The college campus was large. Larger than any other school campus that Arlan had ever been in, but that didn't mean much considering where he came from. The dorms were already a blessing as it is. Cheaper than any of the other apartments that he found nearby and comfortable too.
There was a specific dorm building that was reserved for international students. Anyone who wasn't from Taiwan was set to sleep in the building. Right now, in the room 103, Arlan's four other roommates had already gone to their beds. He was the only one left at the bottom with his night light on. He needed to review his Mandarin for the lesson tomorrow.
As he was scribbling on his notebook, one of his roommates peaked out from underneath his sheets, hair standing up on all ends, and said with squinting eyes, "Aren't you going to go to bed?" His name was Adam, he was from Malaysia.
Usually, the dorm building would put people of the same nationalities together, but so far he was the only one from his own country that was able to make the scholarship.
Without turning his head to look, Arlan continued to scribble Mandarin notes on one of his favorite notebooks, and said, "I'll sleep later. I want to continue reviewing this."
Giving up, Adam buried his face back into the styrofoam-filled pillow that the dorm provided for them. "You've got an entire four years to learn Mandarin you don't have to cram it all in one night..." he muttered. His four other roommates were already knocked out cold and snoring loudly from his beds.
Arlan took his earphones from his shelf (he has his own shelf it was amazing) and put them on. He played a random song from his playlist and continued to scribble notes.
Kuya, when are you coming back?
His hand paused in the midst of writing a character. He tilted his head back to glance at the picture frame that he decided to place on the lowest part of his shelf so that he would be able to see it clearly. It was the latest picture he was able to take with his family that he asked to have taken just before his departure.
It hasn't even been that long. He thinks. He shouldn't be missing them this much.
Arlan took in a deep breath and released it. He shook his hand and resumed scribbling on his notebook, muttering out a word or two every now and then.
"Shui? Shui has two meanings?" Arlan whispered to himself. "Why can't it just mean one?"
It's chu, not chi.
He recalled the stranger that corrected him back when he was sitting in the park and his cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Now that he thought about it the way he acted back then must have looked very strange to... Wei-Ting, was it?
Will he be able to see him around the campus again? What department was he in? Right now, the only fluent Mandarin speaker that he knew was Ing-Wen. If he spoke more often to people who spoke Mandarin maybe he would be able to improve even faster. So far though every time he spoke to someone as much as possible they wanted to talk to him in English.
He should really talk more often to people. Maybe when his class starts he would make friends.
When Arlan wakes up he realizes that he was in a really uncomfortable sleeping position. He stretched his arms, cracking a few joints, and sat up straight. The first thing he thought was that he had left the desk light on and wasted electricity, the next thing he thought was wow he really had fallen asleep on his desk. Like in the movies.
He opened his phone and saw that it was 5:05AM. Just in time. Arlan looked up at the top bunk beds where his roommates were still sleeping. He still couldn't get over how late they slept. Outside the window the sky was still pitch-dark. The sun hadn't even started peaking out of the sky yet.
Arlan took this opportunity to take a shower while there was still hot water (isn't that amazing, there's hot water in the dorm and he can use it). After changing into fresh clothes and putting his laundry in a basket that they provided for students (they even provide laundry baskets isn't that amazing), he slipped into his only pair of sneakers and as silently as possible, closed the door and left.
He was wearing extra layers this time, but it was still so cold! Maybe it was because it was so early in the morning. His steps were slow and languid. It was a morning walk, so he wasn't in any rush.
Arlan looked up at the sky around him and tried to search for a sign of the sun but found only pure darkness. He paused and stared. Around this time the sun should alright be brightening back in his country. A beautiful sunrise. However, whereas his family was gazing at the start of a brand new day, Arlan was left behind in the darkness.
When he reached the open field beside the cafeteria, he opened the Chinese dictionary app on his phone and searched Mandarin for "darkness".
"Hēi'àn" said the app in a robotic woman's voice.
"Hēi'àn." he repeated. He nodded to himself and said the word several more times as he found a bench to sit down.
"Yeah it is still dark." Arlan felt his heart jump out of his chest.
He turned around so fast that he almost felt the whiplash and found a tall boy with bright blue hair standing behind his bench.
"W-what are you doing!?" Arlan yelled, his hand reflexively clutched the top of his heart as if it would make it slow down.
