"It's not big of a deal, you can take the window seat when we return." Simon replied, patting her hair. "It's night time anyway. You wouldn't have been able to see much. I love what you've done with your hair, by the way." he added.
"It wasn't me. I can't even brush my hair properly, let alone style them." Stella replied with a pout. "And of course we had to take a night flight. We're going to land before dawn I assume?" she added and Den nodded. "You didn't do you hair? Who was it then? One of your other friends?" Simon asked.
"You don't have to refer to them like that." Stella replied, scrunching up her nose as Den took out a magazine and opened it in front of himself. "And no, it wasn't any of them. Sharp was the one who did them." she finished, and fished out her new mobile phone from her pocket and began to play a game.
Stella had gotten this phone with her own salary after she had lost the previous one in the forest during that whole episode with Mazata Zukao, and she was rather proud of it. Though this one wasn't as high-tech or expensive as the one she previously had, the one Sharp had bought for her. But this one was her's. Truly hers.
Simon was very surprised upon hearing Stella's words and shifted his gaze from her hair to Den, sitting on the opposite side of Stella, eyes on his magazine and looking like he didn't have any interest in the conversation.
"Put on headphones Stella, and you better get some sleep. I'm sure that June will want to show you around and you probably won't have any time to rest tomorrow." he added, handing her a pair of headphones before pulling out a book on medicine and opening it.
Stella nodded absent-mindedly but made no move to take the headphones. Den sighed, took them from Simon and connected it to her phone before placing them on her ears and going back to his magazine, muttering, "I swear, it's like taking care of a child."
Simon was so engrossed in his book that he didn't notice when three hours had passed and they were more than halfway through their journey. He looked up from his book rubbing his eyes, intending to stretch his legs a little and take a trip to the washroom.
But when Simon looked at the people beside him, his eyes opened wide and mouth fell open. On the seat beside him, Stella was asleep, wrapped in a blanket and her head resting on Sharp's shoulder. But that was not what surprised Simon, Stella falling asleep was to be expected. What surprised him was that beside Stella, Sharp had also fallen asleep. His magazine had slipped out from his hands and lay open across his knee, and his head was resting against Stella's head.
Simon remembered what Sharp had said to him once. "I don't sleep, no more than you do. My heart can never be at peace now. Because it stopped that day." he had said, when Simon had once told him that maybe the lack of sleep was what was making him so cranky.