4 Leaf Clover - ᴹˣᴹˣᴹˣᴹ

28.

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Elio and Finley glanced at one another at the awkward question. They all sat by the BBQ, turning it on to keep warm at the arrival of the night. It also provided a small glow from the fire under the grill, the men didn't have any survival skills to construct a fire in a field so the BBQ was the only way to keep warm outside their tent.

Clover gazed intently into the crackling fire, hoping the leaping flames would conceal the tell-tale flush on his cheeks and the faint bulge of tension in his neck. He felt like a stick figure in a children's book, stuck. He felt he couldn't move without the eyes of Elio and Finley pinpointing every movement. So, he endeavoured to stay motionless, try and blend into the darkness.

"How to tell if something is romantic?" Finley questioned, his eyes looking to Elio for help.

"Well, Clover, you must know that all three of us, have been..." Elio paused, pulling at the seemingly tight collar on his shirt, "I...er, how do I explain this?"

"We've been...wondering if you would be open to the idea of us?"

Clover gazed at them with a furrowed brow, trying to make sense of their reactions. In his mind, he envisioned a conversation taking a different turn. He imagined them either chuckling at his innocence or offering guidance while oblivious to the fact that his questions pertained to them. In hindsight, Clover could figure out he was pretty obvious but he wasn't expecting them to feel the same tension.

"I mean," Elio explained, "Surely you've noticed,"

"Noticed?" Clover asked, thinking of things that made his ears hot, and not from the fire.

"After our problems," Elio whispered as he looked at the tent Yuki had disappeared into, "Yuki had grown to you because he realised you weren't like our past lover,"

"Elio?" Clover began, "Can I know about this...Callum?"

Finley let a sigh, his lips pursing in reluctance. The atmosphere turned freezing despite the flames lifting in front of them. The breeze had picked up even at the mention of the man's name, Clover began to visualise he was the devil. A reincarnation of some demon that had festered in Yuki's life and swarmed into Elio's and Finley's too. Clover had noticed the circumstances transform whenever this past lover was mentioned, he wondered truly what he had done.

"Clover, this..." Elio slouched, his face sombre, "This Callum had been a stain on our lives since he appeared,"

"Yuki found him first," Finley whispered, "He was wonderful at first, an artist,"

"He told us he was a painter," Elio continued, "He seduced Yuki first after finding out he was a well-off detective, and the two got along like two peas in a pod,"

"We thought nothing of it at first," Finley said, "After all, the three of us had only been together for around a year at the time, but after a few months, Yuki became...almost obsessed,"

"Yuki gets like that," Elio added, "Once he finds someone worth loving, he holds onto them, he wants to be perfect for them and treat them with so much kindness, he asked us about adding Callum into our relationship,"

"The only thing was," Finley muttered, "was, that we didn't really know Callum as well as Yuki so we were hesitant, but after we made some efforts to get to know him, we ended up as 4,"

There was a pause, a lengthy one and Clover glimpsed at the both of them. Elio's eyes were shut tightly as if the act of remembering was causing him physical pain. Clover almost felt spoiled for asking about it, but he was curious about why the men opposite him had had issues in the past and if it could have affected his own relationship with them.