THE ROMANTIC MOVIE EXPERIMENT

Nearly a whole four days managed to pass without incident in the crazy tower block full of really crazy chinese residents, which was kind of a new record, but not for long. Life in that sparsely populated part of Florida was an odd mixture of quiet and mad, because they had some pretty bad neighbor problems fairly frequently, a troublesome old cat that kept climbing the same tall tree, and a good flow of international university students, who in particular, fascinated the two nerds. That would be the representative nerds Shen Wei and Zhan Yao, who literally taught and interacted with these new people, and occasionally felt so intrigued by something, they actually tried it. That day in class, it was a film they’d never heard of China or America particularly, and as they found out, there was a good reason why no one had been raving about the movie called the Titanic among the community.

A girl in professor Shen’s class biology class had seen it with a foreign exchange student, and the whole idea of the plot made his big brain boggle something bad, so he told Zhan Yao to see if his brain could help work out how that story even worked out. A girl and boy fall in love was understandable, because research had proven that the emotion of love was characterised by a rush of happy chemicals to the brain, and in turn made the person, a female character called Rose, fall in love with a boy named Jack, but it could be argued that she was actually in love with the endorphin rush his presence caused. In all of their combined experience, nobody was worthy of loving to the extent of english tragedy. “Maybe we should find it and watch it to understand the allure to this exercise. We are the best researchers in the university after all. Shen ge, let’s meet at mine after you eat with Yunlan and watch Titanic, like a movie night without the baiju.”, he proposed eagerly. He needed a night off from his thesis anyway, too much work on criminals would end up making him into a criminal mastermind at this rate, and no one would ever catch him from all the years of studying.

Shen Wei wasn’t usually busy after dinner at 5pm, but Zhao Yunlan was of the opinion that it was good for the very professional professor to have friends, attend regular social meetings and interact with others outside of work. If movie nights and harmless little drinking meetings were his way of awkwardly socialising, he wouldn’t ever get in the way, because professor shen was too burdened with responsibility in his daily life, and had to have a healthy way of releasing stress. “Wei Er, is it Boya’s apartment tonight, or PA Zhan? Whenever you talk about your friends, Gongsun never seems to host extra meetups, and I guess that’s because he’s kept busy with his job as the main coroner.”, Yunlan asked warmly, trying to find out more about what went on in their friendship circle.

Shen Wei was more than happy to talk about his good friends, and launched into a short explanation of what they did, where they did it and why, while Yunlan finished the leftover rice and roasted fish. “Gongsun has a lot of work to do, so he only hosts his weekly drinking meeting on the Friday delegated to him, and otherwise has drinks responsibilities at everyone else’s apartment. I always bring the food, or we might all die between Boya’s total lack of cooking skills, Zhan Yao’s terrible eating habits of not eating, and Gongsun’s rare steak and red wine diet, and Boya or Yao di bring snacks depending on who we eat at. It’s quite organised actually, and today is just a one off at Yao di’s house to watch a film our students were praising today.”, he chatted happily. Xiao Wei was so cute, that Yunlan kind of just sat there and stared, then resumed eating.

Zhan Yao had downloaded the Titanic, eaten his usual microwaved takeaway from the night before, and had Shen ge settled on his couch. “I hope the chinese subs I found make sense, because our english might not stretch to romantic endearment and drama. The pretense of the plot was simple enough to comprehend, between their international history degrees, but in reality, it was something much more basic that absolutely confused them. From the start of the movie, the female lead in all her rich people's finery and fancy hairstyles, was clearly not deemed to be anywhere close to having an official romantic relationship with little poor boy Jack! The society was far from acceptance of anything, heck, women still didn't have rights and could be blamed for everything when men screwed up, and these two nitwits were trying to maintain a secret affair on the huge ship. Rather than being tripped up by the intricacies of Victorian social classes, the idea of someone being worth throwing your comfortable life away was incomprehensible.

Half way into the full length of it, silly rich girl Rose was head over fancy heels for the ratty labourer, had evaded the attempts of the rich young master to woo her and got involved with the lower deck instead of taking high tea. "Ge, what exactly is logical about these irrational decisions? She could have accepted Mr uppity and been informally engaged by now, but it's more fun to frolic and do the paint me like one of your French girls act apparently, when they pretty much know they can't continue the relationships after the cruise.", Zhan Yao raged. He had munched through twice the usual amount of fish flavoured vegetable chips, and supplemented the chip binge with three pots of tea just because that was his 'nothing makes sense' coping method. Shen Wei did think that Yao di's hamster cheeks were very cute, and had enjoyed seeing real emotions on his poker face, but yes, the plot was getting ridiculously unrealistic, even for a couple in the deep throes of newfound love.

"Yao di, why don't we get Boya to buy you some more veggie chips and help decipher these strange human emotions? That way we'll have three brains working at the same time, and if we still can't understand, at least it will be on another person's mind as well.", the helpful professor Shen suggested. That made Zhan Yao very happy, and he perked up right away.

In number 10, Bai Yutong's minimalist bachelor pad, and number 11, Bai Jintang's lavishly furnished abode, there was chaotic energy everywhere, because ma Bai had called. The great Ma Bai was known for defeating the top male MMA fighter of native Hong Kong, catching the speedway shoplifter that none of the police could catch because she was too fast, and having two honourable sons, Bai Yutong, the star of the whole American air force, and Bai Jintang, the youngest police director to make it up to the top rank. It was also assumed that those sons lived in an upper class suburb, not a badly designed apartment block full of Chinese American men for the most part. Not to mention the rocky relationship with his neighbor Zhan Yao, which was only barely friendly in fear of having angry, knife twirling introverts at his door again. Nothing about his life was what Ma would like, but he could make her happier if he actually decorated his house more, instead of the completely bare white walls and exercise equipment where he probably should have had a bookshelf or display of something.

