Seeing Blind |NH|

Chapter Fifty Two

Walking around Hanoi, we weren't really paying too much attention. I was too busy getting lost in the thoughts in my head and staring at her when she suddenly stopped, grabbed my arm, and made a weird sound of excitement before jumping up and down like a little kid. She was absolutely, stunningly adorable.

I took my eyes off her long enough to turn my head to see that we had entered a large square that had several large, important looking buildings surrounding it.  When I looked in the direction Esta was looking, I couldn't quite figure out why she had gotten so excited.

"Niall!"  She grabbed my arm with both of her hands and began to jump up and down.  "Let's go see Ho Chi Minh!"

"Huh?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Ho Chi Minh!  That's his mausoleum over there."  She pointed in the direction she had been looking.  "Can we go?  Can we go?  Please?!"

"His mausoleum?"

"Yes!  His body was embalmed and lies in state there. Let's go!"

She grabbed my hand and began briskly walking, nearly running towards the large building.

"Why on earth do you want to go here?"

"I have a weird thing for dead, embalmed Communist leaders.  I wanna see Lenin one day!  And Mao! Literally, the sole reason I want to go to China. I mean, Hong Kong was interesting but the only thing on the mainland I want to see is--" 

"A dead Communist leader?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes!" She didn't seem to notice my expression as she continued to briskly walk towards the mausoleum.

Being dragged behind her, I made a face.  "You are a strange, strange girl."

"Oh, shut up."  She pulled us into the line of people waiting to get in as I grumbled about its length.  "Stop being a grouch.  This is going to be awesome." She literally could not stop being so giddy about it. It was both adorable and a bit concerning that she was this excited about a dead guy.

Surprisingly, the line moved rather quickly. For as long as it was, we maybe stood there for an hour or so. When we got closer to the entrance, Esta pulled a scarf out of her bag and began wrapping it around her head.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Being respectful.  We're supposed to wear them.  See."  She pointed to all the women ahead of us and the women coming out.  All of them had some sort of garment covering their heads.

When we got inside, we went through security and were handed two bags - a red and a blue one to place our belongings in before dropping them off in a room to the side.

"I'll hold onto that," I said, taking the keychain they had given us so that we could get our belongings back.

"Don't trust me?"

"Nope."

She stuck out her tongue as she walked backwards into the next section. I laughed as I put it in my pocket.  As we walked further into the mausoleum, the number of guards increased exponentially.  By the time we entered the dimly lit room, Esta had my hand in hers, not that she had let go of it the entire time, and was gripping it tightly in her excitement.  I had never seen her this excited about anything. And all I could do was enjoy the feeling of my hand in hers; our fingers intertwined.

When we finally entered the dark room, we barely had time for my eyes to adjust. We couldn't stand or take our time, we had to keep moving.  Four guards surrounded his body and made sure no one stopped.  We were in there for all of a minute.

"We waited over an hour for that?" I said, coming out of the tomb.

"Yes! And wasn't it sooo cool?!"

I looked at her as the smile on her face got bigger; the strange excitement she had for this was unfathomable to me but it also made me really happy. She was going to enjoy this trip. She was finally going to have a trip that she would enjoy. I'd do anything to make sure that happened. And if dead Communists were the way to go, then so be it.

"Absolutely worth it," I said.

When we exited, we made our way back to pick up our bags.  I handed over the little tag and they gave us back our stuff.  We then decided to see the rest of the complex.

Esta immediately took out her camera and made us pose in front of the mausoleum.

"One for the wall," she said.

I laughed at her a little.  She was like a kid in a candy shop.  But for dead bodies.

"You're an odd one, Esta."

"Yes, I am.  It's literally why you love me."

"It's not the only reason," I said, smiling. I gave her a hug, wrapping my arm around her neck and giving her a kiss on her head. She wrapped her arms around my waist. When we separated, we didn't separate very much. She kept her arms around my waist, and I kept my arm around her shoulder as we toured the rest of the complex.

As we slowly made our way back to the hotel, Esta took a billion pictures of the most random things. I took pictures of her. And me. And us, together.

As we got back to our hotel, waiting on the elevator, she said, "Thank you for indulging me, Niall."

"It's nothing.  It was kind of cool."

"Wasn't it?" She said, her eyes widening again with excitement.  "Next has to be Lenin.  Ever been to Russia?"

"No."

"One Direction never went?"

"Nope."

"Oh, well, next stop Lenin.  And then Mao.  And then Chiang, although his body isn't on display.  But his sarcophagus is!"

I laughed at her.  "You really are a strange one, Esta."

We got back to our room and everyone else's rooms were all attached or across from each other, so once she had freshened up and made herself "presentable to my friends" as she said it, we knocked on the adjoining door and went in, where I introduced her to everyone.

At dinner, they all got to know each other a bit and we all agreed to go do a cave trek the next day.  Although, it wasn't terribly late when we finished, I could tell Esta was close to passing out at the table due to her having not slept on the plane and jetlag, so we all just decided to call it an early night and go back and go to bed. 

Esta changed into her pajamas and climbed into her bed.

"Today was fun, Niall," she said as she laid down, pulling the covers up to her chest.

"It was," I said, smiling over at her as I grabbed my change of clothes and headed into the bathroom.

"Thank you for inviting me," she said, yawning.

"Thank you for coming," I said as I entered the bathroom and shut the door.

I took a quick shower and as I brushed my teeth, I looked at myself in the mirror. I replayed every moment from the day but kept coming back to how it felt to have her hand in mine. Anyone watching us would've thought we were a couple. Maybe now was the time? Maybe now that a couple of months had passed, and she was happier and healthier - maybe now was the time to ask her out?

When I exited a few minutes later, I started to say something, to somehow suggest we go out on a date but stopped, noticing she had already fallen asleep.  Smiling to myself, I bent down and kissed her forehead before I climbed into my bed and turned the lights out.  I played on my phone for a bit, going through some of the pictures I had taken that day, stopping at the ones that she was in, which was nearly all of them. I found one of us, that I really liked. Making it my background, I plugged my phone into charge and closed my eyes.