Dire Wolf

Chapter 6

"Finally, we met at last..."

I looked to my right and saw an impossibly handsome and pale boy who is around my age wearing a pair of white torn shorts and a dirty brown tank top that showed his lean but muscled arms, not unlike mine.

He seemed to be blind as he is lame as he used his crutch to feel around the bench where I am sitting.

Out of pity, I stood up quickly and assisted him as much as I can to help him sit down comfortably and gratefully.

"Welp, that went faster than expected. Thank you very much, Keenan," he said thankfully as his faded gray eyes looked in my direction, unseeing but alert and aware of his surroundings.

I returned to my seat beside him and shrugged my shoulders, "It is nothing. Who are you anyway?"

"Me? Funny you should ask. Well, you can call me, Ryk, Keenan. As I said earlier, we finally met at last..."

"At last?"

He nodded and reached out his left hand to reach for my face, and he touched it as if memorizing its features and imagining what I look like, "Yes, at last. How long have I wished to talk to you and feel your face to know if you resembled her."

"Her?" I asked in confusion as he just nodded and sighed fondly after he finished touching my face softly with his trembling but warm hands.

"Yes, and you do resemble her, as they said. I have to thank him for opening your mind, even if it's just a little, and allowing me to appear to you in this form and get the chance to have a conversation finally..."

I shook my head in confusion as I try to look around, and all I see are buildings almost invisible in a shadowy haze around us and hear only muffled sounds of a car, voices of glee and laughter. Of defeat and frustration. 

Though it looks and feels so confusing, it somehow felt familiar and nostalgic.

"Where are we, Ryk?"

He bowed his head and smiled as if trying to listen very hard to our surroundings before answering, "We are, I believe, at the place where you feel at home the most. The only place in your very being where you are comfortable enough just to be yourself and secured enough to let your guard down."

I gulped when I felt something different emanating from him. I finally realized that the boy with a messy matte of grayish platinum blonde hair is mesmerizingly changing in color to rich gold and pale silver every time the wind blows softly in our direction.

"Who "are" you?"

He grinned at me innocently and inclined his head a little, "I told you already, Keenan. I am Ryk."

"No, that's the wrong question to ask," I quickly replied as I slowly realized that this boy next to me is not an ordinary human, if at all, "What are you?"

Ryk just smiled at my question sadly as he closed his eyes and leaned back on the bench, "A being from the past. Why you are from the past as well, technically speaking."

"What?!"

"Nothing, Keenan. I was told not to speak too much on our first meeting, but you are so adorable I can't help it," he said, and I fell from the bench in shock when a pair of golden wings erupted from his back suddenly before he discarded his crutch and began to fly away, "Surt is right, you have to see things from a different angle. Like wealth and prosperity, knowledge is hard to come by but quick to leave."

I just shook my head in disbelief and surprise as he and everything else slowly faded away in the darkness, "This must be a dream! This isn't real!"

"But of course, Keenan. This is nothing more than a mere dream of yours. But the real thing is that you are sleeping right now in the arms of a boy wearing nothing but his underwear."

Before I can even ask what in the world he means by that, everything just dissolved into nothingness, and I began to fall in a seemingly never-ending pit but not before hearing him speak from afar.

"The third Golden Age is here once more, the past and present are colliding, and you will be amongst those who will be at the center of it all. Will you be a bridge to close the gap between time and space? Or will you fall into the abyss of disbelief? May we meet again, Keenan..."

-0-

I slowly opened my eyes, and the first thing I see is a face of a boy sleeping peacefully right next to me.

He is hugging my body tightly, and I just realized that we are both shirtless.

Scratch that; we are just wearing our boxer shorts only as we lay in my queen-sized bed all alone and quietly.

I tried to stretch my legs to try and stand up, but I immediately regretted that I looked down when I saw something standing up inside his underwear, and to my horror, I have something identical.

"s**t!" I cursed loudly as I try to remove myself from his arms but the more I try to free myself, the closer he pulls me to his body, "Damn it, wake up, Seth! You idiot! Wake up!"

I shouted on top of my lungs for several seconds until he finally opened his eyes and looked at me drowsily, "Why are you screaming so early in the morning, Keenan? Is that a part of your daily rituals or something?"

"Why are you sleeping here?!" I demanded as he just smiled and hugged me closer despite my protests and cuddled me in his warm and broad chest that smelled awfully good.

"Pipe down, Keenan. Calm down. It's not my fault that you suddenly collapsed when I finished feeding you and you cried yourself to sleep," he then looked down at our bodies and smiled sheepishly, "I can't let you sleep with dirty clothes, so I removed them when I brought you here only to find out that you even forget to do your laundry, so I just changed your underwear since that is the only clean clothing you have left in your closet."

I feel my face reddened when I heard him said that and just closed my eyes in embarrassment, "You changed my underwear?!"

"Don't worry, I did it under the blanket," he answered smoothly as he hugged me even more, "I also borrowed a pair of boxer shorts so, don't mind if I do, Keenan."

"Unbelievable..."

He nodded and sighed, "True, unbelievable that I even stayed here overnight. I can't, in good conscience, leave you here burning in a fever all alone. Are you feeling better now, Keenan?"

"That's not the point, Surt," I replied that made him grunt in my neck, "The point is why are you acting like this?"

"Because I want to. Don't you want me to stop doing this?" he asked as he hugged me even closer, resting his head comfortably on my shoulders, "I'll stop if you don't want to. I won't force myself to you if you don't feel the same way."

I gulped as he whispered that softly to my ears as the last semblance of logic and reason left my brain slowly, "How many exes did you have before me, Keenan?"

