That Stupid Little Waiter

Chapter 12 - The Spring Admist the Winter Breeze

How did they get to this point?

How was it that this very morning, they were still talking like usual, and now here they were standing motionlessly in Vincent's apartment, with not a single word exchanged between them?

Perhaps it all started with that phone call they had merely an hour ago, the one where Vincent abashedly told Rody that he wanted to see him and invited him over to his apartment, even though it had only been two hours since the closing time of the bistro. Normally Rody would go over there right away, but one look at his fridge before he headed over hit him with the realization that he barely had anything left in there, and knowing Vincent, he would give Rody another earful for living off fast food again or worse, send groceries his way sometimes without warning. Therefore, with a tired slam of the fridge, Rody figured he would stop by the convenient store on his way to La Gueule de Saturne.

Vincent worried for him too much, he occasionally thought, but was it really true or he had simply never known what it was to be taken care of?

Rody pondered as he glanced up at the snowflakes that was falling down from the sky, adorning his hair that swayed with the cold breeze outside. If Rody had to be brutally honest, never would he have thought Vincent was the overly doting type-and he was right, Vincent wasn't, considering the fact he would sometimes take Rody's cute flirting attempts too seriously, or practically see the hint go flying over his head. But Vincent was doting in his own ways. Vincent was doting from the way he would scold Rody non-stop after catching him trying to skip lunch by not bringing any food with him to work, all the while cooking up a gourmet dish that he called a "quick meal", one that Rody would've never dreamt of affording with his prior twenty-eight minimum wage jobs, with his colleagues teasing him that it was his "boyfriend privileges" in the background. Vincent was doting when Rody found himself waking up on Vincent's lap, his fingers running through his auburn locks as his eyes followed the words in the book he was reading, his presence serene as though leaving this moment of rest to Rody. And he was doting when he laid his eyes on Rody, his beautiful body basked in the golden light as Rody stirred awake from his slumber.

They said Vincent was not a man of flowery language, yet each action of his, every time Vincent gently whispered words of love in Rody's ears or professed his deepest desires without even realizing how straightforward it was, it was each worth a garden of blossoming spring. And somehow, somewhere down the path to it, Vincent had decided Rody would be the one to witness the garden in its most beautiful of glory, the garden filled with butterflies that flutter in Rody every time he caught sight of Vincent even from afar.

It still felt rather weird to accept being doted on rather than the other way around, but it was a kind of weird that Rody welcomed. It was weird because it was different. And perhaps, it was weird because it made Rody realize how much he needed it.

"Please stay, sir!"

Rody raised an eyebrow as the pleading words reached his ears, ones that just seemed to kept multiplying and getting louder the more he approached them, and as he turned the corner of the street, he found the source of the voices.

"Wait, we beg of you!"

"Sir! Is it really true?"

"Please answer us!"

"We need more details, if those were really your words!"

In front of his eyes was a big crowd, a big mess of a commotion, to the point that if it hadn't been for what he was hearing, Rody would've been convinced a horrible accident happened and everyone was looking to get every little bit of information they could get.

Well, perhaps the last part was true. Judging from the microphones, cameras and notebooks they were holding and what they were shouting, Rody could safely assume it was a famous person that was standing amongst the crowd so unsettlingly enormous, it was engulfing him and drowning out his voice, if he even managed to speak at all from the overwhelming pressure of the reporters and journalists. Even when his face was barely in sight with the crowd swarming him like an angry broken bee hive, Rody was still able to tell it must not be just any famous person-it had to be somewhere with a pretty sizeable reputation, one that could be heard of from all around the world, for the reporters to be clawing every juicy detail from him like it was the last thing they did. Whether their commitment was scary, or so scary it was admirable, it did pique Rody's curiosity about what they were trying to get out of this person.