There is a lot about me you don't know -Tales of Arcadia ENG

6- Always

TRACK 6

Cause we could stay at home and watch the sunset

But I can't help from askin', "Are you bored yet?"

And if you're feelin' lonely, you should tell me

Before this ends up as another memory

Will you tell the truth so I don't have to lie?

(Are you bored yet - Wallows )

********

"You are weird," said Steve suddenly in Douxie's direction without any play of words, seconds after everyone had settled down on the mattresses they had brought into the room.

That one comment led the appointee to look at him with a confused but partly amused expression. He lay there on his stomach, the book under his nose, with the familiar leaning against his side. "Thank you...?" he said.

"No, really," insisted the blond. And Jim could see him half melting his brains trying to explain anything he wanted to get at, even beginning to gesticulate, legs crossed under all his weight. "You're like... super cool. You kinda look like a sex symbol and an emo guy that you don't want to mess around with. The kind who always gets into fights. Like, I don't know, you probably would help your friends to hide a dead body. But at the same time, you're more responsible. And well, mysterious."

' Did he really just say that out loud?' Jim thought, surprised and weirdly amused.

Douxie arched his eyebrow, with something of a weirded-out look on his face. Then he smiled. "It depends on who's the corpse. And which hour you ask me."

Steve gasped. "Wha... really?"

"You should request an appointment, though. Work shifts leave me with a somewhat messy schedule." He tilted his head, then leaned his chin against his palm with a smirk that visibly tasted like soft teasing. "Previous clients have always paid me, but in case I can make an exception."

Jim couldn't help but snort.

Archibald made a hoarse sound. Claire and Toby had tightened their lips and were trembling, restraining themselves from bursting out laughing. The blond boy's shocked expression had been TV show-like, really.

"...You're joking, right?... Right?" Asked Steve, white in the face just like a sheet, looking at him mildly anxious, fidgeting on the spot, hardly knowing how to put his upper limbs together.

"Yes, Steve." Douxie ended up saying, sighing and shaking his head, a grin painted on his face, then returning his gaze to the book as all of them burst out laughing for good, some sooner and some later. "Of course I'm joking."

"So you've never buried anyone...?" He asked again after a while. "Dealt drugs? Never robbed a bank?"

"No, no, and no." The raven-haired boy started flipping between the first few pages nonchalantly.

"Never backed up a mafia boss?"

Douxie looked at him, saying nothing verbally, merely speaking through an offended look, both eyebrows arched. He seemed to say 'Who the hell do you think I am ?'

"Okay, no." Said the blond, raising his hands in the air, as if to show that he had raised the white flag, reminiscent of a thug ready for arrest. "But are you really a model, a college student, a waiter, a bookseller, a singer, and a magician at the same time? I mean, it doesn't seem possible. How are you still breathing?"

"It doesn't seem possible to you because it's not. And no, I am neither a model nor a college student. The rest, yes, but my jobs are part-time." He replied. He frowned in his observation of the page in front of him, almost caressing the paper.