Anastasia

33

"Love yourself. Above all, love yourself."

"Personality is framed by the combination of biological, situational, and mental processes - all ingrained in a socio-cultural and developmental context." Ana read aloud her notes, her finger tapping on her knee with slight frustration. It has been three days. She has already planned out the skeleton of her questionnaire, just needing some tweaks with the words and she would be all good to go. However, she doesn't know who she should survey. Zachary might be a choice, but Ana was apprehensive about it. He seemed emotionally unstable at times, and she couldn't bring herself to trust everything about him. She felt that there was something off about him. Yet, it was these people that makes the results pretty intriguing to analyse. Perhaps she could give him a try.

She picked up her phone and gave him a call, and it wasn't long before he picked up.

"Hey -" they both started in unison. Ana cut herself off, waiting for Zachary to speak.

"You first." they chimed in sync again.

"No, you go." Ana said.

"I was thinking if you would want to...study together at the library this Saturday?" he carried a hint of hope in his voice, and Ana would have turned down his invitation if not for that damn hope. She wanted to steer away from him as much as possible, even if Astrid has already left the state. It was a rule she came up herself, but she couldn't find a reason as to why she kept giving into his invitations everytime he asked her out. It isn't a date. She told herself firmly. You are just friends with him, Cowell. Stop giving yourself new ideas.

"Well, sure. After that I gotta head to the market to grab some groceries. I haven't eaten properly since...I don't know when. Anyway," she paused, pushing a stray hair away from her face, looking at the ceiling to relieve the stiffness in her neck. "Could you do me a small favour and fill up a questionnaire for me? It's for my project." she rubbed her eyes tiredly, glancing at the clock. It was dinnertime, and she has nothing left in the fridge to eat. She would just sneak into Danielle's shelf for cup noodles then.

"méi wèn tí." he replied, sounding like a song spoken in words at an opera performance. Although the language was foreign to her, she knew it was Chinese. She watched a few Chinese dramas with her cousins back when she was younger, who were Chinese. She loved to be with them because it meant that dim sum and home cooked Chinese food will be served on the table for her and her family to enjoy. Her cousins, all of whom are boys, adored her deeply and treated her like a sister. They taught her a few simple Chinese greetings, all of which were long forgotten. It was surprising that Zachary could speak Chinese. The inclined pitches coupled with his deep voice made him sound like a local - the enunciations were fluent and clear.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"No problem." he translated.

"Thank you." she made a mental note to ask him about his fascinating talent in linguistics as she hung up the phone.

As for the rest of the questionnaires, she would randomly pick anyone in the library to fill it up for her. I guess it isn't a bad idea after all. She fastened the papers with a binder clip and slid them into a file together with her laptop, before placing them into her bag.

"Finally, time for food." she stretched herself and walked into the kitchen, opening her shelf for the umpteenth time in a day, hoping that some mysterious person would place a bag of pasta with some tomato sauce in her shelf, or some muddlehead would accidentally misplace their food and end up in her shelf instead.

Sadly, there was nothing.

"Looking for food?" Danielle came in, her hands filled with red plastic bags. Ana's eyes lit up at the sight of the bags. She could point out that prized possession anywhere.

"Is that..."

"Chinese food." she nodded, grinning.

Ana squealed, jumping up and down excitedly as Danielle laid the styrofoam packets on the counter, opening them for Ana to see. The aroma filled the air, and Ana hungrily breathed it in, looking at the food packets with twinkling eyes.

Cereal prawns, pulled pork belly buns, hor fan (a chinese noodle soaked in gravy), and -

"DIM SUM!" Ana cried out, grabbing a xiăo lóng bāo and stuffing it into her mouth, the succulent meat exploding with flavour as she chewed with her eyes closed, dancing like a ballerina around the kitchen with pure bliss. Danielle giggled at the clumsy and stiff movements as Ana danced, shaking her head and smiling like a mother would at her child. She portioned out the food onto two plates, giving Ana the lion's share.

"Thank you," she hugged Danielle tightly and kissed her on the cheek, a full grown smile planted on her face. She carried her plate into her room carefully, humming a song softly to herself cheerfully.

"Mind if I join you for Netflix?" Danielle poked her head into Ana's room. She found herself looking at her best friend moving her upper body to the left, right, and left again, bouncing slightly as she chewed her food.

"Yeah shure," she said, her mouth full of the hor fan. She scooted to the side as Danielle settled herself beside her, and Ana gestured at Danielle to choose the genre of the film to watch.

"Are you sure?" she teased. Ana knew that Danielle loved romance films, and only romance. Let's just say that Ana wasn't a big fan of romance. But this time, Ana just shrugged it off.

"Only this time, because you bought me this glorious food." she replied.

"I shall head to Chinatown more often then." Danielle suggested. Ana stared at her for a long moment, and smiled.

"I think I can survive with your love for romance films, as long as I get to eat Chinese food." she said. Danielle doesn't have Netflix, not because she didn't want to pay for the subscription, but her parents stubbornly refused to let her install that distraction. Thus the words coming out from Ana's mouth sounded too good to be true.

"Dear me. Am I hearing this right?" Danielle widened her eyes, looking at Ana with astonishment.

"Tell me you're not deaf." she muttered. She was caged by Danielle's strong, lean arms as she was pressed against Danielle like glue to paper.

"You're the best!"

"It's a win-win situation, honey." Ana spoke into her chest, her voice muffled. She was elated, though. She couldn't wait to spend more time with her best friend.