The faint smell of antiseptics.

The subtle scent of rose essential oil.

The gentle aroma of autumn sunlight.

And, I couldn't hide a smile from coming up on my mouth, the smell of coffee.

Of course, it made no sense that doctors and nurses wouldn't forbid a patient who had been bedridden for almost a week due to asthenia to consume anything with a high amount of caffeine.

But, I closed the lid of the empty thermos, if they has such obedience, they wouldn't be themself anymore.

- Cappuccino again... - A "lump" on the hospital bed said, while holding a new French canson, and smelling the scent emanating from the white porcelain mug in their hand - I want espresso.

Is caffeine an addictive substance?, I recalled the knowledge I'd learned in the past while holding my mug and sitting down on the couch, leaning with my eyes closed, after smiling at the person on the bed:

- Eat well, sleep well, wag your tail to greet me if you have nothing to do, then I'll buy you espresso delivered directly to your house for two days after you're discharged.

- Are you describing a dog?

Neither seeing their expression, nor discerning any emotion from their unaccented voice, I just used my fastest speed to move to the other side of the couch with my favourite porcelain mug, then I opened my eyes and saw a white pillow flying over the spot that was my head thirty seconds ago.

Hey, could that brain actually solve a trigonometry problem and calculate the angle and force every time they throws something?

- I'll absolutely invite doctors to dig out all the neurons in your head someday. - They leaned back against the headboard - And see what kind of thing is that you're still safely alive with your head in the clouds all day.

- No one but you are harmless to me, love.

I laughed brightly at that familiar face, placed my mug down on the table, picked up an apple, and began to peel it, took a glimpse of the laptop on the bedside closet before returning to the apple being peeled at a speed neither fast nor slow.

If there was a mirror in front of me, I would have seen my own face, with nearly unsavoury expression, becoming even fainter with a few layers of spices.

Being hospitalised because of the asthenia, I really wanted to find a way to pull those grey cells out to see how they could think about doing their work in the hospital like that. Did they think that the stamina of a human can be pulled back and forth for a while and is able to stretch out like a rubber? Wasn't they foolish enough to forget that even the rubber has its elasticity limit?

- Hey, are you planning something "nefarious" again? - They took a sip of coffee, with their eyebow raised.

- No. - I continued peeling the apple - I am just thinking that I'm pretty good at it.

- Did you bite a worm when you ate an apple yesterday? - I guessed they was smiling.

Putting the knife on the table and wiping my hands, I picked up a piece of apple, slowly completing the task of bringing it down to my stomach in silence, then picked up the mug and leaned back in the chair, shifting my gaze towards them.

Honestly, I didn't like cappuccino. Too much milk foam.

I often drank latte just like they always chose espresso, but somehow, while the cappucino's soft and fluffy foam was always intact, every latte I took away to home had its milk foam dissolved. And how can a latte without milk foam be a latte?

- I think my ability to control myself must have reached a towering level, maybe even better than all your awards.

They smiled, obviously not understanding what kind of the nonsense comparison I was making.

I slightly curved my mouth, took a sip of creamy coffee, then kept the same speed while speaking:

- So I've been sitting here all this time and you still haven't been pounded into a cake yet.

They once said that despite my face looking like it was born with only one shape of emotion, my weakness was the ease to be read, because I could rarely hide anything through my "excessively emotional" eyes - according to them. So when I put the porcelain mug down on the table and laid my sight at the bedside table, the so-called happiness in their face disappeared without a blemish.

I knew, they didn't like others commenting on how they arranged their work and time. They was excellent enough to be confident in and proud of themself.

- You know...

They didn't continue. And I didn't respond either.

I wasn't in the habit of speaking before other person finished talking, and they knew that.

I had more than enough patience to quietly sit here until they completed their unfinished sentence and of course they also knew that.

- Come on, you know what I mean.

- Your company must be in such a shortage of workers that a half-dead patient was assigned to work.

They didn't respond to the sarcasm in my unaccented tone, just silently clutched their cup and took some little sips. I didn't say anything more, just took out my A5 notebook from my backpack and started writing. The single hospital room was quiet with only the music played by the bluetooth speaker, the soft blowing, and the sound of a fountain pen nib moving line by line on the paper.

Until my hand holding the pen suddenly stopped. Partly because I temporarily ran out of ideas, partly because I was surprised to hear the sound of a pencil sketching lightly on the French canson paper.

I made the decision not to speak, began chopping the peeled apple into pieces, then turned to the window without any curtains covering it and let my eyes wander.

It was an autumn afternoon, and the sky was so clear.

I remembered the last time they painted a picture had also been in the autumn, but it was a stormy autumn, an autumn so long ago that I didn't remember why a person who was around the computer screens most of the time since school years like them had walked into a Starbucks without bringing any laptop. Then, in our favourite space filled with the scent of coffee, instead of boring lines of data that I didn't understand, they had put on their headphones and started drawing line after line with a pencil on the paper specialised for artists, leaving me with a few unanswered questions hidden in the photos taken by our shared DSLR.

