Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 372. Quirky Dinner

When I left the bathroom, I found Henry with wet hair and a huge pile of clothes beside him on the floor, as he was in the midst of ’moving in’ and putting them one by one in my closet.

I put the sandcastle back into the past while he was distracted.

"You are so happy about bringing your clothes?" I mean, at least my closet was really big and should be able to handle Henry’s whole wardrobe in addition to mine.

He looked back with a huge grin, the wet hair partly covering his face but not able to hide his bright blue, penetrating gaze.

So fucking handsome and breathtakingly beautiful that I stopped in my tracks, completely frozen.

I am really weak to such beautiful things, aaaahh!

Seeing Henry not turning back to continue putting stuff away and staring at me, I felt the atmosphere heating up again.

"Stop the seducing. Let’s go eat; do the rest later."

I conjured up a towel and threw it in his face.

Oh, déjà vu.

"Like back then inside the club." Henry laughed as if he had read my thoughts.

Yeah. If putting the laundry inside the washing machine felt like a lifetime ago, then the moment Henry stalked me into the club and gifted Jordan a black eye felt like a fucking bunch of lifetimes.

"I thought the same." I stepped closer to him, and contrary to back then, I dried his hair for him while he bent down obediently.

"You think I am handsome, don’t you?"

"I literally told you today." I chuckled, not stopping the movement of my hands.

"Did you think so back then already?" His voice was muffled, but I felt he sounded much weaker.

Teleporting in the desert and acidifying a few corpses had probably sucked away quite a bit of his freshly regained energy.

"I thought so the first time I saw you appear in my class." I answered; words like these were now rolling over my tongue with so much ease it was fucking scary.

"Really...?"

"Yeah."

"You didn’t find me handsome when I beat you the night before?" He raised his head, with the towel still on it, and looked down at me with a broken smile, as if thinking of that memory hurt him.

"I didn’t have night vision back then." I chuckled and put my hand over his forehead.

Not really a fever, but he felt a bit warm.

"Unwell?" I asked, and he nodded.

"Weak and cold," he said, and when he saw me looking at the pile of clothes still on the floor, he stepped to the side to block my view, as if to prevent me from searching for something thicker than the shirt he was currently wearing.

"These things aren’t warm enough." His eyes hinted so obviously at my hands that there was no way for me not to understand.

I laughed and conjured up the hoodie I gave him for lunch.

"Should we stay here if you aren’t feeling well?" I helped him put the hoodie over his head and pull his arms through, like a parent would with a toddler...who was much taller.

"No." He hugged me from behind and steered me to the door, where he unlocked it, with his arm sneaking past mine.

We followed the voices into the kitchen, and the moment we entered, a stool was nearly thrown over, and the kid we brought zoomed in on me and hugged me tightly.

Henry, other than just growling slightly and putting the hood over his head, luckily behaved, maybe because a table of people was staring at us.

"Took you long enough!" My grandma snorted and turned back to eat first.

I ignored her and patted the kid’s back.

"How are you, buddy?" I asked the child.

He—this time I remembered his gender—leaned back and gave me a bright smile but didn’t answer further.

"Good kids don’t leave the table while eating," my grandma commented, and the boy zoomed back to his seat beside her.

For Henry and me, the part of the bench was free, the same spot we sat on while eating lunch.

"The kid looks like you," Danny giggled.

"Could be your son," Jordan chimed in when we sat down, me again beside Jordan and Henry beside me.

"No." Henry disagreed randomly and with annoyance, either because of the first statement, the second, or both.

My friends ignored him and continued eating, but I could feel their bafflement.

"Oh!" Danny suddenly clapped his hands as if he had an epiphany.

Everyone’s eyes turned to him, but he didn’t explain further and behaved like he hadn’t just yelled out.

Everyone here is quirky as fuck.

"So, how is the kid? What did the doctor say?" I asked, looking at the table for meat and not finding one.

I was nearly thankful, because I still remembered the cat vividly.

Though it also hinted that today’s sumptuous lunch was really an exception, whipped up to celebrate our return.

My grandmother apparently again makes things in her own passive-aggressive way, because without her explaining, one could get the idea that each meal would be like the meaty lunch, only to then be smacked by reality.

"The doctor said he is physically in perfect condition," Ethan said.

I filled Henry’s plate with potatoes and vegetables while he filled our glasses with water, and I looked at Ethan.

I felt a bit apologetic for being mean before, so I nodded at him with a silent apology.

"Got it," I answered.

Him mentioning a physically perfect state probably meant that psychologically the kid wasn’t in perfect condition, which would be fucking understandable.

He nodded back, and I felt we had made up again.

So I dug in, and it was delicious, even without meat.

Sometimes during the meal the staff sergeant attempted to make small talk with my grandma, only for her to ignore it, while my friends jumped in loyally so he wouldn’t be left alone in silence.

Even Ethan assisted—apparently, the whole table pitied the poor staff sergeant.

Henry ate surprisingly well with his left hand while having his right hand on my thigh, but I could feel him growing more and more fatigued.

He didn’t even glare at the kid as he started to mimic what I ate, which he would usually do.

Regarding the kid, when I ate a potato, he ate a potato.

Tomato, tomato.

Potato, potato.

To prevent things from escalating into this old song text, I started to eat more of the other vegetables, and I discovered that the kid didn’t like broccoli.

How adorably predictable.

I focused on the broccoli, and the kid soon stopped the mimicking, looking defeated.

Broccoli is good for him, but if he didn’t want to...

Anyway, Henry ate a good portion, but he was faster than the rest, apparently just so he could slide down and lean on my shoulder, his face covered by his hood.

"Tired?" I asked softly.

"Mhm."

"I won’t need long anymore," I said and looked up, only to find Jordan and Omar looking at me in horror, while Ethan cleared his throat and started to talk about the weather.

Danny ate without looking up once, and my grandmother looked at me strangely as well.

"What?" I asked Jordan beside me, but he just shook his head.

"I never heard you talk so nicely." At the end of his whispered sentence, he chuckled nervously.

Suddenly, there was a loud sound; my grandma had slammed the table, scaring the poor kid into dropping a potato.

"I can’t look at this any longer! SIT STRAIGHT AT THE TABLE!" She loudly advised Henry, who wanted to lift his head, but I intercepted it by placing my hand on his hood.

"He is exhausted; did you forget the favor he did for me today, although he hasn’t recovered?" I asked her, and she just stared at me without answering.

"He can do what he wants. If you want us to leave the house, I can conjure up another one across the street, and we’ll move there." I could probably really do that, though I don’t think water would come out of the pipes, and heating would probably not work either.

BUT IT WAS SUMMER! HAHAHAHA!

Oh, and we had leveled up, so we were mostly immune to low temperatures anyway.

From then on, Henry held my left hand and squeezed it happily every now and then, while my grandmother glared at me for the rest of the meal but didn’t speak up again.

Hmm, it seemed I had found a good threat against her.

I eventually interrupted the ever-returning silence when I was nearly finished with eating.

"And apologize to the poor kid you scared with your screaming!"

"What about you cursing in front of a kid?"

"I will apologize if you apologize!"

"You apologize FIRST!" She screeched, and yeah.

Maybe silence would have been better.