After the seemingly infinite, yet fun walk they had, they have reached their destination, her house. Her house towers over them and makes them feel like an ant. It is so wide that it could swallow you and two trucks beside you on opposite sides whole with a single bite, and it is so tall that it could cover the whole road ahead and still manage to destroy the property in front of it.
"So, this is where you drop me off now," she said with a glib tone, with her mouth stretching her cheeks all the way to the max.
I was stunned. She looks so beautiful, even more beautiful right at this moment. Her smile, her teeth, and more importantly, her eyes. They make my eyes melt, in a good way. I feel like I was just fighting for my life in a terrible and senseless war, and suddenly, I find a glamorous, heavenly bottle of water that shines like the soda filled with ice in a glass of water standing on your table at 3AM. It is utterly tempting. If you were not to consume it or even stare at it, it would feel like you're committing a grave sin to humanity itself. For a brief moment, I could not speak at all, her eyelashes were so bright and wide that they blinded me, and her brown eyes kept on shining from the inside like a star, and her lips were soft and red. I feel my cheeks boiling from the sight of her, and finally, after being mesmerized by her, after a few seconds I finally managed to reply to her.
"Oh, yes… we're here, indeed," I replied as I gently let go of her hands.
"Thank you for walking me home and entertaining me while we were at it; it definitely made me feel a lot safer compared to before."
"No problem, and you better get used to this, because from this day onward, I will always walk you home."
Her eyes widened from shock and suddenly melted back to how they were as quickly as they widened. Her cheeks were all flustered from what I just told her.
"Are you sure about that? But we're not even sure if we would work out as a couple..." she replied, her voice weak and filled with doubts, yet it is obvious that deep inside, she wishes for him to fulfill his promise.
He obviously noticed that, so he just simply replied:
"I don't care. What I am doing this for is not for our possible relationship; rather, it is for you only. I do not care if we were to end up not together; I only wish for you to be safe and sound every day, and I plan to do everything I can to guarantee that whenever I can."
"I—is that so?" She said with wavering utterance, unable to contain herself and unable to look at his face directly, her cheeks all red, like a sweet and fresh cherry that is just begging for you to bite it.
"Of course, your safety and well-being are far more important than the relationship that we are not even sure of right now." He held her hands and knelt down to face her from the ground. "Look up; people might get the wrong idea about this," he added before backing away from her a little bit before standing upright again.
"Alright, then. Thank you, thank you so much for caring about me, Iyung," she responded to him before wrapping her arms around him, covering even his back, and tightly squeezing him like a human-sized pillow.
The boy was caught off guard; never in a million years would he have imagined this exact moment happening. He never even once thought of it, not for a single bit. This kind of anomaly only registered to his mind at this moment because of her, because she's the one who did it first, before he could even comprehend its existence.
After a short amount of time, she unwrapped her arms around him, gently bringing them back from where they used to be, but before she could say her goodbye to him, he placed his hand on top of her head, patting her gently like she is nought but a mere puppy, with a satisfied smile on his face at that.
"Alright, then. I should get going now, Iris. See you tomorrow again," he announced to her before letting go of her head and her soft and silky hair, with its smell sticking on his palm.
"Alright, take care on your way home, alright? We're connected on our socials, so message me anywhere when you're home! That's an order." She responded with a bright, yet sweet smirk on her face with a little, yet noticeable blush on her cheeks.
"Ay, ay! Yes, Madam! Understood!" He replied back sarcastically to her with an even bigger grin on his face before turning himself back to the road, as she silently watched him walk back to the road from her house until she could no longer see his silhouette before opening the door to their house herself.
"Holy fucking shit. Her house costs more than ours and our whole entire bill for years. Holy fuck. What the hell?! I expected her to be rich, but not THAT rich. What the hell did her parents do in their childhood? Were they also already rich? I can't imagine how friendless they were when they were kids, if they worked really hard, that is. I know we live close to each other, but because I never really explored this area, I never really saw her house."
He muttered to himself inside his mind as he unconsciously walked through the road twice the speed compared to before when he was walking her home, truthfully, this is just how fast he walks on a regular basis, he had to consciously slow himself down to match her rhythm, so she wouldn't get left behind, though this kind of action may normally be annoying for someone, I mean letting someone slow you down is bearly beneficial, for him, it was a great change of habit, for the first time in years, he was able to walk that slowly alongside someone, and that someone just turns out to be the girl he used to fantasize about, the girl whom he liked for years now, the one who managed to keep his attention and affection to herself, limiting him from finding another, without even trying or being aware of it.
After a tiring and yet inspiring walk where his mind and heart are filled with a bunch of thoughts, some of which are overly exaggerated concerning her, he finally reached his house. His house has a second floor, and in the front, you could see four sliding windows on the first floor, with one of them belonging to their kitchen, two of them belonging to their living room, and one that stands a lot higher yet is one-fourth the size compared to the other three belonging to their bathroom. Their house is of a middle-class style, not so fancy, yet not so ugly either. You could see the gate, their steel gate, standing tall in front of you with a color of black, contrasting the color of their house on the front, and they also have a wall fence with a white color as well, contrasting their gate. A questionable color scheme, but we're not here to talk about their color taste.
When you enter the gate, you only need to talk for no more than a minute, because their house and their gate have little to no gap. With it, he smoothly entered their house, left his shoes in front of their door, threw his bag on their living room couch, and then ran to his room on the second floor to change into his formal clothes, except he only changed his top because he was too lazy to take off his pants, as he considered it troublesome because of its size and the amount of effort you have to put in to remove it a lot.
He then went ahead and booted up his computer inside his room and immediately opened his browser and logged on to Facebook to update Iris that he was able to go home safe.
"Hello, Madam, I am finally home, safe and sound, delivering this heartfelt message towards you, alarming you thatI am indeed home and am now completing the task that you bestowed upon me.
Yours Truly, Marlan."
Sent.
And after only exactly a minute, she had seen it already and is now typing her reply.
"My dear Knight, I humbly salute you, and I show my gratitude towards you for fulfilling my simple task for you. I am greatly honored that you did so, and I am satisfied with your current action.
Yours sincerely, Iris."
He immediately viewed the message like a kid looking for his meal on the table five minutes after waking up.
His heart reacted to it, but being the fool that he is, he now cannot create a creative comeback for her, so instead of thinking more, he merely gave up and changed the topic immediately by asking, "So, how are you right now? Are you doing something?"
"No, not much. I am just bed rotting right now, you know. If stalking your profile on and off counts, maybe I was doing something…"
This message caught him off guard, like a cake suddenly flying to your face with the speed of 30 km/hr even though you are currently not present in any celebration. It was so unexpected and out of place, yet a cake is a cake; it's so sweet it's enough to heighten your brain's energy to allow you to function nonstop for days. Hence, you ended up not complaining at all; instead, you gladly and selfishly consumed it and let it go over your head.
So, the problem right now is, how would he respond to that? This guy is not the type to have a flirting conversation this deep (for him, at least). He didn't expect her to take the initiative this early; he thought she was merely this innocent and elegant girl who would prefer for the guy to take the initiative with her until she falls in love with him, especially since this is their first day of having a proper conversation together.