But when they had taken off their headphones and showed me the painting they had just completed after two cups of espresso and two pieces of tiramissu, I had been no longer wondering why they suddenly wanted to paint like that.

A bird in the colour white as glowing, full of energy and proudly spreading its wings in the half-dark and half-light sky because of the autumn storm and pale sunshine.

I always knew that the pencil and diluted watercolour in their hands could create all that I thought was most wonderful.

It was just that the person who smiled and told me "I'll flap my wings and fly higher than Icarus." hadn't touched the pencil again.

Until now.

- It seems like you haven't drawn it in a long time, isn't it? - I stopped sightseeing in the clear sky, turned to them and asked.

And refracted through the lens, imprinted into my retina was the image of the pencil rolled down the slightly wrinkled green blanket of the hospital.

On the A3 French canson paper were some sketchy lines of a pair of wings, but for some reason they had not yet formed clearly.

- Having time to sleep is too grateful for me. - They twirled the Staedtler pen and started tackling the fruit I had unconsciously cut.

Silently shifting my gaze away, I decided to allow a smile to appear on my face.

- Hey, tell me. - Finally, I could no longer hold the question in my larynx - Why do you have to try so hard?

And as expected, the half-bitten piece of apple fell back into the plate, and they stopped all their actions, motionless like the image on the .jpeg format file I just saw on my phone - the photo of them wearing headphones and brushing every stroke of watercolour over the faded pencil painting from years ago.

I didn't know how long I'd patiently sat and looked at them like that, but when my eyes could no longer focus on a single point of view, I saw the pen nib pressing on the paper for so long that the black ink spread into a small puddle, shimmering under the sunlight.

- How should I say...

They finally sat up straight, closed the lid of their pen and placed it neatly on the table, leaning back in the lazy chair I had brought under the permission of the doctors, with their gaze moving out the window.

I didn't know what they wanted to see, whether the autumn sky or sunset, or they was just trying to avoid my direct sight, because, obviously, they didn't want to answer my question.

But since the question was asked by me, they understood that they couldn't help but answer.

- I said I would fly higher than Icarus...

- You have flown higher. Be higher a long time ago.

I was just telling the truth, truer than anything I had ever said. Their achievements, their efforts, if they were a pair of wax wings, they would have been able to surpass the heat of the sun for such a long time.

- But because I've flown so high, if I stop flapping my wings, I'll fall.

This time, what fell wasn't a half-bitten piece of apple, but their gaze.

And the landing spot was my eyes.

Somehow naturally wanting to laugh, I looked at the digital clock on the bedside table, then took from my backpack the notebook that they had bought for me on a business trip in Washington, and carefully wrote a few uppercase Latin letters below the symbol of strength of the United States of America decorating on the right corner of the page.

- Do you remember? - I finished writing, put the notebook down on the table and packed up my things - The reason why you want to study abroad in the U.S. instead of the U.K.

- Don't remember very well. - They replied without paying much attention, and then looked at the clock - Finished?

- It's only been two weeks, love, give inspiration time to flow.

They laughed.

I put my A5 notebook and sketchbook in my backpack, then stood up and threw the notebook on the table to them.

- You said that the symbol of the U.S. is an eagle, you wanted to be as free and independent as it is, as proud and majestic as it is, just as it is to fly above all else.

- Really? - They flipped back and forth the notebook I just threw over - I didn't expect that I used to be so literary.

- But you know what.

- What's "what"?

It was a smoke-blowing question just to show "I-am-listening", but I didn't mind, put my backpack on my shoulder and walked out of the hospital room while speaking and checking my email box and to-do lists on my phone:

- When flying, the eagle doesn't flap its wings.

And then, the last image that entered my peripheral vision was their surprised expression when they saw the five letters I had written on the corner of the smooth white paper with no lines.

E A G L E.

After a few days of temporarily not going to the hospital to speed up the progress to meet the deadline, and also to give them time to think, I was dropping by the familiar Starbucks before going to the hospital when I received a photo.

A selfie taken at a beautiful angle against the backdrop of the sunset sky, capturing the Statue of Liberty. The date and signature written by a stylus pen on the photo made me smile, not sure if it was a smile of relief or because I didn't know what else to say - it was right after the last day I visited them at the hospital, which meant that within less than 48 hours, they had been discharged from the hospital, booked flights, packed their things, sat in the cabin for about twenty hours or more, plus transit time, and finally landed in the U.S. before the next night hit the GMT-5 time zone.

Turning off my phone, I took my laptop out of my backpack and logged into Skype, then made a video call.

Very quickly, the Skype call waiting screen switched to the webcam's viewfinder, which seemed to be on a table, as I could see the hotel's large sofa and glass window, facing the twinkling lights on the beach at night.

