The $64,000 Conundrum: Chapter 4
Iker woke up feeling like his head had been trampled by an eighteen-wheeler.
The room was lit up with sunlight pouring in an unfamiliar window, and he had no idea where he was even when he had looked around. He was lying alone in a single bed, rumpled blanket covering half of his body. He felt sore all over, especially his head. He’s cold and so parched down to his stomach, but when he started moving out of bed, he felt that his arse was sore, too. He frowned and lifted the blanket out of curiosity, then the fact that he wore nothing under it - not even underwear - punched him in the face.
Oh, fuck, David. Indeed.
Images of what he did - what they did - last night flashed through his numb mind and Iker felt chills run down his spine. Breathless and in a state of shock, the Spaniard slowly rose from bed whose he now realized. Once his legs hit the floor, they gave out under him. Iker stumbled up, felt the sharp ache so acutely when he moved. He gathered his clothes up off the floor and dressed very slowly and quietly.
When he fully clad, he looked around for a mirror. The reflection staring back at him looked awful, like a wino with a mess on his head. Iker rearranged himself properly, adjusting clothes and hair. He turned his body then his head around carefully, aware of the aches all over, checking for anything amiss and spotted a couple of hickeys on his pure white neck.
He bit his lower lip.
Where the hell is David?
The Spaniard opened the door, the hall outside was quiet as well as the bedroom so he softly set his feet on it. He descended the stairs, going through the living room where all the litters from last night were gone, thanks to David. Nonetheless, no one’s there, as well as the dining room and the kitchen. He frowned.
He found the other boy on the porch.
David sat facing the street, his back to the front door, cigarette in hand. When Iker set his feet on the planked floor, the wood squeaked, and Iker knew that David knew without turning around that he was there.
Iker stopped stock-still and silence fell between them, leaded pressure hung in the air like before the storm broke. The Spaniard waited and waited, for something that he himself didn't even know to happen.
Eventually David asked, "How are you feeling?" He inhaled the soothing smoke of his fag once, still didn't turn around. Iker shrugged, then felt stupid because David couldn't see it.
"I didn't know you smoke," he said instead.
This time the English shrugged. "You don't like the smell of it?" And he held the cigarette still, waited.
"I'm fine," Iker said, and didn't even know which question his answer was for.
David kept on smoking for a full minute. "I'm sorry for what happened," he said at last and turned around. He looked pale and was unshaven, there's blackness under his eyes like he'd been lack of sleep. All in all, he looked horrible. "It's all my fault. We shouldn't have got drunk, or watched that-that thing-"
Suddenly Iker knew what to do. "Forget it," he blurted out.
David blinked. "What?"
Striding to the steps the English had been sitting, Iker sat down and fetched the fag from between the other boy's fingers. "I said let's forget it." He smoked, eyes staring at somewhere between the opposite house and nowhere. "It's nothing. I couldn't even remember it clearly. So that couldn't count, right? What happened last night, never happened." The last sentence he turned and smiled at David, handing back the cigarette. The British stared at him, pure hesitation in his dark eyes, so the Spaniard reaffirmed, "I mean it." Then he laughed for a better effect though it was louder than he'd intended and broken so. "Don't make that face, David. You know it makes me go weak for you." Then he realized what he'd just said and felt a bit embarrassed, his cheeks flushed. "Well, the point is that I'm your friend, right? And you know I'll always be." He put his arms around David's shoulder, like a good friend does when his friend is in a miserable mood. "It's just a one-time thing, an experiment common in boys our age, nothing's wrong with it." He couldn't believe he'd said it, it's not that he believed what he'd said either, it just poured out of his mouth incessantly with a single-minded purpose to make David feel better.
"Well, if you're sure you're okay-"
"Of course, I'm okay!" Iker cut him off and laughed a bit bitterly again. "And I think it's time for me to go home now. You should go get a shower. If I recall correctly, someone has a date at noon today." He quirked his brow teasingly.
"Oh, shit!" David exclaimed, looking at his wrist and finding that he left his watch upstairs. "I've almost forgot it, what time is it now?"
"Not noon, yet." Iker smirked and stood up. David followed. "I'll be heading back home then," he announced, he thought he might leave his bag in the living room. "Good luck to you then. See you on Monday?"
"Yeah." David hesitated for a second, Iker wondered whether he remembered that he'd once asked him to go on a date with Victoria and him. But it didn't matter now because if he did remember, Iker didn't think he would dare asking him after all that had happened last night. Then David suddenly threw his arms around Iker and held him close. The Spaniard stiffened. "Thank you, Iker," the English whispered in his ear, "thank you so much."
