Falling asleep had been a trial for Pelham, not when he had to make sure April really had fallen asleep on the couch. Even then, he couldn't bring himself to get to his feet, let alone carry her upstairs to his room. He found that it was quite of a huge challenge, especially when his head was in turmoil.

She had been intoxicated, Pelham was aware of that. But her words echoed in his head as he spent most of the night slouched at an odd angle in the armchair next to the couch occupied by April, mulling things over in his head. He hadn't been able to come to a conclusion then.

As much as he didn't want to think about it - her feelings for him, his feelings for Lucio, whatever the latter was supposed to imply - he couldn't help but probe her words one by one, like treading the stairs in the dark. If he were being honest and sincere with himself, he was downright terrified. But the issue with Pelham was that he liked to push things away, pretending they never existed even if they were right in front of him.

Here he thought denying his sexual orientation had been the only obstacle he had to endure and come through.

But life is full of surprises, Pelham thought as he watched April sleep, still in her jacket, though he had draped his own sweater and blanket over her body when she dozed off the previous night. The girl snored - with her mouth agape - in her sleep, and moved a lot. Pelham was relatively grateful that he and her rarely ever slept on the same bed - even when they were together - otherwise she would've had bruised him in her sleep as though they were in some kind of a karate session.

Pelham had been awake since the crack of dawn, and was unable to go back to sleep until now - not when his back ached from the position he was in, as well as the tumult still raging in his head. All he had been doing since then was stare blindly at April, all ethical matters cast into oblivion, as though he was trying to force some words of explanation out of her.

Sunlight spilled through the closed curtains, flooding the living room in a golden hue. The silence was only broken by the soft repetitive ticks of the pendulum clock and April's snores - the latter being the loudest noise in the room. Pelham was too worn out to move a limb. It's Saturday anyway, he told himself, sparing a glance at the pendulum clock hung on the wall across the room. He was certain April would wake up at noon.

He thought too soon, for April stirred in her sleep, her snores softening and turning into a long, satisfying yawn. She stretched her limbs before blinking her eyes. She looked groggy.

"Morning," Pelham spoke, surprising himself at hearing how steady his voice was.

At this, April blinked the sleep out of her eyes and craned her neck to look at where the voice came from. She squinted at Pelham, who was still sitting on the armchair next to her.

"Morning," she slurred, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles. "Where ... am I?"

"Narnia,"

"Sucks," she said, closing her eyes back. For a fleeting moment Pelham thought she had gone back to sleep. But then she spoke, "I thought I'd woken up in The Burrow."

"So you can meet Errol?"

A lazy chuckle escaped her throat, her eyes still closed. "What time is it?"

"Time for you to shower and drink a gallon of water,"

"Pelham," she sounded genuinely peeved, despite the hangover.

"It's seven,"

"Damn," she whispered. "And ... how long have you been up?"

"Fifteen minutes ago," Pelham shrugged. Truth was, he didn't know exactly how long he had been up. What he knew, though, was how the gradient of golden light had shifted in the living room for the past few minutes as it got brighter outside. Now he mused whether he had been up for an hour.

Gingerly, April sat up on the couch and took off her denim jacket, so now she was in her tank top. She studied Pelham in the face with a look that Pelham couldn't quite decipher. Almost at once, her words from last night came flooding back into his head. He almost flinched at the memory.

"How bad was it?" she asked him.

"What was?"

"My hangover," she said a matter-of-factly, slouching back and closing her eyes.

"How should I know?" he said, almost laughing, but stopped when a thought struck him: did she even remember what she'd said? "You're the trolleyed one, not me. How many did you-"

"Two,"

Pelham was astonished. "You are aware," he said slowly, enunciating the syllables, "that you are a light drinker."

"It'll never happen again, I promise,"

"You keep telling yourself that,"

"Really," said April. "On a scale of one - being okay - to five - really smashed - how bad was it?"

"You drunk-dialled me and ran across the street to my place after midnight,"

April released a heavy sigh. "I remember calling you," she said, still with her eyes closed. "But I don't remember running. I guess it's five."

"Oh, wouldn't know,"

"'Cause you're never drunk," she commented. "Not yet anyway."

"You don't remember at all, do you?" Pelham asked, selecting his words carefully, sensing that now was the right time to chew over the topic they'd exchanged last night. "What you said and all?"

April opened her eyes and stared at him. She shook her head. "What, did I say something embarrassing?"

She clearly had no idea that she'd expressed her real feelings, that she'd plainly confessed to Pelham about her seemingly perpetual infatuation to him. Somehow, Pelham wished he hadn't been there to hear it all. Now it was like the words lived in his head and only there, as though they came from him instead of April.

