His still sad face makes a small change as he lightly smiles and he nods and starts following me. After a few steps he gives up all strength and is willing to follow me wherever I lead him. He trusts me.

  ,,You okay?” I check in as we’re walking towards my house. It’s only a few blocks so distance is definitely not an issue here. 

  He nods and drops both of the two bags he’s carrying. He stretches his back and lets out a hurting sound.

  ,,I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” And so we continue.

  When we get to the house I spot my dad’s car on the driveway and therefore connect the dots and come to the realisation that he is already home.

  We step inside of the house and take our shoes off. Mine take a bit longer to get rid of but once we’re only in our socks we go through the door and straight to the kitchen which is linked to the living room. As for the kitchen, it’s quite modern and the furniture is in the light grey colour whilst the kitchen desk is wooden. The room is decorated with green plants without a single bloom. There’s also a lot of ceramic decorations and ornaments.

  My dad is leaning on one of the cabinets holding a mug in his hand. He looks happy and confident. I suppose that’s a good sign considering what we’re about to tell him.

  Good think we dropped the bags in the front hallway because I don’t even have to picture it in my head to know exactly how his expression would look once he’d get his eyes on all of it.

  ,,Hey boys,” he greets us cheerfully. His smile is worth a thousand words.

,,Hi dad,” I say nervously and look at Harry. He looks a bit more relaxed and already prepared for the worst. It’s time to get it out. Now or never.

  ,,So, dad, we uh- we would like to ask you-”

,,It’s fine Theo, let me say it. It’s my problem after all.” Harry suddenly takes all the burden 

of my shoulders and I take a deep breath. I have to say, I didn’t expect this.

  ,,Mister Curran, before I ask anything of you, I’d like to explain the situation a bit if you will. You see, me and my brother have been living with my dad since forever and he’s a drug addict as you already know from both me and Theo. What you don’t know is that he gets really violent and hurts me and now even my brother. Last night, when I came here all teary and desperate, that was after I found out my brother is in the hospital since my father hurt him. And this time he hurt him pretty badly you know. He stabbed him with some sharp object, most likely a knife, somewhere into his ribs and caused internal bleeding. My brother is now lying in a hospital bed unconscious and all we can do is to wait for him to wake up,” his leg starts twitching once again and his eyes wander all around the room. ,,I believe there’s a certain solution to this problem mister, I was thinking and after my brother wakes up he could sleep over at your house for just one or two nights and then I could send him to my aunt’s place just a town away. He could start at a new school and still have a wonderful life. As for me, I’m currently attending a local school here in Manchester and I’m still underaged so I would like to ask you if maybe you’d be willing to let me stay at your house for a longer period of time. And just so you know, I’ve already thought about it and I could get a brigade somewhere around and the money would go straight to you. I know financing a teenager isn’t exactly the cheapest thing so I want to make it a bit easier for you.” His eyes fill with hope and he stares at my dad desperately waiting for his response.

  I can tell he really does want to stay in this house with us. His previous life must have been so hard he’s now willing to stay in a house with complete strangers for who knows how long. Well, not strangers anymore, I joyfully remind myself.

  As for my dad, he seems very confused and unsure. I can’t say I don’t understand, this must be a shock for him all of the sudden.

  ,,I can’t say I disagree, Harry, it’s just that it isn’t that easy. If both you and your brother decided to go live with different people other than your father then I’m sure there would have to be court first. It’s impossible for you to leave your father and not live with him anymore. But, if what you’re saying really is true and he is the way you just said, then I suppose there’s plenty of reasons for you to be assigned to someone else other than him. But, as it is, since you’re underaged you would have to live either with one of your family members, like your aunt, or in a children’s Home. I’m sorry buddy.” Harry suddenly realises how inconvenient this is to his entire plan and folds his head.

  ,,I didn’t…think of that.” He mumbles and a muscle in his jaw twitches from anger and disappointment.

  ,,Maybe we should wait. Just before your brother wakes up, you know. And the minute he does we can think it through once again.” I try to comfort him.

,,And in the meantime you can stay. And you don’t have to pay me for sleeping on an old mattress and having one or two meals a day in this house.” As always, my dad’s doing his best to make an uncomfortable conversation a little better, and as always, he’s doing a cringe yet sufficient job.

