Small Clean Letters

Chapter 3 – Small, Clean Letters

The day after the concert had the aftertaste of confetti–paper that wasn’t there anymore but had trained the light to fall a little softer in his kitchen. The kettle clicked off like a sentence finishing itself. Aleem poured water into a mug that had survived three different versions of his taste and one relationship; the glaze was chipped where it liked to be held.

His mother sniffed the air as she came out of her room, hair clipped into a small fortress. “You came in late but not too late,” she said, which in her language meant it is safe to be proud of you. She looked at the lightstick on the shelf and tilted her head. “That toy is bright.”

“It’s for community,” he said, surprising himself with the formality. “Like… a torchlight that tells other people you’re not alone.”

“Ah.” She nodded, accepting that her son had joined a religion with friendly robes. “Eat before you start doing your projects.”

He ate–kaya on toast, the kind of bread that made a noise like memory. The show unspooled behind his eyes again in small pieces: Aoi’s head tilt at the bridge, the crew member’s smile over the gaffer tape, Kai’s whisper of Pass. The urge that had arrived at the railing by the water last night had not left overnight like some visiting enthusiasm. It sat on his shoulder with the weight of a well-made tool.

He opened his laptop. A new note waited on the desktop like a door that had politely removed itself from its hinges. He typed the title and felt the rightness of it settle into the room: THANK YOU, CREW – SINGAPORE PILOT.

Underneath, he began the way he liked to begin anything that might involve other people’s time.

Objective: make the room a little kinder.

Constraints: no blocking views; no litter; no breaking venue rules; no embarrassing anyone on stage or off.

Tone: clean, small, sincere.

Language: English, with Japanese under in small font.

He wrote the line itself–THANK YOU, CREW–and then went to fonts. He tested a few on the screen, the way you try on shirts you already know are wrong just to verify that your instincts are still trustworthy. He landed on one that did not pretend to be a personality. A sans serif with shoulders like a person who can carry things without mentioning it.

Zara texted: Brunch? Esplanade? I want to debrief this show like it’s a trauma, except it’s not trauma, it’s joy.

He laughed and typed back: 11. Bring your print-nerd brain.

Esplanade’s concourse had learned to host Sundays. Buskers ironed their songs. Children chased each other around columns disguised as durians. In the café, the air-cons practiced their version of mercy.

Zara arrived with a tote bigger than some people’s personalities. She spilled notebooks, a ruler, and a tube of washi tape onto the table like a surgeon setting out instruments. “Okay,” she said, skipping hello because love can afford to be efficient. “We are making a movement, but a non-annoying one.”

“Not a movement,” Aleem said, though the word had a stretch he liked. “An arrangement.”

“I will allow it.” She leaned in. “Show me.”

He rotated the laptop. The mock-up sat in the middle of the screen, black letters on white, the Japanese tucked neatly below. She inhaled in a way that made him trust his own eyes more.

“Good,” she said. “It doesn’t beg. It just exists.” She tapped the margin with her nail. “We keep it A4? Big enough to be seen, small enough not to block Auntie’s view?”

“A4,” he said. “Card stock. Not flimsy.”

“We can print at Bras Basah,” she said immediately, because Zara’s brain maintained a parallel map of the city useful to anyone doing honest work–where to bind, where to laminate, whose uncle rented tables.

He flipped to the logistics page he had started. “I want to ask the venue first. No surprises. If they say no, we… adapt.”

“Good boy,” she said, the way aunties at weddings say it when the groom doesn’t step on the bride’s dress.

They sketched the flow like a small operation. Put a stack at each section entrance with a volunteer to explain: please hold only during the end-of-show bow, low to your chest if front rows, no waving, no throwing, take photo only after when lights up. Collect the sheets near the exits for recycling. A sign that said NO LITTER, PLEASE in type that could be read from an apologetic distance.

“Who are our volunteers?” Zara asked, already scrolling through a list of cousins, cousins’ friends, and friends’ boyfriends who owed her favors from errands performed at weddings.

“I don’t want it to look like a fanclub’s flex,” he said. “No logos, no big groups. Just… people.”

“So we do it the Singapore way.” Her eyes sparkled. “A spreadsheet.”

He groaned. She laughed. “Relax, it’s just to avoid everyone showing up at Gate 3 and no one at Gate 5. We can keep it low-key. Telegram channel? Not too many people, but enough to not look creepy–say fifty?”

