A Business Pleasure

Chapter 22: Ticklish?

Physics test today on calculating gravitational orbits and guess who is still on the bus and already 22minutes late 🤦‍♀️😂

It was astonishing how fast Ant could move, agitated or not. Dec had barely taken his eyes off of him for a second before he disappeared completely, both sides of the street empty and no sign of humans anywhere, besides the far-off sounding voices of children playing. After searching the streets for another few minutes, he tried to think of the places Ant would potentially go to think and the first that came to mind was their favorite place: the park.

It was crowded and filled with kids of all ages, running around, shouting for their parents to look at what they were doing, crying as they got scolded for pushing their brother or sister and some even sulking on a seat. He highly doubted Ant would have come here for some peace and quiet until he saw a small girl sitting on a man's lap under a tree as he showed her a flower and recognized the over-sized jacket she was wearing immediately. That could only be Ant.

"And that's why the flowers are all different colors," he heard him saw as he made his way over to the tree and the little girl giggled, taking each of the flowers Ant was handing to her. That sight made Dec smile wide enough that he was worried his face would split, especially when he wondered if one day, it would be their little girl on Ant's lap. That though, however, was best not thought of until this fiasco was resolved.

"Teaching her about flowers, Anth?" Dec grinned as he squatted down next to them. The girl waved at him cheerfully and he laughingly did the same.

"Just the basics," Ant grinned back, before telling her to go play with the other children for a while. She nodded eagerly and kissed him on the cheek before dashing off, the coat trailing behind her like a cape.

"You're going to freeze to death now, you know?" Dec watched her go and then took in Ant's thin sweater.

"I'll be fine. Cold hasn't bothered me before, plus she needed it more than me," Ant shrugged, "threadbare clothing isn't exactly very good for this type of weather either."

"Your generosity will be the death of you one day, you know that?" Dec sighed and then winced at the choice of words.

"I think there are plenty of other things that'll get me first," Ant responded with a chuckle, folding his knees to his chest and resting his head on top of them. The two of them sat in companionable silence for a few moments and just enjoyed the atmosphere around them. The sound of children laughter was oddly soothing in a way and Dec felt lightened in a matter of seconds. Whether Ant felt the same was a different matter.

"So why did you come here?" Dec asked, his voice oddly clear in the otherwise garbled noise.

"To be honest, I don't know. I saw this place while walking and I just....I wondered if my parents ever brought me to a park," Ant plucked at a strand of grass, "If they ever thought about the day that they'd be chasing me around the playground like all the other parents do. Hell, I even wonder if they thought about scolding me for hanging upside down off the monkey bars."

He sighed and looked over at a father holding his son up in the air as the toddler giggled and cooed, "I never had anything like that, you know. In Utopia, we were forced to raise ourselves and the older members would just give us advice on how to live. Some of the nicer ones would play with us, but those were few and far between. Every time I think about it now.....this was all stolen from me. I was supposed to have this life....and now I never will."

Dec didn't know what he could say to make him feel better, watching the other man lower his head to hide his face in his forearms. Admittedly, he himself hadn't had the best childhood with his parents caring only about their money, but he had had some good times with his grandparents and housekeeper. Ant didn't even have the chance for that.