"Let's see, let's see, are you telling me that you got Wally to agree to go out with you on a double date?" Nigel asked, talking to his friend on his cell phone.
"You can imagine his face," Hoagie laughed. "Best of all, I didn't plan anything at all, it was all Alice's idea."
"What are we going to do with those two?" I hope he hasn't stopped talking to you"
"How do you think?" Wally and I are best friends, he can be bitter but he would never stop talking to me unless I really does something bad and that, in this life my dear, it will not happen"
"I believe you" came a rumble coming from Nigel's side.
"What was that?" Asked Hoagie worried.
"Not at all," the boy replied nervously, "Some pots fell from the cafeteria, luckily they were empty, I would feel bad if food was wasted here."
"So when do you say you're going to come back?" We miss you here"
Nigel couldn't help but smile at the words of his friend, he missed them too but he had serious business to attend to before he could return.
"I'll be back before school starts, just like Abby."
"So you've also talked to Abby," says the boy in a sad tone.
"Look, whatever is going on with you guys, I know you will solve it when she returns, just don't make her madder"
"As if it were that easy," he whispered.
"What did you say?" Nigel asked.
"Nothing, I didn't say anything." Oh, I think Alice is calling me, I must leave you Nigel, take care and we wait for you soon"
"Of course my friend, you too take care, see you soon" he looked at his cell phone and ended the call.
A girl with blonde hair and a work apron approaches Nigel when she sees that he ended the call with his friend.
"Well? How are your friends?" She asks him.
"Well Rachel, I hope this mission didn't finish me off before I can go back and fix things with my friends, I just hope they don't kill each other while I'm away."
"It's been three years and you still take care of them like your team." The girl puts a hand on her shoulder.
"They were never just my team" he gives a long sigh before continuing, "They always were, are and will be my friends."
"I get it, do you think there will be more trouble when they find out about us?" She walks up to Nigel and kisses him on the cheek causing the boy to be embarrassed by Rachel's sudden act of closeness.
"There should be no problems," he coughed to maintain his composure as the leader that he was.
Hoagie meanwhile, kept Abigail's chat open and their last message to each other was two months ago when they were discussing a final project they were working on together, just before the end of school term. Since then, things were not right between them, everything got complicated when he started dating Alice, he liked the girl, she was pretty, nice, and he really enjoyed the time they spent together, but that feeling of guilt that he had done something wrong , that he had overlooked something important did not leave him alone. Of course the robotics club and the times that he spent with Alice helped him to get that thought out of his mind but always at night when he came back, he felt like a fool. Stunned. Confused. He was thinking more of her than he used to.
He wrote several times: Hello, How are you?, How is everything?, Hey Abby, Whats' up?, but he always ended up deleting them. Was she expecting him to speak to her first? The answer was yes.
"Hi Abby, is everything okay in Hawaii? I hope to see photos when you return and don't forget the sunscreen. "
A few minutes passed while Hoagie wondered if he would send the message or not and then at 8 minutes, he finally sent it. He began to feel anxious if he would receive an answer or not, so he got up from his bed and sat on his desk to review the material of his course but from time to time he looked at the screen of his cell phone in case it turned on.
Abby, for her part, was still awake when she received the message from Hoagie and was wondering if should respond or not. Surely he was missing her, he was thinking about her, but because then he was writing to her. Would he have fought with Alice? That was unlikely. Maybe he was missing her as a friend of hers, after all, they hadn't spoken in a while. He reviewed the gallery of her cell phone and then sent her a photo of his favorite sunsets that were seen from the sunset on the beach. It was something special for the girl.
Hoagie grabbed the cell phone quickly when he noticed that his cell phone screen had turned on and that Abby had finally answered him. She had sent him a picture of a very beautiful sunset, then she almost immediately got another message.
"Everything is fine, thanks for asking. Everything in Hawaii seems to be more beautiful. Goodnight"
"Wow, what a way to cut a conversation," the boy spoke to himself before turning off the table lamp and going to sleep.
Two days had passed since the date at the cinema and Kuki was spending it in the guest room. Wally noticed that there was a lot of silence and he worried about the girl, that something might have happened to him or that he had said something that bothered her, but remembering the last days of her, the fault of her could not be his.
His mother called him in the morning before leaving, she was in the kitchen preparing some things.
"It's good that you got down once, dear, please take this hot tea to your friend, it will make her feel better," she shows him the steaming mug on the kitchen table.
"Is Kuki sick?" He asks her mother, somewhat surprised, she was fine, or at least he is what she believed.
"She's not, don't worry she'll feel better when she gets over it, please wear it while she's hot, I'll lock the door, come say goodbye to Joey"
Joey, Wally's younger brother, came into the kitchen with a small backpack ready for kindergarten.