“Fifty is already a small nation,” he muttered, but his fingers were typing. He created the channel and named it like he names files he expects to find in ten years: tyc_sg_pilot. He put a description that made a promise without fanfare: Crew appreciation cards for AURORA9 shows in SG. Respect venue rules. Be kind. No mess.

A notification: Kai joined, because of course Zara had already sent him the link. I can carry things, he wrote. And I can talk nicely to ushers.

“Good,” Zara said, peering over. “He has the face for it. Like a bouncer at a very polite club.”

Aleem leaned back and watched the Marina Bay water pretend to be still. He felt the shape of the plan in his chest, the way the army’s drills had worn grooves that lets new habits find the right path.

“What about after?” Zara asked, straw worrying her iced tea. “After the cards?”

“Recycle,” he said. “And maybe put a small message online–not to show off, just to encourage other cities if they want. Quiet is a gift.”

She nodded, then made the face she wore when she wanted to be careful with a friend’s heart. “And personally? After?”

He pretended to misunderstand to buy himself two seconds, then surrendered to the better version of himself. “Personally… I want to keep what last night felt like. Not the high. The… arrangement.” He searched for the word and found the one he had used in his note. “Objective: make the room kinder.”

Zara’s smile went soft. “Okay.” She took a pen from behind her ear. “Then we do it right.”

Bras Basah Complex had the smell of old paper and practical people. The print shop auntie wore a polo shirt that had survived the last three versions of the store logo. She looked at the file, looked at Aleem, looked at Zara, and said, “Not for politics ah.”

“Not at all,” Aleem said, hands out, palms a language. “For saying thank you.”

“Better,” she said, approving of gratitude as a hobby. “How many?”

They started small. A hundred to test on a fan-signing event at a mall screening the tour VCR, two hundred for the next fan-organized gathering. Card stock that bent but did not pout. A stack that felt like duty in his hands and like possibility in his arms.

They tried a few with and without Japanese. With, it looked like a room that remembered people’s first languages. Without, it looked like a city meeting itself halfway. They chose with. The auntie raised an eyebrow at their deliberations and said, “If you want to be polite, be polite properly.”

On the MRT back, the stack sat between their legs like a pet. People glanced and then swiveled away with the specific privacy accorded to strangers doing something vaguely earnest. An uncle in a neatly ironed shirt nodded at the typeface as if he had something to do with its invention.

At home, Aleem laid a sheet on his table and stared at it long enough to make himself a little uncomfortable. He felt the temptation to put more words–we appreciate you, or you make the magic happen. He didn’t. He thought of Aoi’s sentences, the ones that came out neat and careful, never overselling. He left it at three words.

He wrote an email to the venue and another to the promoter. He kept them short enough to be read on a phone and respectful enough to be forwarded to someone with authority. He attached the PDF and a paragraph:

We propose to hold these cards during the final bow only. We will brief volunteers not to obstruct views or exits. We will collect and recycle afterward. No logos. No brand. Just thank you. If not allowed, we will not proceed.

He sent it and then did the adult thing of closing the laptop and making dinner. The reply would come when it came. He was not the man who refreshed the inbox into a wound.

The mall screening was a test. Not official, no idols, just a community event where a sponsor had rented an atrium and invited fans to watch a high-quality recording of a recent AURORA9 concert. The sound system was ambitious for a mall. The floor was a cooperative of feet that had decided not to scuff.

Zara wore a lanyard not because she needed authority but because lanyards remind crowds that someone has washed a volunteer T-shirt before. Kai carried the stack like a baby in a sitcom.

“Hello!” Zara beamed, her tone a masterclass in polite firmness. “We’re handing these out for the final bow. Please don’t raise during songs, don’t block views. After, we collect for recycling. Thank you!”

People complied the way Singaporeans do when handed a plan that does not ask them to change their nature. Teenagers nodded with a gravity that hadn’t been asked of them today. Aunties accepted with the grace of people who had taught their own children to write thank-you cards without sarcasm.

During the final bow on the screen, Aleem counted three–one beat less than he wanted–and lifted his own card to chest height. Around him, a hundred white rectangles rose like a small, well-behaved tide. No whoops. No waving. Just the clean fact of the message.

On the screen, the bows went low. It felt right to be holding gratitude without sound.

After, they collected the cards into neat stacks. A girl with nail art like small galaxies handed hers to him with both hands. “Thank you,” she said, and then laughed at herself because gratitude begets gratitude and somebody needs to break the loop.

