°•.˜"*°•𝓞𝓷𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓰𝓲𝓯𝓽𝓮𝓭 •°*"˜.•° (C. Madrigal X Reader)

Chapter one hundred and eleven: Up, up, and away

I felt my breath hitch as I looked up at what stood before me. Camilo stood next to me to admire it too.

"Well, to answer your question," Camilo began. "An american traveller was visiting our school one day, I think it was that american teacher's relative or something, and he had brought this thing with him! I gave him 20,000 pesos to use it for a few hours."

The "thing" that this american traveller had brought over was a hot air balloon. I had never seen one in real life, only when watching American movies on TV. The envelope part had some kind of colourful yellow and white striped pattern on it. The basket was a bit small, clearly made for only one person and it was coincidentally the same colour as my shorts.

There were white lilies trailing up the thick cords holding the basket to the envelope. The door of the basket was opened and I could see that the floor of the basket was covered in white lily petals.

"Oh yeah, the flowers were Isabella's doing" Camilo added "White lilies are your favourite flowers, right? I really hope I got it right..."

"You...Yeah, you got it right" I answered, not having the will to drag my eyes away from the hot air balloon.

Camilo swiftly moved closer to me in one big step with his hands behind his back. He started rubbing that back of his neck. Camilo wasn't even looking at the hot air balloon which I found strange since I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Instead, he was staring at me.

"So Y/n..." Camilo began "Do you like it?"

I took a deep breath and shut my eyes. I finally turned to look at him and immediately draped my arms over his shoulders to hug him. We nearly toppled over.

"Woah-" Camilo wheezed at the impact.

"Camilo, I love it!" I exclaimed.

He hesitantly began to hug me back, letting his head rest on my shoulder.

"I'm glad," Camilo said softly.

The hug ended abruptly when he pushed me away.

"C'mon, we've gotta get in this thing!" Camilo exclaimed "I paid a bunch of money for this!"

I laughed a bit before nodding at him. Camilo led me to the basket of the hot air balloon, which was floating just slightly off the ground. It was being kept there by multiple strings tied to metal picks in the ground.

"You can go first!" Camilo said, bowing and gesturing towards the door.

"Oh why, thank you, Cami" I replied "Such a gentleman."

"I try" Camilo said, a goofy, excited smile on his face.

I slowly stepped onto the basket, the balloon went down a bit when I did. It felt a bit wobbly and I could feel myself slipping. Then Camilo held my hand and steadied me.

"You shouldn't fall for me that easily, Y/n" Camilo said, snarky as ever.

"Haha" I said in a monotone voice.

Camilo rolled his eyes at me but helped me into the basket anyway. The petals felt plush underneath me. I caressed a lily on one of the cords and leaned in for a sniff. It smelled sweet and fresh, it was attracting some of the butterflies around.

Eventually, Camilo joined me inside the basket. It wasn't as squished as I had first thought, it somehow looked smaller on the outside. Camilo closed the door of the basket and pulled until I heard a click sound come from it.

"There!" Camilo exclaimed happily "Now we can start untying these ropes keeping us grounded."

"I'll help" I said "Which ones should I untie?"

Camilo pointed at two of the ropes on my side that were keeping the hot air balloon close to the ground.

"Untie them like this" Camilo said as he demonstrated how to untie the knots.

I mimicked his movements and eventually, there was one last rope to untie.

"Okay, as soon as this is untied, we'll start slowly going up" Camilo explained "Are you ready?"

"Of course!" I exclaimed.

"Alright!" Camilo replied "Up, up, and away!"

-----

Firstly, I hope that you guys are at least a little bit surprised as to what the date was going to be. I did a bit of research on hot air balloons and even went as far to how they worked in the 1950's, which is when I think Encanto took place.

Secondly, I apologize for how small this chapter is, I have things going on in my personal life lol.

-Kolour