There's something in David's voice that Iker couldn't quite put a finger on but he dismissed it in no time. "No prob." He hugged David back.
When the English finally let go of him, Iker felt like he was shattering into a thousand pieces inside.
***
"Hey, stop it."
Gerard’s slouching in a couch, watching TV pleasantly in a living room in Cesc's house when Arsenal barged in out of nowhere and a split second later, Bazooka followed. The bigger puppy pounced on the other precisely at Gerard's feet and they fought sprightly yet fiercely so.
"Leave them," Cesc said, simply glanced at them from the corner of his eyes then back to the telly again. "Are you sure we've bought Chihuahuas?" He wondered aloud. "They're rather like monkeys." The small fight at - actually, on - their feet didn't bother him though those sharp fangs and spiky claws sometimes ended up on wrong targets. But Gerard didn't think that way.
"I said, 'stop'!" He gnarled, bent to catch Bazooka and put him on the sofa. Even when he did that, Bazooka still snapped at the air and barked incessantly while Arsenal who's down below now got up on two hind legs, struggling to clamber up the couch by Cesc's and Gerard's knees to find his friend again. "You know what? Normally he's not this gleeful. When we're at home and I took him to play with other puppies next door, he didn't even look this happy. Only Arsenal could make him like this." He used his right foot to push Arsenal away playfully, the puppy stumbled from the soft shove then barked harder and dashed back again unyieldingly. Gerard laughed. "Look at them, I wondered what they would be like if I separate them for a week. Only a couple of days Bazooka was depressed and howled piteously already."
Cesc laughed. "Really?" Scooping his puppy up off the floor, Cesc put him in his lap but Arsenal struggled to death to go to Gerard's lap where Bazooka was. "Arsenal looked more ecstatic, too, every time they meet," he murmured.
"Will we try an experiment?" Gerard turned to him and asked impishly. Cesc was nonplussed.
"What experiment?"
"To test what they'd be like after a week of each other's absence," Gerard said. "I'm not sure whether dogs would be like humans. If it was me, I'm sure I'll be really miserable if I'm not seeing you for a week."
It didn't matter how usual Gerard's words were, for Cesc, the last sentence almost killed him with his own heart race. "Really?" Cesc whispered. "Why?"
Gerard held Bazooka up with one hand by its chest. He flashed his teeth mockingly at the puppy, held it away when it tried to lick the grin off his face. "Oh, I don't know." He didn't look at Cesc. "It'd be kind of weird, don't you think so? I mean, we've been chums since who knows when, since I'm four months-old, I guess. And we've always been together: go to school, away on hols, summer camps, et cetera. We're like an item, if you're there, everyone simply knows that I'm nearby somewhere. Being with you is like a habit ingrained in my genes, and I don't think I can live without you." He finished that sentence in the most normal voice like talking about the most normal thing in the world. Cesc was struck. "Just like these two," Gerard went on, imperturbable by Cesc's suspicious silence. "They've been with each other since birth and haven't been separated for a very long period. I wonder how they would react if they haven't seen each other for a time."
"I guess they'll be crestfallen for some time, then they'll get over it, quicker than human's recovery rate. I used to hear that when a mother dog was separated from her puppies, she would be forlorn for a week or two, then she would forget about everything. Everyone needs to move on anyway, though they're just dogs," Cesc supplied.
Gerard wrinkled his nose. "You're a cold-hearted prick." He put Bazooka on the floor where it started jumping on Cesc's legs for its mate once again. So Cesc put Arsenal down, too, and the two plunged at each other very happily before running out of the living room to go wreck some places else together.
Cesc went to bed that night with Gerard's words echoing in his skull. He wondered would he be despondent if he'd not be seeing Gerard almost every day like this, what'd it be like if they grew up and got married and had to spend time with their wives and kids instead of each other? Well, that maybe too far off, let's think about what would he be if Gerard get together with Lionel and leave him behind, all to himself and feeling the world he knew crumbling all around him? Would he move on like the mother dog he told Gerard? Or would it forever make him feel lonely, incomplete, ghastly wounded, like there's something missing, like he'd been cut out the most important thing in his life: the biggest and most crucial chunk of his heart maybe?
***
Fernando was lying in bed, watching Agger absorbedly playing his electric guitar. The noise was deafening as usual but the Spaniard had got used to it by now. Agger turned his front to Fernando this time and the Spaniard couldn't take his eyes off the Dane's fervid motion while he's playing a heavy metal song.
