That one sudden visit from Prem turned into almost an every-other-day thing as time goes by. The first time he came in my house unannounced, he was actually just intending to return the review book that I lend him a month ago. He said he didn't need it anymore, that he thought he could easily ace the exam. I adore the kid's confidence, I'll give him that.
Anyway as I was saying, this thing where he comes in my house for a random visit became an every-other-day thing - not that I mind, actually. Prem's a good company, surprisingly. The tension between us, the awkwardness from the first time we bonded alone together, is nowhere to be seen now. He's been in my house maybe around, five to six times already and as crazy as this may sound but, I feel comfortable with him now. I found out that we've got a lot of things in common, somewhat. I like cooking, he likes baking. We both aren't really good with any outdoor sports and would rather stay indoors. We both have adoration towards the sky - I love the sunrise and he loves sunsets. We both would rather choose those corny romcom films than watch any action or superhero movies. Things like that, small things but still, somewhat similarities that we have.
I learned that he's a freshie in college. He said that he got held back by two years since something came up - he was supposed to be in the same year as Fluke. I didn't ask him what it was since it seemed heavy, a touchy story, I figured. I learned that he's actually friends with my brother and Coo since he got introduced to them by Samantha. Samantha and him are on the same year. I learned that though he's taking up Interior Design, he's still unsure as to what he'd actually want to do after college, saying that the thought of choosing a career intimidates him so much so he chose something without so much of a thought.
That's also something that I get about him - being unsure and kind of anxious about what the future holds for him. Though I kind of know that deep down, he knows what he wants to pursue as a career, he just isn't sure how he'd push through with it, if that makes sense.
Overall, considering our age gap, I like Prem. It's actually weird how fast we've grown close. I know, that might've sounded strange but that's how I've been feeling recently. He's easy to get along with. Also, he seems to know what to say every time. I'm usually an awkward person whenever I'm with people that I newly meet but with him, everything just clicks as if puzzle pieces that were cut into perfect lines.
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Today is Saturday and I woke up having a weird heavy feeling weighing me down at the lower part of my body. I feel so heavy, somewhat, if that makes sense. I groaned, rolling over to look at my bedside clock, seeing a flash of "11:48 am" on it. I coughed a bit, now being in denial of the thought of being actually sick. I hate being sick, always have. I usually just brush off the thought of being sick even though my nose is really stuffy or my throat feels like it's sore from coughing continuously. It's something that I grew to adapt to - being sick and having to keep it to myself. When we were little, Fluke was always sick. May it be a common cold, a flu, you name it, Fluke always catches it. He was such a frail child back then and my parents always told me that I should always, always take good care and look after my brother. Since then, I never wanted for any one to take care of me and instead, I learned to hide my sickness or whatever this I'm feeling from everyone. I would always rather take care of other people than them taking care of me.
As soon as I posted that simple Tweet, replies, QRTs, and likes came flooding in.
I tried to heart all the nice responses, a lot of them had figured out that I'm not feeling well just by one emoji. My supporters are actually the sweetest. There's not one day where I don't get a nice package from one of them, really. I try to keep up in responding to their messages as much as I can, too. I don't want them to think that I ignore them or take them for granted.
I let out a hideous sneeze, using the back of my elbow as cover. "This sucks." I grumble to myself as Chicken Nugget pushes himself off of the foot of my bed, going out of the room. I might've startled him with that intense sneeze... My phone buzzed from my bedside table. Groggily and quite lazily, I pulled my duvet off of me a little, stretching as much as I could to reach for my phone.
I laughed at the emoji because I could literally imagine Prem doing that same expression. The kid could make me laugh with his mere expressions actually.
I lied about that part. I'm actually not in the mood to move though I could already feel my stomach protesting in hunger. As much as I want to put in the effort to prepare myself some food, I just couldn't bring myself to do it right now. The mere thought of having to stand for so long already makes my head spin. Also, Prem tends to scold me over trivial things so I had to lie there a bit just so that he wouldn't nag me about skipping both breakfast and lunch. Though he is years younger than me, he can be a nagger when he wants to be. He's also someone who could lecture people for hours and I'm not even kidding on that part. He likes to argue - if he knows that he has a point to get across to, he'll definitely make sure that you'll hear about it.
I was just about to force myself to fall back asleep, duvet already pulled up to cover even my head as I tried to block out the light and all the little noises surrounding me but as if on cue, as if the universe is trying to test me, my phone started ringing. I groaned, contemplating whether I should just ignore it but I immediately threw the idea away as soon as I thought about my clients and my manager. I sighed in defeat.
As if on instinct, I perched up on my bed as soon as I read the name flashed on my phone's screen. I pulled my body to a sitting position soon after, the sudden movement made me even more dizzy, though. "Uh, hello?"
"Hey." He chuckles. "I'm at your door, can you open it for me?" He says, breath fanning through the speaker of my phone as he spoke. He sounded as if he ran just seconds ago. Why is he here, though? I didn't even get to voice out my confusion because my feet were on their own, apparently. I walked towards the direction of my front door, stopping in front of my intercom and sure enough, he's standing in front of my door, a brown grocery bag against his chest. As if he knows that I'm in front of the monitor, he flashed a toothy smile through the camera, waving as much as he could, considering the bag hugged to his chest.
