Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 470. A real breakfast

When I left the bathroom after showering and dressing myself, I found Henry leaning against the blue-painted wall in the corridor again, looking at his palm.

I contemplated flipping the coin on him to find out what was going on with that, though the most important thing was that I didn’t notice him waking up with a seizure again.

Maybe it’s just stress; maybe it’s just all the traumatizing shit we went through coming out now that things are going ’slower.’

Fuck, I forgot to look into his conversation with my grandmother. I definitely have to do that now.

Henry looked up and made a hand gesture, ripping me out of my thoughts.

Like me, he was again wearing his contact lenses, leaning back and grinning at me; this time, I got a rock ’n’ roll sign—or I don’t know what it was exactly called: fist up, thumb, index, and pinky fingers raised.

Yes, yes, a gesture he had never done before: three fingers out this time, on the ’third day’—no need to spell the meaning out.

I laughed angrily, and in a supercringy move, I stole something I saw a kid doing back in grade school.

"Read between the lines," I said, my index, middle, and ring fingers raised.

Henry halted for a moment, like he always did when I made one of my bad jokes, and I sighed and looked away to avoid witnessing him breaking out into laughter.

He didn’t get a grip even when we walked to the kitchen, so I pushed him away when he wanted to hang on me.

"Either laughing or hanging on me—not both." A few steps later, I finally caught a whiff of breakfast...

Seeing not soggy bread and a few fried eggs on the table, I wanted to high-five someone, but Henry was still laughing, so no.

"Good morning!" Ethan also seemed to be in a much better mood than yesterday; he hadn’t even waited for anyone, devouring breakfast alone.

"Morning." I got on the bench, and Henry finally got it together, slipping to the spot beside me, way closer than necessary, as if he had to make up for the missed few steps of ’hanging time.’

I took the puppy’s plate to stack it with food while he poured juice into our glasses.

While eating, I finally remembered the insect topic.

"There are no insects outside, although it’s hot as hell."

Ethan nodded,

"Henry told me about that. I don’t know the reason either."

I raised my eyebrows and looked at Henry, who nodded.

"I wrote him a message the evening you told me."

"Give me your hand." I stood up and reached over the table, and Ethan hesitated as he looked at Henry.

"Don’t look at him; hurry up." Every second we were wasting was a second I wasn’t eating breakfast—which would probably be my only meal till evening.

Kitty wasn’t here right now, and yesterday I went to bed without checking and making sure that the absence of insects didn’t mean that the world would stop moving or something similar.

Ethan reached out his hand, and I grabbed his wrist and flipped the coin, explicitly stating that I wanted to see him driving home this evening without seeing me.

My vision showed me another exhausted and annoyed Ethan driving home at the end of this day.

To make sure, I flipped the coin again for tomorrow evening, seeing the same scene.

Alright.

I let go and sat back down.

"So... you will drive home exhausted but safe today and tomorrow."

Ethan looked at me unsurely.

"Thank you for saying that..."

"No problem," I said while nodding at the puppy that was now clutching my shirt, worried that I had received pressure from the natural law or whatever during my vision.

Seeing me being okay, Henry relaxed again and continued to eat with his left hand while grabbing my hand under the table.

He seemed to be rubbing his hand across mine as if he wanted to erase Ethan’s touch.

It was the wrong hand, though.

"When will we leave the city? What about the other citizens?"

Ethan shook his head lightly.

"It still takes a bit of organization, but we will probably leave this weekend on Saturday."

"Sunday," Henry suddenly interrupted.

Ethan looked at him in confusion.

"Mrs. Howard mentioned Saturday to me."

"We have plans Saturday, so we will come after you guys on Sunday."

I kicked Henry hard under the table, but he ignored me, not even flinching.

"We can teleport anywhere we want, at any time." That fucker was hell-bent on fulfilling our ’plans.’

"No, if it’s a longer journey, we have to be present in case there are dangers." I kicked the puppy again, but he didn’t even look at me.

"Make it Sunday then," Henry insisted.

Ethan’s eyes darted between us before eventually grimacing and then staring up at the ceiling, as if he wished to be beamed away by some aliens.

"What?" I asked him.

What’s with that sudden attitude?

Ethan put his cutlery down.

"I understand. Sunday then." He didn’t say more, and Henry leaned back, a lot more relaxed, not letting go of my hand throughout the whole ordeal.

I was still annoyed with the whole discussion just now but still asked,

"Where are we going?"

"Probably really to the capital city. Do you want to take the people in the house in the city with us?"

"You mean Patrick, Harry, Dr. Lawrence, and stuff? Yeah, we should also organize a way out for the girls and Sven." I didn’t mention Chelsea to avoid agitating the puppy.

Even though he had just misbehaved, I was still taking care of his feelings, but Henry looked irked nevertheless.

Ungrateful.

"I thought so; I will prepare it." Ethan nodded and sipped his coffee.

"Will we travel with the guys?" They had blown up my phone, telling me that they wanted to.

"That will probably be the case; we will travel together with them and their parents," Ethan explained.

"Omar’s parents as well?" Can’t wait to flip the coin on Omar’s father regarding the matter of him asking his son to ’befriend me.’

Ethan nodded again.

"It is safer for us to travel with them."

