To Express Happiness || Fayne ✔✔

China Town 🍜

They all enter the hotel like soldiers after the war, all worn out. A hotel staff comes forward and receives them , offering to carry the bags, but none of them responds. They carry their bodies to the elevator, where Ashley leans on Zack, who leans on the mirror, both asleep. Shae knocks himself out beside the buttons, while Neha and Irina rest their heads on each other's shoulders.. Aaron, the only one half-awake, has no room on the elevator. He looks around, then pathetically hits his head on the elevator door and tries to sleep. Seconds later, as Aaron falls to the ground, it wakes up everyone, just as Irina facepalms even in her sleep.

They all go down the corridor; some walk, others creep like a zombie. As they all slowly make it to their rooms, Aaron and Irina walking shoulder to shoulder. It seemed like they had two legs together instead of four, as Aaron puts a step forward, Irina puts another. The journey to 507 feels never-ending just as Irina almost trips and falls onto Aaron. Aaron's shoulder keeps tickling out of order. The place where Irina kept her hands underwater seems to Aaron like two hooks attached to him, carrying the entire weight of his body as he dangles from a cliff, all alone, credulous. Then, watching Irina's face, he realizes the thing Irina said to him at Golden Gate Bridge.

' You begin your morning thinking that the day will be horrible, and you literally shut the door to all the good thoughts that may just make your day .' 

This, for Aaron, feels like the first morning when he doesn't plan out the entire day. He promises to let everything go; free himself from the prison of thinking further in life.

For the first time, Aaron's life is now a big 'Cliff-hanger' ,

As Irina opens the door, on the sight of bed she releases the bag from her shoulder and crashes hard on the bed, her face against the ceiling high above. Aaron looks at the sofa far away; Aaron is willing to go there but his leg's aren't. The soft bedsheet beside where Irina is lying engrosses him more than anything now. Aaron lies beside Irina before he even realizes, and half-expects Irina to push him away to his sofa, but instead, she speaks:

'' Hey Aaron....?''.

Eyes closed, Aaron swallows and replies with a ''Hmmnn??'' .

After admiring the silence for a moment , Irina asks, ''What happened....at the pool?''.

Aaron opens his sleep-deprived eyes and stares at the ceiling, when at the corner of his eye, he notices Irina doing the same.

'' Well...I forgot to take a deep breath. I was basically running out of oxygen. I'm so sorry that---''

''Nah nah nah. I'm not saying about that'', Irina says, placing her hand over her belly. 

Aaron looks at her and asks, '' Then what??''.

She keeps admiring the yellow of the sun ray cast by the summer morning as it slips past the transparent curtains , and the thin ray almost divides the room in two from the ceiling. 

'' No like...you wanted to get close to me...and your eyes were like....wanting something for me. I wanna know what, and I wanna know why...''.

'' Well...Irina..'', Aaron says, putting his hands beneath his head, looking away to the ceiling. '' It's just....there is this push and pull that I feel when I'm with you. Like...whenever I'm with you it's always a different life and I want that life. I want to spend every moment like this, always running and running , always chasing you and you only. I want every part of me become yours, but I don't know how...''.

Aaron waits for a whole minute for an answer, as he turns his head towards her.

Irina is long gone, asleep.