t w o

The home that Lien has become accustomed to is nothing but an Oscar-winning act.

The main characters would have to be her parents: two leads who look the part. Only a trained eye like hers would have noticed the scripted and overused lines, the comical expressions, and the stiff hugs. 

Her father is a machine clothed in human flesh. If he doesn't put his phone down during dinner, Lien forgets that his mobile phone isn't his third ear. She doesn't mind him. She's never seen her father for more than thirty minutes a week. 

Her mother, on the other hand, is a watered-down version of Audrey Hepburn. 

For tonight's script, her mother goes on about some women she encountered while shopping earlier. "Can you believe they didn't pronounce Givenchy right? Who are these mountain people?"

* * * 

The thing about picture-perfect families is that they're rich and able enough to camouflage the flaws behind blinding smiles, a roomful of Chinas, and French meals prepared for exclusive guests.

Lien looks around the living room. It's too clean and organized to be lived in.

She reaches for her mirror and starts fixing herself.

Her reflection reminds her of her mother. 

She sends the mirror flying to the wall, but when it shatters into pieces, she scampers out of the couch to pick it all up together with bare hands.

Flashes of dark nights, whooping belts, cuts, and piercing yells all come back. Lien tries to put everything back together, thinking that if she does, the panic attack will all stop. 

It doesn't.

* * * 

"You're here early." Dylan comments, occupying the bar stool beside Lien. She gives him a look-over and a smile, but not an answer. He orders a beer for himself. Lien asks for her third shot. 

"I need someone to talk to." She says this after a minute of listening to the pumping stereo and chaos. Dylan studies her.

The truth is, people get dimmer or clearer in different settings.

In bright daylight, Lien is all smiles. She looks at you with forget-me-not eyes.

Concealed by the bleeding neon lights, the glamour fades for a while, and Dylan sees her for what she really is: just a normal person, doing enough to get by. 

"Stop that," Her voice is nearly inaudible, drowned out by some dubstep music the DJ plays. "Stop looking at me like that."

He doesn't apologize.

He's been scolded about his piercing gaze so often that he's nearly immune when it comes to requests.

Dylan finishes his drink in one shot, gets another one, drinks, and repeats it five more times. The bitter sting gives his throat and tongue the courage he never thought he had. "You know, I'm a great kisser."

* * *

Dylan really is.

Lien verifies this once, twice, thrice, a billion times too many over kisses inserted between skipped classes, Saturday nights wasted in Dylan's room, and evenings loitering around town.

Dylan and Lien were cotton candies in the making.

If you've seen one up close, it's just that majestic.

It starts out as a pile of clutter, and then it begins to come together somewhere in the middle, the thin, pinkish veins branching out wherever in their confined space, creating something so fiery and fascinating that taking your eyes off is out of the question.

Every time they kiss, Dylan feels like he's shoved a few of his fingers in an electrical socket. And he's finally alive and pulsing with nerves and energized matter.

It took Lien three weeks to figure out that Dylan's fingers calm her down (especially when he runs it through the length of her spine or fits it in the spaces between hers), two months to unearth stuff about Dylan (his dad died from a car accident and he's trying his best to make it big as a singer), three to appreciate his sensitive side, four to observe that Dylan hates the waxy feel of her lipstick, five to give in and tell him he's the manliest man out of the history of the manliest men who came from more manly men, and six to realize that she won't actually mind sticking beside him longer.

* * *

"What are we?"

The question isn't located at the tip of Dylan's tongue—they're hiding somewhere between his throat and lungs—and they seem to be doing a good job at it.

Their weird, unspoken arrangement had questions bouncing like ping-pong balls between the walls of his mind.

He doesn't mind, really, but people are starting to ask questions.

"Lien," Dylan starts.

"Shhh, babydoll. This requires the utmost concentration from the highest of all intelligences." Lien replies with eyes trained on the grab-a-toy machine in front of them.

Dylan parts his lips to remind her that these things are just pure bogus and no one ever really wins, but determination oozes out of her pores, so he ends up cheering her on even as she fails to land the stuffed elephant on the hole for the twelfth (or is it thirteenth) time.

Elephants get her on edge.

By the nineteenth try, he takes it upon himself to rest his hands against hers and squeeze them softly. "If you want a stuffed elephant that badly, you could have just asked me."

He's rewarded by a stomp in the foot using three-inch heels. "You don't understand! I know that only idiots expect to win this, but that's the catch! It's always the experience that makes it all worthwhile."

