Shanghai, 2016 - as Ellise opens her eyes, she hears no sound, sees nothing but darkness. It's the everyday situation for someone who sleeps inside a closet. Her eight inches mattress, top with a futon was shoved inside a wardrobe, bared with shelves and drawers. Ellise has trouble sleeping, and accidentally found out in one of her drunken states that she sleeps better inside a frigging closet.

It's not like she wanted to be inside a closet, it just happened that after so many nights partying in Shanghai party district, she came home and had the thought of taking a hot shower, to remove the reeking odor of alcohol, and God knows what else in her body before going to bed. But instead of going to the bathroom she opens the closet, curls up and gets the best sleep she ever had and from then on continues this quirky sleeping situation.

But with her gaming, partying all night and day for the past week, she now hardly remembers the last time she had a good sleep. The memory of the morning, from last week, when she had one of another fight with DT has been simply waking up with a terrible feeling of lack of sleep, and in dire need of coffee.

Finding herself in China is something Ellise never thought will happen in her lifetime. She knows nothing of China, besides what just like everybody reads in the news and a faint memory of a boy's shadow speaking in Chinese in Gardermoen Airport.

She was born in London, England from a German mother and an English father she unfortunately never met. Every time a situation arises about her father, however packed a room is, it turns icy cold in silent contempt, hence she draws an image of her father as a commoner not suitable with her great-grandparents curated lifestyle.The only thing she knows about her father is what's written in her birth certificate. Her father is just a few letters, and nothing more.

She grew up in Oslo, and Berlin for all her life. Chauffeured around from boarding schools, vacations, and the rare occasion of being at home. Which isn't much of a home, anyway. It's either her great-grandparents villa outside the city, her grandparents mansion in the middle of Oslo, or her mother's always empty apartment overlooking a sad lake, that makes the building a prime estate. But most of the time, her great-grandparents' villa is the worst of them all.

The quiet hallways, and vast land surrounding the estate, with its all spoken and unspoken thousands rules, which is the source of never ending disappointment on everybody's faces in the ballroom, for apparently she breaks them all. Which she vehemently denied anyway. Whether she breaks them or not, she's always at fault. Another excuse why she is being educated in another country's boarding school.

Brandenburg International School, a prestigious boarding school, with its hundred-acre land, thick walls, hushed voices and immaculate monotone uniform, kicked her out even before she finished her elementary education. The memory of it stills keeps a sour taste in her mouth.

Her all girls proper Junior high school in Oslo was just as bad. The only difference was she can get out of the juvenile cage, called school, every last ring of the bell. She can attend her long list of after school activities. Her grandparents love them, especially her Grandmama, and not because of how diligent she is with her studies, but because those extra curricular activities keep her outside longer.

It's clear since young, that nobody in her family wants her. Not the father, she never saw, not the mother who breathed and lived for her husband's life and works. Neither the grandparents who just hide her from the questioning eyes of society.

On the outside, she looks like one hell of a lucky girl. A pretty face, accompanied with a bank card that looks like the Pacific ocean that knows no end. The people she met last night, drove the city the whole night to buy whatever using her card, to find out if it will be declined. So far, someone from last night, got a new apartment within the same building where she's staying, another guy she can't remember the name went home with a Jaguar. The girls, all she barely knows, couldn't carry all the shopping bags from known high-end brands.

They're so noisy that she has to go home even when she doesn't have a plan to.

She hears gurgling sounds that her stomach is making. She doesn't want to get out of this dark and icy cold bed. She would love to go back to sleep, but her stomach is strongly protesting. So is her guts that demands in a rush to be vomited, fast!

She throws the heavy blanket and pushes the door of the closet, and rolls over to her side to get out. Face down on another cold floor, she tries to breathe out, and inhales the cold air. She always likes the cold. The cold makes hunkering down easier and acceptable. To make her feel smaller, and unseen. She's old enough to know that it doesn't actually help but it became a habit she unconsciously does when she's alone.

Lying with her face glued on to the floor, silence once again welcomes her to the awake world. She hates the silence, yet cling to it as a lifeline. Her head never knows quiet in any way.

As the strong bile comes upon her throat, she instantly crunches on her feet and arms, shoots straight to the waiting toilet bowl to release the alcohol consumed like water from the previous night. A cold sweat breaks out of her face, from that big puke of bitter water from her stomach; she reaches the button to flush out her puke, drops her back to the tile wall, never daring to open her eyes, not to trigger another gush of bitter bile to come up from her esophagus.

