Chapter 7: Dumb Brain

After the amazing video chat with the husband and wife, Max is somewhat embarrassed. The wife revealed his real name and Arman couldn't help but laugh and ask questions about why he changed his name.

Max would simply just say "I didn't like it. That's it. No reason"

His answer wasn't satisfying enough yet Arman pretended to believe it anyway. Arman puts on his earphones again and is smiling looking at his phone. When he feels someone in the room said something to him, he removes it.

"huh? You said something?" He says to Max who is holding the pillow so tightly that it might just tear apart in seconds.

"I said is everything ok now with your girlfriend?"

"How did you know "everything" wasn't ok before?"

"Well," he says letting go of the pillow and getting comfortable

"this morning at the airport your attitude towards me wasn't nice so I thought you're always like this, you know, grumpy but then I noticed you checked your phone frequently and looked angry. So I made a guess"

Arman is surprised. Then he asks,

"How did you know things are ok now?"

"Are you kidding?" Max says as he jumps off from his bed and lands in Arman's. This time he grabbed Arman's pillow.

"Look how you're smiling like an idiot now. Things are ought to be great, right?

Arman laughs so hard that he almost chokes.

"What's wrong?" Max asks "am I wrong?"

"Not entirely though. I was having a problem with my girlfriend, yes but because she just wouldn't break up with me. I'm smiling not because I'm back with her but because I finally managed to break up with her"

He laughs again and Max feels stupid. He thought he was really smart and that he's right about Arman. But Arman proved him wrong and gave him a royal flush. Arman puts away his phone and the earphones and looks at Max.

"What about you? Your girl doesn't trust you and so you keep sending her your pictures? You took, like, thousands of pictures since we landed" he emphasizes the word "thousand" to make it more dramatic.

"I....no" Max stumbles "I don't.... I don't have a girlfriend. I was sending the pictures to my parents. Plus Thailand is my dream so how come I am actually here and not take any pictures wherever I go?"

Arman simply says "oh" and then again "What about your parents?"

"What about my parents?" Max asks.

"What if they call again and ask about your roommate? We shouldn't have lied. Your mom's cool I'm sure she'd understand our situation"

It makes Max laugh about how he's so confident about his mom.

"You don't know my mom, ok? She may seem like that but she's a bit dramatic"

Max goes back to his own bed. Well, someone else's bed and continues

"If she calls, I'll just say that your faculty building is far from our dorm and that you moved away. I'll just introduce them to my real roommate"

"Enough chatting" Arman says and fixes the bed to sleep" we gotta wake up early so we'd better sleep now"

Enough though both fake roommates had a good nap Arman doesn't want to look sleepy in front of new people tomorrow. But Max isn't sleepy at all. He slept on the plane and on the bus for a while as well.

"You really don't know Billie Eilish, do you?" Max says curiously.

Arman doesn't really know who Billie Eilish is but he doesn't want to look dumb in front of this guy so simply says,

"I do know him. I love his movies a lot"

Listening to him say that, Max couldn't control himself from laughing out loud. He's so loud that their neighbors bang on the wall and say shut the hell up! After much effort, Max finally calmed down. Arman looks embarrassed. Did I mess it up?

"Billie Eilish is not an actor. She is a singer." Max says. And he's still laughing.

Arman's face turns green. He turns around and says,

"I know she's a singer. I was just testing you. Now shut up and sleep"

"You sleep. If I'm not good at waking up early so I'll just watch a series till morning"

"Fine. Then wake me up tomorrow, ok?"

Max nods and takes his laptop on his lap, puts on the headphones, and starts watching his most favorite Thai Boys' Love series. He has watched this series uncountable times that he doesn't need the subtitles anymore. He remembers each and every dialogue of it. He has watched it enough times yet he isn't bored with it at all. It's either because he loves the series or loves a particular character. Patrick.

He loves Patrick. To him, he's the perfect boyfriend. He loves every character from the series though. Especially the character John. Without him, Josh might have never approached Patrick and Patrick might not meet him as well. Their stories united only because John was being clingy.

Arman turns off the lights and sees Max's smiling face as the light on the screen falls on Max's face. He's looking creepy because of how hard he's trying to hold the big bright smile inside.

***

"Hey, roommate. Get up" Max says shaking Arman's sleeping body.

Arman hasn't opened his eyes fully. With a sleepy voice, he says,

"What time is it?"

Max finds the sleepy voice of men the sexiest. He tried to record his sleepy voice once and regretted it instantly. His voice is not sexy at all. But Arman sounds as sexy as possible

"It's 6 am. I'm ready. Get up" he says again.

For a second Arman forgot about the whole getting into the wrong place but then he quickly remembered every detail.

Arman gets up and brushes his teeth and freshens up. He didn't change the clothes he's wearing because it's not inappropriate. He looks surprised when he sees Max's face. This guy stayed up all night yet he's looking as fresh as an apple.

Max knew what Arman was thinking so he says,

"I've watched series for late nights my whole life. It doesn't affect my face anymore" then he adds a "LOL" at the end.

