The time of this story is set from 2005, to the possible future when the world underwent a global economy, politics and nature crisis around 2012-2020.
The story is about the 18 year-old boy who were raised in the orphanage, kind of polite and quiet boy. He got along with other kids in the orphanage very well, that those younger kids, who were calling each other by just names, addressed him as “big brother”. He was graduated from senior high school and was about to continue his education at university outside the town.
The night before he departed, Mrs. Kartini, the kind old woman who raised him in the orphanage, told the story about his mother, as she had promised her that she would did when her son was old enough. Mrs. Kartini told him that her mother really loved him, and that she brought him to Mrs. Kartini for a good reason: her mother had and AIDS when impregnate him, and died of it when he was about one and a half year-old. He never thought before that Mrs. Kartini had known his real mother. He was touched, but also shocked by the possibilities that came out from the story, that he might be exposed by the disease since he was born. But Mrs. Kartini later told him not to worry for he most certainly hadn’t inherited his mother’s incurable disease. If he had, he wouldn’t be alive right now, she said to him.
But He had already other problems long since, one that formed his weak personality: shy, introvert, and cowardice person. It was when he was thirteen years old; he found out that boys are more attractive to him than girls. And when he was in senior high school he finally discovered the term for his strange preferences, and judge himself as “abnormal”. And he had to had a difficult life as a teenager. He decided to keep his “abnormality” a secret once he went to the college (since it’s unacceptable in the third world countries).
During his first year there, he made friends with other classmates, got a good grade, and had chances to learn many kinds of knowledge (the one he liked the most was foreign language). His life become as fine as any other people, but that was until he get to know one of his classmates, Edi. Edi was very handsome that he fell for him secretly; unfortunately Edi had also a bad attitude. He wanted to make friends with him. But on the other hand, Edi had grown jealous of him for being the smartest student among their friends, and later despised him secretly.
Eventually, He made friends with Edi, but he didn’t know that Edi had other intentions. As they get along , Edi found something that seems strange from the main character, one of them was the fact that he has no girlfriend. The way the main character behaved was also not like regular teenage guy: kind of soft and too polite, and it made him popular among the girls in his classmate, Which irritated him even more. Seeing this attitude came out of the main character, Edi already thought that the main character was not normal, and he saw that as a chance to vilify the main character. He tried to find the time when the two of them could talk personally, and Edi’s idea was to bring him to the night club. At first the main character refused, but Edi use his friendship as an excuse to persuade him, and so the main character yielded.
Somehow in some way, Edi managed to corner the main character to tell the truth, but was only the story about his AIDS mother. The main character think that he could trust Edi, and Edi had sworn that he would never told anyone else. But on the next day, Edi finally managed to humiliated the main character by telling to his friends, lecturers, and even the dean of the faculty, that the main character had an AIDS.
The main character was then called by the dean into a session to find the truth about the rumor. He already explained that he wasn’t inheriting the HIV virus, but it wasn’t reassuring. The dean suggested that his blood need to be tested to support his explanation. And so he underwent the blood test in the medical faculty, but only to find out that the result was…positive.
I don’t really know how I would continue at this point, but the main character was eventually was sent to the exile on the foothill of the mountain. The exile was initiatively made by the local citizen to contain those who were exposed by the HIV virus. He had a difficult life there, until he met a person named Ari, who had an AIDS just like him, and, he found out later, was also a gay. Ari was much younger than the main character was, but had a bad temper and very moody (much the opposite of the main character). And he was exposed by the virus just recently. They eventually got along and become friends.
Five years later in the exile, Ari was already dying Because of his disease, and that he was not treated well. “His body was already nothing but a bone wrapped underneath the skin”. All the main character can do as his only friend, was to stay by his side as long as he can. And in just few days, Ari died.
Because of how much he treasured his friendship, the main character became very depressed for losing Ari. He had a sudden, temporary change of attitude; he became very violent, and easily irritated that he often engaged in a fight with other exiles. The head of the exile decide to arrange him a meeting with local psychiatrist. Dr. Sulaiman, the psychiatrist, understood the sudden change of his behavior, but he wanted to know the reason. So he allowed the main character to tell what had caused him so much depression. In the end after a long conversation between them, the main character asked:
‘If I already had HIV virus running through my blood ever since I was born, why wasn’t I the one who died first, instead of Ari?’
The doctor himself became curious by the main character’s confess, rather than his mental problem. The fact that the main character has been alive for more than 20 years could make the assumption that he had a wrong result of previous blood test. So he suggested the main character to undergo another blood test that will be prepared by him exclusively. The main character, who seemed to be much calmer now that he had confide, could only yield.
The doctor happened to have much more extensive knowledge in medical, that he had arranged a different blood test type that was not commonly used to diagnose the disease, but considered more accurate. The main character somehow hoped that he would find the different answer. Because if it turns out that he had the wrong result five years ago, and that he wasn’t exposed, he could get back to his normal life. thought about getting back to college, or even better, back to his home with Mrs. Kartini and his little brothers who missed him.
The result was just the same, positive...
But when the main character seemed to lost all his hope, the doctor had more to say, to ask him.
‘you were saying that you had this virus since you were born?’
‘...yes’
‘it’s impossible.’
‘what is?’
‘the level of HIV in your blood shows that the virus is in two years latency stage, not twenty. It’s as if the virus growth was stunted. It ceases to grow, somehow, and it’s probably because of something in your blood. This is impossible, could it be...’
‘What?’
‘that you are immune?’