So he made a deal with Jintang across from him, that if his big brother took him to the local home depot or ikea for the home furnishings he lacked and helped style his empty living space into a more welcoming place, Yutong agreed to deep clean his apartment to a standard fit for their mother. "Didi, are you that out of touch with Ma to forget how sharp her old brain is? It's not that I'll be refusing your cleaning offer, but you're gonna have to at least pick something personal to you, or your apartment will just look like an up to date showroom.", the lazy brother replied calmly. His calm was just a facade, because earlier he'd been running around like a headless duck, screaming about how terrifying his own mother was and what was she going day about how cheap apartment.

"Gege, would I have even suggested such an agreement if I knew there would have to be a small amount of personal input to please Ma, and had too much of a problem to handle that? Of course not, but you are there to pick the comfy accessories and make sure everything matches the latest trends, since my idea of styling is military minimalism. I'm personally happy with my apartment as it is, yet both you and I know that Ma won't be satisfied, especially with the uninspiring building we both live in.", he reasoned. Jintang frowned at the diamond painting of the great wall of China that he was engrossed in making, and it should be pointed out that whilst he was looking at it, that wasn't any he was upset. Yutong always was smart with words, as he was demonstrating now.

"I'll get my keys, you devil. I hope the flat pack furniture God gifts you a shelf with half the screws, and you end up crying halfway through the mountain of furniture you're going to have to make.", he spat. Why couldn't anyone leave him alone to finish the great wall of China I'm peace?

The home depot wasn't much use to Bai Yutong, considering how his issue was making his apartment comfortable and welcoming, not rebuilding it or trying to rush an unnecessary paint job when he had perfect good white paint on the walls already. However, IKEA was a blessing in disguise, with all the silly little bits and pieces, plus really useful shelving units and nice kitchen stuff. Jintang took their cart straight to the shelving units for the tender beginning of Yutong's stylist education, and took a simple white shelf to be the ornament display unit, then went to the bedroom and living room department by himself to pick some worthy throw pillows and blankets to suit the minimalistic yet cosy theme he was trying to create based on what his little brother's home already looked like. He had left the latter in the floating shelf aisle, to pick a few white ones to put books or plants on, just because floating shelves were really popular this design season, but it was fun watching the mayhem the whole situation was causing.

Ma would definitely be impressed by the classy white, black and silver theme he was going for, and she had a full set of coordinated bedding if it took her fancy to sleep at Yutong's, regardless of what else she said about the apartment. His beautiful home was already perfectly decorated and filled with gold, black and marble patterned furnishings, always prepared for a guest in need, but he did need more tea from the delicatessen. They split the payment for minimal bank account damage, and had to fit all boxes in the back of Jintang's sleek silver seda, because his younger brother hadn't got round to buying a car yet, despite living there long enough to be known by most of the local residents. When Bai Yutong did buy a car, he was probably going to buy an SUV with lots of space in the boot and back seats, for times like this, when it was hard to fit a million boxes into the tiny boot of the sedan.

"A-Tong, I'll see you at 10 to put your house together, and you can come to clean mine then. Don't worry about putting the furniture together, just bring Ma's favourite air freshener and your military ocd.", Jintang called lazily from his own door. He had a few new household items to put into the right place, then he was definitely making a pot of sweet tea and continuing with his great wall of China diamond painting. The wall didn't build itself, and neither would his beloved diamond painting.

Bai Yutong did something similar, except he sorted through the furniture boxes first, put each box of shelf or whatever it was, into a pile of that specific item for his brother to assemble tomorrow, and took a hot shower to be fresh for bed. Not that he had to, because there was no one else in his bed to judge, and he slept naked to save on nighttime laundry, so he wasn't exactly making clean clothes dirty, but the ritual allowed his mind to relax.

Back at Zhan Yao's introvert filled apartment, the true meaning of Titanic was continuing to befuddle university professor Shen Wei, psychology PhD student Zhan Yao and Boya, who may have not had a degree but he was the valedictorian of his high school senior year. As they watched on, the plot just got more stupid, and at the end of it, Jack ended up dying in the middle of the pacific ocean, because he didn’t think to join Rose on the door before the rescue team found her. “I know people love each other, but isn’t dying for a woman you don’t even know if you can be with completely illogical? We should ask Gongsun about this friday, he might know more about the power of romance, he’s older and wiser than us. Yao Ge, it’s Gongsun’s turn next. so he can sort your movie puzzle out.”, the little goth remarked tiredly. English had never been Boya’s strong point, and having to listen and understand so much had worn his brain out considerably, more than when he argued with Qiming about honey bug every single day. Zhan Yao was falling asleep on his couch, so that made it clear that everyone needed to go back home and into bed, because Shen Wei had early classes to teach the next day and Boya had another all day shift at the magical magician.

It had been an interesting day for everyone, from the nerds attempting to understand the romantic sentiment of the Titanic, to the Bai brothers home decorating, but Jintang would have liked to argue that despite his minimal activity in any actual movement, he had the most trauma for the sole reason that Ma Bai called him. His mother was no joke in the family group chat, and she was one of the people that made his know it all little brother so good at everything, or Yutong probably would have opened up a sports nutrition and gym business, rather than joining the US army.