It was such a wild grace.
Fernando shifted in bed, he had been thinking about this for a couple of days now, maybe he should just spit it out. "Agger," he called out cautiously. Though the music was vociferous, Agger replied without glancing up from the metal strings.
"What?"
The Spaniard sat up, wasn't sure at all whether he should voice this out. "Can you...teach me how to play guitar?"
Agger suddenly halted his movement, hands froze. He looked at Fernando disbelievingly, his brows furrowed like he wasn't certain what he had just heard was correct.
"What?" He asked again.
Fernando pursed his lips. "Can you teach me how to play guitar?" He asked with more confidence this time, his eyes staring at the carpeted floor at first but then he looked up, gaze locking with the Dane to confirm his words.
And then Agger smirked.
"Are you sure about that?" He asked sneeringly. "Playing guitar isn't like piano, you know? Piano requires...subtle elegance - gayness to be precise, while electric guitar needs raw masculinity. I won't guarantee after playing with me your recent delicate fingers would be able to play piano again," he threatened.
But Fernando looked back at the Dane with determined brown eyes. "I'll do," he said.
That resolute answer surprised Agger a bit. He quirked his brows, grimaced, his hand kept plucking the strings. "Why do you suddenly want to do this?" He asked out of pure curiosity.
Fernando smiled coyly. "Why not?" His fingers also kept fiddling with the sheets. "I just wanna try something you seem so love to do."
The Dane paused, then nodded in acknowledgement. The latent meaning of that sentence didn't hit him like it hadn't dawned on the Spaniard as well what it could imply.
"Okay," Agger yielded.
"You have to put fingers over here like this: your ring finger here, middle finger here, and index finger over here..."
Fernando was holding a Spanish guitar, trying so hard to copy Agger's mien. The Dane was holding his electric guitar, trying his best to teach the Spaniard how to play a piece of wooden plucked string musical instrument. Daniel didn't know how to be a teacher, the last time he tried was when his sister asked him to teach her Algorithm homework. Well, he didn't think his sister had enough brain for Algorithm anyway since she didn't have a brain to tell the differences between who knew Algorithm and who did not.
"I said 'here', on this fretboard, not 'there'!" The Dane reached out to catch Fernando's ring finger to put it on the right place curtly. "Hold it tight, dumbass."
Fernando pursed his lips. It was the third curse word the Dane called him tonight after 'moron' and 'bonehead'. And they barely started playing guitars. "Okay, now strum it. This is the most basic chord: C chord." He held three strings tight and brushed the pick gently. He waited until Fernando followed then repeated, put more emotions in as he did it again and again. "Now put your pinky on this string, the same fret as your ring finger." The Dane budged his hand a bit as speaking, Fernando imitated his move. "This string, Torres, not that string," Agger scolded him though no swear word this time. Fernando bit his lower lip, he looked at the Dane's fingers carefully again then readjusted his hand to resemble Agger's locations. "Right," the Dane approved this time. "This is C7 chord." He strummed his guitar and Fernando did the same. "Okay." He stopped, so Fernando stopped. "That's enough for today," he simply stated.
"What?!" Fernando didn't feel like he had learned a thing.
"You know the basics already." Agger sat down in the couch and took the electric guitar out through his head. "It's very easy, just read the book and try it yourself." He threw a crumpled book at the Spaniard, Fernando caught it in time before it hit his face. He frowned while reading its cover: it's a guitar music book. He opened it and found that it taught all the basic chords, how to read tabs as well as how to play famous songs.
Fernando sat down while running his fingers through contents on yellowish pages. "Okay," he murmured at last. Agger burst out laughing all of a sudden. The Spaniard raised his brow, looking at his imperative roommate doubtfully. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing," Agger replied but snatched the book off Fernando's hands. "I'll give you homework then since now I'm your teacher." He flipped through the pages. "By Sunday evening, you're going to play 'Hello'." He handed the book back to Fernando, the page bookmarked was 'Hello by Lionel Richie' chord.
"What?!" Fernando looked at it with wide eyes. 'Hello' on guitar? Come on!
"Why not?" Agger strummed his guitar again. "Last time I check, you like this song. It couldn't be that different from what you've already known so by Sunday you'll have to perform it. You can have my Spanish guitar for practice. I'm giving you mercy here by not assigning a hard rock song." He was deftly playing the solo guitar version of Hello's Chorus. Fernando's eyes went wide.
