German Boy

Chapter 9: Close

"Why is it not for kids?"

"I don't know. Maybe because it's full of romance which we children might not understand."

"Adults are stereotyping us."

"I guess,"

"They're underestimating and not trusting us."

"Pretty right." I couldn't do anything but agree. He was way too smarter than me. I had to get along so he would think I was smart. Though it was obvious how hard I was trying.

His words were so smart that they got me speechless.

"My uncle inspired me to become a songwriter." I tried to lean my attention on myself since I couldn't fly high with the other topic.

"You're too young for that." Practical thinking. That was his strength.

"Well, guess what? My uncle wrote his first song when he was five!"

"Let me guess, something about butterflies and roses, right?"

"You should read it instead."

"How?"

"Search my uncle on Google. He's popular."

"Okay, soon." He calmly replied. "But what was it about?"

"His father who died when he was 7 months old in my grandma's womb who was his mom."

"Oh, that's deep."

"I told you!"

He kept smiling and held his eyes on the road. Watching him smile and see the sunshine on his face was enough to make me scream inside me and pretend like nothing was happening.

I was a little kid.

But when I was looking at him, I didn't know what to do.

"We should play," I suggested.

"Okay," I thought I was dreaming because of that response from him. I couldn't believe he agreed to play with me after he tripped earlier!

"But we should play something that is safer." He calmly added. He was so calm that time.

Did he drink a potion accidentally?

Was a spell casted on him?

Was he a replica and not the real Ven?

I couldn't answer.

But I was happy to know that he wanted to play with me back.

I stood from my seat and offered him my hand to help him stand up. He took it and he stood next to me.

I realized he was a few inches taller than me. But our heights weren't that far from each other.

"Do you know how to play the game Sharks in the Ocean?"

He shook his head.

"No?"

"Well, here it goes... when I'm the shark, I can try to bite you. And the entire ground is the ocean so you should find a different surface to save yourself from me. And as the shark, I will try my best to eat you!" He smiled. Looking like he was interested in it.

"Okay then, let's play it!"

That day, we became officially friends. We played that game and he won against me though it was his first time to play it.

It made me admire him more.

Aside from Sofia, he was the only friend I had.

Through the days of their stay in Australia, he became less grumpy to me as his friend. But still, at some times he used to be his real self right before we became friends.

That was the day that our friendship began.

More and more summers passed that he spent there in our country.

As well as there were more and more moments we had together that I captured in my mind.

And my feelings grew wider for him but he never knew.

Never in the twelve years of our friendship.

No one knew about it either.

I kept all my feelings to myself.

It was all nice. We were all good.

Our friendship was going well.

We were better off as friends.

But then, this one summer changed everything.

A summer we didn't want to end.

And a chaotic one at the same time.

But we liked the way it was hustling us.

Because we were crazy.

Crazy for love.

And that one summer after twelve good ones was the only one to make me realize how big the love I was hiding for him. A forbidden feeling I never told anyone about.