"So did you enjoy it?"

"No,"

"I thought so," he grins. "Let's go home."

"Okay," The way Dylan says the word home has Lien feeling all warm and fuzzy.

They walk hand in hand.

Ever since that attack of impulse and touches a few Saturdays ago, they've grown attached to each other like magnets.

Not perfect jigsaw pieces, because that's too cliché for Lien.

"What were you trying to tell me earlier?"

"Uh, I wanted to ask you about…." He looks around the amusement park, at the thong of people in bright tees, the shimmering lights perched on the rides, the display of people clutching strings of colorful balloons and other inflated toys, and finally at Lien who stares back with piercing eyes that made the words on his tongue evaporate. All that's left are three words. "I like you."

"I like you too, babydoll." She laughs.

"No, I mean I like you like you. Not just like, but the boyfriend-girlfriend husband-wife like like."

"But married couples don't like each other. They can't even stand each other after a few years."

He rolls his eyes. "One of these days, you'll stop being such a prissy buzzkill."

"Do you like like me?"

"Of course,"

"Then don't call me a prissy buzzkill, you feminine Chinese singer who can't even get some things right. I've had enough of you and your know-it-all attitude. It's getting irritating. Don't you ever talk to me like that. You're just something to pass by time." Lien sputters, gasps, and sends her hands against her mouth when she realized the magnitude of the words she just dropped.

Being infamous in the spill-words-you-don't-mean-when-mad department, she frantically scrambles to string an apologetic sentence together, but Dylan beats her to it by walking away so quickly she didn't even see his reaction.

* * *

She was thirteen when she accidentally broke her mom's favorite glass vase by jumping recklessly around the living room.

Out of the antiques and figurines in the house—which cost more than the vase—she knew how much her mom valued it since it had been made by her grandfather for her.

When her mother saw the mess, Lien's heart was already throbbing with sorry sorry, sorry I'm so sorry's and her feeble body was ready to accept any sort of punishment.

But her mother didn't let out yells that the walls would echo, nor did she physically hurt Lien.

She did the thing that Lien was scared of the most; kept silent.

Her mom held her tongue for a few days before finally talking to her, and a few days was enough for Lien to gather not to anger anyone to the point of silence.

Silence weighs heavier than curse words or rebuking lectures or slapping hands.

Having Dylan walk away quietly is hell.

She'd trade anything to get him back, but the crowd had already swallowed him.

Her eyes divert from left to right until everything feels like a scene in the dramas Dylan adored watching wherein the main characters fight and each of them gets a piece of their sentimental moment.

The difference between films and real life is as obvious and black and white.

Reality doesn't offer cuts or do-overs, nor will melodramatic music play in the background to get in synch with what you feel.

Without no set direction, she walks in the park brimming with chuckles and noises underneath the seven o'clock skies.

This was supposed to be a good day. Days with Dylan are carefree, and her rash tongue messed it all up.

* * *

Three.

Two.

One.

Go.

It's Dylan's queue.

The stranger he requested to play the music hits the button of the pumping player.

When sound waves graced the air, heads moved and eyes flickered to see a breakdancing elephant mascot in the middle of the park.

Soon enough, a crowd composed of clapping hands and cheers gathered around.

Familiar music and curious people had Lien walking closer to see what the ruckus was about.

There, in the center of everything, is a dancing elephant mascot and something in her explodes like fireworks in New Year's Eve.

Nostalgia. She could recognize the song, after all, that's what she's been playing non-stop lately and Dylan nearly threw her iPod out of the window the second week she played it on loop.

Lien excuses her way to the front and when the mascot saw her, it bounced up and down and dragged her with him.

Red and embarrassed, she stood still as the mascot continued dancing cutely, finding herself smiling and moving along to the beat.

The audience applauded when it's all over and the mascot inserted a final twirl along with the laughing Lien.

The mascot takes his head off when the onlookers dispersed, and Lien helps him with that.

"How did you fit this out of that machine?" Lien asks, eyes bright against the dimness.

Dylan tries to catch his breath and she registers the sweat clinging to his temples and black hair before giving into the temptation of pressing her lips against his.

He smiles into the kiss and leans back.

"Wait," Dylan wriggles his way out of the velvety gray material. He takes off the red jacket he was originally wearing to reveal a shirt with the words: You'll be mine, right? Written in front of it.

 He hands the shock Lien a marker from his pocket and turns, facing the yes yes yes yes boxes to be answered.

Lien checks all four of them.

* * *