Professional Matter

“Nad?”

“Yes?”

“Mind if I ask you something?”

"Shoot," My eyes narrowed upon his sudden query.

“How come you tak pernah tanya I pasal my love life?”

Speechless as one can be, the man in front of me just asked a question which was negative from my circle of expectations. My prediction of the typical questions he could had asked in the first place. Honestly, I DID NOT expect that at all.

Frankly saying, he's not a friend. Not even close to someone so dear to me. I get paid for cramming my head out of one thing he's great at: Music. He is the lead guitarist of a band recently signed under a local recording company in Kuala Lumpur. We don't really share personal issues with each other. He would usually had me sit and listen to his riffs and demanded my personal comment or had me checked whether his tune sounded the way I would approve it. Everything was still of serious business the last time. Well, at least. I mean, sometimes he did unfold stories regarding problems with his band mates or the industry. Issues with his royalty and the radio stations that don't go beyond the borderline and that's about it. But bringing the whole thing into something, err, less professional by getting aware with his love life? How do I start?

“Nad?”

“Well,” I began, trying to be firm with my words which I doubted best at that time. “I rasa I tak ada hak untuk tanya you benda-benda macam tu. Itu diluar bidang I. It's personal, right?”

“Sure,” came his reply. “Professional matter. I lupa.”

I don’t know what was the real issue but one thing I could tell is how weird his voice turned out to be. It was sounding pretty much sarcastic to my hearing. I remember catching this tone from him long ago when he was arguing with the audio engineer from the company about an issue. Okay I got the hint; obviously he was not cool about this. What ever triggered the idea of this whole conversation, that thing sure as hell had caused the situation between us to become awkward.

There was a pause, probably around 30 seconds. 

Joe Satriani

“Forget it,” he violated the silence at last. “Let’s get down to business matters back shall we, Miss Professional?” he said, looking away. He took his black Fender strat and started to playfully bend the strings mere emotional despite the guitar being unplugged to any of his gears, probably imitating the style of the famous Satriani whom he adores so much.

I couldn’t help but to think of how he responded to this. Does it matter so much for him that I’d be acknowledged about his love life? Shouldn't everything just be the way it supposed to be? Sensing deep sarcasm in his voice, I decided to just do one thing.

I looked away, too.