The belly rules the mind

Place: Max's appartment
Date and time: 06/05/2022, 4PM
Weather: Cloudy
Attire: White shirt, long green pants and brown shoes. Hair in a ponytail.

Dedicated to: @Max

A smile spread on Tien’s lips as she received a text that replied to whether or not Max was home tonight. With no further ado, she put her phone away and went shopping. Grocery shopping for making tacos. That should be alright, it only contained knifes and a hot pot, and she was feeling alright now. It was time for her to start cooking again – hopefully alone, but one could never really tell if she was allowed to do that with the ‘funny’ things her mind had tried to convince her to do before when she had been too high.
With both hands occupied with grocery bags, she used her elbow to press the doorbell. Yes, it was too much effort to put one bag down and find the key she had gotten in one of her pockets.
The door opened, and a wide smile spread on Tien’s lips, “Surprise!” she greeted, “I’m cooking dinner for you today!” she announced raising the bags in her hands a little.

Now, after Max had gotten the text from Tien asking if he was home or not, he hadn’t thought much of it other than he had replied yes. Things had been a little turned around these days after Cecilia had lost a good friend of hers, not that it directly affected him, but it was never easy to see someone you worked with being completely destroyed by something you had no control over. When it knocked on the door shortly after, he, of course, thought it had to be her, so he walked over and opened it. “Did you forget –“ he stopped his sentence and looked straightly into his father's eyes. Now, Max walked around telling people and thought of his family as if they were dead. But that wasn’t the truth, now was it? It had been the truth. He wouldn’t be looking into a man's eyes that looked so much like himself. “Is that a way to greet your father, son?” the man asked, then passed him saying something in Chinese before taking in the living space that his son lived in. Now, not many knew, if any knew that was close to him, that he came from a rich and a rather influential family in Shanghai.

They were sitting and talking about nothing of interest to Max as the door was opened and Tien stepped inside. Now, Max had used the last twenty minutes trying to get his father to leave, not that it had succeeded, and now he stood in front of a situation that he needed to explain, something he wasn’t really sure he could. “So, this is the woman keeping my son from his duties to his family?” Max hissed something in Chinese at his father and got up. “Tien, hi”, he said with a small smile; he took the bags she had brought with her, placed them on the counter and then dragged her into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. “I can explain,” he whispered, feeling dread slowly form in his heart, not really knowing what to do with the feeling other than hope she would understand why he hadn’t answered truthfully when she had asked if he had any family.

The smile lessened a little as she heard how the man sitting with Max almost blamed her. It formed a big knot in her throat and she immediately believed she was a burden. When Max got up and took the bags, her head turned quickly towards him. “Hi?” she whispered feeling all kinds of confused. She followed him to his bedroom without even trying to fight it. Her both eyes and smile widened a little as he said he could explain, “You don’t have to do that right now,” she assured him, feeling a little out of air. “I just… Really wanna know how you want me to act in front of him?” she whispered and pointed towards where his father was supposed to sit on the other side of the wall. She was not going to leave, or at least, that was what she had set her mind to.

He gave her a small smile, clearly feeling relieved that she took it so nicely. She would think many in her shoes wouldn’t have. He let his tongue glide over his lips and then thought about how she should act in front of him. If anything, he would rather just have that she shouldn’t interact with his father at all. “Just ignore him; I will get him out like I’ve been trying to for the last twenty minutes or so,” he said with a soft smile. “Could you just stay here for a moment? Things might get a little heated, and I don’t want you to be in the middle of it, okay” he reached out and gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze “just wait here,” he said before walking out of the bedroom and closing the door behind him.

At first, the voices were somewhat muffled, but as Max got more irritable, the tone started to pick up the volume until he was shouting at his father. It had been a while since he had spoken this much Chinese, but it was almost as if no time had passed since he had been home. It took around fifteen minutes before he could close the door, and his father had left. With both his hands pressed against the door's surface, he shut his eyes to ground himself for a moment. Then he pushed himself off and walked towards the bedroom to open it and looked at Tien with an apologetic expression. “Sorry you had to witness that, but we have an all-clear,” he said, trying to ease the situation, even though his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

She gave him a small smile and a soft nod to how she just had to wait in there. The only thing was, she didn’t believe him fully when he warned him about how heated it could get. So, when the door was shut, she sat down on the bed and waited. At first, she simply tried to figure out what the reason could be why he hadn’t told her about his family. It was clear that they didn’t speak that well with each other, but how could anyone not get along with Max? When things got a little more heated, she looked up from the fingers that she had been picking at. Even though there was a wall between her and them, she could almost imagine how they spoke to each other and how Max gestured to the door and how his father gestured and insisted to stay. She didn’t understand a word of what was spoken, but the frustration was real, and she could feel how this was affecting the inner child.
Then the door closed, and she dried away the tears that hadn’t even spilled and slowly got up from the bed. She imagined that he was on his way to open the door for her, but it took a little moment longer than she had expected. She could see how the smile wasn’t as bright as it usually was, but she didn’t blame him for that. It was quite understanding when you had been in an argument like that. She was quite quick to love over to him and swing her arms around him for a hug. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she whispered.

At first, he was a little stunned when her arms closed around him in a hug. Not that they hadn’t hugged before, or had they? He wasn’t sure because he had insisted on some sort of professional distance most of the time. Still, there was also the psychological aspect to it, and that was that Tien needed to understand that a good relationship could be based on not having any physical contact at all.
He stood there for a while before he closed his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into a warm hug. “It’s okay; sadly, this wasn’t even the worst of it”, he assured her and gave her shoulder a small squeeze before he stepped away from her, giving her a warmer smile to let her know that he wasn’t as affected by it as she might think. “So, you were making me dinner?” he chuckled, pointing towards the grocery bags standing on the kitchen counter before he turned and walked over to see if there was anything interesting in them. “You need help?” he asked, looking up towards her.

