Selling Spring

Part 4

For a week, the question kept popping up and disappearing in Alex's mind like a person trying to keep a ball filled with air underwater. To keep the ball submerged, Alex constantly took what other people wanted and showed himself to please others. He kept on copying, hoping that the momentary happiness of relating and talking to other people could drown him in blissful ignorance.

"Hey, wanna hang out in Marcel's room? They say that his friends bought 5 boxes of pizza," Cayson shouted, his head peering into the room.

"What kind?" Alex asked, jumping up from his chair and walking towards Cayson, who was already starting to leave.

"Don't know; let's go! Marcel's planning to give out free copies of his comic to the first ten people to come!"

Instead of drinking coffee or any caffeinated drink to energize himself, Alex would go out with Cayson to get his own version of stimulation.

Alex and Cayson bolted up a flight of stairs and raced to room 204, which had its door wide open and music flowing through the hallway. Alex, eyeing the pizza boxes on a desk in the middle of the room, asked Marcel if he could get a copy of the comic. Smiling, Marcel tosses a brightly covered book to both Alex and Cayson.

"Fans of my work?" asked Marcel, knowing full well of the answer.

Alex tensed up upon hearing this. His mind spun as the realization hit; he was face-to-face with his role model as an equal. "I should be happy," Alex thought. He always admired Marcel as an artist even before he got used to the schedule in school.

"Right, I have to see what Marcel likes," thought Alex, looking back at Marcel and expressing his thanks. Marcel seemed a bit confused that Alex acted weirdly in their first meeting, but shrugged it off, grinning.

Cayson seemed to not be interested that Alex was staring at Marcel's turned head, instead choosing to focus on talking with three other guys and eating orange-colored pizza that was barely warm.

"His mind is very clear," thought Alex, looking at Marcel's characteristics while Marcel himself was talking to another group of students enthusiastically. There were few words around Marcel's head and all of them were revolving slowly. "Passionate, enthusiastic, artistic, sociable..." Alex thought, reading off of the slowly revolving words. Relieved, Alex turned to Cayson to talk to him and his friends. Alex already had a lot of matching characteristics as Marcel, so it was going to be easy to be happy that day.

After about an hour of shouting, laughing, and eating, people started to leave Marcel's room, ready to fall asleep instantly. Alex, however, had other plans. Approaching Marcel, who was talking to his friends, Alex stopped to eavesdrop for a while before talking to him to learn how his friends acted.

"How do we write as you do? Can you give some advice to us?" asked a student next to Marcel.

"Um, don't sit around to get an idea, I guess? I mean, don't get the idea that you will someday get a big idea that gets you going for several months. Sit down and just write a short story about your daily life with a twist," answered Marcel, looking at the student with a kind and relaxed face.

Back in his room, he told Cayson that he was going to study and asked if he could do the same so that they don't distract each other. Cayson obliged, pulling out his noise-canceling headphones, homework, orange pencil, and laptop.

Tap tap tap. The sound of the keyboard clicking was the only thing making a sound in room 106. He was astounded and appalled that Marcel wasn't who he expected, but after talking with Cayson about the party, he managed to cool himself down.

"Okay, I'm not in any way interested in drawing or reading comics now," thought Alex, as he cracked his fingers, getting ready to take on the 1000-word English essay again. "What's wrong with that? I'm happier now that I dropped that hobby."

Alex stared at his reflection by lowering the brightness of his computer screen. He could now see his own eyes, nose, mouth, and ears now that the plethora of words he collected over the course of several weeks is not leisurely revolving around his head. Alex exhaled a sigh of relief. He just had to accept that he's him. Alex is Alex, no matter how many words he puts in.

It was surprisingly simple to come to terms with his new personality, which was probably thanks to his new personality. Grinning, he faced his half-done essay and started working on it, motivated by the new identity that pushes him from inside himself.

"Cayson, Wake up!" shouted Alex as he shook a half-asleep Cayson at 7:30 in the morning.

"Uhhh... what time is it?" Cayson mumbled, sitting up.

"Time to go to breakfast!" Alex laughed, throwing Cayson's clothes at him.

Cayson rubbed his eyes, stood up, and started getting dressed.

At breakfast, Alex, Cayson, and three other boys sat together on a desk, discussing the latest group project.

"Hey Alex, can you do the project for us? We have a soccer tournament three days from now and we gotta practice."

"Yeah, I'll do it. Anyway, how many games did you win?" asked Alex, pretending to be intrigued.

"Three wins and one loss so far."

"Well, you gotta win the next one for us or I'm just going to do one-third of it," retorted Alex, knowing that the team will win. "Sorry if I sounded too aggressive."

"It's all good, we know you're doing well."

"It doesn't matter if I have to carry the workload of three people. It doesn't matter if I dedicate all my time to helping others. It doesn't matter if my grades are falling. What's important is that I give the best version of myself to everybody," thought Alex, smiling wearily at his image of happiness.

Losing sleep, getting thinner, feeling tired all the time, frequently experiencing burnout...

Surely, Alex is happy now. 

How exactly do people sell spring?

There are many ways to do it: giving flowers to strangers, offering warmth on a cold day, or doing anything you can for others only for a smile.

However, the phrase "selling spring" is jargon for prostitution.

Now, how exactly do people sell spring?