Tuesday August 15th, 2056

The tingling light of the rising sun shrines through the thin secondary curtains of the dorm room, and brightens up their skin. They both wake up at the same time, with frowns on their faces.

"What time is it?" Mei asks, groaningly. Andrew checks the time on his phone.

"Nine-thirty-six." He replies.

"It's not even ten and already this hot?" Mei exclaims with great annoyance. "Geez…" She proceeds to sit up straight in the bed, and looks at the window. "I'm already sweating. This isn't normal at all."

Andrew gets up and walks towards the bathroom. "Same here, I'm gonna take a shower before I start the day." Andrew responds. "Waaait!" Mei cries out like a small child. "I need to take a shower too…"

"Well, go after me." Andrew replies, and he enters the bathroom, closing, but not locking, the door behind him.

"We could've just gone together..." Mei mumbles to herself, before turning on the television.

Andrew undresses and steps under the cold shower, rinsing off the scorching heat from the solar rays.

[She did really say that yesterday… there's no doubt about it. I should confront her with it, but I don't… want her to get the wrong idea.]

He pushes out the last droplets of shampoo from the bottle, emptying it and he calmly and gently puts it down on the ground.

[I love her too, but as a friend. She's one of the best friends… I could have ever hoped for, especially in this time. Keil wouldn't be as compassionate, and Lin wouldn't want to bother herself with it. She'd say it's my own problem. And Sarah… I don't know how she'd feel about it, though I think she would be the best one of those three.]

Andrew places his head under the shower and rinses out the shampoo.

[Comparing won't do me or them any good, so what am I doing it for…]

After Andrew got out of the shower after around ten minutes, Mei takes her turn. They pass each other next to the kitchen as Mei hurries naked towards the shower with clothes in her hand. Andrew fills up a glass with water and removes the sheets from the bed.

[I don't think she has ever washed these, at least not in a while. And also, does she have no shame, walking past me like that? She almost bumped into me too. Well, what do I care, it's a nice view, I think.]

Andrew replaces the old sheets with clean ones from a closet, and bundles the old ones up, before heading to the bathroom. He enters the door without knocking or calling out.

"Hey, did I give you permission?" Mei says.

"Well, I made the assumption that you wouldn't mind." Andrew replies, while stuffing the bed sheets into the washing machine. He takes a look at the package of the detergent to determine the right temperature, and activates a cycle, on that temperature. Mei didn't reply to his statement, and he heads for the door to leave.

"Wait!" Mei exclaims. Andrew turns around and looks at her. There is no water vapor in the air, as she is showering cold. Her body is fully exposed to Andrew's vision, yet he isn't fazed.

"What is it?" Andrew replies, as friendly as possible. He only focusses on her eyes, not on her body. There is no need to.

"Do you not mind… either?" Mei asks.

"Well, I don't. I don't really feel anything when I see you naked, so I can't mind even if I tried." Andrew responds.

"Wait, what do you mean? You don't feel… anything? Am I not hot to you? Or like…" Her egotistical tone subdues as she looks at her own body. "It's because of the tummy isn't it?" She continues, with a tinge of disappointment in her voice.

"No… that's not it." Andrew calmly replies. "It's not because of you. You're beautiful, and I mean it. That tummy is actually what I like most about a woman's body. A soft chubby tummy… well, I used to at least."

[It doesn't feel awkward. This should feel awkward. What is this feeling? This was so different… when I told May the same that night. Our first night…]

"Then… what is it? How did you lose that feeling?" Mei continues. Her voice has moved to sounding worried. Worried about Andrew, not her body.

"I… don't really know, sorry. I just… haven't felt aroused in a while." Mei looks at him blankly for his bold statement, but with a worried undertone in her eyes.

[I know what you're thinking. This isn't normal for a seventeen year old teen like me, yet…]

"I lost my sex drive a few days after waking up, I only had one true moment of, well, horniness in this year." Andrew bluntly states. Mei responds by keeping her estranged but worried expression.

"Is that… really the case?" She says, after tens of seconds of silence, yet less than a minute. She turns off the shower and walks up to him.

"Yeah…" Andrew replies. Mei now stands directly in front of him, naked.

"So… right now… you don't feel anything?" Andrew scans her entire body, from her legs, to her private parts, her soft chubby tummy and her larger than average round breasts, arriving at her eyes again.

"Sorry." He says, before turning around. Mei puts her hand on his shoulder.

"We can…" She starts, but Andrew gently removes her soft hand from his shoulder before she can continue.

"That would be cheating, so I don't want to." Andrew responds. "I'm sorry, but… I heard what you said last night, while you were laying on me." Mei's eyes shrink slightly from shock, as she jerks her hand free from Andrew's.

"No, don't do that." Andrew continues. "I'm not mad, far from it actually… because, I have to agree with what you said." He turns around and wraps his arms around her.

[I'm going to just say it, and hope she accepts.]