Ah. Yeah, not that I think that the Lawrence family was really able to keep tabs on us and our plans, but having insiders there, as well as one of the Lawrence heirs even if they don’t like each other, would lessen the chance for them to attack us on the way.

"Mrs. Howard and I inquired about them; their relationship to the rest of their family seemed strained for a very long time."

But they were called back to the main house when Eugene Junior was found.

"I will have to check for myself before we leave." I will have to flip the coin on them in the next days; I’ll ask Omar when they have time for a quick introduction.

"I understand. Please inform me about the results."

I agreed, thinking of something else that needed to be discussed as well.

"Can we leave Jeyjey here? Or should I start looking into the future regarding upcoming portals?"

Henry straightened up upon hearing me, and Ethan put his cup down.

"I would advise against it. Portals will open in the future, and you won’t be able to close each of them all around the world. We should leave the city for now and then see how the capital is faring."

"I agree. Besides, other people have upgraded in the meantime as well; leave it to them." The puppy made himself clear.

They made sense, though Henry not so much because even if someone upgraded, it didn’t mean they were able to close portals.

Besides, in addition to the danger of other worlds crashing into ours and monsters going wild, I didn’t want them to upgrade further if it meant killing their counterparts and going crazy, following the giants’ path and developing into an ultimate big boss that we then have to take down anyway.

Fuck... Anyway, even if they did develop into giants, we, especially I, at least have a fucking big head start.

I am probably already the last boss in that metaphor, either way.

"What about the citizens? Should we make flyers?" I changed the topic.

"How about we spread the news in the darknet the moment we have left the city? They would still have a few weeks before whatever is going to happen happens." Henry offered, surprisingly having come up with a plan.

Yeah, just... can they leave a locked-down city?

"Oh? The darknet is still online?"

"It is," Henry confirmed.

"As long as there is the tiniest bit of internet connection, you can enter it through an app."

I didn’t ask how many people had that app and how many could be saved by spreading the news—because it was indeed a good way to disrupt the info and because it was objectively a reasonable way to help without putting ourselves in any crossfire.

Maybe I’ll make flyers by myself anyway and teleport into the sky to throw them at the city. Shit. I thought I had recovered from my male-lead complex.

"We’ll have to leave for...work," Ethan said after looking at his watch, standing up.

No big ensemble bid us goodbye this time, but when we left in the car, I still saw the horrifying grandma ghost at the window watching us.

I opened the car window and waved at her, but she just silently scoffed at me.

Hah... She really is a bundle of sunshine.

I checked my phone; I miraculously thought of bringing it with me—the one Ethan gave me, not the one that was allegedly in the sock drawer, because I feared that the latter wasn’t as charged as this one.

I chatted with the guys on the way, who bombarded me with questions about yesterday, about when we were leaving, and about what to do in the capital city.

At the end I asked Omar when we could introduce ourselves to his parents, and he seemed to understand my meaning.

He said we could come by today at night or tomorrow evening and that his parents were at home.

Besides getting a bit paranoid that it was a trap set by him and the Lawrence family, I was relieved that he showed his cooperation.

The puppy read with me, though he dozed off halfway through.

"Tired?" I asked him when we arrived.

"Leaning on you is just too comfortable."

I chuckled, and we left the car.

This time we met Armless in front of the city hall, together with a few other men.

He nodded at us and walked in first.

We again stood in line, everyone showed their IDs again, and Armless again asked for pain medication, only to be told that it could take a while.

So apparently one had to register oneself daily, not just once—and it seemed everyone had appeared especially early yesterday, with us having been the latecomers.

Today’s food was some strange chewy porridge inside a little plastic container, along with, again, nuts and water.

We didn’t even open the porridge.

Henry leaned against me as we were on the bus.

"Are you angry because of this morning?" he whispered.

"Nah. Just don’t make it too obvious...regarding...you know." The plans.

"I just can’t wait."

"Yeah, I figured," I chuckled quietly.

"You understood my subtle hints?" he asked, having to laugh himself.

"Pfft. Your subtle hints are waking me up every morning." I ate a few nuts, watching the same scenery out of the window as yesterday.

Ethan had been separated from us again, maybe because of his glasses, but he definitely had been categorized as a document guy, while we were the construction work people.

"Want me to wake you next time with a not-so-subtle hint?" He asked lewdly.

The hell?

"Want me to wake you with a punch?"

"You couldn’t bring yourself to do it," he said cockily.

Damn it! He knows.

I turned my head, only seeing him sitting catastrophically with his long legs bent sideways against the seat in front of us, curled in a ball so his head could rest on my shoulder.

Seeing him sit so uncomfortably just for a little cuddle time, I chuckled.

"I could make an exception and kick you like this morning~"

Hearing that, the puppy decided to change strategies and played cute by whimpering, nuzzling, and rubbing against my shoulder, so I petted his fur.

The same construction site, the same fucking helmet, and the same outer elevator, which miraculously made its way upstairs without crashing.

The same walls to plaster—well, not exactly the same—but the same room for me to work in.

While working, I went through what was still to do until we left the city, which was first flipping the coin on Omar’s parents, fuck, and finding Henry’s parents—I totally forgot about them.

Then finding Baggy Jeans’ remains to take them to Jeyjey and feeding her my blood without her noticing, maybe we can mix it into a drink or something.

Having someone able to close portals wasn’t bad, even if we moved across the country.

Fuck, so much to do, and it’s already Tuesday.