“Cheick isn’t a track team loser. You cheer loser.”
“Whatever, your one day’s wages. If you promise to give me that, I’ll give you a ride.”
The taxi fare the demon hag proposed was damn expensive, but there was no other way. Lest Olivia change her mind, I immediately made a verbal contract with her and moved to the neighborhood where Cheick lives.
“I can’t wait long.”
To Olivia, who told me to finish my business quickly and come back, I said she could go back now, then ran to the front of Cheick’s house. Then I called him under the streetlight.
Even if Cheick had some circumstances and couldn’t receive contact, I felt like I could fully enjoy the wait with this current overwhelming feeling. I definitely thought so, but Cheick answered the contact right away.
—Liam?
“Can you come down for a moment? Or just look out the window.”
—Where are you now?
“In front of your house.”
Wait a moment, Cheick said to me and hung up. Shortly after, his room window opened and I saw the face I had missed so much on the way here.
I raised my right hand toward Cheick and waved vigorously, and Cheick looked at me like that, then hid himself beyond the window. Then he immediately appeared holding a large blanket and draped the blanket over my shoulders. As soon as the blanket covered me, warmth reached deep into my skin and I felt good.
“Why did you come dressed so lightly?”
“Because I came right away as soon as I received your message at home. And…”
I silently looked at Cheick waiting for the words to continue from me, then pulled him into an embrace and kissed him. For a very long time. So that my current feelings could be sufficiently conveyed.
“…Want to play a game?”
Holding Cheick’s cheeks, I asked from close enough that our breaths mixed. He nodded slightly, expressing his consent.
“From now on, I’m going to speak without making a sound. You just have to look at my lip movements and infer and read what I’m saying. Simple, right?”
“Simple.”
“Haha, then I’ll start.”
I made eye contact with Cheick and busily moved my lips to guide him so he could easily get the answer. Cheick correctly guessed all the words I said with my lips.
“I.”
“……”
“Love.”
“……”
“You.”
Fortunately, Cheick guessed everything I said. I enjoyed the purely sparkling look in his eyes under the streetlight, then leaned my body against him as if collapsing and whispered into his large, handsome ear.
“…Love you, too.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Cheick lowered his head and kissed me on top of my hair. Then he gently caressed the area near my shoulders covered by the blanket. When the heat from the blanket and the heat from his body temperature combined, my whole body filled with warmth that couldn’t get any warmer.
“I barged in without an invitation and also made it so I have no way to get back.”
Actually, if I give Olivia another day’s wages, she would come, but I don’t want to think about things like that right now.
“It’s okay. You can sleep in my room.”
Cheick said in a soft voice.
“Don’t sleep on the ottoman this time. I won’t sleep there either.”
When I strongly expressed my opinion that no matter what happens tonight I would sleep next to him, Cheick nodded and took me into the house. Both ma’am and sir—who had originally been sleeping in the master bedroom but seemed to have woken up because of me, which I felt sorry about—were very surprised to see me.
“What brings Liam here at this hour?”
“Well… I have an assignment due tomorrow, and there’s a part I’m stuck on, so I came to ask Cheick. Of course, it would have been fine to solve it over the phone, but I happened to be nearby and it was so difficult that I wanted to solve it face-to-face.”
“Your enthusiasm is remarkable. Please make yourself comfortable.”
Cheick’s parents kindly welcomed me, who appeared late at night for a trivial reason, without being uncomfortable. I expressed my gratitude several times for their generosity, then climbed the stairs with Cheick and entered his room. Then we lay together on a bed narrow for two people and for a long time stroked each other or kissed each other.
“…Today is the best day of my life.”
Thank you for making a day like this, I whispered while hugging Cheick, then kissed him.
I’ve never thought this in my life, but I’m really a lucky guy. Both falling in love with such a thoughtful and kind person, and having such a person fall in love with me… I can only say I’m really lucky.
***
The next day, in front of the trailer where I arrived in Cheick’s car, Ted was sprawled out like a vagrant, asleep drunk. The place where he had fallen was coincidentally on top of the flowerbed, and because of that, the flowers were all crushed. I smiled at Cheick, who was hesitating, and asked if he could come back when he was ready to go to school since I had things to talk about with Ted. He replied that he would do that, looked at the collapsed Ted once, then left the place.
“Wake up.”
