The morning light shone through the thin curtains, gently falling upon Gabriel’s sleeping face. It dyed his copper hair with a layer of gold, making a few strands sparkle slightly. Even his long eyelashes appeared a little brighter under the soft light. When asleep, Gabriel looked like an angel, an incredibly beautiful angel. 

When Misha opened his eyes, he was greeted by this sight and almost jumped out of bed in fright. It took a few seconds to recover from the shock, and after regulating his heartbeat, question marks seemed to pop up all around his head.

‘What the…?’

With slow movements, Misha straightened his back and carefully sat on the mattress so as not to wake up the sleeping beauty. Even though he was all too aware that it’d take a lot more than that to snatch the teenager from dreamland,  he still couldn’t help but be careful.

Misha’s small body was entangled in the white blankets, and only his head popped out, a few strands of disheveled blonde hair hanging down on his forehead. After sleeping for twelve hours in a row, the corners of his eyes had turned red and puffy. He looked confused as if he hadn’t completely woken up. But soon enough, his face cleared up, and hatred filled his eyes. His upper lips started to tremble in anger as he gripped the blanket and told himself to stay calm.

Misha took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Gabriel was currently defenseless, true, but it wasn’t the right time to beat him up, however tempting it was.

After a long and tiring day, they had also come to this hotel in his past life. Back then, Misha wasn’t as well behaved. He remembered throwing tantrums after tantrums simply because he was dissatisfied with Gabriel, who he saw as a thief coming to take his sister away. And because of his constant outbursts, the day had been exhausting for everyone, both physically and mentally.

Once they entered the hotel room, everyone just wanted to sleep. But first, they had to decide who slept where. And so, Gulnas awkwardly asked her son if he could share the bed with Gabriel for the night, and the child immediately refused, screaming and stamping his foot. Now that Misha thought back on the scene he had made, he felt a little ashamed.

Even though his mother tried hard to explain why she wanted them to share a bed, Misha refused to listen. Gabriel could sleep on the floor like a dog for all he cared! In the worst-case scenario, he could also share a bed with Camille. As long as it wasn’t with him, his sister, or his mother, Misha didn’t mind with whom the teenager slept. The enemy just had to stay far away from his family, but sadly, his mother didn’t share his opinion.

“A teenage boy and a teenage girl shouldn’t share a bed. As long as they haven’t entered adulthood, they shouldn’t sleep together,” his mother had said, crouching in front of him.

Both of his parents were a bit old-fashioned and overprotective of their daughter. His mother didn’t want her baby girl to grow up too fast. Moreover, Gabriel and Masha had only started to date two weeks ago, and it wasn’t ‘appropriate’ for them to sleep together. But most of all, when nightfall came, every teenage boy turned into a wolf in sheep’s clothing in his parents’ eyes, so it didn’t matter if it was Camille or Masha; neither of them was allowed to share a bed with a boy at their age.

Still, Misha didn’t give in no matter what. So ultimately, he and the girls ended up squeezing into the queen bed while Gabriel slept alone in the double bed.

Misha’s family was neither poor nor rich, yet his mother insisted on paying the teenagers’ parts for the hotel fees and train tickets. In return, they had to pay for their food and the activities, which included the Jardin Botanique, the cinema, and La Ronde, an amusement park. All in all, the weekend was already quite expensive. Thus, she only booked a room with two beds, a queen and a double size, thinking that his son wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with another boy, and the girls were skinny enough to fit in the queen bed without suffocating. Too bad Misha didn’t want to listen to reason.

In this timeline, Misha fell asleep on the double bed before his mother even had the chance to ask for his opinion, and since the child seemed to have somewhat accepted Gabriel, she let the teenager sleep in the same bed as her son. Little did she know that Misha almost strangled the guy right after waking up.

A few dozen minutes passed before Misha was calm enough to open his eyes, squinting as he stared at the youth. He bit his lips, not knowing what to do.

All kinds of emotions were surging and storming in his chest; he had suppressed them for many years, and now that they had the chance, they snuck up on him and tore his heart apart. That peaceful sleeping face brought back too many memories, happy ones. He had buried them somewhere in his mind, and they were now surfacing, flooding his mind with things he had tried so hard to forget.  