They posted one photo–a wide shot with no faces distinguishable, cards held low, the screen showing a wide angle where no one’s expression could be harvested for clicks. The caption read: Thank you, crew. Quiet is a gift.

Within an hour, two other cities’ fan pages had messaged: could they copy? Aleem replied yes and attached the file without the SG initials. He did not ask for credit. If the idea was good, it would go where it needed to go.

The venue replied on Monday afternoon with an email written by someone who had learned the art of saying no, but also yes without putting anyone’s job at risk.

Thank you for the proposal. Cards can be held during the final bow provided they are A4 size, do not obstruct views, and are collected post-show. No distribution within seating unless coordinated with ushers. Please liaise with our duty manager on the day for placement of stacks at section entrances.

Zara texted immediately: We got the blessing! Then: No litter no logos, my two favorite L-words.

Aleem sat at his desk and let the relief run its course without arranging a parade. He replied to say thank you and to confirm he would be the point of contact. He created a new sheet: Duty roster – section entrances. He put Kai at Gate 4 because Kai had the shoulders for it. He put Zara at the central block because she had the eyebrows to tame enthusiasm.

In the Telegram channel, he pinned a message called Ground Rules.

1. No approach to backstage, hotels, or airports. Ever.
2. No chanting during ment sections unless invited.
3. Final bow = cards up at chest height, both hands, no blocking.
4. After: stack and return to collection points.
5. Be kind to ushers. Thank them by name if they share it.
6. If in doubt, choose quiet.

He added a seventh line under his breath: Respect. Distance. Gratitude. Then realized the channel did not need his private ritual; it needed usable instructions. He kept the seventh line for himself and stuck it above his desk with painter’s tape.

At night, the city returned to him differently. Not louder, not brighter–just more arranged. He walked the length of the Esplanade bridge with hands in pockets and the show’s bridge in his chest, counting breath without letting it turn into superstition. He bought a packet of roasted chestnuts from a man whose hands were the color of work and ate them slowly because it would be rude not to.

He watched the Telegram channel populate with names that were not just avatars: people offering to bring zip ties, people double-checking the recycling point locations, someone volunteering to design a small thank-you slip for ushers with the venue’s name printed correctly. He checked his own heart for the danger signs–flattery, the urge to be seen as the leader–and found only the normal worry of a person hoping not to waste other people’s time.

When he texted AURORA9 SG fan pages asking if they could mention the crew cards in their pre-show etiquette posts, he wrote it like a favor that costs nothing and returns the exact amount of pride you put into it. Most said yes. One replied with a gif of a dancing otter that conveyed approval better than language.

On Thursday, he went to an origami shop because a word had been winging through his head all week and refused to land until he bought paper. White squares, the kind that keep creases like secrets. He folded a crane at his kitchen table with the deliberate clumsiness of someone who had watched a video three times and decided to forgive himself for the first two. On one wing, small and almost private, he wrote: quiet is a gift. On the other, he wrote: thank you.

He did not plan to hand it to anyone. He put it on the shelf next to the lightstick and found the sight of paper pretending to be a bird stabilizing.

The next official AURORA9 event on the calendar was a fan-meet announcement that came with the kind of timing that makes offices less productive for an afternoon. Tickets would be a battle. Zara set up war rooms in three living rooms simultaneously. Kai swore he knew a faster path through the checkout flow that was three clicks shorter and probably illegal in some countries but not here.

Aleem joined the queue like a citizen and bought two tickets the normal way. He did not try for front-row. He aimed for center, mid-distance. He trusted row twelve as a principle: close enough to see breath, far enough to see the whole.

The night before the fan-meet, he printed twenty extra cards in case the duty manager changed their mind and asked for more. He charged his portable charger and put his lightstick in a pouch like a gentleman. He wrote, on his palm where only he would see it, the words that had been telling him how to behave since Tekong taught him to be an adult: R / D / G.

When he slept, his dreams were reasonably boring, which is a kind of miracle.

Fan-meets have a different air from concerts. The room is bright, daylight-backed even when indoors. Staff wear lanyards in colors that have meanings. Games have rules that attempt to wrangle the chaos into television.

At the entrance, Aleem met the duty manager from the email–a woman with tired kindness in the corners of her eyes. They stacked the cards at the section doors as agreed. Volunteers took their places the way friends take pews at weddings: not solemn, but understanding the ask.

“Final bow only,” Zara reminded, fingers splayed like a director framing a shot.

