Love at the Nth Time

Distinction Between Bonds

Chapter 11

"She looked Chinese. Just reconcile with her, and she won't resist your charm." I watched her in the mirror as she dried my hair with a blow dryer from the hotel.

"No, I'll stay with you regardless, wherever you wish to go till we get home." She laughed.

"I don't wanna be the only one to have fun. It's fine, I told you. How many times do I need to repeat this?"

"You won't understand it anyway, so just follow me. I enjoy myself when I'm with you after all."

"Oh, really, you seem different when you're with your girlfriend."

"What kind of person?"

She just didn't know the real me.

"You're so sweet with her. I thought I'd get ants all over the place you'd go."

"I'm sweet. You're just stupid not to notice." She laughed. I looked down. I hungered for a smoke. I yanked her hand away from my hair to stop her from drying it.

"Stop it." I took a hair tie on the table and ponytailed my hair mindlessly simply to hold it in and snatched my cigarette case.

"Seth, may I borrow your laptop?"

"Sure. Use whatever you want," I said as I lit up my cig and blew the first smoke. I closed the glass door of the balcony.

So this was how cigarettes helped people. The feelings you're keeping inside, those emotions and uncertainties you desire to scream out, yet didn't have a strong will, and enough bravery to let everyone know the apprehension inside.

I turned around and slightly leaned on the bricks. I watched Celine keep herself busy facing the iPad on the bed.

She's too good to mess with me. I didn't care if the woman I dated already had a partner, since we were solely flirting around. However, I couldn't do it with her. I was anxious about her not wanting to see me anymore, scared that her expression would allude to something I hardly forgot if I went beyond my boundaries towards her. I kept pretending to be her friend, holding out to reveal the unpleasant display in front of her — the loser me.

"What the hell? You got drunk last night?!" I heard her voice all over the place. She shook me hard to wake me up. I moved her hand away, with my chest laid on the surface, exposing my bare top.

"Leave me alone."

"What? You got drunk when we're here? Seth, why did you get drunk? Get up!" she bawled. My head ached.

"Just leave me alone already." I frowned. I faced the other side of the bed. Celine called for a hot meal.

"You always get drunk whenever you want. It's not even good for you..." She handed me the egg soup.

"What do you know? You've never drunk so hard before."

"I agree. I think I still don't, since I still know how to discipline myself." I glanced at her, sitting on the corner of the bed.

"See..." She chuckled.

"Look at you. You're still so beautiful even if your hair is messy." She stood up and hurriedly went to the front door to pick up the phone attached to the wall. She added, "I'll call for towels. I'm thankful you didn't vomit." My heart skipped a beat again.

"Celine..!"

"Yeah?" she answered.

"Buy me a beer, please."

"I used my credit card. I saw a lot of cute things to buy. It's your entire fault." Celine pouted. I put my eyeglasses up my nose and watched the people around the city's shopping district. I grabbed her hand and took her towards the crowd.

"Why did you bring me here?!" she whined.

"So awesome, there's a parade! Can you hear the drums?"

"I can hear it, but I'm not tall!" She hugged me a bit from behind me as the crowd slowly covered the area. I pulled her in front of me and wrapped her. I tried to push people away in front of us to get ahead.

"Keep walking..!"

"I can't! It's too cramped!" I held her hand tightly and shouted,

"Dude, could you move a little? There's a baby here!" We joined the loud music and beat of drums. They gave us way till we reached the front with short girls like her.

"Oh my god, so cool, look at the ballerina!" she screamed and jumped a little. Green eyes lowered to see her holding me tightly. It's so warm. I nodded and chuckled as I moved my face near her to hear her.

"Look at the man with the black suit and the woman like Barbie. Bet they'll dance!"

"Eh, I don't know the music, though it's funny." She kept jumping and laughing like a real kid who saw this kind of show for the first time. I hardly covered her from behind since people turned aggressive.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I-I think we need to get out of here now. It's getting crazy..!" She nodded. I pulled her to walk first.

We went to many stores and restaurants not to eat at each of them, simply to look for the right ambience she described— cool-weather, quiet place, and beside the ocean with soothing classical music in the background.

"I already dumped her. I didn't like how she acted selfishly."

"Even so, if I were her, I think I could do that too, since you're not paying attention to me."

"This and that is a different story." She stared at the ocean with city lights at night. The waiter came and served the meal we ordered. I laughed, and her eyes lit up.

"Look at this, the fried shrimp is so big!" She giggled.

She liked seafood and sweets. She ate wholeheartedly, and she didn't even care about how others saw her the way she ate. I leaned the back of my palm with my chin and couldn't stop watching her.

"You enjoy eating."

"Yep, don't look at me like that."

"It's fine. You're cute. I can't stop." She glared at me while I laughed it off and joined her to eat the meal then.

She tried the food, took it from me, shared it with me, and talked about what it tasted like in her clever judgment. I laughed, I smiled, confused, a bit lost at a particular moment, still all of these. It calmed me, and I wished time would stop here. I could stay like this all night long with her if only I could.

"No," I mumbled, wrapping the blanket around me as I lay sideways facing the wall.