"Mommy, you're going to take me late again," says the little boy.
Wally approaches his brother and fixes his hair and ties the lace that was loose from his left shoe, he did not understand why he always looked untidy even though his mother took time to get ready.
"That's better little one, see you later"
Joey quickly hugged his brother and then joined his mother as they hurried out of the house, always running late, typical mornings of having to enlist a small child.
The steaming cup was still where her mother had left it and so she took it and went up the stairs carefully so as not to pour the hot liquid on it and reached the door of the guest room of her house, where the girl slept and then proceeded to touch the door.
"Kuki, my mom asked me to bring you something, can I come in?" He waits for the girl to answer him so he can enter.
He opened the door when he received an answer and saw that the girl was wrapped from head to toe in bed hugging a rainbow ape, her face showing annoyance and pain. Wally walked over to her and put the hot tea on the table by the side of the bed. Any other boy seeing her in that situation would have made fun of her for being a teenager who still slept with stuffed animals, but that was already totally normal for Wallabee.
"When did you get sick?" Wally asks the girl who clearly seemed to be suffering from something but he couldn't figure out what was causing it.
"I'm not sick," she said looking at him and settled down sitting on the bed to take her tea.
"So what 's up? You look terrible"
"It's girlish stuff that doesn't concern you," said Kuki sipping her hot tea. Wally at that moment understood the situation.
"Oh ... oh I understand, then ... I should go," he turned to the other side feeling ashamed, instead Kuki looked calm, she trusted his friend and the situation did not bother him.
"It's okay, what do you want to do today?"
"Are you sure you want to do something like that?"
"We could play video games like we used to in the tree house and you could make me breakfast since I'm your guest," the girl smiles at him making Wally blush.
"I won't make your breakfast"
Kuki looks Wally in the eye and after a few seconds of the staring challenge the boy blinks and looks away.
"Okay, do you want me to bring it here too?"
"I would love that" she smiles.
"It was sarcasm," he says and leaves the room. Kuki only smiles because he knows that his friend will make her breakfast and will bring it to bed.
Kuki gets up and looks in her bag for a small purse where she takes out some pills to alleviate her discomfort and takes them with tea, then goes back to bed to wait for it to take effect and then takes the cell phone from the table and prepares to review the messages while waiting for the breakfast. She had a good morning message from her mother telling her that they are still fixing her affairs in Japan but that she won't worry, a message from Alice asking about a dress and a message from Abby that seemed to be important.
"Hoagie texted me last night, I thought he would be mad at me for ignoring him but I couldn't do it anymore, I sent him another message this morning and he replied instantly, Has he got into a fight with Alice?"
"I don't think so Abby. He surely misses you, you are her friend after all. It would be good if you spoke more by message"
Kuki knew that she would not receive an answer so soon, so she settled better with his rainbow ape on the bed and waited patiently for Wally to come up with breakfast.
When the blonde arrived with breakfast, his plan was to leave the girl's breakfast and then go to his room and devour his' but the girl insisted that he stay to accompany her to eat and after several pleas he ended up accepting. Wally made some melted cheese sandwiches and Kuki swore that he was the best thing she had eaten in days, although it was probably because he had made it. At first, the boy was somewhat tense and nervous about being together in a room alone but Kuki had softened the atmosphere with interesting conversation topics. When the two were not arguing they felt a pleasant sensation that only both boys could understand.
They spent the rest of the day in their pajamas and playing video games, almost always Kuki won so Wally claimed a rematch.
"I had forgotten you were good at this," Wally commented, grabbing both controls to put them on top of the console, they had finished playing.
"I have always been the best"
"I think so. We should change before mom comes, she doesn't like to come and see me in my pajamas yet"
"Okay, I'm going to change," Kuki got up from the sofa and staggered a little causing her to almost fall to the floor but Wally was next to her and took her by the arm.
"Hey, are you okay?" Wally asks, looking into her eyes.
"Yeah, I think I just got up really fast," she replied without losing eye contact. When the feeling of dizziness left her sight, she looked at the boy's strong grip "Wally I can walk now, you can let go of me."
"Sure, whatever you say," he blurted out to Kuki feeling embarrassed by the contact.
"Thank you," the girl put a hand on her shoulder and then went upstairs straight to her room to change.
Wally was left alone in the room and then looked at his hand with which he had touched the girl, then he watched as she climbed the stairs and disappeared down the hall and remained immobile in that position thinking that both were spending more time together and that their fights had stopped enough, they were no longer the same children as always. It was then that he thought he was alone with a girl in his house and his face reddened at the thought of things he shouldn't be thinking.
"No, no, Kuki is only here because she has no one to take care of her, you cannot be thinking nonsense. She is just your friend," he thought.
