My Chocomallows Cake by ARIE78 (on hold)

Chapter 17

  Three months. Twelve weeks. Eighty four days of having lived with someone. Well, that was a record. Considering an almost-demolished kitchen and the fact that his apartment looked like a rat's nest. Having to pick after his clothes every morning and doing the laundry, having to tutor him with what little he knew and having to make sure that Beam didn't get hurt doing reckless things.

On retrospect, it was amazing that Forth had survived this long. Especially with a boy like him.

But no matter how much he felt that the boy was nothing but trouble, he'd grown used to having him around. For one thing, Forth didn't have to force himself to go to the familymart everytime he ran out of supplies. He had Beam for that. Second of all, it was always free entertainment to watch Wayo bullying him and Phana passing on his worldly wisdom... which Beam struggled to understand. And then... most importantly, Forth liked watching him eat his cooking. The expressions, the gratitude and the cheerful acknowledgment.

Forth Jaturapom had spent the last few years, trying to be recognized by food critics and somewhere along the way, he'd lost it. That whole passion for cooking. Yet with Beam, he didn't even know when he got it back.

The jest for food.

The jest for cooking.

Perhaps for life itself.

He didn't know when was the last time he'd smiled because he'd wanted to and not for appeasing a customer or the boss. Which is why, Forth'd got him a present one day.

A soccerball.

A perfectly appropriate thank you present for a nineteen year old, right?

"Why?"

"What why?"

"What do I do with the ball?"

"You play soccer with it."

"I don't remember wanting to play soccer."

"You didn't I'm just giving it to you."

"Why?"

"Because I felt like it."

"Why?"

"Just shut up and take it!"

And that was how Beam was stuck with a soccerball. He looked cluelessly at the man in front. Forth just grunted and pulled him out of the apartment.

There was something wrong with this guy. He was irritable and yet did stuff which Beam didn't even want, like hard binding his schoolbooks, make him lunch, buy him clothes, buy him mangas, buy him a pet goldfish (which is in Phana's apartment anyway), stitch his torn clothes, share his lotion ("I'm not putting on that disgusting goo-ey thing!" "Shut up you're skin is exfoliating!") and now finally a soccer ball.

Funnily enough Forth refused to teach him how to cook. ("You destroyed my kitchen twice!") But that's rough, people should keep on trying, right? Beam wanted to cook for himself so that Forth wouldn't need to slug for him every time but then he always insisted on doing so and despite bitching about dirty bathrooms and floors never complained about feeding him.

Forth placed the ball in front of him when they made it to the park. He looked at it and well, your supposed to roll it on the ground, right? That couldn't be too hard.

He aimed a kick at the ball mustering up all his might.

ONE. TWO. THREE.

Suddenly he was facing the green grass with an odd pain in his palms and knees.

Forth groaned in frustration from behind him.

And groan he did.

Because to any innocent bystander, it was impossible by physics to even 'trip' over a ball. Yet, Beam- wonderboy extraordinary managed to do just that.