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|Stand up, Sit Down|
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Rodreich was not usually an irresponsible person.
He was usually very sensible and completely abhorred nonsense or silliness of any shape or form. He despised lagging or frivolous behaviour in his classmates and, above all, he hated being wrong.
Which had absolutely nothing to do with how he came to be courting a certain clueless Spaniard.
Who just happened to be his language tutor. Coincidently.
It was mortifying in itself that Rodreich even needed a language tutor, but he was Austrian born and spoke German and English, but not Spanish, which was his studied language. The German being taught was a different dialect that Rodreich didn't care to learn, so Spanish seemed like a logical choice; he just didn't think that it would be this hard.
Now, Antonio Carredio didn't particularly like communicating in English; he was one of those patriotic Spanish types who despised the fact that he even spoke the wretched language. Which meant he mostly spoke Spanish to his students, which was a problem when you couldn't comprehend a word of it.
Yet, still, Rodreich seemed to find something charming in the language he couldn't understand and his usually incomprehensible scowls turned to furious blushing over a few months and he was sensible enough to recognize the signs of a silly crush.
Still, he couldn't find it in him to refuse the idea of pursuing a silly crush such as the one he possessed for Senor Carriedo.
That was all it was surely? A silly crush.
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Candy was Rodreich's first idea.
It was well known that Senor Carriedo liked sugary candy, the sort that made a young child bounce off the walls after having; filled with artificial flavours, sweeteners, colours and everything else artificial. It was surprising that only the wrappings were plastic.
But, although Senor Carriedo always had a humungous box of them beside his desk, Rodreich though that you could never have too much of something you liked, like piano; one could never play too much piano. And also, the sweets preserved well, which was a plus.
So, he gave him candy.
"Thank you Rodreich!" Senor Carriedo squealed like a child at Christmas, in fluent Spanish. "Would you like one?"
Rodreich thought it would be rude to refuse the first time. And the second. And the third.
So by the end of a 'good answer, here's a sweet' day, there were no sweets left, Senor Carriedo had had none of them, and Rodreich felt a little queasy.
Damn Spaniards.
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Flowers were an obvious way to confess to someone and, although Rodreich didn't like to be so dull when it came to love-which this wasn't-, he was going to give it a shot.
So, he went and bought roses, even more cliché then before, it seemed. He always saw Senor Carriedo with fake ones around his office, handmade by the looks of it, and thought that they looked more gaudy than decorative. A few real ones might take away the cheap atmosphere, he thought.
Obviously he was only doing this for the sake of the place looking acceptable for his classes and for the usual fact that Senor Carriedo was oblivious to his miniscule crush as always, but that was all it was. He didn't care for him at all. That's not what flowers meant; they were a confession, not a proclamation.
Although, upon coming into the room, flowers in hand, it seemed Senor Carriedo was a little preoccupied with one of the trainee teachers.
Oh no, nothing like that! He appeared to be grinning, flirting even, with her, but she looked no more interested in him then a real life cat would really be with a ball of wool. Rodreich turned to leave upon seeing that he was not going to have his tutor alone, but was spotted by the woman and pointed out.
"A student, maybe, idiot?" she said, raising an eyebrow, "Maybe you should see to him. His hands look full."
Senor Carriedo looked up and Rodreich really wished he'd thought this through more. It was now or never.
"Ah, Rodreich!" he smiled, waving his arms cheerfully, "This is Miss Vargas! I'm training her in and she will be sitting in on a few classes! Ah, but what do you have here?"
Senor Carriedo beckoned at the roses and Rodreich turned pink before deciding what to do.
"There is no need for introductions, sir," he said coolly, thrusting his arm out, petals fluttering, "I knew the lady would be here today and so brought these flowers as a welcome gift. Here you go, miss."
Miss Vargas turned an angry red colour and sputtered as she took the flowers warily before thanking him tightly and saying that she would put them out in her car until home time.