Really, Pelham wanted to say it. But he thought better of it. "Oh, I wish you did," he said instead in an attempt to lighten the mood. He wasn't sure to whom he was really trying to perk up here; him or April?

"Charming,"

"You're more charming when you sleep,"

"Did you watch me sleep?" she almost shrieked, her eyes wide.

"Your motor-like snores kept me awake," he noted. "Had a dream that Dad bought me a motorcycle. Roared the engine and woke up realising it was you snoring. I'm still disappointed."

"You can be a git sometimes, you know that?" she shook her head, sighing. "You could've gone and slept in your room."

"Climbing the stairs is like trying to scale Everest Mountain,"

"Then why couldn't you sleep?"

Pelham shrugged. Despite his fatigue, despite feeling the heavy bags under his eyes, Pelham simply couldn't bring himself to have a decent sleep.

Footsteps could be heard in the corridor, and soon Jody emerged into the living room, wearing a tracksuit. She was too busy fiddling with her tangled earpieces to notice that she wasn't alone in the room. Unlike her son, Jody liked to maintain a vigorous lifestyle by getting up early and going for a jog - even if it was Saturday.

It was April who drew her attention. "April!" Jody exclaimed, looking relatively stunned to see her. "I ... when did you ..."

"Last night," April answered. "Your humane son was generous enough let me crash on the couch."

"Why is that?"

"Inebriated," she said casually.

Pelham's mother raised both of her eyebrows, but made no further comment as she proceeded to the kitchen. "Would you like some breakfast, April?" she called, as though her son wasn't in the room at all.

"No, thank you, Mrs Nixon," said April. "I've got to head home anyway."

"Whoa," Pelham stopped her when she made to stand up. "You sure you don't want to get some more rest?"

"I could ask you the same question,"

"I'm not the hammered one," Pelham pointed out. When April sighed and sunk back into the couch, Pelham handed her a bottle of water he'd kept on the coffee table throughout the night. "At least let me drive you home, okay?"

At that precise moment, Pelham's mother was walking across the living room on her way out. "Mrs Nixon, why is your son so charming?" April called out.

Jody halted in her tracks and - on what seemed to be the first time since the past few days - fixed her gaze on Pelham. He immediately felt self-conscious. He felt like a stranger in an unwonted property. And he hoped - he wished - she would say something to him. A greeting, at least.

She did say something. But it wasn't like what he had hoped. "Careful. He hides behind those charms," she said to April in an adequately humorous tone, though it sounded utterly wry to Pelham's ears.

By that, Jody walked away. April glanced at Pelham, a small frown visible behind her auburn bangs. "What-" she began.

"I'll get you some spare clothes."

*

Pelham walked aimlessly after he had dropped April off at her house using her car, unable to come up with a specific destination. She only lived two miles away from him, somewhere uptown. She had insisted that he stay for a while - eat something, at least - but he declined the offer. He could use the thirty-minute walk clearing his head anyway, especially when he didn't feel like heading back to his house.

There was the abandoned playground. But when he passed it, a pair of old-married couple was already occupying the area. Sitting together on a bench, the woman's head resting on her husband's shoulder with her greying curly hair blown by the breeze, they looked like they were the only ones left on Earth. Pelham reckoned they didn't want to be interrupted.

So he proceeded.

Almost as though his feet were walking of their own accord, Pelham found himself walking in the direction of Lucio's house. He drowned out any voices - April's slurred ones, mainly - from his head as he shoved his hands deep inside his pockets, trying to keep his mind as barren as possible. Pointless, for he could still hear them echoing in his head, like a music that was stuck in his head as though it was being played on a loop. I wish you can't control your feelings like I can't control mine, she'd said, as profound as she was in her most inebriated state.

She might not remember saying it, but the words lived in his head now, adding up the number of miseries he was already stomaching. Then there was also the part about Pelham's ostensible infatuation towards Lucio. I get why he stole your heart already. So much for trying - wanting - to contradict the statement, Pelham found himself at a loss of words. He had been pondering over April's sentences in his head that he was certain they were implanted in his brain without a chance of being wiped off; You're a piece of art, Pelham. And I don't blame you; art can't inspect itself.

He assumed there really was no way around it. Still, being the obstinate boy that he was, he paid no heed to it. It was there, all right, the voices screaming at him, demanding to be heard. It was like there was the other part of him living at the outskirts of his realm who was more sagacious at handling reality.

It was until then did he feel his phone vibrate, breaking him out of reverie.

When he extracted his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen, he saw that he had received a text message from Roshon. One word.

Roshon: Pelham

Like coping with everything that had been happening around him, Pelham ignored it altogether; the message; Roshon.

"Pelham!" Aunt Fabia beamed when she opened the front door later on, seeing Pelham with his windswept hair standing on the portico of her house.

Pelham was somwhat stunned to hear this. "You remember my name," he commented, though he himself had forgotten her name.