She hates how she could smell it, while it's travelling from her stomach to her throat. She hates how the bitterness of it stays in her mouth for a certain amount of time. She knows she has to gargle some water to remove the taste but her legs have no strength for her to stand to reach the lavatory. As she contemplates which one she hates between triggering another vomit, or having the disgusting taste of it from her mouth. Which one she could give up to get rid of the other. At the back of her head, washing her mouth is slowly winning, when a warm thing touches her face.

She opens her eyes to meet, a pair of black eyes staring blankly on her face, "Drink it." as she hears the words, her eyes follow where it comes from. They landed on the mouth with a twisted corner of disgust, or was it disapproval? As she stares on those lips, her stomach tighten to another knot. This time it has nothing to do with the alcohol she drank in stupor but rather from a tiny pride that results to this shame, that if there is another human being alive that she wants to see her in her current state is not this man, bent over, hovering above her with no space to run.

She blinks her eyes to refuse the tears from spilling out, she feels the nudge of the warm bottle of tea on her face once again. "Hold it," he said, as he picked her up from the floor, she heard the toilet cover slam hard, and a small amount of impending scolding was acknowledged at the back of her brain that slowly sobered up. But before she could even open her mouth she was sat down on the toilet, and the face she doesn't want to see is right back in front of her face again.

Too close, she thought as she could feel the air he exhales fanning her face, that now even without looking in the mirror she knows turned red, she can feel the skin from her neck heat up to the back of her ears. It woke up the last sleeping cells from her brain, and clearly remember how her mouth tastes and how it smells, that probably being breath in with the same clarity of the air she inhales.

Oh my f*cking God, please kill me now!, her panicking brain screams as she grabs the bottle of tea offered in an attempt to wash her mouth with it, to hide the smell of alcohol from her. As she brought the bottle of tea to her lips, he stepped back and leaned on the bathroom wall across from her.

She watches him while slowly sipping the tea, not really sipping it but slowly moving the water inside her mouth to secretly wash it before swallowing. She saw a much gentler face watching her. No, definitely not gentle. He would never be gentle with her this time, after what she did in the moment of her uncontrolled temper.

It happened too many times already that she is sure, this man would probably be too tired of her. Same as everyone in in her life. Tired and given up on how difficult she is. The word, difficult is not just a word thrown as something hard to deal with, but mostly with contempt, but hiding the real thought of if only we can do something to you to make you disappear from our lives.

She blinks her eyes fast, and clenches the tea bottle to remind her brain to stay focused and not give in to self pity that is slowly rising. Not now. Not in front of this guy. Never in front of him. He should never know how trash she is. She called in the anger, it's easier to manage and always straight forward.

" Why are you here? How did you get in?" she angrily asked him.

"The door still remembers my fingerprint, while you on the other hand forgot to answer your phone, when I called you so many times last night." he slowly draws the word as he speaks.

She stands up and walks to the lavatory, lowering her head to wash her face to hide the tears that are about to escape. It's hard to understand how it's so easy for her eyes to shed tears when it comes to DT.

Growing up she rarely cries, one of the many reasons why her mother is disappointed with her. She never shows real emotion except anger. Her great-grandmother Elizabeth, instructed the headmistress of her boarding school in Berlin to make sure she never missed an Anger Management session with her therapist. With her situation, the memory of Brandenburg, keeps on hunting her ever since her great-grandparents found out she's in Shanghai.

Before she turns sixteen she left home, and that was just about two months ago, yet it feels like a decade already since she ran away from home, using the cover of never ending year end parties between her great-grandparent's villa, and grandparent mansion, shuffling between estate of so many family friends and business associates. Normally, she never attended those holiday events, her great-grandparents made sure for her not to, because it's better not to explain her existence to the world. Her mother never brought her to any of those kinds of parties either for her presence is not a good conversation starter in the circle of associates for her mother and her husband.

She spends Christmas and New Year holidays between Spain and France with her Aunt Joy, a high school classmate of her mother. The presence of her aunt Joy which is not a blood relative is another accepted yet unexplained in her life. She thinks it's not that it has no explanation, it's just that adults simply refuse to give a reason on who, what, where in her life. They just expect her to smile and just nod her head to whatever is being served in front of her. No need to justify things. Just do what they say. They never give her excuses, and at the same time she is not allowed to explain anything too with whatever reports about her given to her great-grandparents. They all believe those reports, bound in leather files, thick as a diplomat dossier. They must count and write the breath she takes everyday, for why would they end up with so many documents as a result.

The thought that she might be sent back again to another boarding school to what country only God knows, scared the shit out of her. But she will die first, if she lets the Old People know that those kinds of punishments called discipline scare her. She won't give them the satisfaction of winning her life.

