DELUSION

chapter 7

Yuda was shocked by what Ihsan had done to him, and for a moment his guts shrank as a knife cut into his neck.

"If I kill him, I don't need anyone else's help, I'm brave enough to do it myself," Ihsan said, putting the knife on the table. He took a band-aid from his pocket and gave one to Yuda.

Yuda was silent, then put the plaster over the wound on his neck. His anger exploded, but he tried to hold it back. Several pairs of eyes stared at Yuda and Ihsan, making Yuda nervous. Yuda could feel his heart beating faster and his body getting weaker because he was too tired this morning. Yuda sat down in front of Ihsan. He leaned back on the chair and watched Ihsan's eye movements, which were focused on the laptop screen.

"What class are you from? I've never seen you before," Ihsan said and looked at Yuda. Yuda just remained silent while he adjusted his diaphragm back to normal.

"Don't be a genius, I don't want to get my hands dirty with stupid things," Ihsan added, then hit enter and smiled broadly after he seemed to have managed to post what he wanted.

Yuda got up from the chair without a word and left the cafe. Yuda sat in the car for a while and thought about what crazy things he should do for Ihsan. Because Ihsan seems to have enough courage. Yuda stepped on the gas, turned the wheel and drove away.

Yuda returned to his house and saw his father still sitting in the living room with a sharp look at Yuda, as if waiting for Yuda's presence. His father approached with a limp, then grabbed Yuda by the collar.

"Are you crazy? If you dare to do this to me again, I will make your life suffer, even though you are my son," his father snapped, then took off Yuda's collar and walked out the door.

His mother also looked at Yuda with the same look, then his mother slapped Yuda's right cheek hard without cursing. Yuda did not struggle and accepted it. After his mother was satisfied with slapping Yuda's cheek, his mother went into the room and closed the door with a bang.

Yuda returned to the room feeling angry, threw his jacket on the floor, then screamed loudly, the emotions inside him overflowing.

Yuda lay on the bed and thought about his next plan to kill Ihsan, he was too rash to help Ihsan from Bobi's blow. Yuda took the car keys again and planned to follow Ihsan's activities from a distance.

His car is parked in front of the cafe again, and Yuda sits in the car waiting for Ihsan to come out of the cafe. After 2 hours of waiting, Ihsan finally leaves the cafe and takes an online motorcycle taxi. Yuda follows Ihsan until he stops in front of a yellow house. Only 30 minutes later, Ihsan comes out of the house. Ihsan looked panicked and confused. Pressing his cell phone repeatedly while looking left and right in panic. Then back into the yellow house. And didn't come out again...

Yuda was curious what happened, after almost 5 hours Ihsan did not come out of the house with the yellow walls. Because Yuda knows that it's not Ihsan's house. Yuda got out of the car, walked slowly and climbed the wall that led to the backyard. The night was getting darker and there were no lights on in any corner of the house.

Sets...sets...sets...

Yuda heard someone pulling something towards the backyard. Yuda slowly hides, Ihsan comes out of the back door while pulling someone's body with both hands. "Damn it," Ihsan grunted.

Yuda then heard the moaning of a woman who was apparently not dead, her body still being dragged into the backyard by Ihsan.

Ihsan, who was frightened when he realized that the woman was not dead, was confused and took a large stone beside him and struck the woman's body viciously. After that, the moaning stopped. Yuda witnessed Ihsan's murder firsthand. Yuda's smile widened after he managed to record Ihsan's crazy actions from his cell phone. After Ihsan managed to bury the woman in the backyard, Ihsan returned to the house. Then the smoke began to billow, Yuda realized something was wrong and immediately came out of hiding, jumping the back fence to get out.

The flames grew higher and the voices of the people around them grew more hysterical. Yuda searched the crowd for Ihsan's figure until the sound of ambulance sirens surrounded the house. Yuda, still traumatized by the sound of the siren, ran out of breath to his car. He began to experience headaches and nausea.

The sound of explosions from the house that Ihsan had set on fire was loud. All the people who witnessed the incident ran headlong. It became increasingly difficult for Yuda to find any trace of Ihsan in the crowd.

"Damn it," Yuda grunted and turned the wheel the other way.

Yuda thought of another way to get Ihsan. This time Ihsan's big secret is in his hands. Yuda returned home because it was already after midnight. Yuda will first find out who killed the woman Ihsan and then use the recorded video to threaten Ihsan.

Arriving home, Yuda fiddled with his computer and searched for the name of the owner of the burning house earlier. It turned out that there was only 1 piece of information from the comments.

The fire on Jalan Fatma earlier? it just looks like an empty house, I live in the area and have never seen anyone living there. The owner lives out of town, that's all I know,' someone commented when Yuda tried to post the fire tragedy and find out.

'I saw him kill women,' Yuda thought hard, feeling that what he saw could not be wrong.

Yuda took the cell phone in his pocket and watched the video he had just recorded. Yuda couldn't make out the woman Ihsan killed because it was really dark. He only heard moaning and it was clearly a woman's voice.

Yuda could not sleep through the long night because he was still full of curiosity. When the sun began to shine, Yuda got up and got ready to leave, but his mother was already standing at the door, looking at him intently without saying a word.

"Don't touch my room!" Yuda snapped at his mother before going downstairs.

Yuda drives his car to observe Ihsan's life. Yuda started from Ihsan's residence, it took another 1 hour drive to Ihsan's house. An old woman was standing in front of Ihsan's house watering flowers. Then Ihsan came out and kissed the old woman on the cheek before taking his online motorcycle taxi to the campus. Yuda saw the deep affection between Ihsan and his parents.

After Ihsan left, Yuda wanted to stop by Ihsan's house for a while.

"Is this really Ihsan's house?" asked Yuda.

"Oh, he just left, his friend, huh?" said Ihsan's mother kindly.

"Yes, I'm from Jakarta, although I really want to meet him, I haven't seen him for a long time. When I changed schools from high school, I was curious to see the face of Ihsan, my best friend at that time," Yuda said, smiling broadly.

A friendly person will definitely not make guests stand in front of the house for long. His mother told Yuda to come in and look at some of Ihsan's photo albums if he was curious about Ihsan's current face.

Yuda sat in the living room, his eyes wandering around, looking at each certificate and trophy neatly lined up in the window. Ihsan is like a substitute for the most outstanding student after Mario died and Yuda left school.

"Please drink this, this is the high school photo album," Ihsan's mother said, handing him a high school photo album. Yuda took it and opened the pages one by one. The faces of his old friends disturbed him until he found a photo that stunned him. It was of Jeni standing next to Ihsan, holding Ihsan's hand at the graduation ceremony.

"That girl, Ihsan's girlfriend," Ihsan's mother said with a smile.