Autumn's Feast - The first love

Part 3

Once dinner was over, the few lights in the North West district began to turn on.
The three boys lay outside the house on the grass and watched them light up while the sky changed colour.
"You don't have electricity, Uvo"
The other grimaced.
"I can't have everything, Christ..."
"If you throw jumpers at the power station, you have them too. We don't pay like in the normal world anyway."
"Phinks is right."
"Well I don't know how to do it. I know how to be a carpenter, a mechanic and I know how to cook, not an electrician. Could you do it?"
"Um... Well, I... No, I just saw it done."
"Here you are. And you, Frank?"
"I do not. But someone could help you do it. Some in the barracks even have gas."
Uvo stretched, hands behind his head.
"Lucky them. Well that's fine with me."
A contemplative silence followed. They were in the welcoming hovel of Uvo, on top of the hill near the forest, from up there you could see lights as far as the eye could see, you could smell perfumes, people talking, further away, perhaps in another neighborhood, about songs and music .
"Hey, big guy?" Phinks asked.
"Hum?" Uvo replied with a quiet grunt.
"Was Unkei really your father?"
The two stabbed him with their gaze.
"Did you hear everything?"
"I woke up when you said that. You thought I was asleep and I kept quiet but now I can't stand it anymore. There shouldn't be certain secrets between best friends."
Uvo, silenced, scratched his messy head of ash-black Afro hair. Franklin sighed, closing his eyes.
"I wanted to keep it a secret, since you all grew up as nannies. It's a luxury to be able to keep your parents here in Riyuuseigai, so I didn't want to reveal it. It would have been really stupid, like throwing your luck in other people's faces."
"Delicate of you."
"Yes i agree."
Then the tall boy smiled serenely, watching the moon rise.
"Yet I too, now, have been alone for a while."
They were silent, quiet, while a breeze made them shrug their shoulders, each on his mat.
"You sure do resemble Unkei the Oni, now that we know you better."
"And I want to be more and more like him, taking all his best and following him but with my own style."
They smiled at him, while Uvo was still looking at the moon.
"Why did you want me to believe you wrote that poem?" Phinks observed seriously.
His bluntness sent chills down the spines of the other two friends. They laughed nervously
"The fuck are you laughing?"
"Nothing, we tried."
Phinks was serious.
"Really, Uvogin, why don't you say you wrote it?"
"BUT YOU'RE JOKING, I HOPE?" he shouted angrily "I have a reputation to uphold!! What would become of me if it were known that the most gifted boy in the North West district writes sappy poems!!?"
Phinks smiled calmly and nodded.
"Real. But those are not my feelings. I don't feel like taking responsibility for such a beautiful poem and above all dedicated to someone you care about. Even if the name isn't written on it, you can tell it's for a girl."
"Ugh... Y-can you see that much?..."
"Of course you can see it. And that's a good thing, I thought you were a fag, so my esteem went up one point for you."
"Hey, you monkey, don't joke or I'll make flour for bread with your bones!!"
Silence.
A crackle of noses and little by little all three started laughing like crazy.
"You did this really well! Good boy!"
"Oh, come on! I lose credibility!" smiled Uvo.
"You should say it's yours, though. Tomorrow we could show it to the others."
"I have a better idea!" Uvo stood at attention, listening to the music below them.
"Come, Phinks, get on my back."
"Huh? Where do we go?" Phinks asked, holding on to the boy's neck.
"Yes, what do you have in mind, Uvo?"
He smiled at them.
"Just follow me. Maybe I know how to find the right melody without worrying too much about it."

In about twenty minutes they arrived at the road cleared of rubbish.
Some kids were playing pop songs and some older kids were dancing.
They listened to the song enthusiastically and when it was finished Uvogin approached the group's guitarist.
"Hey, could you put this piece to music?"
The kids in the group, six in total, one girl and five boys, looked at each other perplexed and took the paper, gathering in a circle to read it.
"They had never made such a request to us. But... why not? We can try! Give us time to take a break and stay here and listen!"
Uvo raised his thumb and showed a bright smile then returned to the two friends.
"What did they tell you?"
"To wait and listen! They try to build a song on it!"
The break lasted the time to eat a sandwich and drink something, offered by the nearby nurses who complimented the beautiful music they were playing.
Ten minutes later the lights on the small stage came back on.
"We didn't write the next piece, but they asked us to try to set a poem to music. You'll see, you'll like it!"
The three looked at each other with stars in their eyes, enthusiastic and gritted their teeth.
The spotlights went down.
The guitarist began to arpeggiate a soft chord on his acoustic, gently blowing the first lines of the poem, then a slow plucking of acoustic guitar strings began.
The western sound of the introduction was crowned shortly after by the warm and pleasant voice of the guitarist himself and after a verse he sang the chorus; another was linked to his with the second voice and the chorus involved the whole group, while people started humming before joining with different voices for the chorus after the third verse.
Uvo was moved in the silence of his pride and his eyes lit up with joy.
Franklin and Phinks bobbed their heads, the chorus was easy to remember and it was calm and enveloping at the same time. They looked at him satisfied, without saying anything, while their green eyes were clouded with tears.
It was a beautiful western-tinged love song. It dragged everyone along, too, who began to repeat the refrain that was already repeating itself with many elegant variations of the people and the group. It was so enthralling that even the people in the barracks started following them.
For minutes we did nothing but sing the chorus and suddenly the singer, kindly getting up from his stool, indicated the stop with his hands and a big smile from the stage.
It was a triumph. Everyone cheered him and a flood of applause broke out from everywhere.
After the performance, the singer, taking off his guitar, wanted to call Uvogin on stage but he said no. The boy with the guitar shrugged and happily greeted the people from the stage with the others, with a bow.
The three watched more songs and when the show was over, an hour later, the artists stopped them.
"Where did you get it, boy?"
Uvo smiled, gently taking the paper back. Guarded and unseen, he moved a thumb towards Phinks on Franklin's shoulders, then disguising the gesture as taking something off his hand: he had seen someone he knew and wanted to divert any rumors.
"I wrote it, it's for a girl. But I don't know how to play the guitar, so I made you do it to figure out how to sing it to him."
She laughed and patted him on the shoulder.
"You sure had some courage, huh?"
"Yes, and people liked it a lot!" added the bassist "Will you allow us to transcribe it? We would take it around the world. What's your name?"
Uvo blushed. Franklin supported him to give him courage and Phinks smiled, thumbs up.
"My name is Uvogin... B-but you could call it... well, come closer for a moment..." he said shyly.
The boy with the guitar still on his shoulder craned his neck and listened.
"Uhm, Sheila? Why not, what a beautiful name! We could call it that!"
Uvo smiled toothily, closed his eyes excitedly.
"Yes!"