Nuriel is an eighteen-year-old senior in high school. Together with his friends Noah, Lucian and Caden, he has formed a band. He yearns for some change in his life, though he wouldn't know what; he gets what he wishes for when he meets Jerah, who turns his life upside down and makes his heart and brain contradict each other. Will he ever give in to what his feelings tell him, or will he allow his senses to deny them forever?

Sing For Me

After a while, I wake up because my head is itching. I scratch my head, surprised to find something else there. Wondering what it is, I open my eyes, squinting against the light, and stretch out. But then again, I feel something else. I look up to see a frowning Jerah pulling away his hand, not looking away from his book for even a second. 


I try to sit up quickly, ashamed. This, however, makes me lightheaded, forcing me to lean against both the couch and the boy behind me. 


It takes a while for my vision to return to normal and the words to get through to my brain. I sit up normally, putting some distance between us. "I don't know. Something was tickling my head," I tell him while stretching out. "It itched, so I woke up." I look back at Jerah, who is putting his book away and has turned to me as well. 


"Oh, I'm sorry. Are you ready to continue?" He puts away the pillows and gets closer to me. I tense up, not too comfortable with it, as I had purposefully increased the distance not too long ago. "I took a quick look at the things you made since lunch, and I want to talk about some of them," he continues without noticing anything, as he grabs the papers I left on the table. 


"How late is it? Why are you sorry? Did I do things wrong?" I ask, not yet fully awake but already very confused. One of those questions is answered by looking at the answers I filled in; about half of them are wrong. I sigh. 


"It's 3 o'clock. We're missing out on two days this week, so we can't waste any time. Let's go over it," Jerah answers most of my questions. Before I can remind him of the third one, he pulls my attention to the mini exam. "How about we begin here?" 


A whole hour later, we're finally done. "That's all. If you want, you can go over it a few more times at home instead of here. I don't know how much longer Aki can keep my brothers and sisters upstairs." Jerah hands me the papers. 


"They seem to be very nice kids." I smile. Ever since I was little, I loved looking after people younger than me. Now that I'm an adult, I absolutely adore children, especially toddlers. 


"Yeah, they are. I'm glad they aren't troublemakers. But they can still be very loud, and will probably ask you a whole load of questions." The tall boy lets out a small sigh. 


After finally putting back the distance between us, I get up and walk towards the door. Jerah follows and opens the front door for me. I put on my shoes and jacket, go out, then turn around, facing the boy who just wasted a whole day of his break on me. "Thank you. It means a lot to me that you want to spend your free time on this. On me." 


He looks at me, a bit surprised, frowning. We stand in silence for a second, and just when I'm about to apologize for saying something weird, he smiles. it is barely visible, but genuine. "You're welcome," he says, patting my head once, then closing the door. 


Still processing what just happened, I stand in front of the door for a while, my face feeling warm, before I quickly turn around and run home.


18