The Colour Of Second Chances ✅

18| A Stream of Conversations.

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I wake up far later than usual. The events of last night wash over me like salvation. Two small birds, perched by the window, have made an habit of repeatedly hitting their beaks on the glass and making a continuous tapping sound. I watch them after parting the curtains, then I take in the early morning sun, high up in the sky, and I open the windows to let a torrent of wind flow in and sigh as the birds fly away into the sky.

Out of curiosity I peep out the window to see Jeffrey the beast wagging its tail and patrolling the grounds. I immediately withdraw into the room, a shiver racking my spine. Damn that dog!

Catching my breath and my heart, I figured it'll be a waste of time and resources to start cleaning the room again after yesterday, so I stay fixed on my decision to brush and then go ask Moses for another pair of pants before taking a bath.

When I open the bathroom door and I've just started brushing my teeth, I feel another person's presence and I still. Slowly, so slowly it felt like the earth was about to fall off its axis, I turn towards him. There, at the other sink by the opposite side of the bathroom is Moses. He's got the early morning eyes and has water on his face as the leans against the tiled wall with one foot down. His smile when he catches my eyes on him is worth the sun and stars.

"How long have you been there?"

He scratches at his stubble. "Long enough to see you walk in. You'd have seen me if you'd looked and to say you are an investigator..." There's amusement dancing in his eyes.

I shrug off the insult and spit out foam from my mouth. Thank God I hadn't choked on it. His voice is low, so low they make the walls rumble.

I don't even mind that I probably resemble a midnight witch right now, instead, I keep facing him as I say, "I was thinking about coming to see you."

"Why?"

His expression is playful, like a kid with his favourite toy- maybe I'm turning into his favourite plaything. However, his eyes, they've turned carefully neutral as he awaits my answer, and I give him one. "I wanted to lend more of your joggers before I bath."

"Well then, this just seals the fact that you love wearing my clothes as much as I love seeing you in it."

I lose the process of speech formation at his words. Damn this guy and flirting. It also doesn't help that I'm a bad flirt, I'd be the worst student ever if there was an exam for such activities.

I don't respond to him. Instead he says, "You can start taking a bath, I'd just set it all on your bed before you're done. There's food in the kitchen."

I nod, feeling like a toothless kid. He leaves me for which I'm grateful and this time, I make sure to to lock both doors, his and mine, before taking a much needed shower where I watch the water form a pathway on the floor.

My shower took more than half an hour and I don't know why. When I turn the knob and exit the bathroom, I'm met with clothes folded on my bed. On raising it to my chest, I realize that the are all male wears and smell like him; I guess Moses acted on his words.

I pick a grey jogger and pair it with a similar T-shirt. Then I actually run a comb through my hair and decide to go eat breakfast. When I walk into he kitchen, I met mises dropping his dish into the sink.

"You're here," he says. "You sure take forever to shower."

"It's been proven that women need longer to clean up better," I say and pick up a plate to fill.

"Bullshit. I call that a foolishly conceived ideology!" He says with a shake of his head. "So what you're trying to say is that men don't clean up well? You and I know that they share almost the same anatomy, which means equal right and equal time."

I argue. "You said it yourself, 'almost the same anatomy' meaning 'not quite'."

He doesn't argue again. He begins to walk away with the dirty dish still in the sink. I scoff in warning. "You're not going to leave that in the sink are you?"

He shrugs and turns to me at the table. "I'm leaving it that way. That's why I've got you."

My lips purse in anger and I immediately raise my gingers to my forehead to ease the frown. "Wash your own dish Moses!"

"I'll be waiting for you in my room. I've got something to do," he says and walks away why I focus all the glare at his retreating back.

As much as I'd have left the kitchen like that after eating, I end up washing the dishes considering only the fact that I've always hated a messy kitchen; Nnanna also hates a messy kitchen.

I make it to his room and pull the knob. Yet again, I'm welcome into this spectacular space, and like the other times, it never fails to take my breath away. He's standing by his drawing board, a canvas is against it but turned away from the door. When I walk in, his eyes focus on me. I wait for him to welcome me in and he does.

"Have a seat Investigator. You never really told me your name, you know?" He says, lips quirked in a teasing smile.

"I'm Nobi," i say. "Chimnobi."

I examine my options. There's his bed which will just be too intimate and there's the wooden chair with a curved back by his desk. I pick the chair and settle into it, then I scan his room.

Sunlight streams in through the window and banks on his paint coloured hands holding brushes of different sizes. Sometimes his strokes would be light and gentle and other times they become too hard and are noticeable from the bunching of his biceps. He nods at my reply.

Moses is shirtless and marred with paint of different colours and why the view of him is distracting, I still got to focus on his expression sometimes. Like right now, he's biting his lips with his eyebrows curved as he strokes the bottom right of the canvas. I twiddle my thumb as a question forms in my head, so I decide to ask him.

"What made you pick painting?" I ask. "There are a lot of choices... music, dance, drama, pottery, but you picked painting of all arts. Why?"

He pauses mid stroke and stands straight. "It's refreshing." A pause. "It's refreshing making something that people are free to judge but can never get the exact emotion you were feeling while making that canvas. Painting gives me hope, Nobi. It makes me express my darkest emotions and still manages to keep them all a secret." I take it all in before he asks. "What about you, what'd do you like doing? Considering you've got that strong face and barely give out information unless I force you to, I'd say you're a writer."

I shake my head. "No, I'm definitely not. I've been an investigator in a cult for as long as I can remember."

"Well that's bad! You should really take up writing or something else that's for you and you alone."

I don't say anything more. My silence is more than enough to announce my partial agreement. For one, I've always been bound to the brotherhood and I can't just wake-up one day and decide to leave.