  Harry smiles at him gracefully and thanks him, and then says he needs some air and that he’ll be back in less than two hours. Even though I want to stop him and tag along I decide not to. After all, it's much better for him to spend some time alone, only by himself.

  Once he leaves I go to my dad and we discuss the situation in detail. After a few minutes we decide to let Harry sleep in the spare room which was used as a storage so far and since I have nothing else to do I volunteer to prepare the room for Harry. Because, to be honest, this is one of the only things I can do to help him. 

My dad doesn’t complain and says he’ll be glad if I help so I take my headphones and play 

some indie music on high volume. Then I go to the living room and straight to the one door on the right side of the room.

  When I step inside of the storage room all I see is a huge piece of hard work in front of me. There’s boxes covering every inch of the floor and a giant amount of dust everywhere. It’s obvious no one’s been here in quite a while. In a normal situation I would most likely resign and give up after the first look but this isn’t a normal situation, it’s a mission I promised myself I wouldn’t fail under any circumstances.

  And so I start. I take one box after another and take them all out until the room is entirely empty. I don’t have the time to look into every box and sort the items inside into the ones we’re going to keep and the ones ready to be thrown away, so I told my dad to look into it and then store the boxes left to be kept in the garage.

  Once the room is empty I carry in the bags from Harry’s house and put the ones which belong to him on the floor. The ones belonging to Victor I leave in the hallway for later. 

  Now that the room is mostly clean and empty I start preparing it. I carry in wooden pallets and stack them on top of each other, then I take the mattress Harry has slept on and put it on top of the pallets. It isn’t perfect, but I think it works just fine. I also take a lamp from the garage and bring it into the room.

  It takes me a while to plug it in but once I’m done I just use one of the smaller bedside tables we have in the living room and place it next to the bed, with the lamp being set on it.

  I leave Harry’s bags be since I don’t want to invade his privacy and instead I bring in some plants and small decorations. I even found a great flyer with food on it so I hang it on one of the walls. 

  After such an intense body exercise I get so hot I have to take my shirt off in order to think straight again. The room looks acceptable now, even though it could always look a little better.

  I go to the window to open it for a while and I sit on the mattress to take a look at the place. I can’t lie, I feel good from this success.

  Suddenly someone opens the door and when I notice I see Harry standing in the middle of the door frame. I take my headphones off and give him a very surprised look. He just gazes all around not trying to hide his excitement.

  ,,Hey, your dad told me you prepared this room…for me?” He bites his lip nervously and I can’t help myself but start laughing a bit. ,,Come here,” I say and point at the spot on the bed right next to me. He closes the door and sits next to me, still looking nervous and scared.

  I lean closer to him and look intensively into his eyes with a big smile on my face. Fortunately he seems to have accepted my happy mood and smiles back at me.

  ,,I can’t believe you did this.” He states breathtakingly. Then he peeks at my upper body and the corners of his mouth turn up. He looks away quickly but I notice his weird expression and look at the same area he was looking at and suddenly I realise I’m half naked. 

  I immediately move away from him trying to find my missing shirt but he just scratches his nose and says: ,,It’s okay, I don’t feel offended by your naked body not wearing a t-shirt.” I shake my head and laugh awkwardly while his eyes wander through my body and face.

  He reaches his hand and pulls me down, so we’re both lying on the mattress. It’s a strange feeling, but I kind of enjoy it. 

  I lie on my side towards him and observe his face quietly. He’s still smiling and after a short time he lies on his side as well with his face in my direction.

  ,,So what do you think about the room?” I ask him just to end the silence. He seems to be living this moment to the fullest.

,,I love it. There’s one thing missing though.” He gets up and opens one of the bags, from

which he takes out a colourful piece of fabric. I cannot really tell what it is until he manages to hang it somewhere in the middle of the wall using nothing more than the tape already stuck to the fabric.

  ,,There,” he mumbles happily as he steps away from the wall. I don’t know what to say or how to react, I don’t even know if I should react, but what I’m seeing right now definitely caught me by surprise.

  The piece of fabric he just hung on the wall, the piece of fabric he’s so proudly standing next to right now, is a Pride flag.