Vintage Vanquish (boyxboy)

[2] Otilia.

It was year 1909, mid-autumn, around midnight when Felix was walking down the street, carrying a heavy suitcase with him. He's been glancing left and right for so long that his neck was getting sore, and he had yet to find the house with the number on his paper.

He was to live with his uncle Eustace and cousin Otilia, now that his father Dr. Sima passed away. Felix wasn't that close to those relatives, they only ever exchanged formal letters once or twice a month and on holidays.

Felix tightened the collar of his school uniform, which he was wearing with the pride you'd wear a military outfit. He was 18 years old, soon to join the University of Medicine here in Bucharest.

Once he passed by the reflective window of a house, he stopped to arrange himself. His hair was dark and curly like a poet's, and his features melancholic, with thin, long nose and lips, hollow cheeks and v-shaped jaw. Those were rather feminine features, but the thick, low eyebrows and intense gaze made up for it.

Glancing aside, he just then noticed the number near the window and realized with a sigh of relief it was the one he was looking for. The house's architecture was a messy mixture of styles, with a gothic door, windows imitating those of a cathedral's, pillars and roof taken from the antiques, everything covered by a veil of oldness and slow decay. Cracked walls, sturdy weeds and rusted fence.

But Felix ignored the first impression, telling himself it'd look better in the daylight. Once he found himself at the front door he knocked, and nothing. After several more attempts, he tentatively peeked in to observe he had to enter and pull a rope so that a bell would announce his presence.

And after he entered through the immense, heavy door, he took the time to admire his surroundings. The ceiling was tall and the furniture made of oak wood, matching the stairs above which a big portrait stood.

Felix looked away from the sculpture of two kids when he heard approaching steps. He straightened his back, a hard task considering the weight of his suitcase.

He heard the swoosh of the dress before he saw the girl, her fine features barely lit by the chandelier. Her tiny, hear-shaped face was surrounded by sleek, blonde spirals, few but big and voluminous. Her every move looked as though she was an actress mid-act, and her steps were light and sneaky. She moved with careless grace.

This was the cousin Felix had been exchanging letters with all those years, Otilia. By the cursive, tricky letters and perfumed paper, he'd imagined her to be just the way she presented herself now. However, no wondering thought did justice to how radiantly beautiful she was in person.

"Papa, Felix is here!" she called, her palms overlapped and bent aside. "Come, come! I've been so eager to meet you!"

Without offering him the chance to properly greet her, she only got closer by bending frontwards. Her dress was clutching her hourglass waist tightly, while her apple-like shoulders remained exposed by loose, transparent-mauve material. Hence, her chest and the defined line between her breasts remained exposed.

"I'm so glad... I've mentioned in letters how lonely it gets here... My friends live far and carriages are so expensive!"

Felix raised his eyebrows, not knowing how to respond. It was weird to carry a conversation at the entrance while holding a suitcase.

"But Otilia, you also mentioned three cousins who live literally next door. Aren't they good company?"

She pursed her tiny, plump lips aside. "The oldest girl is 30 years old and hates me, the other one is 25 and married, moved away, and then there's... Vancouver."

Felix cocked his head, awaiting the third complaint. It never came. She raised a hand to arrange the bow in her curls: before the hand passed her face, her expression was blank, and once it slid by, she was once again all smiles and blinks.

"But I'm so rude, keeping you at the entrance like this! Come in, come in, people are waiting to meet you upstairs!"

"May I just-" Felix raised the heavy suitcase only to helplessly watch her lead the way towards the stairs.

However impatient, animated and perhaps a tad rude she proved to be, Felix couldn't keep the smile off his lips. She was... wonderful, and only now that she was no longer there, Felix could feel his heart start beating again.

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Another taste of what this story is going to be.

I know it's not everyone's type but I promise it'll be worth it.