None the Worse ✓

20) 'Having Intimate Relations On A Piano' And Other Situations That Seem...

20) 'Having Intimate Relations On A Piano' And Other Situations That Seem Completely Unbelievable Outside Of Badly-Written Romances

Benjamin scrambled up.

They were still yelling.

He headed towards Thijmen's room.

They were still yelling.

"So you had drugs!" he heard his father screech. Benjamin III froze. "Drugs!" continued Benjamin II, with his mother mumbling something in the background, "in my house!"

And they hadn't even seen the knife yet.

But wait— Benjamin's hours of detective work rushed back to him and he remembered that Thijmen hated drugs. What was going on in that room? Benjamin slid along the wall, squinting, like that'd help him hear better. As he approached the room, he noticed his mom's mumbling went something along the lines of 'oh boy if the neighbors find out I won't get invited to the Scrabble afternoons anymore' and that Thijmen, too, was mumbling stuff. With his Darth Vader voice, though, Benjamin couldn't quite discern his mumbling until he basically hid at the wall next to the door of the Dutch's room.

His dad held a pack of cigarettes in hand. Right.

He'd forgotten Thijmen even smoked, since he... well, he rarely did it.

"What's in this, huh? Cocaine? XTC?"

"Tobacco."

"You mean the one that gives you lung cancer? Is Benjamin having these too?"

Benjamin's brown eyes widened. Was Thijmen slowly trying to kill him by inserting tobacco into his lungs bit by bit? See, he didn't even need a knife. Or maybe he was just letting the general paranoia get to him. Surely enough, Thijmen wouldn't...

"I don't want to die from cancer!" he gasped, before remembering he wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Cue everyone turning to look at him. Thijmen's glare made Pluto look like an oven in comparison.

"You don't smoke, do you, Benji?" his mother squeaked.

"Obviously!"

Cue a sigh of relief. Unsurprisingly enough, he was getting flustered. So was Benjamin II. "Anyway," continued his older, wrinklier counterpart, "don't let him tempt you."

"Still here," mumbled Thijmen.

"He's not... tempting me, dad. I don't even remember he smokes unless we're kissing."

He fled the room.

The screeching didn't even begin until he'd reached his own. Or maybe he should flee. Jump out the window, go to a friend's house, except his friends were terrible and he'd be better off on his own. Maybe flee to an island lost in the middle of nowhere. He could spend his life as a hermit. Have a farm of crabs. It didn't sound that bad.

It wasn't until it dawned on him that he'd literally left Thijmen to fend for himself that Benjamin hesitated. He was even putting the sock on again. "Damn," he mumbled. It didn't sound curse-y enough, so he changed it to, "Shit."

Like an adult. Because he was an adult (almost).

And he had to behave as such.

More screeching.

Or not. Or yes. Ugh.

With the black sock tied around his head and all, he cracked his door open. They weren't screeching anymore.