Flowershop

Chapter Twenty Six

"Yeah, sure. See you then!" He hung up the phone, sighing in the process. "Alfred! Come here. I need to tell you something." He said, sitting at the table. Alfred walked over to the table from his spot on the couch next to Ivan. "Yes? Is there anything wrong?" He questioned, sitting across from him. Ivan kept a close ear on the conversation.

"No, no, nothing like that. I was just saying that Feli just called me. He and Ludwig are doing on vacation to Italy for a couple of days, and he was wondering if we could watch his dogs... I agreed," He said, rubbing his hands together. "I don't know if the dogs get along with cats, so I'll see if I can leave our cat with Leon..." He said, not even wanting to say the name 'Johnathan'. "Oh, shit, wait! My parents are leaving by the time we watch them, so they can't," He said, moving his hair out of his eyes. That reminded him. He needed Yao to give him a haircut.

Once again, he felt on edge, for no apparent reason. Maybe because... he wasn't stressed, and that was stressing him out?

Ivan finally spoke up. "No, didn't you know? Leon will be staying for summer break. It is just Yao and I leaving," he said, amused at the total look of shock on his face. "What?! The whole summer? Why did no one tell me this?" He said, looking around at everyone, indignant at the looks being passed around. "We did tell you. Yesterday, maybe the day before. Pay attention!" Yao said, eyeing Kiku.

A few moments later he began to notice the state of Kiku's hair. "Oh my God, why did you let it get this long? Let me do it!" He said, beckoning his son with his finger. Kiku sat slovenly in front of him, letting Yao run his fingers through his hair. As he snipped away at Kiku's hair, he spoke about nonsensical things that no one really paid ant attention to. Kiku missed doing it, but he also felt bad that no one in the room really made an effort to follow his story, so occasionally he nodded or replied with a yes or no to show he was listening. Kiku was almost sure that Ivan had fallen asleep, but he couldn't really blame him; the day was hot and dull.

It brought back memories to Kiku, of his childhood. Yao used to cut his hair all the time, but he decided on going to the hairdresser at one point in time. But Yao had hated how it turned out so much that he had never taken him to a hairdresser again. When Kiku moved to America, he cut his own hair. It was confusing and difficult, but he managed to pull through. With practice, he had managed to cut hair almost as well as Yao could. Almost. He felt like a child again in his chair- but as they were leaving in a few days, he decided it was okay.

"I've bought tickets for Ivan and I to see the Phantom of the Opera a while ago, I don't remember if I told you or not..." Yao said, tapping his chin. "Hm. Oh well. Well, he's never seen it, so I wanted to take him. Maybe I can take you another time..." he said, checking his watch. Kiku watched him silently. It seemed literally everyone in his family had trouble remembering important things. Information always got sprung on him so suddenly all the time. The only thing he could really think of to do while waiting was to sleep, but he wasn't even tired. He was having another day of motivation. He just wanted to get out and do things.

As Yao and Ivan finally managed to get out the door, Kiku sat by Alfred on the floor. After a moment of complete silence, both started to speak at the same time.
"So, uh, do you-"
"I was wondering if-"
Kiku nodded his head in gesture of letting Alfred go first. "So, I was wondering if you wanted to go somewhere? Besides from Chinatown, we haven't really been anywhere..." He said, taking off his glasses. He began to slowly clean them with his shirt. Kiku looked down at his hand before looking up at him once again.

"So, I take it, this place we're going, it's a surprise?" He asked, smiling slightly. He still wasn't exactly sure if he liked these surprised or not yet. He was still holding on to the time they broke into a zoo, and almost got arrested. With Alfred, it could be anywhere. Honestly, he shouldn't have been surprised with the zoo thing. Looking back on it, he had no idea how he didn't suspect that.