Frans glares at the screen of his phone, quite unable to believe the message it is teasing his endurance levels with. You've lost, better luck next time.

"Ugh, not again," he groans under his breath, not liking the idea of being defeated at his favorite pastime. A serious rarity. Not to forget to mention this is the fourth game he is losing to his friend in a span of just eighty-three minutes, just to highlight the severity of the matter at hand. And although the boy on the receiving end of the victory is happy about the feat he is gaining-- another rarity again, he's literally bubbling with curiosity as to why Frans who is literally a pro at chess, isn't showing his usual proficiency.

Frans, frustrated now, calls the game quit and tosses his device onto the king-sized bed, his eyes stealing a glance at the black suitcase standing near his double closet as he punishes his device for the lack of mental coordination on his part. He was supposed to have reached his cousin's house by now, and if not tired by the long journey, already started with the Christmas carols. But given how unexpected the events of yesterday had turned out to be, he had decided it fitter to call it off on his sister until another day or two more.

He didn't tell her the reason, of course. She'd only get worried, and perhaps a tad bit furious at how he always considered everything to be his responsibility.

But he still did. And why shouldn't he? After all, it was he who was leading the water-cleaning project when her form had attracted his attention more than those heaps over heaps of algae-infested debris would ever catch. Wow, a girl in return for readying myself to clean this nasty eutrophic river because some super-nasty humans have no sense to treat raw sewage the right way even before Christmas! Oh, joy! was his semi-sarcastic, semi-weary reply.

Now if you're some nature-loving freak like Frans McKinney and are alone on some un-coordinating boat with nobody to talk to, or keep company the whole of three grueling hours, and then suddenly some girl is waving at you like a maniac, except she isn't at a club with disco lights bouncing off her blonde machine-curled hair, and some six layers of make-up concealing the actual face beneath, holding a shot of vodka as she sways from some equally blonde dude's hip, trying to seduce you although the dude beside her can clearly satisfy her tonight, then she will most definitely catch your attention.

Because this very girl had every body part that falls below the neck meandering aimlessly underwater at 11:34 PM amidst the freezing weather with pitiful excuses for a swimming costume-- and no, before you ask, it didn't seem like she was there skinny dipping.

He stands up, only now remembering the girl sleeping in the room adjacent to his. He had been so busy with the three conferences that his clients had organiz--

Lies. Lies. Lies.

She had been on his mind all along. In fact, she was all he thought of all through last night and in the wake of the morning and through today's afternoon. She was the reason he had lost the four goddamn rounds of chess.

But...why?

Walking to the full-length mirror in his room, he fixes his gaze on his black hair. The comparatively longer strands are messed up as always; only, this time, it isn't because of pushing his hands through them because he is still struggling a little with the console while landing an aircraft. And he being, well... the Frans McKinney wouldn't allow himself to agree that it is for the other, less-ambitious and more-vigilant reason.

He nudges a brush through his medium-long layered hair, the reason why he is taking time to tame his, what the girls swoon over calling 'messy bed hair' a little out of his reach at the moment; shaking all distracting thoughts off his mind, he walks out of his room and into hers.

He is greeted by long waves of heat as he enters the guest room. It was the doctor who had advised that for the girl to regain her consciousness at the earliest, she had to be kept warm, and Frans McKinney being the extremely hospitable person that he is, had left no stone unturned in making that happen. Now, however, Frans senses that this amount of heat wouldn't make a person waking up after being unconscious for sixteen plus hours very happy about the setting; so he lowers the temperature of the room heater and makes his way towards the large bed that she is lying on.

She hasn't stirred a bit since she had been put on that bed, her palms still folded one over the other, and the back of her head sitting straight on the pillow. She looks so serene, she might as well resemble a girl from one of Leonardo de Vinci's portraits-- except she is way prettier and has thicker eyebrows and fuller lips, and Frans is left wondering if what the doctor told about her waking up within twenty-four hours would really happen. Nonetheless, he does nothing. She's still got eight hours, dear owner. We buy your theories about having nil knowledge about patience, but that doesn't mean you lose your shit over an unconscious girl and experiment with your funny anger-management skills on some innocent doctor, his conscience lectures him.

The boy swings a look at the side table, or more specifically, at the things placed on it that were found on her the time she was found. Some money, bank cards, and an ID card. He picks her ID card, examining the limited amount of information it gives out about her. Ayla Halimi Naceri, his eyes scan her name for the thirteenth time.

It isn't anything much, he knows, but enough to remind him of how he had come to know her.