Sweet Devil [BL]

Chapter 52. Let's Talk

Misha and his family had forgotten about the time as they talked with the teenager, only realizing it was getting late when the light in the room dimmed. The sun was setting, making Gulnas gasp in surprise.

"I'm sorry Gabriel, we have to leave!" she said apologetically. "I promise we'll come tomorrow too!"

"No problem. Be careful on the road."

"Can't we stay a little longer...?" Misha pouted. He gripped the teenager's bed, a strange feeling in his gut telling him to cling to Gabriel. "Just a few minutes?"

"Sweetie," Gulnas shook her head helplessly, "it's already getting late, and we have a long ride ahead of us."

"Ok..."

Though Misha didn't want to leave, he still had to. So, he took his sweet time dragging his feet to the door. He glanced back over his shoulder every two steps, looking like an abandoned puppy.

.

.

It was pitch-black when they arrived home, and Misha was so sleepy that he could barely walk straight.

"Come on, love! We're home."

Hearing his mother's voice, Misha absent-mindedly nodded and wobbled toward the house, then the stairs. For once, he didn't bicker and directly went to bed, dead tired. Although his father had taken a day off to visit Gabriel, and they went to the hospital by car instead of taking a bus, it still took over an hour each way.

The hospital was relatively far from their home, but Misha and Masha insisted on visiting Gabriel every day even if they had to go by bus, not minding the four-hour round-trip. They lost quite some time every day just going to the hospital, but they didn't care and simply took a nap on the bus to pass the time.

For the past two weeks, they had woken up early in the morning to catch the first bus of the day, then left at around 2 pm to arrive home not too late, just on time for their mother to prepare the supper.

Today, they went in the afternoon because Alexis proposed to drive them, and they were also planning to eat at a restaurant on their way back, meaning that Mrs. Brown didn't have to cook and that they could leave the hospital at a later hour. Besides, they had realized that Misha was exhausted—even if he was trying hard to hide it. The dark circles under his eyes couldn't lie.

With this in mind, they forced the boy to take the morning off and sleep, whether he liked it or not. But despite his good night's sleep, Misha was still drained at the end of the day, maybe because his state of mind had been on a roller coaster all day. The moment his head touched the pillow, he fell asleep, not waiting for his mother's bedtime story.

The next day, when he woke up and went downstairs, his family was already up and waiting for him in the living room.

"Eat something first," his mother said, "then come back and sit on the sofa. We want to talk."

A sense of foreboding rose in the pit of his stomach, but Misha didn't complain and did as told, wolfing his toasts before scramming back to the living room. He obediently sat next to his sister in the corner of the L-shaped sofa, and his parents took place on his left.

A heavy silence filled the room; no one dared to break it first.

Misha saw his mother open and close her mouth many times, chewing on her lower lip. It was as if she didn't know where to start, and the words she wanted to say always got stuck in her throat, unable to leave.

In the end, it was his sister who decided to get the ball rolling by softly asking, "Do you know why we want to talk?"

"No," Misha shook his head, even though he had a pretty good idea deep down.