“……”
“If it’s too hard, shall I help you up?”
“Urgh.”
I barely got the groaning Ted up and sat him on the trailer steps. He sat on the steps complaining of a headache and frowning.
“Make just one promise with me.”
“Promise…?”
“This is the first time I’m asking as a son. Can you listen?”
Tell me what it is, Ted said, so I asked him not to use the money I give as living expenses to ruin himself from now on.
“I’ll overlook you buying flower seedlings or so… Stop going to the racetrack or drinking.”
“……”
“Otherwise, I really hate to say this, but I’ll have no choice but to leave you, no, Dad.”
I expressed that I was really at my limit now and was tired of this life, and Ted said nothing. Then he belatedly opened his mouth and said this was the first time I had called him Dad, and the first time I had referred to myself as his son.
“…That’s right.”
“I’ll try to keep what you asked. But if I fail to keep it, even if you leave me…”
“That won’t happen. I won’t leave. And there won’t be any failing on your part either, Dad.”
Liam Blake-style thinking. I instilled that in Ted and looked at the ruined flowerbed. Then, without even thinking about getting ready for school, I helped Ted, who was trying to revive it somehow.
Episode 7
Listing the October events one by one, first there’s Homecoming at the beginning, high school football regular season ends mid-month, and Halloween at the end of the month. October can only be called the month of events, and until now I’ve spent it uneventfully without interest in such events, but starting this year it’s a bit different.
Starting today, Homecoming Week, the flower of October, has begun. And the person who will be my partner has a dramatically high probability of becoming Homecoming King. In the end, Liam could be called the prospective star of that day, and I need to figure out how to ask such a person to be my partner, what kind of boutonniere to pin on him, and on the day of the party I need to dress well enough that such a respectable person won’t be embarrassed, but how to do that… Just thinking about it gives me a throbbing headache.
Anyway, the start of Homecoming is finding a partner. Since there’s only a week left from today until the party day, when I meet Liam in the morning, I plan to first say let’s go to the Homecoming party together.
The fact that Liam will be my partner is in a way obvious, yet I drove in tension and went in front of the trailer with a different heart than usual. But as soon as Liam got in the car, he naturally brought this up like saying hello.
“We’re going to Homecoming together, right?”
Oh no, I’m a step too late.
“Have you decided what to wear that day? If you haven’t prepared yet, want to go shopping together?”
Since I had already planned to go shopping for the suit to wear on Homecoming day with Mom, I welcomed choosing Liam’s suit together that day but said I wouldn’t buy my suit.
“What, why?”
“I’m planning to keep my suit a secret and not show it until the party day.”
“Hahaha, just what kind of amazing clothes are you preparing?”
“I’ll prepare something extremely plain, so don’t worry. I don’t want to stand out more than the star of the day.”
“Hmm…”
Liam made an expression as if thinking about something for a moment, then immediately made a mischievous face and came close. Then he whispered in a very sweet voice.
“What are you saying, Tchaikovsky? You’re my prince on that day.”
“If you’re the king and I’m the prince…”
Wouldn’t the relationship become very strange?
“Stop ruining my flirting, idiot.”
Saying that, Liam pinched my cheek. Then, saying he was sorry he hurt me a bit, he kissed the place he pinched as medicine. The funny thing here is that when he kissed it, my stinging cheek seemed to feel somewhat better.
***
“This is a bit expensive too. This too, this too, this too… Ugh.”
On a Sunday evening with chilly autumn wind, Liam, who went to the department store to buy a suit with me after finishing PTJ, let out a groan full of frustration at the suit prices that exceeded imagination.
“I thought I could somehow manage with the money I earned and saved in summer, but as expected, reality is always harsher than imagination.”
Liam said he had no choice and tried to call Leda to borrow money. I tried to persuade him by saying he could just buy a suit according to his budget, but when he said what he was trying to buy now wasn’t his own suit but Ted’s, I couldn’t make any more suggestions. I just made a resolution to observe more closely whether that guy doesn’t eat lunch during lunchtime and only loiters around the vending machine for no reason from now on.
“…Should I tell Mom I’ll prepare the lunch box myself from now on?”
When I suddenly asked the air, Liam questioned why I was saying such a thing.
“If I want to fill the lunch box with foods you like, it would be better for me to move directly rather than Mom.”
“I, I never asked you to make me a lunch box though?”
