[HS & OGB Sign Event Story] – For Shan..

Yesterday was the Handshake and Official Guide Book signing event where I was lucky enough to have some spare time to executed the “Jadilah Nekad Preview” project together with Japarta who will act as the trigger for the soon -we hope- more organized “Jadilah Nekad” project in September with more overseas fans coming to see JKT48 Theater.

So here’s my story for the first part of my more than 12 hours journey yesterday, For Shan..

I was able to met Japarta at 9 AM Sharp on a coffee shop in f(X) after his arduous long hours of flight the day before yesterday from Japan. We decided to enter f(X) and queued at around 11 AM or so after a very fun morning coffee session (hot chocolate for me though as my heart can’t stand coffee).

We were kinda overwhelmed at how far the queue was. But luckily, a security guard then guided us for the shortest and fastest route to enter the signing event for the official guide book due to the soon to be over 1st session which is fortunately our target for today.

We didn’t bought our book when it first released two days ago, so we decided to buy it on spot. I bought 3 books which I thought will be enough. One for a friend who really loves Shania, two for me. Three was my maximum budgeting plan since the day the book released.

Well..I think it is not a secret that I don’t have a particular favorite member. With that in mind, I thought it will be better if I just get all these books signed by Shania with the reason of why obviously stated from the previous paragraph. I also wanted to give Shan a perhaps mundane words of support for the strength she need after a few hours before ruckus made by irresponsible fans in which I will never ever again mentioned in this article due to how sick minded those irresponsible beings were.

Already got my target locked, I walk with confidence to the queuing area for signatures which leaves me in an utter state of shock. Shania’s line was empty. But I regained my composure in a very short time thinking that it was perhaps due to the soon to be over 1st session.

I walked up to her and she welcomed me with a smile which I really appreciate. A very gracious smile with an unfortunate empty stare. I kind of worried whether she still not regained her spirit up back, but maybe that was just me being a little bit delusional facing a horde of angels in front of me so I decided to wipe it away.

I was playing with the book plastic cover to buy more time while I listened to her conversation with Japarta and another fan who queued behind me which I gave access first. It was just your usual greetings and all, but suffice to say that she looked kind of down. Not your usual happy go lucky Shania which I saw a few weeks ago together with RHKilis.

Long story short, it was my turn to ask for the signature. I told her that this one is for a friend of mine from the United States who really loved her and boy how happy she was when she heard that. She even insisted that it is my call of duty to drag him to Jakarta one day.

She said sorry for not being able to wrote my friend’s handle name on that book, but that was just some trivial matters so I nodded to her request. The next two book now in which she asked whether those two books coming as a request from another fan or not in which I said “No”.

We have some small talk at this point but it seems like her mind was on somewhere else, thinking about a burden she carries out by herself. She really was good with the direct eye contact when listening, never did any tight lipped smile but after a lot of instance of her left shoulder rise up very slowly and slightly added with gripping her own upper arms in one short instance was pretty much telling the me that she was indeed felt insecure and not really confidence at that time.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell the truth when she asked me with your regular textbook “Who will you handshake with?” So what I did was a big fat lie about whom I chose to handshake with (which I got from a series of random picking with a randomizer application). I think she knew about my lie from my pretty obvious body language.

Although that question was just your regular textbook questions every single girl asked that day, it brings me to crumble. Wasn’t I there to gave her some words of support even with how mundane those words are to her ear? Wasn’t I there to make sure that she feels well after that “Thing”? And now what did I do? Told an innocent 14 y.o a frickin’ lie? I was so mad at my indecisive self.

I got out from the signing event feeling lost to my own self. Japarta was still queuing at that time, so I decided to go downstairs and grab some iced tea and a puff of smoke. I tweeted and tweeted trying to remove my guilt and to justify my action by saying “This was all I could afford to gave her some sort of support” until…a DM came from a close friend of mine whom I’ve known for years : “This isn’t you. You never tweeted about something like that”

I grab my bag, ran as fast as I could to the fifth floor while praying that even just for one day, God if you really do exist; Please make Shan my favorite member from the bottom of my heart and not with my logic or with any kind of stupid body language reading. All I asked is just one single day.

