Now You Know ✅

Chapter 26: Part of the Family

A/N
2.9K words - because I owe you a long chapter.

Votes and comments are highly appreciated c':

"I still don't get you; you made a move, you kissed him, you ran, and now you're avoiding him. What kind of crackpot does that?"

Lucio hung his head, letting out a soft sigh as he repeatedly tapped the tip of his pencil on his abnormally bulky volume of Mathematics textbook. He had been trying to solve a word problem regarding Permutation. At any other day, he would simply ask Pelham, seeing as Pelham was a Maths genius. But for the past few days, he couldn't even gather up the courage to approach the older boy, let alone speak. And it was all because of him.

"I do," he said, swivelling around in his chair and facing Vanessa, who was currently sprawled on his bed and reading one of Lucio's notebooks.

"You really screwed it up, didn't you?" she said, without much looking at him as she flicked a page from the notebook, her eyes darting from one corner to the other.

"Again," Lucio agreed.

"What do you mean 'again'?" she said, finally looking up from the book and frowning in his direction. Lucio simply looked at her, as though both of them could perform a telepathic interaction. Only when realisation seemed to dawn into her eyes did she nod in cognition. "Why did you do it anyway? You knew you were standing on a narrow line there - why risk it?"

"Impulsive control issues,"

Vanessa scoffed. "That's the only thing you can come up with?"

"What? He's cute,"

She shook her head, smiling. "What was his reaction anyway, if you're so certain that he's ... say, disgusted by you?"

Lucio mulled over this for a moment. Since the day it happened, he hadn't exactly concentrated on Pelham's response. All he knew was that one moment he was staring at Pelham, and the next moment their lips were locked. Perhaps there had been an adrenaline rush in Lucio's system that he didn't feel Pelham respond. He had simply left without a coherent explanation regarding his abrupt actions, no doubt leaving the older boy at a state of befuddlement.

Undeniably, Lucio hadn't been focusing entirely on Pelham, much less ask how the boy felt. As far as he was concerned, he was too wallowed up in self-pity that he hadn't spared a thought on anyone else's feelings. Was he that tactless?

There was also the fact that Pelham had so casually returned his phone on the day after. Back then, Lucio had been too apprehensive to act normally around him. He knew he'd forgotten his phone at Pelham's house - having had bolted out of the house like the coward he was - yet he couldn't bring himself to go back and claim it due to fear of being lashed out. What he hadn't thoroughly considered was how Pelham was adequately nonchalant about the whole state of affairs, almost as though he didn't mind being kissed by another boy.

"I don't know," Lucio answered truthfully. "I left, remember?"

"Like the crackpot you are, yes," she nodded in assent. "But he hasn't acted differently around you, has he? Heck, he even started up a conversation with you yesterday. And you just had to ruin it by saying you were late for class when really, you were trying to avoid him. I don't get it."

It was true that Pelham had approached Lucio the previous day to start up a casual conversation with him, starting from Mathematics by asking whether Lucio still needed Pelham's assistance, especially since there was a test looming around the corner of the second week of March. It was only then did he realise that Roshon - who was almost constantly walking by Pelham's side - was nowhere in sight. And Lucio, without much of an in-depth deliberation, had cut Pelham off by saying that he had to rush to class.