with the motorbike. She noticed that there was also a box on the other side of the motorbike. She was hesitating to open it, but curiosity encouraged her to do it. The moment it was open, she was surprised to see two matching helmets were securely put inside. One for adult and another a kid size...

"Mr. Eric, t-this is really too much. I-I'll have my old bike back and see what I-I can do," she said with a hope that the man would stop insisting for her to accept the magnificent two wheels in front of her.

She knew that fixing her old motorbike would require a lot of money like Eric Wu was saying, but she didn't want to feed on his kindness as well.

Yes, wasn't this man too kind? Bella Lim felt confused. Amidst the confusion, she heard Eric Wu dropped another bombshell and made her once again dumbstruck!

"Well, I don't think that's doable. It was already sent to their custom motorbike builders. Miss Bella, if it's hard to accept, I'll make it easy for you. Just assume this motorbike as a gift from the three of us. I already heard what happened yesterday from Sun Nan and Lu Fei,"

"What?!" Bella Lim was shocked. This was too much for her to accept! She wasn't surprised by the fact that her motorbike had become a sample for some motorbike enthusiasts, but she was shocked by his announcement claiming that the motorbike in front of her was a gift from the three of them…

Though, she couldn't help but overanalyze… did this mean that Eric Wu treated her as a friend too? Was this a dream trying to make fun of her? How could it be this easy? If it was in the past, just to have a glance at him in person was almost impossible. Yet now...