"Of course I do," she said, waving her hand dismissively.

"Most people who met me for the second time called me 'Patrick' or 'Percy'," said Pelham. "I had a woman calling me 'Pauline' once."

"Well, Lucio talks a lot about you, so," she grinned. "Speaking of, he didn't mention you'd be coming."

"'Cause I didn't inform him,"

"Romantic," she nodded. "Try the chimney next time, why don't you?"

Pelham looked at her weirdly. "So, is he around?"

"Yes, yes," she said, stepping aside and admitting him in. "You know where to find him."

Pelham did know where to look. After all, even though he had only been here once, he could still remember where Lucio's bedroom was - particularly the conversations they had. Only when he reached Lucio's door - which had been left open - the boy wasn't around. Pelham could see an unmade bed, its white sheets rumpled and pillows dented, as though Lucio had simply jumped out of bed the moment he woke up. A laptop sat on the bedside table, its screen black, and next to it sat a white mug.

Pelham came to a feasible conclusion that Lucio might be in the shower. That was when he heard the voice from the next room - a melodic one, somewhat muffled by the plunks of what was obviously a piano; someone singing.

Enthralled, Pelham moved towards the next room at the far end of the corridor. The door leading into it had been left ajar. He stepped close to it and peered inside.

Lucio, with his back facing Pelham, was seated on a stool behind a studio piano. Like the last time Pelham had been here, the boy wore no shirt. Judging by the dark drawstring trousers he had on - one side slipping a little below his hip - and his tousled dark hair, Pelham could only conclude that he hadn't taken a shower.

But the boy was singing.

Pelham could distinctly remember asking Lucio whether he could sing something, a few months previously, during the school camp. But the boy had been too shy then. Now, as unethical as it was to watch your friend sing without a shirt on, Pelham could finally hear it - listen to him. His voice was soft and harmonious, his accent remaining evident throughout the keys.

It was only when Lucio lifted his fingers from the keys did Pelham finally speak, "What was that for, a Youtube cover?" Because clearly, he was far too captivated to start an appropriate conversation.

Lucio swore in Spanish and whirled around, his eyes wide and ... alight. "You!" he said, upon seeing Pelham leaning against the doorframe.

"Good morning,"

Lucio seemed to be fidgeting in his seat. The boy was shirtless - again. Pelham couldn't blame him. "I was ... that was ..." he stuttered, cursing more in Spanish, his cheeks going crimson.

"For a Youtube cover," Pelham said. "Way to attract an audience, though. No shirt on? Good for click-baits. You'll have the ladies keeling over. Or probably some guys too - like Tyler Oakley."

"I'm not making a cover for Youtube, first of all. Second, why didn't you tell me you were coming over? I could put a shirt on. Showered, at least," Lucio said, avoiding Pelham's eyes.

Pelham honestly didn't know why his feet had brought him here in the first place. "You look good, don't worry," he said nonchalantly. When he realised what he had just said - what it could possibly imply - he felt himself flush. "I mean, well ... it's Saturday. I haven't, you know, changed my clothes from last night myself, as you can see. So ..."

He trailed off. He didn't know what else there was to say. It was like he had only come over to see Lucio Alves and nothing more. Now what? he had never felt so awkward.

"Is something wrong?" Lucio shifted in his seat so now he was plainly facing Pelham, sounding unhypocritically concerned.

"No?" Pelham answered, a question in itself, as he - almost inadvertently - sat on top of a box. He realised how the room was nearly barren of furnitures.

"You sure?"

"I guess not?"

"You're not helping,"

Pelham's lips tugged into a small, jaded smile. He wanted to talk about April. But he held himself. There were questions still unanswered, loitering in his head. Besides that, he didn't want to make Lucio uncomfortable, especially about what April had said about himself.

What does she know? he thought aggravatedly, averting his gaze from Lucio's face. When they landed on Lucio's bare torso, Pelham immediately looked at the floor, as though such thing was blasphemous. He hadn't noticed that Lucio was slightly toned.

"Hey," Pelham spoke at last, looking up at Lucio. "D'you think you could teach me a few chords? In exchange for our dull Mathematics sessions?"

"They're not dull," Lucio noted. "You're a great teacher."

"So much for not trying to call me a Maths geek,"

"You're too negative,"

"Anyway, I'm sure you're a great pianist,"

"I'm not a pianist," Lucio shrugged.

Pelham raised his eyebrows. "So, a person who plays the piano is not a pianist?" he said. "What do you call yourself, then, a piano-er?"

"Shut up and get me a shirt and we'll start,"

"I'm not your butler,"

"What do you wanna be, then?"

For some reason, Pelham felt himself shiver. "Fine, I'll get you a damn shirt." he said eventually, walking out of the room.