Sunday.

      When I got home at around 2 PM on Sunday after a grueling morning. I've been running on a few hours of sleep every night and it's been slowly eating me out of sanity. I wanted to take a quick nap because I was drained but I was somehow excited for later that night because I've been wanting to see Les Miserables for a while now. Nhat was still sleeping when I walked through the door. Supposedly the clubbing experience from the previous night happened until the wee morning hours and Nhat just spent the night on my couch. Before I could sleep, John woke up and decided that it was time to go get a haircut. I reluctantly accepted because my ears were kind of itchy and a good ear picking might do me wonders I thought. So we piled onto the Kia and I was exhausted.
       I fell asleep when they did my ears. I fell asleep during the hair washing and luckily I didn't fall asleep during the haircut. It was only a brief trim. Austin later showed up too and he got the works including a face mask. Vietnamese men generally get pampered in that manner without an hesitation. I'm not into those masks because i know they do more negatives than positives. Sure, they'll pull out your sebaceous filaments, but they'll also irritate sensitive skin. Afterwards we had some super salty calamari porridge and intimidatingly this was my first time eating it. It was okay, nothing to rave about. By the time 7:30 rolled around and having spent like 90 minutes at the barbershop, I had to leave the group because of my second day in two nights in W4.
       When I got to her place she texted me and asked me to wait for her. I did... and waited for thirty minutes outside as she did who knows what. I was beginning to grow impatient and was pissed that I had to leave my friends to stand on a corner. Luckily, another friend had an incident with his wife where she ditched him because he lost his temper and rode off on his bike leaving him by the airport without any money. That kept me entertained for most of the time. When she was finally done she came out looking rather beautiful and I complimented her for it. Unlike the previous night I didn't have any set plans. When I got online and checked the movie schedules Les Miserables' last showings were around 7 o clock and we didn't even eat much of a dinner yet so I opted for Life of Pi instead since there was absolutely nothing playing that was worthy of watching. Fortunately, I didn't feel angry or annoyed at her tardiness. She said her landlord had to talk to her about something suddenly and I accepted it as the truth. Slowly, indifference crept up behind me as I got into a cab.

       We ate a variety of dishes at one of the many Trung Son goat establishments and high tailed it over to the Parkson Paragon as soon as possible. We were running a little late and it was hard for me to enjoy my meal. I guess I had ordered a bit more than we both could stomach, including goat's breast, frogs, and a fried rice that we barely touched. Oh, the excess.. Another cab ride over to Phu My Hung and we found ourselves at the empty Paragon. There was virtually no one around. The Megastar theatre on the top floors had virtually nobody around. When we walked into the theatre only three other white people sat before us. The movie had already started and it didn't matter. I was just nervous about letting her choose sweet popcorn and I was worried about the amount of sugar she was putting into her body. I opted for a bottle of water instead and I think she's the first girl that I gave up my regular salty popcorn for. Sweetened popcorn tastes like shit with soda, but the Vietnamese tend to favor it. She's the first girl that I let decide my popcorn. This was a major event. Another major event was I took off my dress shirt and placed it over her exposed legs because she said she was cold without hesitation. I did it without thinking about the embarrassing orange shirt that I had underneath or the fact that I might smell from a hard day's lack of a shower.
       After the movie concluded and we were both impressed. It was a beautiful even though the ending confused us both a little bit. The subtitles were sometimes laid against white clothing which made them impossible to read. As we left I had a little surprise for her and asked her if she trusted me. She said yes as we walked up the underground parking ramp because the Paragon had closed. It was already about midnight and Phu My Hung was relatively deserted by then. We went back to District 1 and I wanted to take her to Central Gardens, where I called home when this sojourn originally took place. On the roof of the 22nd floor one can experience rather amazing views of the city for absolutely free. When we pulled up she was a little surprise but she adhered to her word to just believe in me. That's right, the stranger that she just met three weeks prior at a coffee shop.

       The exact block that I was familiar with with the best views was blocked off due to construction for whatever reasons. So I blindly went into another block and assumed the layout was the same. After the highest floor we took stairs in pitch darkness to another area and we found ourselves on the roof and after another climb which she performed effortlessly we found ourselves blocked off from view because of the giant AIA signs. Remember, I had been up there many times before, but on a different building block. Eventually we made our way back down and back up to a different section and got the view we were looking for, though most of the city was in darkness because well... it was getting late. We found ourselves on top of the city with the winter winds blowing up against us. She claimed she was cold and once again I took off my shirt and wrapped it around her legs like a mini skirt. We walked over and just leaned up against the dirty poles and spoke about what we wanted to do in the next year. She wanted to improve her English, pass the TOEIC test, and graduate from college. I wanted to simply improve from my current status now, may it be intellectually, financially, or spiritually. We stood there for a while. And then I decided to let her off because it was getting pretty late. And partially because somewhere in all of our chat I let it known that I "thuong" her which is higher than like (thiet) and not quite love (yeu) yet. Basically I let her know that I cared about her. Her first response was, "Thuong hai ha?" Which basically means sort of pity or feel sorry for. I was a little irritated, but I let it go. The response wasn't what I had expecting and I had little expectations. I just wanted to let her know. I knew she would never be able to say it back.
        I wanted to hug her so badly up there. I chickened out because I knew that might spell the end for us if I attempted anything up there. I'm trying to show her that I'm not like the typical Vietnamese guy who might want to just have their way with her. The moment still wasn't right yet. I didn't feel it. I didn't feel the openness from her either yet. The long elevator ride down was awkward because I was silent. I just stared off in the distance and I think she kind of knew what was happening with me. I was virtually silent in the taxi ride home and I wondered out loud if I'll ever see her again. She said that she would like to see me again and I reaffirmed how chaotic our schedules were. When I dropped her off I was as empty as when she first got into the taxi with me. I was hoping being up so high and so dark up there would lead to more of a bond. I was a disappointed and I went home and slept like a baby. Suddenly, the next day I had this massive urge to see her before things reached their terminal points.