"How could I play it like that? I'm just starting!"
"No, idiot. You don't have to play it like this." He finished the Chorus. "This is for expert, you just follow the chords for now, I'm sure you'll be good at it like at your piano."
His last sentence perplexed Fernando, of course, since he'd never said anything good about the Spaniard before. And the Dane just casually said it like he’s actually encouraging him, like he actually meant it. Though he knew Agger might not really intend it that way, Fernando couldn’t help, just really couldn’t help…
...those damn butterflies from fluttering in his stomach right now.
***
It had been three days already since Xabi came to the pitch with Mikel after classes.
Not that he came here every day, those bunch of Mikel's friends didn't play football all the time like that. Mostly they played on Monday, Wednesday and Friday - umm, okay, those were already three days a week. He'd known some of the boys before - they're in the same school anyway - from study groups or other extracurricular activities. Xabi wasn't that bad at football, actually he's very good, it's just that he preferred spending time on something else rather than running around the pitch chasing a ball. He hadn't had good exercises like this for quite some time now and he thought it was a really good idea as well as a perfect chance for a little change in his routine life. He was happy, and he could tell that Mikel was happy, too.
One thing that prickled him so bad was that all those text messages had suddenly disappeared from his life since that day. The sender completely ceased sending them like his mission was completed, his goal was achieved, or maybe it's just the other way around. To this day, Xabi still wasn't even sure that Mikel was actually Mr. Anonymous, he doubted that since Mikel had never mentioned a thing about it. It was weird, he knew he should just ask him straight away, but he was...kind of scared. Xabi didn't really know if Mikel told him he had nothing to do with it, what he should do afterwards.
Like the text messages, Xabi had never received breakfasts every morning anymore. The routine had gone as well, as an exchange for his new life. Nonetheless, so often that Xabi found himself standing alone in front of his locker, glimpsing around the corner in hope to find a pair of well-known eyes looking back at him. Xabi knew he might actually be out of his mind, because...how the hell could 'that pair of eyes' be so well-known to him? He didn't even know whose eyes they were. He didn't know the owner, didn't know where or how to look for it, even worse...,
He didn't even know what he's actually looking for.
On their third day together, Mikel asked him,
"Xabi, can I ask you a question?" He looked so uncertain.
"Sure." Xabi grabbed his bag. They'd just finished football and everyone was parting to their homes now.
"You don't have a girlfriend, do you?" Mikel asked.
That question took Xabi off guard, he stopped short and stared cautiously at the other Basque. Biting his lips, Mikel strayed his eyes to the ground. He didn't apologize for the sauciness of the question, he had already prepared for this and intended it to be that way.
So Xabi answered, "no."
Mikel nodded. "How about a boyfriend?"
"No," Xabi answered, staring at his new friend waiting for it to happen. He knew what Mikel had in mind, surprisingly, he didn't feel excited or nervous at all.
"Really...?" His voice trailed off but Xabi knew he also expected this answer, he just needed to make sure before getting straight to the point. "If that's so...," he continued after a pause. "You might not know, Xabi, but I've been looking at you - only you - all along, long since you didn't even know I'm existed." He paused again. "Xabi, I think I really, really, like you...., a lot." And this time, he finally looked up from the ground and locked eyes with the other boy's, speaking rapidly yet so determinedly, "...could you be my boyfriend then?"
Xabi knew this had to come, and it came quite faster than he expected. But he'd already prepared for this, he wasn't a fool. How could it be otherwise since Mikel had been watching him from afar, since he was the only one that had been looking at him all along?
And Xabi knew from the first minute of their rendezvous that it had to end up like this.
No, it had to 'start' like this.
"Yes," the Basque answered, and he detected a glint of ecstasy in Mikel's eyes. Xabi smiled knowingly as the other boy gingerly walked up to him, uncertainly took Xabi's hand, and when Xabi didn't resist, he was euphoric even more.
"I'll walk you home," Mikel mumbled exultingly. He held Xabi's hand tight and Xabi nodded in permission.
So the two boys walked the street together, hand in hand all the way as the sun set beyond the rooftops of Charmatin, Madrid, on the far orange horizon.
Xabi had never had a girlfriend or boyfriend before, he’d never had a lover. It didn't cost a thing, maybe just a little time, to give it a try, Xabi told himself, so he's giving it a try. If in this world there really is a thing called 'love’, I want to know what it is, I want to feel what it is,
And I want you to show me.
To be continued in Chapter 5.
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