It wasn’t the first time he saw such a serene sleeping face. Before his sister’s death, he often caught a glimpse of it as Gabriel had this tendency to fall asleep on the couch while studying or reading. How often did he come home and stumble on Gabriel, snoring and drooling on the couch? He didn’t know. It was an everyday occurrence.

“Why did you turn out to be a bastard?” Misha whispered to himself, his voice seeming to break halfway as tears welled up in his eyes.

After his mother’s death, his sister took care of him, but she didn’t do it alone. Gabriel did so as well. Masha was working hard to pay his tuition fees and their living expenses—their father lost his job a few months after the funeral and drank all day long, becoming a waste. Therefore, their income came from his sister’s salary.

Because she was alone to support the family, Masha often agreed to work overtime, not wanting to end up in debt. Once in a while, she also wanted to dote on her little brother, hence had to make more money. Since the teenage girl dropped out of high school, she could only find two full-time, low-paid jobs. For years, she worked seven days a week, twelve hours a day, sometimes sixteen hours a day. She barely ever rested.

Whenever Masha returned home after work, she was always exhausted, looking more dead than alive. Every morning, she would hide the dark circles under her eyes and her dull, pale skin with a thick layer of makeup. And then smile.

As a teenager, Misha never realized how much she was pushing herself. He only realized all her sacrifices and suffering when he was an adult and had to work. Once he was left alone, he had no choice but to open his eyes to the world around him and face reality. And again, he learned everything too late. 

When his sister was working her butt off, Gabriel helped reduce her workload at home by taking care of Misha, cooking his meals, driving him to school or his friends’ places, and helping him with his homework. The teenager wasn’t good at housework, but he still tried to do his best—after a few years, it even became one of his strong points.

Thus, Gabriel was at their house almost every day. Misha opened up his heart to him along the way, and they got close. It only took a few months before Misha started to think of him as an older brother, and this thought lasted until the day his sister died.

For more than five years, the man had been his brother, best friend, and confidant. But even so, Misha never saw what was hidden behind his gentle smile. It was already too late when he finally did, and his sister had broken down in his arms. He could never forget the feeling of Masha’s warm tears wetting his collar, nor could he forget her last words.

‘All those years, I was never loved, only played with.’

At that time, his sister’s crying voice was heart-wrenching, and while listening to her cries, Misha felt like something had shattered inside him.

At first, he didn’t want to believe her words. The man had grown on him, but Masha was still his dear sister, and she was the number one in his heart. No matter what, Misha would always believe in her words over everything else. Then, the anger followed the helplessness, and he couldn’t stop himself from storming into the man’s office at school the next day—Gabriel, a young adult at the time, was a history teacher at his high school.

When Misha asked what was going on, the man’s perfect mask broke, revealing his dark, cold, and vicious personality. And the teenager lost it. The betrayal was too much to bear for his young heart.

Misha shook his head. He didn’t want to think about such depressing things, or else concealing his hostility would be impossible for the rest of the day. Yesterday, he did a good job, and he was pretty proud of his acting. But it wasn’t over, and he had to keep the shy smile on for another day. He had to be a sweet kid, not a vengeful ghost.

He took another deep breath, telling himself everything was alright; he just had to make sure that his sister realized Gabriel’s true colors before falling head over heels for him. He still had time. Her love shouldn’t be that deep after only two weeks of dating… right?

Yes, of course. Masha couldn’t be madly in love with the guy just yet! With this in mind, Misha sat on the bed and started to rack his brain over the problem. It was without much success, however. Even after an hour, he made no progress whatsoever.

‘I’m not good at scheming and deceiving people, for goodness sake! I’m an honest guy, dammit!’ Misha silently cried, and then the morning alarm rang. The day was starting, yet he still hadn’t found any ideas. His poor brain was boiling, his ears about to fume, but he had no plan for today!

‘I need a partner in crime with a brain!’ Misha inwardly winced as he rolled in his blanket, pretending to be asleep. ‘I’m missing Dereck and Vanessa right now! They have always been the ones with a good head on their shoulders, not me!’