"Why is that? Are you already sleepy? Omg, it's just around ten, you know." I smiled and opened my eyes.

"I'm sleepy. I'll sleep now."

"What. You need to drink multivitamins then with high protein and vitamins to keep you stay active." I laughed softly, covering myself inside the blanket.

"Just sleep already. Stop talking!" I exclaimed.

"Come on, really?! We'll go home tomorrow, and are we like this before we leave? Seeeeth…" she wailed as she shook me.

"Stop, I wanna sleep!"

"Seth, I like to go outside…." She lay on my body, which stopped me from moving.

"Go outside then. If you get lost, I won't come and find you."

"You're so mean. I'm so happy I came here. The best thing I did on this trip. Hmm, when we were in the crowd, it was full of foreigners. So amazing, I'm like an alien. Like, where is this place? Am I in the right place?" She chuckled. "Then I loved the street foods, those yakisoba and egg rolls! Wow, I'm hungry again." She moved up a bit, putting her weight on me. "Seeeeth, why are you like this? Are you bored and tired of being with me? Okay-" I was startled when her voice toned down.

"No i***t. I was so happy and couldn't even care about the time we had because I enjoyed every minute of it." I muttered without breathing at intervals.

"Wow, haha, so what moment did you enjoy the most?" She got off from me. I pulled off the blanket and faced the ceiling. I glanced at Celine, who stared at me smiling, with arms around her curled knees. I gulped. I closed my eyes and sighed softly.

"I think it's the moment when you hugged me from behind when I cried because I couldn't contact you."

"Why is that?" I moved sideways to face her and used my arm as the pillow.

"I just felt how important you were to me back then." She stared at me for seconds.

"Whew," she mumbled and lay on the bed with eyes on the ceiling. She added, "Seriously, what do you think is the best moment you had here?" Scratching my forehead a little from what I heard, thinking I just answered it, did I? I leaned my head in my palm, resting it on the bed for support.

"Celine," I uttered. She looked at me. "What did you think about me when you saw me with Hang Cxhi? When you saw us kissing carelessly in public?" Her eyebrows twitched.

"It's annoying since you didn't tell me in the first place who you would be meeting with is your girlfriend. So that's why you invited me to come here, then you just dumped her. I don't know what's wrong with you."

I see. I let out a big breath and lay on the bed again. My face hid from the pillow and my arm. I needed to tell her I had like 15 girlfriends, and all of them were purely flings. I wanted to say I was not the good woman she wanted to hang out with. I longed to show her my world. I pulled up the blanket and covered myself, facing my back.

"I wanna sleep-"

"Win told me you have a lot of girlfriends. You used to be in pubs most of your nights whenever you had free time at work." I could hear my heartbeat pounding.

"You used to date women a lot. Different women you find attractive to suit your taste and haven't visited your country for five years now. You always get drunk and stay with your girlfriend, but you treat me not like them. You let me enjoy how it feels when I'm with a transgender person like you. I am kind of afraid you will drag me from what you are doing, yet you didn't. I don't know if that's good, and that's what you're looking for, or I'm just dragging you and causing you trouble-" I closed my eyes.

"Celine… Just sleep."

She didn't get it in the end. She didn't even want to admit the way she thought of the reasons behind my actions all this time. She kept on pretending, and here I was, also acting. I didn't want to get closer to her; on the contrary, I badly wanted to.

I didn't know anymore.

I woke up without her in bed. She had a video call to someone on the phone on the balcony. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, then joined her as I combed my hair.

"Oh, good morning, hey, this is Seth. Setherlyn Vinscon, she's a great fashion designer." I smiled a bit with a glance at her man.

"I see, looked like a model," he replied.

"Yeah, I told you. I have souvenirs you would surely love. I have the Star Wars robot you talked about. It kinda looked like a rubber ducky in the bathroom, though." Her boyfriend laughed.

I looked at the room where we stayed for almost five days. It feels nostalgic, the strange sentimental memories.

"She snores when she sleeps. How bad is your girlfriend, dude?" I said between their conversations. They laughed at it.

"She's a born snoring little girl. I'm used to it. That's why I always have cotton balls with me when we sleep together."

"What a lie?"

"I heard her call and moaned your name last night." She slapped me on my arm a bit, her mouth agape.

"What no, she's merely joking."

"I liked to hear that, though, baby." The man laughed.

I started to get sick.

"I'll prepare my things. Continue your love talk when we get home," I said before I left her.

Annoyed, disgusted, those words of his man kept echoing in my mind.

"Hey, wait." We stopped walking when her handbag fell from the top of her luggage. I clicked my tongue.

"You bought a lot! I told you to control yourself. It's good to have someone spoiling you, huh," I stated as I took her handbag from her.

"It's not like that…." I walked ahead, hoodie on, earphones and shades ready as I sat down in my seat, despising hearing anything. Hours passed by, I woke up and saw her quietly looking outside. I sighed a little and checked at my wristwatch.

"I can wake you up when we arrive." The expressionless she wore, so did I.

"Yes, please do."

I bet I was a great pretender.