She takes a deep breath as she splashes water on her face, she has no time to think of those frustration that she tries to bury last night drinking, that end up a dare of finding out on how much is the limit amount does her credit card have. Speaking of credit cards, she can't remember if those people from the club returned her card. She has to inform Ting about it.

Another thing to take care of, because she knew from experience that even if The Old People saw the amount spent on her card, they will never block it. It's best that those people from last night won't find out about it, or else they might end up buying the city of Shanghai. Money is the only thing in this world she will never have a problem with.

But the bigger problem now is the man inside the bathroom with her, that is already showing impatience, as she is taking her time splashing her face. This current situation is something she can't avoid. She momentarily regretted giving him access to her apartment.

Thinking of a way to make him go away, and to avoid the confrontation of her temper tantrum outburst last week. Which she knows impossible. She was lucky enough to hide away from him for a week because of the CTF competition being held in Singapore.

She takes another breath while reaching out a towel to dry her face, "Congratulations on winning the CTF Asia Elimination Round." she speaks while her face is buried in the towel.

"Thank you," DT answered her while crossing his arms. "Winning the elimination is nothing surprising. Everybody knows we are going to win." he talks without any hint of bragging from being China's number one player of the world renowned Capture The Flag cybersecurity contest.

"I'm here because you never answer my calls. And according to Aunt Lan Cheng you never show your face in the WIZ club for a week." he said, as he pulled the towel in my hands, and pushed me out of the bathroom.

Ellise with her 140 IQ only knows one way to fight with DT, whenever she got cornered. And that is anger.

"Why do I have to go to the club? Mr. Wan rejected my application to be part of his team. I have no right to be there." she answered while walking briskly to walk in front of him, because she doesn't trust herself not to hug DT's wide back and cries until her pain disappeared. She knows it will not disappear even if she cries. But just to be safe, and not be tempted to hug DT, she makes sure to walk ahead of him.

To go to the living room, they have to cross the bedroom from the bathroom, but the room doesn't work as the bedroom for it just has a big table in the middle with two computers facing each other. On the left side, the closet is wide open as she didn't close it when she got out of it.

"Isn't it uncomfortable to keep on sleeping here?" DT said as he stepped into the left and closed the doors softly.

"Don't mind the way I sleep." she still answered in pretend anger.

She feels a bit relieved that the conversation is being dragged to the weird bedroom closet. She stops in the middle of the bedroom door and turns off the lights. "Why are you really here?" she turned around and asked DT.

In the pitch black room, the only light illuminating the room are the blinking red dots from the computer's CPU, and the green screen in the far right side of the room, which she uses when she does a video game streaming for her followers in Twitch.

"You don't have anything to do here," she said without waiting for DT to answer her first question. "Why don't you just go home," she said in a steady voice. She can talk bravely now because the darken room serves as a cover up to hide her facial expression. She hopes DT would just lose his patience and left.

She doesn't have time to answer questions. She needed to decide fast if she wanted to stay in this apartment or move out of it. She feels a heavy feeling in the fit of her stomach because she doesn't want to leave China.

She arrived in the first week of January, and it's only August, she's been here for just more than half a year, yet she feels at home in this foreign country even when she doesn't know and can barely speak the language.

But it looks like it will end soon. Now her Old People will surely not waste time in taking her back to Norway!

"I was worried." DT's voice stops the train of thoughts running in her head.

"The f*ck you're worried about?" I'm just the girl who blackmails you with your personal relationship! If I didn't do that we will never have any connection at all." she said in a defensive tone. DT's choice of words and tone confuses her.

"Of course, I am worried! You were acting so weird before I left for Singapore. You never drop by the club, you didn't answer my calls. Now I found you dead drunk on your bathroom floor!" he said in a loud voice, that made Ellise step back from the door.

But before she could turn around to avoid him, he crossed the room, with his six feet height, that gives him long legs, he easily strides to where she is standing and grabs her hands, pulled her to the middle of the living room and push her to sit in the armchair at the far left side of the living room. She was caught off guard, and wasn't able to utter any words. Her living room is forty-eight square foot wide but DT easily manhandled her to sit on the chair, in just like a single breath.

"What is it with you if I don't drop by the club?" she now answered back in a loud voice. "Why do I have to answer your calls?" "I'm not in any obligation to do so." she said in a louder voice.

Fighting in anger is something she is good at. If she wants to avoid this confrontation where she knows the end game. She has to have the upper hand to have the last word. It's easy for her to win in this kind of situation. The only problem is when it comes to DT, her f*cking tear ducts have its own mind! She can feel them threatening to spill over from her traitor eyes at any moment.