Kunstkring Paleis
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Bentley. Rolls-Royce. Maybach.
Parked in polished rows.
The moment Audy accepted Nuragaâs invitation, she knew it was going to be one of those fancy birthday fĂŞtes. So of course she had expected rich people. What she hadnât expected was for it to be rich enough to turn the parking lot into an accidental luxury car exhibition, gleaming upper-tax-bracket energyâthough their tax-paying discipline was probably another matter entirely.
Nuraga had wasted no time telling Audy about the invitation the second he got it. But for Audy saying yes, however, had come with considerably more deliberation. It wasnât the wealth that made Audy hesitate. It was the fact that saying yes meant, for the first time, standing face-to-face with the national-VIPs social orbit she had only ever heard about through Nuraga's stories.
The thought of stepping into that life felt strangely daunting.
Barely five minutes there and Audy had already spotted people she usually only saw headlining TV news. She found it quite strange, really. She had spent enough time around celebrities for fame to barely faze her, yet standing among these peopleâpeople whose names carried weight far beyond fameâstirred something different inside her heart. These were the kind of people who probably knew ministers and decision-makers in the country, and perhaps that was why their polite smiles and effortless introductions unsettled her in a way she could not quite explain.
Look at those faces⌠Audy quietly scanned the room, thoughts spiraling in every direction.
Audy kept reminding herself whatever existed between her and Nuraga had never been built on status, or wealth, or the fragile things people often mistook for love. But fear was fear, it did not exactly disappear just because something made sense.
What if Nuraga got carried away by those people? What if one wrong move cost him something important?
Overprotectiveness. She needed to get rid of it.
That's the strange thing love had quietly done to her. She didn't notice she had become less afraid of losing them but more about something happening to him before she could do anything about it.
She then found herself questioning whether Nuraga had ever felt just as out of place as she is whenever she invited him to parties from her side of life. Her world. There had been times when she casually brought him to events filled with celebrities or those moments where he was with her in the radio studio, meeting singers and remarkable artists, basically unfamiliar faces he had no reason to know. Had he ever felt uneasy too?
"Mas Raga...!!"
Audy snapped back to reality.
The greetings came one after another. Businessmen, executives, and government officials approached him with ease like he belonged thereâor maybe, quite apparently, he really did. The thing about Sew Ga niche was that it had never stayed confined to textile alone. When nearly every video looked like it belonged in a luxury home catalogue, furniture and home living ventures felt like natural extensions of the world he built. He was annoyingly good at networking, too, that becoming the face of a furniture brand a few months ago seemed like merely a milestoneâBecause with Nuraga, you could never quite predict just how far he could go.
Surely, he knew not every expensive smile came without being transactional⌠right?
"Are you okay?â Nuraga finally managed to ask when the evening shifted into slow dancing. They had occasionally been pulled apart throughout the evening, and only after dinner did they finally seem to have a moment to themselves.
"Yes."
"You don't seem like it, though."
In Audyâs defense, her uneasiness had not appeared out of nowhere. Latisya had spent most of the evening practically witch-hunting her, as though Audy was there to be evaluated. More than once, Audy caught Latisyaâs mother smiling at her with both polite and deeply condescending look. And with the way Latisyaâs father seemed to adore Nuraga like a favorite son, it became difficult not to feel secretly unwelcome.
"No, really. I'm okay." Audy said with a small laugh. Eyes lowering towards the floor, unaware she had just made it obvious she wasnât. "Itâs nice getting to know the people in your life beside Robi and Vazhimi, though."
"Not when I keep worrying whether one of these high-achieving guys in the room might catch my girlfriend's attention."
EEEEEHHH?!?! Gaze snapped up, eyes widened with surprise.
Audy couldn't help but laughâthis time without any anxiety underneath. When their eyes met, his gaze had already softened, as though he had been quietly waiting for her to look up. And God this was probably the reason why Audy adored him so much. He noticed when she shrank into herself, and somehow seemed to know how to make her feel like she belonged again.
"That works on me, not gonna lie." Just like that, the tension melted right out of her shoulders. Funny, considering it had always been Audy who kept awkwardness at bay in the past. "Didn't know you're good at this."
"Neither did I." Nuraga laughed, too. "But trust me I'm good with words if it's with my loved ones."
"Heleehh.."
"Serius!"
And the laughter came easily.
Then for the rest of the dance, the conversation unexpectedly shifted into something lighter. Nuraga quietly pointed out people in the room who once had crushes on himâsome women, a few men too. "Semuanya masih marah because I rejected them it seems, seeing they were cold with me earlier."
"Issshhh PD banget sih lu."
"Ya PD lah, kalo PS namanya Plaza Senayan."
"Hahaha ngelawak mulu kayak Sule."
"Prikitiew!"
Thanks to Nuraga, Audy found herself growing calmer. She even found herself tweeting on her junk account somewhere in the middle of fireworks session.
Well... this is new. New phase, new fears, new beginnings. Not hard just new. Maybe with time Iâll learn to live with it. Just slowly grow around it.
Actually too much still lived in the corners of her mind. Especially the unspoken little pebbles between her and Nuraga, the kind that could quietly explode if left untouched for too long. Or about her younger brother. The constant worry that Zaki had been struggling in ways far deeper than he ever let onâshe hoped this one is just a big sister thing.
But the rest of the night turned unexpectedly lively. The soft rhythm of the jazz band carried through the party, grand old paintings seemed to watch from the walls. Between moments of the party, Audy and Nuraga kept getting lost in their own little world, ending up laughing together like private gossip exchanged in the middle of a ballroom scene straight out of a movie. And it got Audy thinking that perhaps, on nights like this, it was better to simply live in the moment. Things were not perfect, yes, but at the very least, she did not have to spend the evening worrying about things beyond her control.
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