Sweet Devil [BL]

Chapter 64. Promise Me

Just as Misha thought, meeting Gabriel after his birthday became stupidly hard, to the point where it was about to drive him crazy.

Once again, Angela confined the teenager in her villa, far away from the town. She still allowed him to call, but she would be standing near the teenager every time he was on the phone, openly eavesdropping on him. Needless to say, the conversations Misha had with Gabriel were usually short and perfunctory. Because the teenager was pretending to have amnesia, there were many subjects they couldn't talk about, especially tricky ones that directly or indirectly concerned his family.

Back at the hospital, Gabriel had promised to tell Misha everything he needed to know about his family circumstances, but he couldn't do so on the phone, not with Angela lurking around.

Thus, Misha still hadn't learned anything new and was as clueless as before. Of course, he could have asked his sister about the teenager's family situation, but he wanted to hear it from his mouth, not from Masha's. And knowing his sister, she wouldn't tell him anything, anyway.

The phone calls succeeded one another, and the days passed by.

At one point, Masha thought it'd be a good idea to play a truth or dare kind of game to kill time. But considering their present situation, she got rid of the "dare", keeping only the "truth" part. And so, Gabriel, Misha, and Masha began to ask each other questions in turn. Simple ones or stupid ones, it didn't matter. The point was to learn more about the other person.

Even though Misha knew the teenager reasonably well, or more accurately, the gentleman-like persona he had chosen to borrow in their past life, he still learned quite a few things about him. For instance, Gabriel didn't like bugs, finding them relatively disgusting, if not creepy—that being said, throwing up after eating a worm-flavored muffin was pretty much a guarantee in his case. Being traumatized too.

"So, would you rather eat a bowl full of worms or crickets?" Misha blurted out at the time, wanting to tease him a little. He heard the sound of retching, and the call was cut short that day.

Later, Misha learned that blue was Gabriel's favorite color, that he surprisingly liked sweet things like ice cream and chocolate, that his drawing skills were terrible enough to make people want to cry, and so many more things.

Of course, the teenager had to be careful with how he answered the questions since he shouldn't know himself too well. Angela was still eavesdropping, and a slip of the tongue could very well make things complicated. But Gabriel had always been good with words, and he didn't have any difficulty coming up with excuses to justify every answer he gave.

For instance, he explained that he had seen a few bugs crawling up his bedroom walls, and the mere view had made his stomach churn, meaning that he probably didn't like insects. As for the color, he said he didn't know if it was his favorite color in the past, but right now, it was the most beautiful one in his eyes.

Misha couldn't help but marvel at how much of a smooth talker he was. No wonder Gabriel fooled him for so long in their past life. Even in this one, if he hadn't known better, he probably would have believed every word that came out of his mouth.

But whenever it came to his turn to answer Gabriel's questions, Misha suddenly didn't find the game as fun anymore and stuttered, not knowing what to say. He still had no idea what his younger self liked, except for dinosaurs and pranks. In the end, Misha decided to base his answers on his likes and dislikes as an adult, telling himself that they shouldn't have changed too much over the years.

Probably...?

Today again, Misha mumbled an unclear answer and couldn't help but glance at his sister, observing her reaction and facial expression. Upon seeing her smile, he felt reassured and a bit more confident, becoming bolder and bolder. What he didn't realize, though, was that when he turned his head, Masha's smile faded a little, and unknown emotions flashed in her bright blue eyes.