She could feel how he hesitated for a moment but eventually pulled her into a hug. “That doesn’t make it any less bad,” she mumbled to him before she let go after he had squeezed her shoulder. He took a step away, and it was first now that she thought about how she might have invaded his space. Even though he gave her an assuring smile she didn’t trust it fully. She pulled a small smile as he mentioned her making dinner, “That was the plan,” she replied softly and followed him towards the bags. As he started to search the bags, she took one of the unoccupied bags and started emptying it on the counter. Her eyes found his as he asked for help. An almost shy smile spread on her lips, “I would actually really like to do it myself if that’s okay with you?” she wondered, raising her brow a little, “I promise I’ll call if I need help, but I just,” she put some of the groceries down, “Milestones, you know,” she explained softly, “I really wanna cook again,” she elaborated.

The smile widened, and he nodded. “Well, that is totally fine with me” he laughed and walked over to the fridge and opened it. Now that Tien was spending more time at his place, he had started having much more in the refrigerator. Besides food, of course, she had absentmindedly begun to buy the juice she liked the most, the same with soft drinks, so there was something more interesting than water at their disposal, especially now that she wasn’t drinking any alcohol.
“Something to drink then?” he asked, looking over his shoulder, taking that out that she wanted, and took a Pepsi for himself before he walked over to the other side of the counter and sat down. The least he could do was keep her company while she cooked them dinner. “So, how was your day?” he asked with a soft smile. “Getting ready for your exams?” he asked; even though he had promised to explain what had been going on with his father, he hoped that he might be able to wait with that until later.

Tien’s smile widened a little as he said it was fine with him. She took the vegetables to the sink and started cleaning them, so they were ready to be cut. She looked over her shoulder as he asked for something to drink, “Uh, juice is fine,” she replied with a quick smile on her lips before she turned to face the groceries. When each thing had been cleaned, she put it over to the cutting board and glanced up at him as he chose to keep her company. It brought a small smirk to her lips. “Uhm, it’s been fine really,” she said nodding a little. She folded her lips shortly as he asked about her exams, she then looked up at him. “Exams are in progress,” she replied nodding a little before she turned to the drawer with knives, She held her breath for a moment before she picked one for the groceries. God, she felt nervous about it, because she truly didn’t want to spiral into accidentally damaging herself. Breathing out she slowly started cutting salad. God, it took her a lot of concentration to cut. “School was alright and now that I’m getting back on track, I feel like more and more things make sense,” she replied, pausing a couple of times while she cut, mostly to be certain that she wasn’t doing anything wrong. To some, she could just be looking slow. Putting the salad aside she found a cucumber and looked up at him, “Grocery shopping also went really well,” she said nodding a little proud of herself, “As you can see, I didn’t buy the whole store in panic,” she said pulling a sarcastic smile and gestured towards the bags. Either she panicked so much that she just threw things in the cart, or she left so quickly that she only got a few things from the shopping list.

He nodded when she said it had been fine; fine was better than a bad or worst day of her life. Not that she would only come to his place if so, but it was what happened the most either way. Or if she needed advice, not just to cook for him, which also meant that he was expecting some sort of bomb to drop at one point or another.
“That’s good”, he said with a soft smile, knowing how important it was with the small successes; then he laughed when she pointed out she hadn’t just bought the entire store in some type of panic in not having the mindset to know what she needed and what she could go without. “I see; that is really a step in the right direction” he pushed his Pepsi against the glass of juice he had given her before sitting down. “So you think you actually be able to finish school this year? Then there is only the million-dollar question, what do you want to do after?” he asked with a brighter smile, curious to know what she felt like doing after this.

Tien smiled when he said it was a step in the right direction. She believed so too, and it was a progress that was visible for her. It was something she could notice, where other people would be able to notice how she had more energy in her eyes, how she took better care of her skin and how she slept somewhat better. She took the glass of juice and toasted with him taking a small sip. She looked up at him as he asked about school. Could she finish school this year? It was a heavy question, because she knew she had to be a little more positive, but on the other hand, wouldn’t it be false hope? She started cutting the next vegetable. “I believe I have a chance of passing this year,” she said keeping her eyes on the vegetable. She tasted her words a little before she would reply to what she wanted to do after. “I think I’ll take some time to reconnect fully with my family,” she replied, stopped cutting and looked up at him. “After all, my family got a little greater and more complicated,” she said and looked back down at the vegetable. “I haven’t really been able to look at the Mitchell’s the same,” she said and shrugged a little. “I would like to open up to them again. I got a little too scared,” she said nodding a little. She put the rest of the cut vegetables away and started to find the meat for their tacos so she could prepare it. “Besides from that I would try and find more time for the things I used to do,” she said and nodded a little. “Painting and if things go really well, I might write a song or two,” she said almost a little confident.

A soft smile was on his lips the entire time that she was talking; he found himself with the thoughts about how happy he was that she finally seemed to have found a path toward a better life for herself. Soon she would see that there was nothing that could stop her and that she could become anything that she wanted to. “That is true;” he had to press his lips together before he managed to let things slip that he didn’t feel like sharing, mostly from what he had heard about Tien’s father from Ash when he had worked with him in New York, you had to be blind if you didn’t see just how much Ash had and still liked Eden, it was such a shame that she was now too busy to really do anything but doing her new job.
“I think that is an excellent idea; you should give yourself the time just to do what you feel like doing”, he said with a big smile taking a sip from his drink while he watched how she was preparing what looked like tacos, interesting choice. “You want to watch a movie while we eat?” he asked, looking back at her.