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OCD is a strange thing. As my friend Nieves was preparing her luggage, I kept cleaning after her. We had been touring around China for months and somehow she managed to get everything packed in her small luggage, on her way home, back to Spain. Her Chinese boyfriend, actually both of them kept picking on me, on why to clean a hotel room when one's leaving, at about 5 o'clock in the morning. We had a great laugh, kept mocking each-other till it was time to leave, then went downstairs and I remember to have kept blowing kisses to their taxi, as I saw Nieves take off to the airport. My flight was scheduled later that day, so I went back to my hotel room and fell asleep. I believe it was later that very morning, that her boyfriend texted me their last pictures from the airport and some text in Chinese that translated to "Snow is white at airport crying both". I woke up as I was and looked out of the window immediately. Was it really snowing? I totally forgot it was July and it was Beijing after all, so went back to reading the text again. Oh, and it was then went I burst into a hilarious laughter all by myself. I never knew her boyfriend had awarded her the name "BaiXue" which translates to Snow White. How cute of him to call her Snow White, so pure and innocent. ..I recalled how they met and as they both couldn't really speak any reasonable English, I was their "third wheel" for quite some time, trying to convey Nieves' Spanish or his Chinese into meaningful conversations among them. Body language and gestures were frankly speaking our "lingua franca" indeed. Lost track of time, grabbed my phone and went through all the pictures, videos, memes we had developed till everything blurred and memories kept overlapping any decent thought to make sense out of it. Was it the ardent summer that my face felt like burning, eyes itching, palms sweaty, or was it me subconsciously realizing that was it. We lived an awesome moment and then it was all gone. All the promises we made that very morning, to meet up again and soon, sounded like ages ago. The memories were so fresh, yet so distant that very same morning, in that hotel room in Beijing. It was, at that very moment, when I think I rediscovered myself. It wasn't the places we visited, views we saw, locals we interacted with, exotic food we ate or fooled around, it wasn't my friends either that i was longing for.. it was rather the connection I had established, we had established with each and every one of these tiny pieces of events that compose my kaleidoscopic puzzle, that I so proudly share with you. The colorful dishes of SiChuan would have looked faded without the capturing of amazement in our faces and have taste bland without the "dare challenges" with exotic food accompanied with "baijiu" Chinese alcohol. The classical gardens of SuZhou could have not been experienced the same, without the fragrance of our wet clothes from all the heavy raining and clammy sweat from all the wandering. As I journeyed back in time, yes, reunion sounds doable. However, although we have remained friends years later, none of us dares to mention it in our group chat. I have met Nieves after and we have recalled each moment vividly, planning the next trip also.. never on reunion though. Deep down, we know we don't want to spoil it. We want to leave it there, back in time, with amazing stories to tell and jokes to crack about. As i write this travel story, I truly bear a content smile on my face, and two friends close at heart, as I know we had lived and completely lost ourselves in that moment. I know, they know..we knew all along. I keep looking out of the window, everytime our group chat rings. OCD is a strange thing.