"I love you too, as a friend. You're the best friend I could hope for, even counting my friends from the past." Andrew states, with as much emotion as he can give. Mei sheds a small tear.

"But… I can't give up on May yet." He finishes off. Mei starts to shed more tears before bursting into a sea of sorrow, and wrapping herself tightly around Andrew.

"I understand…" She cries out. "But, please… don't leave me. You're… the best friend I could have ever wished for too…" Mei continues her moment of weeping for minutes, for almost half an hour, before finally calming down and saying something again.

"Thank you… Andrew."

Andrew and Mei sit next to each other on the bed, in silence, before Mei breaks said silence. "Sorry about just now, I… let my feelings get the better of myself." She says.

"It's fine, as long as you don't… force it onto me, you know?" Andrew responds. Mei quietly nods, with a slight grin on her face. Andrew leans in and gives her a thorough embrace.

"Let's start with our first recipe, shall we?"

"Okay, let's go!" Mei pats herself on her cheeks and places her emotions aside, before standing up and walking to the kitchen.

[Letting it out once in a while… that's good. But bottling it up when necessary is… well, necessary sometimes.]

Andrew follows her to the kitchen, and he grabs a few packages from the cabinets, the ones they bought yesterday. "Let's start with pasta." Andrew states. "It's the first I learned too, from my mom when I was fifteen."

[Brings back memories. I still remember it clearly… one of the few things I remember clearly, that is.]

"Okay, where do we start?" Mei asks.

With that question, Andrew starts the culinary lesson in the dorm room with an explanation on the basic principles of making pasta. They boil water, make the sauce, loosen the pasta in a pan, and much more. After a while, they both finish their dishes at the same time, with Mei following Andrew's steps to make hers.

"Let's taste each other's, and then our own." Andrew says. "That'll make you realise what your dish is lacking better."

"Sure." Mei replies, and she scoops up one portion of pasta from Andrew's dish, while Andrew does the same from hers. They take a large spoonful at the same time. While Mei jumps up from the delicious taste exploding in her mouth, Andrew remains restrained. After Mei finishes her first spoon she turns to him.

"So, how did I do?" She asks.

"You did okay." Andrew replies. "Nothing more and nothing less. You'll taste the difference if you take a bite." Mei is a bit shocked at the negative sounding neutral response, but proceeds to take a bite from her own pasta and sauce. The moment the pasta is sensed by the taste buds on her tongue, her eyes widen from realisation. "The pasta was boiled for a little too long, making it sloppy." Andrew explains, while she is still chewing. "And you added too much spices, overwhelming you when you eat it."

"I see..." She responds, with her mouth still stuffed. She swallows it before continuing. "So, what now?"

"I intentionally let you make a small amount, so we can try again. Let's eat this up first." Andrew and Mei continue most of the morning cooking and perfecting the recipe, and also starting a new one with the rice they bought. At around four, Andrew calls it a day and they round up their last dish.

After doing the dishes, Andrew and Mei settle down on the bed and turn on the television.

"That wasn't too hard, and less annoying than I expected." Mei exclaims.

[See? You just gotta try before you judge.]

"Yeah, just practise it whenever you can." Andrew tells her. "Or want to." He adds.

"Whenever I got the time, yeah." Mei says. She does not seem too sure while saying it.

[Or don't, if you don't like it.]

They stare at the screen for a long time before Mei speaks up again.

"So, what do you want to do now?" She asks

."Go to that address, tomorrow." Andrew states.

"But that lady said her entire family moved there, right? She could've moved away to somewhere else, to study for instance." Mei questions his statement.

"That is the case, but it's the other way around." He responds.

"What do you mean?"

"May moved there to study, and her family went somewhere else."

"And, how are you so sure?"

"There's a university in Mayflower Town that recently had their 100th anniversary, or so I read on the internet." Andrew explains, sure of his words.

"Oh, I see… But, why would the family move somewhere else? And why was her address on the moving papers?" Mei continues. Andrew remains silent for a moment, and glares vacantly just below the television screen.

"Not sure." He responds. "I just… have that feeling."

"Well, it doesn't really matter where her family moved." Mei sighs. "As long as she's still there, or if there's another clue. I can see how she would want to move from the town she studied in."

[Yeah, she could've moved again. We'll just have to see when we get there, as this is the only clue we have at the moment.]

Mei sighs again. "It's becoming quite the hunt, actually." She says. "To be honest, it's fun… going around towns and cities like this." A smile forms on her face, and Andrew notices it, but doesn't respond.

[It's a lot more fun than sitting inside all day, I can see that, but… it's not all fun to me. Tomorrow, on that day, I might see her again. A May that has hopefully… changed her mind. Hopefully… Hope… is there really a chance… she did change her mind?]

Andrew closes his eyes for a few seconds, and opens them to look at the screen again.

[I shouldn't worry now. I'll find that out tomorrow.]