"Would you believe me if I tell you that I have none?" he fired back with his own question as he gently grabbed my face and made me look at him straight into his feral eyes, "That you are the first one in my arms like this?"

"Well, as they say, birds of the same feather..."

"Surt is always the different one."

"Never seen him hanging around with any girls or boys."

"Heck, he is not hanging around with anyone since I met him in grade school!"

"How many students of all genders tried and ultimately failed to throw themselves to him?"

"Countless. We are neighbors. Even in our childhood years, he is always a loner."

"Well, now with Keenan appearing suddenly out of nowhere, I think he found someone to latch on to."

"While I am sad I didn't make him mine, they sure look good together; I can say that much."

"I know, right? What bunch of eye candies they are!"

I heard rumors and gossips regarding him and his seeming aloofness and unapproachability for a long time now and with him looking at me straight into my eyes longingly.

"Fine, I believe you..."

To my surprise, he pulled me again in a warm and tight hug and squealed in delight, "Yes! Are we official now?!"

"Official what?" I asked in confusion as he kissed my cheek so fast I didn't have any chance to react.

"In a relationship."

I gasped when I tried to push him away as fast as I can, but he is just too strong for me to even budge, "You haven't courted me yet, Surt! Now you are saying we are in a relationship just because you crashed into my bed for a night?"

"I thought I was courting you since we met," he said innocently that made me sigh in disbelief, "Shall I court you even more?"

I just shook my head and sighed as I let him kiss me again, this time on the forehead, "No need. You win."

"So we are official now, Keenan?"

"Fine, official it is, Surt. Happy?" I asked in annoyance as he moved his hips closer to mine as if taunting me, "Can you please not do that?"

He just laughed and nodded before quickly getting up and helping me sit down on the bed carefully, "Fine—no playing around for now. You might try to suplex me again. Anyways, are you feeling better now? Does your head still hurt? Your injuries?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, Surt. You are one heck of a caregiver yourself. How did you get so good at taking care of others?" I asked in amazement as I let him carry me in his arms again on our way out of my bedroom and into the kitchen, where to my surprise, there's a meal waiting for us already, "Wow! When did you cook this?"

Surt grinned as he put an omelet, a slice of ham and cheese on my plate proudly, "A few hours earlier, Keenan. And to answer your question, I have to be good at taking care of others since I told you yesterday. I am tasked with patrolling the wilderness around this part by Chief Ren. I came across several injured people through the years and assisted them successfully."

"A great cook as well. You are even better than me. Did you learn by yourself?" I asked after stuffing my mouth with cheese and ham.

He shook his head and grinned shyly, "Nah, it's my sister who taught me how to move around the kitchen so that I can feed myself properly when she and father are not around to take care of me as always."

"Where are they?"

"Well, sis is a decade older than me, so she is already a career woman at the capital city. She works as a financial consultant while my dad is an investment adviser in Laroost. They only come home twice a year when it's the holiday season and on my birthdays," he said matter of factly, which made my heart sunk a little, "I guess you experienced the same childhood if I am not mistaken?"

I chuckled a little that made him smile and inclined my head inquiringly, "Have I really said too much last night when I am on a mental breakdown, Surt?"

"Enough for me to know that I am the luckier one of the two of us," he replied pointedly as I shrugged and sighed.

"Correct. But I don't resent my father for not being there all the time. He is the head of our family's business. All of my relatives rely on him, so I understand if he can't spare so much time with me back then. Besides, I am more than happy enough to have my relatives keep me company all the time."

Surt nodded in agreement, "One different relative a day, right?"

"Yes. I always have someone with me, taking care of me, teaching me things, playing with me, and the like," I glanced at our family picture consisting of more than a hundred members of our house with me on the center and the only child, "My father, often absent he may be, always makes sure that I feel loved even though he is not always there by my side."

"How so?"

I closed my eyes and remembered all the extraordinary little things he did with the help of our relatives to make each day a little more special than the last, "Every day, he will call me on the phone or video chat to check on me. Then a relative of mine will bring a small gift, maybe a toy, a poem he wrote, or a delicacy from where he is staying at the moment. Even though I hardly meet him personally at all during my childhood, he made sure that everything that I need is provided and well within my reach."

"Must be a very busy father he is, almost not seeing his child even once a year. What does he do anyway?" Surt asked after listening to me speak while drinking a pure blend of Ogawaran coffee.

I hesitated for a bit to tell him what our family business is but after all that he did for me, I feel like he deserves to know the truth, "We have a gambling business, Surt."

"Oh! Like where you will bet money on cards or dice or something?" he exclaimed innocently that wiped away all the worries that I have that he might not take it well when he learned of my house's questionable financial dealings.

"Yes, Surt. Gambling is a risky business to get yourself into, but my family has a knack for that line of work since its inception. We deal with both legal and illegal sectors, so it's a rather dangerous job, but our family is a trusted house, so there have been no problems at all," I explained clearly, and he gave me a thumbs-up as I try to change the topic of our conversation, "Anyways, I just realized that you are living all by yourself most of the time?"

He shook his head and heaved a heavy sigh, "I wish. I live with the Ogawara Province Chief. My father and sister entrusted me to him, and it's a drag."

"A drag? By the looks of it, you are enjoying your time with him," I said suspiciously that made him laugh out loud.

"Enjoy, well, if that's how you see it, let's get you to meet the venerable and oh-so-famous Ren Ogawa of the Ogawara Clan after we eat, washed our clothes, and dry them, my Keenan..."