"Grassi, I'm a monster." He was sad.
I reached to pat his back. "You are far from being a monster." It's uncomfortable and awkward to comfort him but I owe him, and it's the right thing to do. "You saved me, you saved us. And Doctor Urnel said you have the strength of nine men, or could be more!" But although what I saw was only an exaggeration of what happened, I still couldn't get off my mind that the sight was baffling. Drev with pure black eyes.
He smiled. I couldn't tell if it was a genuine sad one because his smile was always the sad one, except the one when he first rode a bike. "You are right, but I didn't know I am capable of doing that. Aren't you afraid of me?"
I comforted you. I am not afraid of you. You saved me, but I still don't trust you. "Of course, not." I laughed. I was afraid when I saw the eyes. Grassi, stop. It was only a hallucination.
"I'm sorry I broke Iris." His head was bowed down, his hair covered his eyes.
It took guts to ignore the fact that I saw him drove Iris into the tadalsi's chest. I smiled widely, trying to shake off the bloody scene.
"Dad will buy me a car," I said. The bodies were sold to the meat store downtown as what Dad said and the extracted saliva was bought for medical purposes at fair price. The money will be used to buy me a new car since we got nothing else to spend the money on, and fortunately, our money wasn't strict because of the well-flow of the orange business.
We were lined up with bows and arrows pointing to a target, except for Relis who was helping Mr. Lacna in facilitating of how to hold the weapons the correct way. I was glad I didn't know archery so Relis had to angle my arms and reposition my legs for the correct stunt, that means bunch of touches from him. My stomach was already somersaulting from the thought as he eyed as one by one to look for errors. Then it was my turn to be studied. Relis sighed and went behind me to re-angle my arms.
"Don't turn up your elbow to much, you will miss the target." He tapped my arm to lower it down to the right angle. I did as he wanted and slowly moved my legs, pointing to the wrong direction without getting caught of meaning to do it. "A little to that side, please," he said, nudging my foot with his. "Okay, that."
I mentally danced in victory with Relis' remnant touches on my skin that was preserved on my brain that I could still imagine the weight of his hands on my arms, I mean that was less touches as I expected but enough to make my day. Sadly, it wasn't long when he moved onto Drev and gave him a brotherly smile.
He eyed Drev, his fingers tapping his chin. "Do you do archery?" He seemed to be impressed and I wished I didn't act stupid. But thinking of his touches, I won his attention anyway.
"No, it's my first time to hold these things."
"Wow. And I heard you killed three tadalsis alone?"
It was out on news but Drev didn't let himself be interviewed. The interviewers were outside the house when they wanted to interview him and I was asleep at that time right before Drev could talk to me about what happened. So basically, he thought he was a monster so he didn't show up to them for an interview. Anyhow, he was the headline of the newspapers for a week.
"Yes," Drev answered with hesitation. He was uncomfortable receiving praises the moment he walked into school since the news and I felt sympathy for he didn't seem to be impressed at all with the flooding shoulder patting and squeaky voices of admiration. It only made him bow his head low and give out awkward smiles.
Relis shifted on his foot, glancing at Mr. Lacna who was busy facilitating the others. "The permit was accepted since tadalsi isn't endangered. Wanna team up with me?"
Drev gave up the bow and arrow to his side that obscured Relis' face as he talked with him. "I'm teaming up with Grassi." His voice polite and heavily accented.
Relis shot me a glance and smiled. "Group of three for one tadalsi. Would you mind if I join your team, Grassi?" He gazed at Drev, both waiting for my reply.
Oh, sweet orange! Of course.
"And Japer?" I replied, trying my best not to squeal. Relis is teaming up with us!
He gazed at Japer, struggling to pull off the string of his bow as what Mr. Lacna instructed him to do so. He sighed, "He'll be fine with it. I guess he is tired of my face, anyway."
I chuckled, trying to calm myself down so I wouldn't trigger my blood from going to my face to avoid blushing. "Sure."