"Hello love!"

Their face appeared in the webcam's frame a few minutes later, accompanied by a plate of fruit and a tall glass that I often called a wine glass, which was nothing special except that in the wine glass was not wine but apple juice.

- Have you just been discharged from the hospital and already on a business trip? - I asked while sipping the latte.

"There's not any month that I don't have to leave my beloved home country." They bit hard at the apple with a look of I-am-at-a-foreign-country-with-the-nostalgia.

- Are you fully recovered? - I turned up the volume a bit to drown out the noise of the cafe, laughing when I saw the person in the screen taking a quick sip of apple juice to avoid choking.

After swallowing the apple which was a bit too large that they had bitten for jokingly exaggerating, they smiled happily, moved the laptop to the small table near the sofa, after checking and making sure that their face was still in the webcam frame, they sat down and comfortably leaned back.

"I'm going on vacation this time." They picked up a scarlet cherry and put it in their mouth, then chewing whiletalking, "Remember the last project I told you about? The partner of that project made an appointment in Hamburg, and I'd been to Hamburg twice this year, so I passed it on to someone else. Taking a break from work."

I burst out laughing, listened to the chatter on the other side of the line and quietly closed the draft on the Microsoft Office Word workspace. The intention to consult the reluctant critic was accordingly closed.

It was not obvious whether they had something to tell but didn't know how to start, or there was simply nothing to talk about so they just talked whatever came to their mind. We were discussing various topics that had no connection with others - from the growth of the EU economy, the volatility of the U.S. stock market, the famous love stories of the British Royal Family, etc., to that my cat was shedding and today I had ordered a piece of tiramissu to go with latte instead of sachertorte.

However, no matter what we talked about, what I noticed was that they was comfortable talking and laughing about happy and funny things, complaining about annoying things, and casually commenting on things that annoyed them.

The time temporarily slipped out of our awareness, and it wasn't until my laptop screen popped up a "Low Battery" notification and the hour hand of the clock on the wall in their side passed number 2 that they stopped chattering, cleaned up the fruit peels, then - as I thought - returned to the screen to say goodbye.

"Hey, love."

- Yes?

"Why don't eagles flap their wings?"

I was a little dumbfounded, silently stared at them for a moment, and then answered:

- That's just their nature, love. Eagles are hunting birds. Except when they need to chase prey at high speed, they don't need to constantly flap their wings. They only do so when they take off or land.

They was silent for a moment, then asked:

"Aren't they afraid of falling?"

I laughed, needing no time to think, and responded:

- Of course not, the sky is their world.

They was silent with their hand twirling a pen habitually, as if thinking of something.

- Love, when did you know how to hesitate like this?

"What am I hesitating about!" They frowned immediately.

- Hesitate whether to ask the last question or not. - I smiled, typed a message into the Skype chat and sent it.

When the eagle decides to stop flapping its wings, how does it feel?

"Maybe I really have to find doctors to dig out all the neurons in your head for research." They shook their head and laughed.

- Well, I already told that you were harmless to me.

Almost as soon as I finished my sentence, the notification popped up on the screen to say that the laptop battery had only 5% remaining. I closed the notification window and looked at them:

- I think you know the answer better than me.

They seemed a little dumbfounded, their gaze was still on me - or more accurately, me on their screen.

- I stopped flapping my wings so long ago, love, and I'd also never flown so high that I could understand the feeling of letting myself go in the midst of those winds. My sky is very peaceful, so even if I stop flapping my wings, I don't feel the pride of proud like eagles. Freedom, confidence, arrogance,...

Pausing for a moment, I leaned back slightly and looked directly at the image of them on the laptop screen, which was dimmed a bit due to low battery.

- Or, just like what you're feeling right now.

After hearing it, they was silent, and then burst out laughing after a while, raised their eyebrows and pouted at me:

"Literary again."

I just smiled, finished my second cup of latte, then put my laptop having shut down because of running out of battery into my backpack and stood up to leave the Starbucks.

Putting on the headphones they had given me for my birthday and playing a random music playlist on my phone, I opened the photo that had just been sent to me and went to the rendezvous with my editor, without hesitation, allowing a smile to appear on my lips.

A drawing easel standing on the beautiful Siesta beach in the middle of a clear autumn dawn with smoothy white sand, iridescent blue sea and crystal sky, where the colours of water and sky met each other formed a straight line.

And amidst the space worthy of being voted the most beautiful beach in the United States, the Faber Castell watercolour jars were arranged neatly on the tray, the painting was painted by diluted watercolours on a French canson paper with the pastel purple twilight sky, clouds shadowing light and dark patches, the ocean surface stretching to the horizon and reflecting the brilliant light rays at the end of the day, and a proud bird soaring high with its wings spreading wide without flapping.

An Eagle.