Mentor - Peeta Mellark

Chapter 6 - Bread boy

16/04/2019

I enter the room and see Peeta struggling to carry a vomit covered Haymitch into the bathroom. So it was probably Peeta who told me I could come in.

I stifle a laugh, "Need some help Bread boy?" He looked surprised that I wanted to help him," That would be useful, thank you." I go over to them and help him carry Haymitch to the shower. Haymitch is quite heavy, but it turns out that Peeta is incredibly strong. Probably from working in his parents' bakery.

Peeta blows his a few loose hairs from his once slicked back hair out of his face and gives me a small smile. "Thanks for the help, Alexis." I smile back," No problem Bread boy, that was probably my job anyway, I should be thanking you. " He nods," I'm going to help Haymitch shower." I raise my eyebrow, this boy keeps surprising me. The length he wants to go to help someone. Well, that or he wants to suck up to his mentor. I agree with him," You go do that and I'm going to pick out fresh clothes from his room."

I leave the bathroom and walk over to Haymitch's closet. I decide on pyjamas as it's already getting quite late. I choose typical capitol pyjamas, grey silk with orange dots, perfect for Haymitch.

A few minutes later Peeta comes out to get the pyjamas. I sit down on the bed to wait until he needs me again. And after a while, he does need me to help carry Haymitch to his bed. When that's done Peeta and me silently walk out of the room and carefully close the door.

"So...," Peeta says. "So?" I ask. He shuffles around on his feet. "I was wondering if we could talk later?" Oh no there's the mentor thing again. Haymitch is right, he's indeed very eager. And I was not even planning on helping him at all. But I'm probably going to help him at least a bit. Because I owe him from the time he helped me. Or at least that's the reason I tell myself. But not today, I don't want to talk about the Games right this moment.

I bite my lip," That depends on what you want to talk about." He shrugs," Well since you said you didn't want to mentor without Haymitch I thought we could just talk about something else," he pauses," You know to get to know each other because we're going to have to get along for a while." He's right about that so I nod," Follow me."

We walk towards the end of the train, or my secret spot I like to call it. Okay, it's not really secret but not a lot of people come here. I just loved to come here when I wanted to think during my victory tour. The whole ceiling is glass and you can see the beautiful natural scenery passing by us quickly.

I take a seat on the round sofa and pat on the spot opposite of me for Peeta to sit down. "Come take a seat Bread boy." He sits down and asks," Why do you always call me that ?" I shrug, " You work in a bakery don't you." He nods and a silence falls over us. But it wasn't awkward, the silence gave us a chance to admire the beautiful scenery outside of the window.

After a few moments, Peeta speaks up," What's your favourite colour?" I raise my eyebrow," Why do you want to know that?" He nervously shifts in his seat," No particular reason." "Blue," I answer him," Like the sky on a sunny day." He visibly perks up when I tell him that. "What's yours?" I ask him. "Orange," Peeta says. "Orange?" I say and laugh, "Like that fruit 'orange' from the capitol?" He shakes his head and laughs too," No more like a sunset kinda orange." I smile at him. That's indeed a beautiful colour.

Suddenly houses flash behind the window, we're probably passing through one of the districts. Peeta notices too. "Have you seen a lot of the other districts?" he asks curiously. I nod, " I saw all of them during my victory tour." He looks very interested and shuffles a bit closer to me on the sofa. " Which one did you like the most?" I think hard about that question. I liked a lot of different aspects from different districts, like the forest in district 11 and all of the technology from 3. "District 4," I answered," I love the sea and swimming in the waves."

He looks impressed," You can swim?" I nod," Gale taught me in the lake of the forest." His face falls a bit," I can't swim." And it's in that moment that I feel a huge wave of compassion for him fall over me. It doesn't surprise me that he can't swim, most of district 12 can't. But I personally can't imagine not being able to swim as it is one of my favourite things to do. "I can teach you someday." But we both know that I will probably never even get a chance to teach him.

"Peeta?" I say. "Yeah?" He answers. " Do you remember the time you gave me some of your lunch? I never really thanked you for that." He chuckles," You didn't have to, I had some food left anyway. It was nothing." To him maybe but it wasn't to me. But little did he know how much it meant to me back then, it gave me hope.

We talked and laughed for hours before it got too late and went back to our rooms to have a good night's rest. Tomorrow we will arrive at the Capitol where the sponsors will get their first view of the tributes. And as his mentor, I can't tolerate a tired looking tribute on the first day. Especially because more sponsors will benefit Katniss too.

The talk we had almost made me forget the situation we are in. Sadly I can't let it happen again, I can't get too close to him because he will be dead in a few weeks and I don't need more heartache.

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Some quality time with Bread boy ',:)
Hope you liked it.
However, I have a very important question.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to make Peeta fake date Katniss and secretly be together with Alexis. Or if I'm going to let them be together openly.
Let me know what you think, please!
Don't forget to leave a like :)