Without thinking I grab another Official Guide Book, paid it in cash, and walked to Shan in a very fast paced steps. I was nearly out of breath at that time (Although I rested for a while outside while resting my old sorry back to the nearest wall) and my sweat was pouring like a flood. I could only utter one simple word : “Stay strong Shan,” a mundane sentence uttered by possibly every single fan of her.

After that, I was like lost in a trance. I frantically searched for someone who would kind enough to exchange my Handshake ticket with Shan’s by using contacts a friend of mine knows with no avail. After a short meeting with friends and some tummy fill-in time with Japarta, I gave up with my hidden plan of exchanging my ticket and went with the member stated on my handshake ticket.

So I went with it while thinking perhaps it was fated for me to never have any favorite member even for just a mere single day which makes me did one of the most stupid decision : Giving the security all my tickets at once. Rather than 30 seconds, I got perhaps 10-20 on my clock and that’s it, out of topic and good bye. I’m really sorry Sora for wasting the tickets you earned so hard.. it was my mistake.

I slumped. I almost gave up. Until I knew that the officials were going to sell some CD again for handshake event! I look at my wallet, still got some money left and decided to went with a couple of Shania’s tickets. At long last!

Ran back downstairs, another iced tea, another puff of smoke relaxing my anxious self while waiting for the other JKT48Stuff’s authors. We exchanged our experiences at that time in which I told them about mine. I joked around to ease my tension by tweeting how fast my wallet got thin or telling the guys my funny work related experiences while agreeing with Japarta when he said he also feels the same when he asked for Shania’s signature, he feels that Shania looked kinda down.

Time was running fast as I sipped my tea. It was the time for my final task, to see Shan’s smile more than once again while giving her the best support I could without thinking, without any logic, without any stupid reading method. Just a bare naked feeling of wanted to support someone so precious to you.

I walked slowly to Shan’s line. Trying to get a gist of how the handshake went. Going good so far, she was laughing a lot and in one instance, she joked with a Stella fan that went handshaking with her at that time by saying : “Have you got Ci Stella’s permission?” which able to make me laugh. I didn’t even care at that time whether it was a pure joke or an irony one. All that I care was that I could see her laugh again.

I almost have a thought of to just went back downstairs without doing the handshake with her since she looked well enough for me with the fans able to make her laughed. I felt that my encouraging words wasn’t needed anymore and I have felt more than enough satisfaction seeing this kid laughed again. I don’t know if it was a good luck or a bad luck that I was born with this indecisive nature; but without realizing, I already stand in front of the security officer.

I handed the security officer a piece of my ticket. I walked to Shania with her recognizing that it was me, the odd guy back at the signing event.

“At last, you able to bought some CD (for this handshake with her),” was the first thing came out from the lips of this gorgeous yet fragile girl.

“Yeah,” I said short.

“Are you the admin of the uh..what was it again? JKT48Sss?” She asked about this very website which I told her after she asked my connection with Japarta.

I replied with “No I’m not, I’m one of the authors there”

Times up.

At this time, I knew that my stoic approach was just stupid. At my second chance I tried to liven up the situation with the tips I mentioned a few articles back with that “AULDEY GO FOR SPEED!” kind of thing. But what stupid was, I said that while maintaining my stoic and boring personality which was the polar opposites of my online persona.

After a couple of seconds more of failure attempts to crack some stupid jokes, my last try..my very last piece of ticket, I need to say something meaningful to her, something that could not be easily said in real life but easy to think first and then tweeted. Say what? Tweeted? I remember I tweeted something for Shan that day…which was a rarity for me to even mention a member (although I ended up mistyping her Twitter username..)

“You know that what you have there are a handful of helping hands behind your back as your pillar”

Times up.

As I went back home, As I looked at that night barely visible stars with horn blaring from a nearby bus that probably tried to tell me to speed ahead or get the heck out of his lane, I tried to reconcile with my logic. How in the world, me, spend that much for a kid I barely known still baffles me. How in the world, me, worried so much for a kid that doesn’t even know my name still baffles me. How in the world, me, that usually spends my time more to mingle with servers and bass guitar rather than visiting the theater run through floors hoping I could sincerely support Shan as my favorite member even just for one day still baffles me.

My logic could only told me this in a display I recognized the best coming from the world of CL : Error 503 – Logic Overload. For Shan.