"Hello." He greets, taking a deep breath as he smiles to me.
"Hi?" I chuckled. "Come in, come in." I stepped back to give him space to enter my house. "What brought you here?" I asked still confused as hell. He left his shoes near the door, going over to my bar counter and finally settling down the large brown bag on top of it. He shook his arms a little, seeming like he's trying to shake off the numbness through his arms.
"Lunch." He simply smiles. I scrunch my eyebrows at him, not exactly sure as to what he means. "Go sit, I'll fix up your food." He instructs, going over to the cabinets, rummaging through them. I went over to the paper bag, peeking at its contents. My eyes widened as I rummage through the stuff in the bag.
"Prem.."
"Hm?" He turns around, looking at me with raised eyebrows as he momentarily stops, a tray on one hand.
"What are all these?" I ask, still confused, surprised and... feeling that little fluttering thing going on in my stomach. That or I'm just insanely hungry right now.
"Food." He chuckles, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Yeah, I know, but.. why?" He looks at me, the beam on his face disappearing for a moment but then he smiles brightly again - that smile of his where it just reaches his eyes beautifully. His eyes. Somehow, the word beautiful seems to be the word that would perfectly describe his eyes. So warm and inviting - homey, even.
"You haven't eaten yet, right?" He asks. "Breakfast and lunch?"
"No, I haven't. But I was planning on cooking something up." I lied.
He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, clearly not convinced. "Yeah, right. You look like you just rolled out of bed. Literally." He looks me up and down and I felt conscious, all of a sudden, as I looked down on what I am wearing - yup, it's the afternoon and I'm still in my pajamas.
My hand went through my hair, pushing the few stray strands. And yup, I could easily feel how tangled it is. He came here all of a sudden, I wasn't even able to check myself first.. "Yeah, but you didn't have to-"
"You haven't eaten so I brought you food. That's that. And look at you, you look pale." He says, face now drawn with nothing but concern. Concern - it reaches his eyes, too. Having the time to look at him now made me realize the key points of this boy's reaction. Every emotion can be easily seen through his eyes. A book that's easy to read - a cover that one can easily judge, if you will.
"Um, uh, yeah, I just.." I stammered, not wanting to admit that I'm actually ill right now. He settles the tray on the kitchen counter, going over to me automatically, movement not even faltering one bit. Before I knew it, he's standing two inches in front of me, tip toeing so that he could rest the back of his palm against my forehead.
"Hm." He hums, eyebrows knitted together. Seeing him this close, so close, somehow feels like a privilege. How could someone even look prettier up close? His eyes - I could get lost in them. I could also get used to seeing them up close, like this. So homey and comforting. "See? You're sick." Only when he let out a disapproving tsk is when I snapped out of my spacious thoughts.
"No, I'm fine, really." I say, pushing him a little. As much as I wanted to be close to him like that, I didn't want him to catch this flu and to worry about me. I can still stand so that means that I'm still okay.. Right?
He looks at me in disbelief, eyes scanning my entire being - the look of disbelief, clear as day. Suddenly, I feel smaller. "That's it, go to your room." He shoos me off, forcefully turning me around and pushing me in my bedroom.
I laughed. "You sounded like my mother."
He manages to slap my forearm as I landed on my bed with a bounce. I sat at the edge of my bed, smiling up at his grumpy little cute face. "You're so stubborn, it's irritating." He says, hands crossed in front of his chest.
"I told you, I'm okay-"
"Shush!" He literally hushes me, an eyebrow raised, probably trying to look intimidating but he looks rather the opposite of it. I suppressed a laugh, motioning an imaginary zip across my lips. "Good. Now, wait here." He more on demands and I didn't get to protest further because he instantly turned to his heel and back to my kitchen.
He came back after a few short minutes, the tray from before now filled with various food; the ones that were in the big grocery bag that he was carrying earlier.
"Sorry, I know I should've cooked or maybe even bought home cooked-like food but I was in a hurry so.." He explains, his concentration still focused on the tray of food in his hands, careful not to spill anything. "I grabbed anything that I can in the convenience store, so I didn't really know what exactly you'll like.."
I felt my stomach flip as he explains and my eyes were on him the entire time as he places the tray carefully on my bed, in front of me. "Prem, this is seriously a lot for just one person.." I say, looking down on the tray.
"You skipped two meals already, I'm sure you have more than enough appetite to finish all that." He says with a shrug. The food is so overwhelming, honestly. "Anyway, I'll leave you to eat. Get some rest, I also bought a pack of fever pads, they're still in the paper bag.." He lists down his instructions, heading over to the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Uh, leaving?"
"Nope. No you're not. C'mere, let's eat together." It's my turn to command him now and I didn't even dare to show any signs of humor to him. He looks at me momentarily as he grabs his phone from his pocket, looking at it briefly. "Ah, I mean... unless you're busy?" I backed down as he scans his phone momentarily. It seemed like he checked it for the time.
For a split second there he looked skeptical but he shakes his head with a smile. "No, I- I don't have anything better to do anyway."
"You sure? I didn't mean to sound pushy.."
"Nah, s'all good." He smiles and went to sit on my bed, opposite the tray.