The Forbidden Manual// Denis Stoff

s i x t e e n

"I want to see them as well", Denis announced, which in all the time he was only watching our conversation.

"Um...yes, give me a second, i'll be back", I snuck to my room and closed the door behind me, without waiting a word from them.

I sat on the bed with my legs crossed and took the yellow packet in my hands; I took the photographs from it and the first thing my eyes focused on the beautiful face that decorated the printed paper. Denis was so beautiful, in his own way. His smile, dazzled perfectly.

I checked all the photographs, over and over again.

"Damn it",I sputtered.

Out of the thirteen photos in my hand, only three where anti-aesthetic. Three were the ones that didn't have Denis perfect face on the image. The problem was that Dasha had noticed the thickness in the packet and taking only three photos resulted illogical when together they didn't make half a centimeter.

I sighed and took the other ten photographs to put them away in the drawer of my des, underneath the bunch of papers I already had in there. I came out of my room with the trio of photos in my hand, hoping I didn't find another scene that made me uncomfortable and with the desire of closing my eyes.

Dasha and Denis were talking while holding hands, he was playing with her fingers. I tried to ignore the irritating punches beside the beatings of my heart.

"Here they are", I placed them over the kitchen counter , where both were sitting.

"Only three?", Dasha grumbled. 

"I told you they weren't that good", I shrugged. "The others were horrible", I lied, and to be truthful, they were the most beautiful ones. "Besides, I didn't take many".

There, Denis could've denied that, he knew how many I had shot with the lens of my camera capturing the scenes; but he didn't say anything, he only observed each photo calmly.

I decided to change the topic, before any objections in part of Dasha came in.

"You know Mrs. Montorfano has a nephew?", I asked my friend, while I went to the refrigerador to get a glass of milk.

"Yes, Chris. Why?", she inquired, and I felt satisfied at accomplishing the change of route in conversation.

"I  met him today", I said, pouring the milk in the glass that I had taken out of the cupboard.

"Really?">

"Yes, I bumped into him this morning; he's cute", I took the glass and I was able to capture Denis gaze leave the photos and posed his gazed on us, on me.

(ugh! okay, as I'm translating, I'm noticing that the writer of this adapted Harry story, there are no page breakers, so If anything going on the story suddenly changes, let me know so I can edit it. I don't tend to check on any mistakes either, I'm just a lazy mf continue reading)

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It was Saturday morning, and I was looking for everything to kill the free time without Dasha; so I accepted the coffee with Chris, I supposed it was a good idea.

Chris took me to a cafe close to the apartment which reminded me immediately of the day I passed the place with Denis, however, the emotion wasn't the same.

"Can I ask why you came to Venice?", he said, when the girl was placing our cups on the table.

"Well, I came to visit Dasha. And to take a break of my daily life", I explained, giving a sip out of my coffee.

The flavor of cappuccino traveled down my mouth to my throat.

"Oh, so you live with your parents?", he inquired.

"No", he said, and it came out a little dry as I had expected. "My parents died in a accident".

"Oh, forgive me, I shouldn't have asked", his beautiful angelical face turned compromising.

"No, no don't worry", I muttered.

 "You know? My parents also died", he began to play with his cup while his gazed went deeper into the dark liquid it contained.

I waited for him to continue, patient to whatever he'd say.

"Well, in reality, my mother died giving birth to  me. My father, well, the man who got my mother pregnant; left", he explained, his tone bitter.

"Oh", I muttered.

I didn't know what else to say, but I understood him very well, at least both of us had something in common. We didn't have parents.

"Since then you've lived with your aunt?", I asked.

"Yes. My aunt has taken good care of me, she's done an excellent job for nineteen years and I couldn't be more thankful.

There I fell into realization that Chris was in the glorious stage of the nineteen springs.

"How nice of your aunt", I said, and remembered when I said, or thought, she was a bitter old lady.

He smiled and I remembered Denis smile. If I had to compare, it'd be very difficult to give someone first place. But a small voice in my head whispered quickly Denis name.

The afternoon with Chris was excellent , his way of being so mature and natural was what I had resulted to admire, beside his beautiful delicate face, of course. When I noticed the time, we were already in the apartments. It was past seven with fifteen minutes.

"I had a great time, Chris, thank you very much", I said as I placed a foot outside the elevator, when I noticed then the door of Dashas' apartment was decorated by a beautiful gold angel. That kept a gaze on us and his arms crossed with indifference; always so elegant.

I was surprised to see the owner of the majority of my thoughts. Even though I slowly retracted in that idea; Denis can't be the owner of my grey material.

"When you ever want to repeat this, I'm willing too", he said, with that nice smile of his on his face, making my gaze go back on Chris.

I directed my gaze to Chris and with a head gesture I greeted him.

He responded the same way.

"Later", Chris came close, and kissed my cheek.

I felt the warm and soft contact of his lips over it, but my head still functioned perfectly like before. No thoughts interrupted, no stupidness internally , simply nothing. 

However,  Denis gaze was on the act.