After working on his presentation for the Skype meeting all day, Connor decided to reward himself with a walk around the village.
Maybe he could go to the school and check up on Kevin, and of course the other Elders too, because he wasn't biased like that. No, he really wasn't, no matter what Arnold seemed to think. He quickly filled a cooler box with chilled bottled water from the fridge, and stepped out into the searing Ugandan sun.
Before school building was in his sights, he could already hear the twinkling laughter of the children, and also Kevin's voice.
"Alright, alright, we'll give that one to Mirembe," Kevin clapped his hands to get their attention, "Emma! Your turn. Give us something that starts with the letter L."
Connor leaned against one of the trees and observed the class, a smile tugging at his lips.
A little girl in pigtails looked up at Kevin, even though he was already kneeling on the grass, "I spy stinky!"
Kevin nodded, "Alright, something stinky that starts with the letter L. Who wants to take a guess?"
A boy tugged at Kevin's sleeve shyly.
"Yes, Adroa? Do you have the answer?"
Adroa whispered his answer into Kevin's ear and giggled.
Kevin frowned, "Oh ummm, that's not very nice Adroa."
There was a chorus of excited yelling, "What! What he say, Kay-win?!"
Adroa mightily yelled, "Levi! Stinky Levi!" And the children broke into rowdy laughter.
"Oi!" A chubby boy stomped his feet on the grass.
Connor guessed that he was probably Levi.
"Alright alright," Kevin tried to calm them down, "Lesson's over! That's it. Time to go home," he inserted himself between Adroa and Levi, who were poking at each other with their tiny fingers, "Hey, Adroa stop it. Levi, you too!"
Adroa sprinted away towards the school building and Levi chased after him.
Connor was close enough to hear Kevin mutter, "Oh God."
"Kay-win!" A girl raised both her arms up at Kevin, "Carry! Carry me!"
"I can't yet, Gamisha," Kevin ruffled her short curly hair, "Next time, okay?"
"But whyyyyyy!" The girl clung to Kevin's legs like an octopus.
"I've told you why," Kevin sighed
"But! But! That is last Mmm-Moon-day!"
"WAS last MONday," Kevin corrected her, "Look Gami, your mama's here!"
"Hmph! You are so old!" The girl ran away from Kevin into her mother's waiting arms.
"What?!" Kevin shook his head and sighed to himself.
Connor burst out laughing at that, and Kevin swivelled around with his hands on his chest, "Jesus fuck!"
"Connor!" Kevin frowned, "What are you doing here? How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough," Connor pushed himself off the tree, "Look at you, making English fun."
"Did that look fun to you?" Kevin raised his eyebrows, "I'm exhausted."
"You're really good with kids," Connor handed Kevin a bottle from his cooler box. He never really had time to watch Kevin interact with the children before. Connor found it to be a very attractive trait indeed. He didn't think that that there was any way he could be any more smitten with Kevin Price. Boy, was he wrong.
Kevin took a big gulp of water, "I do have four younger siblings. Well, had."
"Kevin," Connor's smile faltered.
"I'm done for the day, shall we head back?"
"Wait! I gotta distribute these to the other Elders," Connor held up his cooler box, "Who are working hard to build a school building, unlike you, who's enjoying the shade and having fun here with adorable kids," Connor teased. He recently discovered that playful banter was a pretty effective way of steering conversations away from Kevin's less than cheery thoughts.
"Yeah? You think you can do it too?" Kevin smirked.
Connor scoffed, "How hard can it be?"
"Great!" Kevin shrugged, "You can take over my classes for tomorrow, I have to go see Gotswana."
"What? Why? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm just getting my stitches removed."
"Oh," Connor's forehead creased, "Shouldn't we go back to the hospital for that?"
"Why the hell would I do that? Gotswana is only three minutes away, but the hospital is three hours away," Kevin looked at Connor incredulously.
"I don't know? They have machines that can do scans and stuff to make sure everything's healed up on the inside?"
"If anything was wrong, we'd have known by now," Kevin dismissed him with an eye-roll, "So that's settled then? You'll take over my classes for tomorrow?"
