Frozen Summer

Chapter 27

TW : This chapter contains scenes of domestic violence and refers to pervert narcissistic behaviors. Having been subjected to those, I don't think shielding people from the dark reality of this world is a good thing. It took me a while for this as I've been dealing with a few IRL issues but pouring my own worries into the writing helps. I know it's the first time I ask but leave some feedback :) ! I hope you enjoy this read

Konnor's arms were ready to give in, he was trying to walk on his hands. Next to him, Izinqe was grinning at his poor performance.

" Stop smiling and give me advice you idiot ! "

" Well first of all don't speak for a change ! "

" You fuck- "

Losing his balance, he fell heavily to the ground, out of breath he kept his eyes fixed on the blue sky. It was a warm afternoon marking the end of winter. Izinqe was holding his belly while dying from laughter.

" Instead of mocking me you could do the thing you swore you would do, teaching me those weird movements. "

" I already taught you, not my fault you can't do it "

" You just told me to stand on my hands and move my legs ! That's not helping ! "

Standing up from the box he was on, Izinqe simply stood on his hands and started walking on his hands like it was nothing.

" See ? it's easy, you do this and then you gain some kind of momentum by swinging your feet in a direction and then you just do all you can to keep rotating. "

As he was explaining it, Izi started throwing kicks while on his hands and after gaining speed he was like a human stampede. The faster he was going, the less he needed to compensate with his arms, the arms were just to be sure he stayed " up ". Once he was done, Konnor sat down and thought to himself " it seems easy when you do it ".

" Izi, how did you learn how to do this ? "

Izinqe sat down next to Konnor and remained silent.

" You don't want me knowing your secret ? "

He was still silent. Finally he stood up, readjusted his scarf around his face and walked away.

" I'll cya later ".

" Weird ... " Konnor dusted himself off and went back inside the tavern. As he stepped inside he was greeted by the powerful hand of Malik on his shoulder.

" Hey look who took a longer break with his little friend ... "

" Ow ! Malik that hurts ! "

" That was the point. Now, get to work. "

It had been a few days since he last saw Richard, in the meantime, Konnor and Izi were occupying his room. The agreement was that if Izi was ok to teach Konnor his way of fighting, Konnor would let him eat and sleep here. They were sometimes just walking around doing nothing but very often Izinqe would just disappear somewhere during the day and reappear at night only to eat and sleep. Even though they got close, Konnor still knew basically nothing about him. This was their routine, being friendly without being friends, having some light fights and bickering but Konnor wanted to have a deeper connection. " What's the point of interacting if it doesn't go anywhere ? " . So he made the following decision : he would follow Izi to discover what he was up to during the day. But before that he had a whole afternoon and night to spend without raising suspicions.

The afternoon went as expected, serving the tavern's customers, each time one entered the door he expected them to be Richard or Izi. But neither came all day, actually even at night Izi did not come back home. Late during the night, Konnor heard someone opening the door, trying to seem asleep, he kept still and realised Izi had entered the bedroom. He then took off his boots, and his shirt and got in bed. But as opposed to how they usually slept he was awfully close. The silence was heavy but was soon broken by Izi.