Once Kyle felt that Little Kyle had settled down, he pulled out his phone and called Xing Han."Kyle! Kyle! I don"t see him. I can"t see him," Xing Han was panting over the phone, his voice frantic.
"Don"t worry. I got him," Kyle said.
"Oh thank goodness!" Xing Han exclaimed, sitting down at the nearest chair, "Is he okay?"
"Yes," Kyle a.s.sured him.
"Thank goodness, thank goodness," Xing Han repeated, really relieved as he patted his chest.
Little Kyle could hear the phone conversation and he felt even more guilty, so he said, "I"m sorry, Big Brother Xing Han."
Xing Han"s retort was at the tip of his tongue, but he held it in. He remembered what Kyle had said so he refrained from doing what he really wanted to do: shout at Little Kyle for wandering off like that. Yet, he didn"t think it was right not to reprimand him in some way.
As if knowing what was on Xing Han"s mind, Kyle said, "Kyle is already feeling very bad about the whole thing and he knows that he was in the wrong."
Kyle explained further, "You know the saying right. Don"t promise when you are happy, don"t reply when you are angry and don"t decide when you are sad.* It isn"t just limited to when you are replying."
"What do you mean?" Xing Han asked, confused.
"It is for any situation. If you"re angry, just don"t talk. Only do so after you"ve calmed down," Kyle explained.
"So, scolding him right now, when he already knows what he did is wrong, would not be about teaching him that he had done something wrong. It would just be an excuse for you to release your anger. And when you"re scolding him while you"re angry ... " Kyle shook his head, sighing as he remembered his own spouse in his past life, "You"re doing more harm than good. All your good intentions would go out the window."
Kyle"s voice got a bit softer as he reminisced his past life. Things his spouse used to say really cut deep, even though he didn"t mean it as to how it sounded. Whenever the kids did something - as kids do despite being told before that it couldn"t be done - then he"d scold them in frustration with words such as "why are you so stupid / do you think I"d love you like this" and so forth.
Even though Kyle would explain to them what the father truly meant, it didn"t mean they hadn"t been hurt. It didn"t mean that the damage was not done. He couldn"t even intervene when the tirade was going on as that would only fuel him further and the words would be harsher.
Xing Han was quiet for a while then said, breaking Kyle out of his journey to the past, "You"re right. I never thought of it that way. But how would you know if he truly has learned his lesson?"
Kyle smiled, looking at the clearly distressed Little Kyle in his arms, "You"re just going to have to make that judgment call yourself. So long as you"re calm, you can tell."
All this while, Kyle was talking with a lowered voice so the surrounding people couldn"t hear anything.
When Kyle became aware that there was someone approaching, he quickly ended the call with Xing Han and said to Little Kyle softly, "I"m going to pretend not to be able to speak English, so you talk for me, okay? Just say that your dad fell sick and is resting while I am helping you."
Little Kyle said softly, "Okay."
Kyle could tell, from the way the person walked, that he (or she) was not just another pa.s.senger who was going to walk past. It had been a purposeful stride, a bit fast as it headed to him and then noticeably slowed down.
One could think that the slowing down was because Kyle was standing on the pa.s.sageway itself (though he was not blocking it), but Kyle could tell that the slowing down was to stop, not to pa.s.s.
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"Is everything okay?" a gruff, male voice penetrated the air.
Kyle turned to look at him, a middle-aged man that was wearing the uniform of the train conductor. Perhaps someone did report what was happening, and Kyle"s faith in humanity was restored a bit.
Little Kyle nodded, without any prodding from Kyle.
"Daddy is sleeping," Little Kyle said softly, putting a finger on his mouth as if telling the conductor to be quiet, "He wasn"t feeling well."
The train conductor looked at Kyle, then at Little Kyle. From what the pa.s.senger who reported this told him, these two had no relations.
Was the teen holding the boy as hostage or something? But it didn"t look like the boy was in any distress. Other than when he was looking at his sleeping father in distress.
Which was pretty normal, as the father wasn"t feeling well.
Little Kyle asked in Mandarin, his p.r.o.nunciation a bit choppy as he said it slowly.He knew the language well, but he wasn"t proficient in speaking it. He could only practice at home with his mum when no one was around. Something about "must know own language" and not speaking it to others as he had to "fit in".
"And who are you?" he asked Kyle.
Kyle looked at him, and answered with a slight Chinese accent, "Kyle."
"Do you know this person?" the train conductor asked Kyle, pointing at Cornelius.
Kyle looked a bit confused, then looked at Little Kyle who then spoke to him in Mandarin. Kyle"s face brightened up and he replied, "No."
The train conductor"s face changed a bit but before he could ask another, Kyle told Little Kyle Little Kyle did as Kyle instructed, and the train conductor was satisfied. He told Little Kyle, "If there is anything you need help with, just ask anyone around. If you"re not feeling safe with this person here, do not worry. We will help you."
Little Kyle nodded and answered politely, "Thank you but it is okay. He is nice."
Satisfied, the conductor left while Kyle looked at Little Kyle proudly, praising him, "That was nicely done. Good job!"
Little Kyle"s face lit up.