"No, no," Connor was aghast at the idea of being responsible for ten knee-high human beings, "I'll go with you to the clinic."
"There's no need-," Kevin thought that Connor was just being a worrywart.
"No, no, you can't leave me here with the kids!" Connor admitted, "I'm very bad with kids."
"But you just said-"
"I said 'How hard can it be', doesn't mean that I can do it too."
"Actually, that's what the phrase-"
"No, Kevin! I can't do it!" Connor felt panicked at the mere thought of it.
He still remembered that time he almost dropped his baby cousin into the sea while they were on a boat.
Kevin chuckled, "Oh well, now I really do want to watch you flounder," Kevin waved at Connor's expression, "Fine, I'll just get someone else to do it."
"Thank goodness," Connor blew out a breath.
"Hey, one more thing," Kevin pursed his lips, "Did you lay into Arnold this morning? When he came back to the hut?"
Connor didn't think that he was being very harsh when he spoke to Arnold, "No, not really. Why, did you want me to?"
"No, no," Kevin looked puzzled, "It was strange. He said that he was never ever going to do that ever again, and I quote 'Not even if Nabu invites me over for a Star Wars marathon'. I thought you managed to put the fear of McKinley in him."
Connor knew it was more the fear of letting Kevin down again than anything else, but Kevin didn't need to know that.
"Oh please, I don't lead by fear," Connor puffed his chest, "I lead by respect."
Connor's heart swelled and he was filled with a sense of accomplishment when Kevin was bent over with tears in his eyes from laughing too hard.
He wants to be the person who makes Kevin laugh like that every single day.
—
"Are you trying to bore him to death? There are like 50 slides in this Powerpoint presentation," Kevin looked up from scrolling at Connor's computer, "Hey, you know, that's not a bad idea. Maybe your tutor gets to inherit his fortune, and she'll give it to us anyway."
"Kevin!" Connor paused in chopping the carrot.
"I'm just saying."
"Carrot stick?" Connor offered.
Kevin took one and was about to put it in his mouth when he stopped, "Wait. Did you wash this?"
"I already peeled the muddy skin off?"
"Ugh, gross. I'm gonna go work on this in my room so I don't have to watch you give us food poisoning," Kevin dropped the carrot back onto the chopping board.
Connor frowned as he continued chopping the vegetables. Nobody ever got sick from his cooking, he didn't think?
"Sorry I took so long!" Arnold panted as he stumbled into the kitchen. He was supposed to be helping Connor with dinner today.
"And why might that be?"
"Sorry! There was…there was a traffic jam!" Arnold blurted out.
Connor couldn't believe his ears. He just stared blankly at Arnold.
"Sorry," Arnold smiled awkwardly, "I- Old habits die hard, you know? I was with Nabu," Connor was about to say something, "But! Don't worry, we didn't do anything."
"You don't have to tell me that every time, Elder Cunningham. I trust that you'll make the right decisions," Connor handed him stack of dirty bowls, "But lying is still wrong, Mormon or not."
Arnold nodded and filled the sink with water. He then carelessly threw the whole stack of bowls into it, splashing soap water everywhere.
"Hey!" Connor warned.
"What? The bowls are made of metal, they won't break."
Why did Connor even bother?
—
Kevin helped him to do up his tie, despite Connor's protests that he knew how to do it. He was a Mormon missionary for gosh sake.
"Dashing," Kevin pat on Connor's chest, "Now that you look presentable, go get some money for us!"
Connor straightened his dress shirt, "What? No good luck kiss?"
"With my kind of luck, I think we'd better not jinx it."
Connor pressed a quick kiss onto Kevin's lips despite that, "You should go to bed, it's late."
"What are you-," Both Connor and Kevin turned around abruptly at Elder Church's intrusion.
Elder Church looked up and down at Connor, who was fully dressed in his missionary uniform at eleven o'clock at night. He must have thought-
"This is not a role-playing thing is it? No, wait! Don't say anything, I don't want to know. Please let me through!" Elder Church tried to squeeze pass the two of them in the narrow hallway in his haste to escape.
"No, that's not what-"
"Oh god, no! No! No, I don't want to know!"