Chapter 16: "Twenty Stan" (IV).

Kai

Two days passed, and I started to get comfortable living with twenty-year-old Stan. It wasn't that much troublesome, to be honest. The only thing that would make me feel irked with constant blushes was that he was extremely more flirtatious than his younger self. I thought that it was just his attitude or personality, but it's not.

And it was making me crazy when he starts kissing me here and there from my hand to my ear except for my lips.

I knew what he was doing.

He was trying to make me submit towards his kisses.

"Are you seriously... trying to make me kiss you back?" I gritted through my teeth, sitting on my wheeled chair in front of my desk as I try to focus on doing my work while he kept pampering me little pecks all over me.

The young man grinned at me, making himself looked naive as ever. "Yep. Is it obvious?" He asked, going away to sit on the couch where his seventeen self and I slept before. It felt like yesterday that he was seventeen, and now he's twenty. I kind of missed Seventeen Stan.

"Yes... it is. You do know that giving countless pecks is a dead giveaway, right?" I stare at him, moving away from my desk and stand up to get to the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" He stands up as well, following me like a stray and faithful dog... or cat. I don't know... why am I even comparing him to an animal?

I brush him off with a wave, trying to let him not following me everywhere I go. "I'm just going to the kitchen to make something to eat. I'm not going anywhere outside today," I answered, getting inside the white themed kitchen with the sun shining through the windows beautifully.

Stan groaned, walking in as well and continue to sit on the stool behind the counter table. "Then what's even the point of you taking a day off? We're supposed to go out! The weather looks so nice...," He cooed, holding up his face with a hand as he gazes towards the outside view of the window. I snorted with amusement. "It's not like every day I take a day off that I need to get out. I need a rest at home as well, duh...," I returned, taking out uncooked slices of chicken from the fridge.

I took a day off again for today, but I promised my dad that I was working from home to make up those two days. It was again... because of what happened yesterday at the bowling centre. I had to take the road to not look at Hayes's face regardless if he comes or not to work today because if I ever... I wouldn't even know what to do.

Dad asked me so many times why I was acting the way I did - which was taking days off when before this I hardly even try to have one.

"Are you are about this? I don't really understand why so suddenly that you've taken a day off again...,"

"Yeah... something came up at home," I replied. He then looks at me deeply, trying to understand what was on my mind. "Did you two get back again?"

"What?! N-no! Dad...,"

"Did he proposed to you?"

"N-no!"

I was having a difficult time trying to make a lie towards him that what I was doing was related to Stan. The whole hours in his office was nothing of work... nothing of things that are important for work but rather about me and Stan. It was just catastrophic because I had to quiet him down before anyone else could even try prying onto our conversation as one had done.

Which in the end, I could only nod to his assumptions about me and Stan.

"Well... can I help you instead? If we're gonna stay at home together... then I wanna do something with you," He asked, getting up and move to where I stand, his body beside me while he looked at what I was doing.

"Chicken fillet?" He asked as I was preparing the coating for frying.

I glance at him, a smile grows up. "Fried Chicken Fillet Burger... home-made on top of that," He raised his eyebrows towards the menu. Well, it was noon and around this time I would have lunch, so I guess a burger would do. Especially when it's home-made.

It has been a long time since I ever cook at home. Doing this was, in fact, another different change that I had to do to cope with all of this. If it didn't, I would have gone to any fast food restaurant by now or just order something to take out.

"That sounds delicious,"

"It is," I chuckled, continuing to do my work while I told Stan to take the flour from the cabinet. Everything went fine and Stan even got me the flour that I asked him to. But things soon to be taken its toll when I was finishing making the fry mix.

Without warning, I was being slapped with a dose of flour that landed partially onto my cheeks. The grainy soft feeling of the white substance touches my skin again in another swift moment and I couldn't even dodge it while it takes a spot onto my hair.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" I screamed, ducking and shielding myself behind the counter table. My crouching state began to run towards any region that was away from the manic young man.

I heard constant laughter coming from him, and it was soothing to my ears. It was lively and like he always describes when he likes something: fun. "Taking you down with flour of death!!!" He cackled, splashing me another wave of flour that almost hit my face again.

A grin appears onto my face, and I can't help but wanted to play along. It felt nice. "Oh yeah? Well, get a taste of your own medicine!" I yelled loudly, taking another bag of flour that was on the kitchen counter. With a huge amount of flour in my palm, I charge onto the raven-haired man and put the white grainy grate that looks like body talcum right onto his face. Which then makes him looked like he had a full-on body talcum on his face.

I laughed aloud at him, holding my stomach as I take the look on his face. He puffs out some of the flour, his eyes blinking rapidly to see things clearly and when he does, he grinned.

"This is war, Everest,"

-

What soon before was a clean kitchen became a huge tornado mess of a flour. All of the flour had gone to waste from our little war and soon after, the burgers had been cooked, and we were now eating while sat opposite of each other at the kitchen counter with our clothes soaked with the white grain.

While we ate, we would bring up something to talk with. They weren't any deep type of conversation but rather a happy-go-lucky one where we would throw witty remarks towards ourselves. My mind forgets to remind that it was not right for us to be this way but there was this unconscious feeling that I had inside that made me want to continue further in our talks. It was just mesmerizing. Then later it came to a point where he had to go left the kitchen without telling me why.

"Where are you going? Your burger isn't finished yet!" I yelled as he got further away from me.

"I'm going to get something first! Wait!" shouted the man back.

I shrugged to myself about what he wanted to get and continue to eat the burger in my hands. There weren't any thoughts that ran through my head at the moment, but I was sure that when I do finish eating... I would start thinking back to the unfinished work I had in my office... the whole Stan being twenty and an ongoing wrecking ball of life. It felt worse to have that constant anxiety about would come next. But I can't make a fuss about it because it's not in my control.

As I was about to finish my tiny piece of burger, I heard a snap sound coming from the entrance to the kitchen, and it made me turn towards the sound quickly. That was when I saw Stan flapping a piece of square card in his hands.

"Where did you get that?" I asked him, while he walks back to me - his eyes staring at the Polaroid photo in his hand.

Then he turns to me, showing me a Polaroid of me eating a burger with my eyes closed... my cheeks and hair all white from the flour. "I found it in one of those cabinets in the living room. I thought I wanted to put this moment into a photo," He grinned.

I furrowed my brows at him. "Seriously?" I spoke, making him stare at me - thinking that I wasn't keen about the idea, but I wasn't. "And you took my picture? What about you?! Let me take yours," I added and took the Polaroid camera from his hand and quickly took a picture of him while he was still absentminded.

"He-hey! I wasn't ready," He cautioned, reaching for the camera, but the picture was already been taken. I chuckled at him, putting the picture into my pocket to save the face he made.

"It's just for private keeping," I grinned, then standing up to get beside him. "Now... this. This is the real one," I said, putting the camera backwards to face us.

"Smile!" With a quick push of the button. Our picture was taken with us being in the most horrible state ever for a photo but nevertheless, it will turn out to be a memorable one. A haunting one.

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