Both get out of their room on their tiptoes like little thieves with their luggage. But Max is totally awful at it and very clumsy. He's dropping his bag and stumbles on the way. Arman is frowning. Both stop and stand still like a statue as they see a security guard standing in front. The guard is obviously Thai and might not speak English so even if they tried to explain why they are acting like thieves it'll be useless.

In situations like this Max's brain stops working. It becomes his greatest enemy. His body starts shaking. But seeing the guard standing like that he needs to say something. And so he opens his mouth to explain and probably scream "we're not frauds!" but Arman steps forward and shows the guard his phone. The guard shows them the left side and walks away giving an evergreen smile. Max just stands there astonished. What just happened? Did he show him some kind of free pass or some secret ID? He keeps thinking and then just simply follows Arman like a puppy follows its master.

A beautiful woman sits in the office doing some work on the computer and gets disturbed when Download knocks on the door. With an irritated voice, she says something in Thai which neither Arman nor Max gets. So Arman goes in with a smile. Seeing such a handsome face as Arman's the woman starts smiling as well. Arman again just simply shows her his phone and hands her the keys to the dorm. The beautiful woman takes the keys from him and gives him another beautiful smile. Max is again standing still wondering what the hell is happening here? He's curious like never before.

Arman is walking fast and Max had to run to keep up with the pace.

"Care to tell me what just happened?" Max asks sounding even more curious. "Did you show them your nudes or something?"

Arman stops and makes a disgusted face.

"Who would do that?" He says "And No, I didn't show them my nudes. I just used Google translator and told them that we're moving out"

This time Max is the one surprised and impressed at the same time. This guy not only has a handsome face but also has a good working brain. Mine needs to learn something from his. Max nods his head while he thinks about it.

"You coming or what?" Arman shouts.

When did he manage a cab?

"When did you call a cab?" He asks.

"I used Google then downloaded an app. Since I'm the one doing everything, you're gonna pay the cab driver, deal?"

Max protests "that's not a deal. That's you making me pay. But yes, since you've been a great help, I'll pay" Max gives a big smile.

Arman didn't bother to see his smile he put his bags inside and sits comfortably. He shows the destination to the driver. Max gets inside as well. Max starts talking to Arman and Arman's ear gets numb. How can a guy talk so much? To avoid listening to him, Arman puts on his earphones and shuts him up. Max starts taking pictures of everything.

The cab stops right in front of their real university. Arman takes out the bags and Mac pays for the cab. Max also takes out his bags when he sees one big bus coming towards them. The bus stops exactly at the spot where their cab had earlier. This bus is red and white. Both look astonished when they see new students come out of it. So this is the bus they should have taken. If they had chosen the second bus yesterday they wouldn't have landed at the wrong university. But how come this bus is here now? Wasn't it supposed to pick up students yesterday? Max stops a student and asks,

"Where did the bus come from?"

"The hotel" the guy answered with a careless attitude.

"Um.... The hotel? Why?" Max asks.

"Oh" the guy realizes something "our bus had some kind of problem yesterday and it was late so we all stayed the night at the hotel"

Arman looks irritated. The authorities should've at least called them. But they are here now and didn't miss the orientation class. Max is excited. Yesterday he wore someone else's nameplate but today he will wear his own. He plans to take at least a hundred pictures wearing his nameplate. All the students there are from the scholarship program from different countries. Some look American, some look Indian but Max was surprised to see many Thai students inside the University. So this University does have Thai students. The students are all outside taking their bags out when a lovely woman comes to them with a white flag in hand. She laughs hysterically as she starts introducing herself.

"Hi, everyone! I'm Raven. I'm your senior and today I'll be your tour guide"

As she finishes her sentence few men come to them and take their luggage and hand them their dorm keys.

"Your luggage will be kept in your dorms so don't worry about it. Now if you'll follow me....."

The beautiful senior starts giving the newbies a tour of their university. She intentionally stumbles on the way revealing her long beautiful legs to attract the newbies. The only reason she volunteered was because to show off and gain followers on social media. She makes cute faces as she tells them about their University. Max thinks she's pretty but her actions aren't.

"This University has five faculty buildings and each building is close to another," the beautiful senior says.

"And there's a big library as well. You'll find all sorts of books there. Not just textbooks but novels as well" she tries to sound excited but obviously, people know books aren't her thing.

But Max is super excited to visit the library. All the beautiful romantic couples bump into each other behind the shelves in the library. He might just find his Mr. Perfect there as well. Who knows really.

"If you look to your right you'll see that each building has 4 floors and each room has high facilities. The professors here are very kind and helpful. Don't forget to greet them in Thai. You can simply say "Sawatdee krub/ka. The first floor is for the first years, the second for the second, the third for the third and the forth is for us, your beloved seniors"

she takes them to the library as she ends her grand tour. She stands beautifully and flips her hair as she says,

"Don't forget to follow me on Instagram @ravenquinn. Now you are free to go to your dorms"

And she starts checking her social media accounts. The students there look at each other not knowing where to go. The beautiful senior then looks at them and smiles a guilty smile.

"Oh, I forgot. I still have to lead you to your dorms. Follow me y'all"