The blue-haired boy turned out to be Wei-Ting. He held up both his hands up as a sign of peace and laughed. "Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!." he was speaking in English. He was actually pretty fluent. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡppHRngPTsz
"Please don't do that again!" that made the second time that Wei-Ting scared him. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG7hSb5w2ue
"What are you even doing up so early? The sun's not even out yet. Are you a farmer or something." Wei-Ting asked with his hands going into his pockets. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj7hrLG7C1l
Arlan propped his legs on the bench and hugged them. "My family and I always woke up around this time." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2kUk4VWMjD
"Whoa... okay." without asking for permission, Wei-Ting took a seat beside Arlan and made himself comfortable. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXrJ3lgGoMU
Back in his country, so many people would already be up and running around 5AM. However, right here, he had yet to see anyone else walking through the school campus. Well, besides Wei-Ting. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Pbnz05ywe
He remembers waking up at the crack of dawn and running through the mountains of his home town, climbing trees, and bathing in waterfalls. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGwSLlIkg2F
"How about you? What are you doing so early in the morning?" this was a chance for Arlan to make friends.650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE2wuI4HcTd
"I didn't sleep." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU9WX3ZHzqo
Arlan whipped his head around to look at him in shock. Was he one of those kind of types that thought that not sleeping was cool and so destroyed their own health to brag to everyone that they didn't sleep even though they should?650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdgQMxHorNv
"Why wouldn't you sleep?" Arlans asked.650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxuDkLQOJda
Wei-Ting sheepishly rubbed the back of head and switched his gaze to watch the dogs sleeping together in the middle of the field. "I just have a hard time going to sleep. I usually just stay in my dorm room and clean random stuff but there's nothing left to clean so I decided to take a walk outside. Maybe if I walked long enough I would get tired to the point of sleeping." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeG4Bj4OS7y
"Oh, I see." the longer that Arlan listened to him speak the more he realized that his pronunciation was better than most. Even better than Ing-Wen's pronunciation and she was even working in the Foreign Languages department. "What department are you from?" 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3uN3L5zXTS
"I'm from the arts and design department." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡymdo2ReEhk
Arlan blinked. "I thought you would be in Foreign Languages. You're English is really good." but he should've guessed already from the bright blue hair that he would be from arts and design. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOuaXgFzLGY
Wei-Ting laughed. "Thanks. So, I'm guessing that you're going to be in Foreign Languages?"650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwz6ervcWHA
"Yeah, once I finish my one year of Chinese." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOLGWxCpW6j
"Why did you choose that course?"650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUaaZv1gk3L
"Well," a smile made its way to Arlan's lips. "Language is one way to start understanding someone's culture. It's like a gate way. There are so many different nationalities in this world, each of them so rich and pure. I want to meet so many kinds of people form different places and talk to them, because I just know that even though we look different and we speak different languages we are all still the same. We're human beings." it was a deep passion that he had that went back to when he was younger than a decade. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwJWDnwCXlO
"You're the poetic type." Wei-Ting commented, his eyes making contact with Arlan's. They truly were very dark. As dark as the sky that was right now above them. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1dp9ZLejob
"How about you? Why are you in arts and design?"650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgCUYOufyCG
"I'm good at arts and I like it. Simple as that." Wei-Ting chuckled.650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkuxczO78xc
Just light that, they talked for a while until people started walking around the campus. Before they knew it, the sun had already risen. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXurhjWeuLm
"I've got to go now," Arlan placed his phone in his pocket and held out his hand for Wei-Ting to shake. "It was nice meeting you, Wei-ting." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSuJHvvaTHI
Wei-Ting looked at him with mild shock. "I haven't told you my name yet." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUiN6IdUdCy
Flustered, Arlan took back his hand and looked away. "Oh, uh, well, yesterday I heard your friend call you just before you left." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNoK3QWhZDk
"Amazing you still remember that." Wei-Ting laughed and pulled Arlan's hands into his own, shocking the other, to finish the shake, "It's nice to meet you too. What's your name?".650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbC3Bx0SQ5H
"Arlan." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsFG2H5e4XY
"Arlan. A lot of people are going to have a hard time pronouncing that name here. Do you have a Chinese name yet?" Wei-Ting let go of his hand.650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsHNyxWkto9
"No... no, I don't have one yet." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6HT40rhBNQ
"Tell me when you get one."650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIvrJh10mnX
"Okay." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJezr2ppfLm
When Wei-Ting stood up in front of Arlan he never felt so small before. He was never that short. In his country, 170 cm was already considered tall, but Wei-Ting had to be more than 180 cm! 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsjRfS0pfNZ
The sun was already out. It was a fresh morning and finally the darkness was gone. At that moment, the sun's rays filtered through the trees at the end of the mountain, landing on Arlan's brown eyes. With the warm rays, his eyes changed into a melting gold. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUIiiAr2NvM
Wei-Ting paused and stared at him. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqj3YSkXj1k
Arlan fidgeted and raised his hand to wave. "I'll see you around, Wei-Ting." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB9wVSYUTVf
Under the sunlight, Wei-Ting's bright blue hair seemed to have a small glow at the top. The tall boy grinned and returned his wave. "See you around, Arlan." 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkEAXf17vWW
I was a brand new morning. It was still cold, but with the warmth of the sun it was now bearable. Arlan's heart began beating in a steady but firm rhythm. Most likely it was because he was happy that he made a new friend. 650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdhpINouS67
A/N:650Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3zn3VzdE6Z
I've only been in Taiwan for a short while so I'm really worried that I wouldn't get the right stuff. Right now, I'm just writing down everything I was able to observe in that short while. Hopefully I will be able to go back there.
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