Phytoremediation

Thank matter for mass and the comfort of gravity

Sunny regretted thinking about that. Thank god he was wearing jeans that day.

"N-No! Thank you, you can go now." Basil said embarrassed and a bit disgusted at the suggestion he would do something so... trashy.

The driver nodded his head, closed the door, and went back to the driver's seat.

The boys turned around to see a huge hotel. Tons of foreigners were around, some demanding to know why the housekeepers didn't know English, some trying to get discounts on their rooms by paying with American money, them not knowing the conversion to yuan, evidently.

Basil called his mom.

"Hey, Michelle. They dropped us off at a hotel, what do we do from here?"

"Oh, okay."

Basil hung up his cell phone. It looked like a cool new phone, having a full keyboard instead of just the number pad.

"She has a room for us to use until she comes to get us tomorrow for her first public meetup."  Basil and Sunny made their way towards the reception desk.

"Your mom is Michelle Charron?" Sunny asked, slightly shocked.

"Yeah..." Basil responded embarrassed.

Michelle Charron was mostly known for her last attempt at getting elected for mayor in Guangzhou. She would ask her political opponents to "debate" her, and would show up at their meetups and rallies to annoy them with questions that could be seen as a matter of opinion and start trying to argue about their points. She was the reason why opposing candidates can't show up at rallies by law anymore.

She was a bit of a joke around all of Guangdong. Every once in a while when Australia was brought up, she was the first person who came to mind, and not for positive reasons.

Poor Basil. I knew the bullying was bad, but with her for a mom, it must've been hell.

Basil and Sunny made it to the counter. The receptionist looked like a 22 year old. Usually they hired for looks in the hotels popular with foreigners, so it made sense. There was a hotel in Faraway for a while, but turns out nobody really wants the hotel in the town 10 minutes away from the biggest city in the province, so it ended up shutting down fast.

"Hello! Welcome to Big Shuiwo! Where we say, Shuiwo is the way... wo..." all 3 of them cringed, before she continued to speak, "I'm Annie! How can I help you?"

She made a surprised face for a moment, when Basil spoke fluently in Chinese to her, "I'm here for a room that was reserved for me."

She began speaking in English, a language neither were fluent in, looking at Basil, "Wow, your Chinese was very ?????!" She said cheerfully in something Basil visibly didn't understand.

Sunny stepped in. His limited English skills came in handy from time to time. "His not English." He hoped would get the message across.

She made an apologetic expression, then returned to speaking to Chinese. "Sorry, you just, uh... look like a foreigner!" She giggled a bit with embarrassment.

"It's okay, I get that a lot..." Basil made an awkward smile, "I'm ah... Basil Charron."

Annie made a face, then a smug smile. "So you two arrre..." she began to giggle.

"Here's your room key, enjoy your bed, lovebirds." She winked as she handed Basil the key, the giggled more.

Fuckin' fujoshis.

Basil and Sunny both blushed as they noticed some of the other receptionists were looking at them giggling. Basil ran towards the elevator, dragging Sunny by the hand, making some of them coo "Aww"

Upon entering the elevator, Basil immediately pressed "8" and then the close doors button.

Sunny felt a bit bad for the man they saw trying to reach the elevator before it closed, but then noticed Basil was still holding his hand.

"Um... Basil, your-"

"A-Ah! Sorry!" Basil quickly pulled his hand back and blushed.

"So... I guess this is gonna be what this week is gonna be like?" Sunny blushed and turned away from Basil.

"Y-Yeah... sorry."

The door opened to a hallway. It was very easy to tell which room belonged to them, as two men stood in front of it, holding their bags.

"H-Hello..." Basil said to the men.

"Hello Mr. Charron and Mr. Boyfriend." They said, doing a very awkward full bow.

"Th-Thank you two... we can take it from here..." Basil said politely.

Sunny just did a slight bow.

"Goodbye Mr. Charron and Mr. Boyfriend." They then ran off to the employee elevator.

Sunny and Basil grabbed the bags from the floor, and brought them into the room. Basil put down the bags and turned on the light.

Inside was one queen-sized bed, a large heart shape on the quilt on the top of it. Around the bed were fake rose petals.

Basil blurted out "DID SHE SERIOUSLY ASK FOR A LOVE SUITE?" then buried his face in his hands. It appeared she did. (A word for love in Chinese is "yue" and honeymoon is "Miyue" which... looks like this usually, lol)

Sunny blushed slightly, but it felt like his whole body was about to collapse. A week with Basil. Sleeping in the same bed. Pretending to be his boyfriend. This was too much for him to bear, especially now knowing Basil was gay too.

Sunny looked over at Basil. He looked the same colour as a chili pepper. Sunny silently thanked the universe for Basil's mom being an idiot.