"Traveling" around Dalian

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"You should refuse to go home until he walks you." Akun said. Camillo is chuckling in the background and even I break out in a short laugh.
"That wouldn't work, he would just say 'Okay then, stay here.'"
Akun looks at me slightly confused.
"I've done it before. Stayed here."
"One night she slept on the chair and I slept in the bed" Camillo comments.
"Only there's something you don't know about that time" I reply. "I didn't sleep on the chair."
"You slept next to me, I know. I just woke up and decided it didn't matter that you were there and went back to sleep" Camillo chimes in.
Akun is still sitting there with a confused look on his face. Camillo puts his arm around me for a second "She's my little brother" he responds to calm the confusion. Only there is no "he" or "she" in spoken Chinese as they are the same word.

Camillo and I had just spent some time hanging out together after work. We finished sorting out Visa information. I had explained to him what he needed to give me to go through the process and that I felt it was necessary to pay for the plane ticket as soon as possible. He had called his ex-boss to get the address of the Salon he used to work at. He had also called his cousin to ask her for 20,000 kuai. He told me afterwards her comment was "Is that all? Are you sure that's enough?" So we were well on our way through the process of getting a Visa. After that we went to his house and after eating a little bit sat hanging out and talking about his new roommate in English (a language his roommate doesn't understand). Akun was one of Paul's bosses down in Daliang. Only Akun just recently quit the Salon down there to come up here and look for a job. If he finds a job he's going to tell everyone down in Daliang. Otherwise he'll go back to Daliang. Akun used to live with Camillo for two years while the two of them worked in Guandong. So it was no problem for him to come and now stay with Camillo here in Dalian. It was a little strange for me because I know Akun a bit but within the past few days when he's been around I've slowly become more and more suseptible to their teasing. Camillo and Akun and even Eason and Alex all join in teasing me about various insundry things. Akun arrived two days ago and the real reason for him being here has been kept a secret from me until last night. While Camillo was telling me about Paul he finally dispelled the myth that Akun was in Dalian to "travel". Which I figured from the beginning was true as both Eason and Camillo told me not to tell Paul about him being there when they've never done that before.

Unfortunately Akun being there also means that the presence of Cantonese has also become stronger within the household and the Salon. Camillo turned to me the other day and said "Poor Darby. It's going to be hard for you to fit in. We've got three different languages going here, Mandarin, Cantonese and Hunan dialect." I've slowly started adjusting to it but it is slighty frustrating. I'm pretty much the only reason why any of them speak Mandarin so it makes it complicated sometimes. Camillo and Akun were talking in Cantonese last night and every now and then Camillo would break into English or Mandarin to try and include me but it was kinda like hearing "blah jupity rupe ... goose ... blah meh nuh" the response is mostly "why are you saying 'goose'?"

I'm gripping a chopstick under the table with all my might. Every time she looks at me I feel like I'm sweating. Camillo's looking at me like "what's up???" and the other three boys are looking to see the same answer. But every time I open my mouth I'm criticized by someone. I knew it would be this way as soon as I walked in. Camillo and I got chairs on opposite sides of the table and he was sitting next to a girl I didn't know at all who immediately asked him if I was his girlfriend. He replied that I wasn't and took a seat. I felt partly like a dog trapped with an enemy in its territory with nothing I could do about it and part like the other girl at the table who was keeping perfectly silent and letting her talkative partner take the lead. Afterwards Camillo got angry at me. "What were you doing being so quiet and in such a mood when you met her for the first time?" But I had met her earlier and knew it would be this way. Certain girls I can't open up around and feel completely ... beyond myself. It's like they look at me and do nothing at all but criticize. I can feel those critical eyes pouring over my entire body searching for something to blame.

I'm attracted to Michael. I can't exactly help it because it's true. Camillo could see it from a long time ago but today Sayles and Camillo finally figured it out and started teasing me about how they were going to hook the two of us up. It's strange though. I'm in a strange position. On the one hand I have a huge piece of gold. It's absolutely beautiful, worth a lot of money and makes my heart crave it every time I see it. But I've tried to get to this gold and no matter what I do I can't get to it. On the side I've found bars of chocolate but they are nothing compared to the beauty and wealth of the gold. They do very little to take my mind off the craving but at the same time they do satisfy a little bit of my hunger and are still very deliciously sweet. The gold is my symbol for Camillo and the chocolates are Michael and Stone Camillo told me that he's vey happy to introduce me to Michael but it's still almost a tease at some level. Tonight Akun asked me if I was Camillo's girlfriend. I simply said no. He said "why not?" and I told him that Camillo didn't want me to be his girlfriend. Akun replied that he knew that wasn't true that if he knew Camillo correctly, which he did, that Camillo's inside really liked me a lot but his outside couldn't show it. I told him that he was right on that one.

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