"Good thing she's getting rid of them," the tutor said sheepishly, "I'm allergic."
Rodreich restrained himself from hammering his head against the classroom door.
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Music was a good idea, even by Rodreich's poor standards.
Although, when he asked to play for Senor Carriedo, he expected to be allowed play Carmen or Beethoven.
"Can you play flamenco on that?" the tutor asked gleefully.
Rodreich blinked. "If you have some music sheets, I can give it a shot?"
Senor Carriedo nodded viciously before running around like a headless chicken to gather up some scraps of music papers. "You see, I'm a music teacher too! How awesome is that?"
"Right right," Rodreich sighed. Of course he knew that. He had a crush on the man for God's sake.
But, when the teacher put the sheets of music in front of him, Rodreich wondered how great of a music teacher he actually was.
"Sir, this is guitar tablature."
"SÃ."
"I'm playing the piano."
"So?"
Rodreich face palmed.
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When Senor Carriedo told him he was lactose intolerant, Rodreich lost it.
Well, you would too, right? I mean, if you had spent over two hours searching sweet shops for the perfect box of chocolates to give as a measly, non important, confession statement, you'd be pretty irritated when it was denied in front of the whole student body.
Well, Rodreich did think that he could have come up with a better time and place to hand over his prize than lunch time in the student cafeteria, but we digress.
"Sir, what do you mean you can't accept this?" Rodreich asked, his voice tight and strung, sick to the back teeth of the same failure week in week out, and it was almost approaching graduation too! His time, and luck, were soon to be out!
"Ah, you see," the teacher had the decency to at least look sheepish, it seemed, "I can't drink milk, or eat anything with milk in it? It has quite a bit to do with my hatred of England and the English language-"
But Rodreich wasn't listening. If you took each one of his nerves as a piano string, it was amazing he was even functioning, because a piano sure as hell wouldn't be able to.
The only sound in the room, other than Senor Carriedo's insane chatter about scrawny English cows, was the sound of a single box of chocolates tumbling to the ground.
And then hell broke loose.
"How dare you!" Rodreich yelled, his voice raising about four octaves, "Reject me day after day after day with your obliviously charming attitude? How the hell did you even pass your college exams to be a damn teacher when you point blank refuse to speak the one language we all have in damn common here!"
The teacher looked dumbstruck before reaching his hand out to attempt to calm Rodreich down by patting his shoulder awkwardly. Whoever thought up the idea of molesting someone when they were angry should be forced to eat Arthur's cooking, Rodreich later though bitterly.
But at that moment, he was far too angry to think about silly matters like that.
"Rodreich-"
"Shut up, you stupid idiot idiot idiot! I Goddamn love you you moron!"
Senor Carriedo's eyes widened slightly and Rodreich stopped to catch his breath. He didn't care anymore that everyone's eyes on him. He didn't care that they all thought he was in love with Senor Carriedo when it was definitely only a crush, because it wasn't.
And that was what he cared about.
"Oh God," Carriedo mumbled, poking his forehead with his finger to the rhythm of Rodreich's heavy breathing, "Well, that was unexpected."
Rodreich hung his head, but his cheeks certainly weren't blossoming a red colour. Somewhere at the back of the cafeteria, his sister made some comment to the American boy concerning football euphuisms to sex, to which the other made some retort about what Rodreich could only describe as rugby.
"Well then," Carriedo said again, looking unexpectedly cheerful, clapping his hands, "There's only one thing for it then!"
And then the tutor leaned in a kissed him.
He kissed him.
When they broke away, the first thing the Austrian did was stare, red faced back at the grinning Spaniard. Then he turned to where principal Vargas was cooing, his arm around that poor newbie teacher, who just looked disgusted with both situations.
Well, at least he knew Senor Carriedo wasn't going to be fired; no matter what his reasons for kissing him was.
So Rodreich kissed him again.
Just in case.
|End|