•Bella Mondé•

12. Esoteric

|Part One|

Subsequent day.

It was evening and everyone was still asleep, not minding at all.

"Hng..." Aiden moaned as he came back from the dead of sleep. He started to wriggle and stretch within the cozy, warm haven that was the bed. As parts of his body were gradually turning on and before he could've got up, Blake snuggled closer.

"Evening, defeated man." Aiden said sloppily, ruffling his hair in an attempt to wake Blake up. He giggled.

"Shut up, Malfoy." He mumbled, pulling Aiden closer to himself.

"I'm hungry, Blake. Let go."

"I'm starving too. As if I didn't eat for days."

"Well, practically it's impossible. Just yesterday you were inhaling the dinner." Aiden chuckled. Blake finally let Aiden go as he too got up and entered the bathroom to have a warm shower. All though, it was heaven to be bathing under warm water, it burnt whenever the water touched his raw, uncured wounds.

He soon came out with a towel around his waist and changed, walking down the stairs when someone joined.

"Feeling fresh, I suppose?" Neel raised an eyebrow.

"Of course," Blake answered almost immediately and ran forward as an indication of not wanting to continue the chatter.

"And then we kissed!" Kash was just exaggerating about how yesterday went to Aiden until Blake and Neel joined.

"Hey."

"Good evening, Kash and Aiden. Slept well?" Aiden laughed at the difference in the dialogue formation. Neel's was polished and seemed formal whereas Blake went on with an informal hey not even bothering to listen to the response.

"What?" Aiden shook his head and smiled.

"Nothing. Where's Ray? Didn't see him this morning. And how's Mark, Kash?"

"Mark's good. He wanted to rest so I didn't bother him for long and about Ray, ask Jiho." He answered back and proceeded to talk.

"I'll check up on Mark and Ray, y'all talk." Aiden lifted up his body from the sofa, feeling the soft warmth of the carpet on his feet as he lurched over to Mark's room.

"Hey! Where were you?" Aiden frowned. He found Raylan goofing around with Jiho while walking along the hallway.

"Nowhere, why?"

"Nothing, we're all diagnosed with the starvation syndrome so I thought of searching for the only person who can save us from this." Aiden rolled his eyes with a subtle smile on his face.

"Fine, fine. No need to butter me and stuff!" Raylan erupted into a loud jovial laugh as it echoed through the hallway.

"It feels like I'm long gone and forgotten." Jiho said developed by a deep sigh.

"Shut up, will ya? Come, let's go." Raylan took Jiho's hand and ran along.

•••

Knock, knock.

"Mark, are you awake? Can I come inside?" Aiden asked, keeping his voice low.

"You can, Aiden." He swayed open the door and passed through.

"Sit." Mark softly mumbled as he settled his burden down on the bed, right beside him.

"How are you?" He simply questioned.

"I'm okay, you don't have to worry." Mark responded, smiling slightly.