“Final bow only,” the volunteers chorused, a rehearsal of a promise.

The show was a tidy chaos: skits, laughter, members charming their way through conversational minefields. The host made the jokes that emcees are trained to make with edges sanded off. The audience flowed between screaming and listening with the discipline of people who had learned that both can be manners.

Aleem watched for craft more than content. How the crew moved in their sneakers. How the sound tech’s hands hovered over sliders during a game where microphones are at risk. How the stage manager’s headset became a traffic light.

When the final bow arrived, the cards rose again, quiet and low. Ushers smiled in the small way people do when they are not supposed to look like they are enjoying work. The cards went down. The stacks returned. No mess.

After, the duty manager pressed a bottle of water into Aleem’s hand with the gratitude of someone who has handled worse audiences. “Thank you,” she said. “For being the kind of fans that make me happy about my job.”

He laughed, embarrassed. “We’re just… trying to be helpful.”

“Trying is ninety percent,” she said, and vanished into the crowd like a person whose job description is prevent incidents.

Zara appeared at his elbow, eyes bright, cheeks doing that thing where happiness tries to escape your face. “We did it,” she said, then corrected herself. “It happened. We helped it happen.”

Kai, coming up behind with a stack of returned cards, panted like a man who had just sprinted after a bus and caught it. “One auntie tell me, ‘Young man, this is a very good idea.’ I grew five centimeters.” He held his fingers apart. “Like that.”

They laughed, the kind of laugh that finds its right volume without being told.

On the way out, back through the concourse where the world resumed its real brightness, Aleem saw a small knot of fans waiting off to the side, not near any backstage door or likely path–just loitering with intent. He recognized the look. It was not dangerous. It was the hope that proximity could do the work of courage.

He looked away by choice. He had made his rule and written it where he would be forced to see it even when he didn’t want to: Respect. Distance. Gratitude. He would not teach himself the habit of chance.

At home, he put the returned cards in a neat pile and counted how many had bent corners as if the statistic meant anything. He posted a thank-you in the channel. He sent a short note to the venue duty manager: We appreciated your help. Please thank your team for keeping us safe and organized. He did not sign it with anything other than his name.

Then he allowed himself an indulgence: he clicked on the group’s official accounts to see if any city had adopted the crew-card idea. One had. The photo looked like theirs–white rectangles held at chest height, words readable, no faces, no mess. The caption was in Spanish. The phrase gracias equipo looked at home.

He smiled, small. He did not screenshot. He let the idea do what it was doing.

A week later, the company announced a choreography workshop series tied to the tour’s documentary rollout. Cities could submit short clips; finalists would be invited to a supervised rehearsal segment to consult on movement transitions. Singapore was on the list.

Aleem read the post twice, the way you reread a text from someone you did not think would write again. He sent the link to Kai and Zara with a single sentence: I think I will try.

Kai replied with seventeen exclamation marks, then apologized and replaced them with a well-mannered “Yes.”

Zara wrote: If you do, we will make sure your socks don’t embarrass you.

He closed the app and stood very still in his living room while the late afternoon did its golden hour audition. The thought of trying did not feel like ambition so much as a continuation of a conversation he’d been having with himself in the dark since Tekong–about breath, about precision, about how small choices could change the shape of hours.

He went to the shelf and picked up the crane. The crease at the wing had softened from dust. He blew gently, a ridiculous habit that made the thing look newly made. He put it down and pulled the table back to make space on the floor. He pressed play on a track that had learned his room.

He did not dance grandly. He did not dance like anyone would see. He borrowed a breath before the phrase and gave it back after the turn. He practiced stepping into counts as if they were rooms you entered with respect for the occupants. He moved like a person rearranging furniture without waking anyone.

When he was done, he leaned against the wall where the paint had a human skin and looked at his own hands for a stupidly long time. They looked like hands that could carry a stack of cards. They looked like hands that could learn to let go without drama.

He opened his Notes app and created another file. Title: Workshop Submission – Minimal Breath Study. He wrote three lines under it–less a description, more a permission.

Listen for the quiet parts. Borrow a breath. Return it with interest.

Then he picked up his phone and, for the first time in a long time, recorded himself not as a means to sleep but as an act of trying.

He would edit tomorrow. He would submit the day after. He would keep his rule pinned above the desk even as the world tried to teach him new ones.

Respect. Distance. Gratitude.

It wasn’t a prayer. It was a way to keep time.