Back in bed.

Valentino was still awake, looking up at the ceiling, 

“Mm...hey Enzo?

Enzo opens his eye facing to the right,

“hm?”

“I’ve been thinking.” Valentino spoke gently. Enzo turned around facing his husband, listening, 

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. But, what if...we adopted a child. OUR child...? 

Enzo’s eyes widened, 

“Oh? What makes you think so?” He looked up at him,

“Well, lately I’ve been feeling off, and it came to my mind that, what if we were parents? I know we can’t exactly have a kid...so why not adopt one instead? I feel as my parenting urges have been out more than ever lately, as if it’s telling me to..maybe have a kid with you-“

He shook his head,

“AGh, what I'm saying is...i-i want to have a-a family....with you, Enzo. O-of course if you don’t wanna that’s perfectly fine! It’s just been on my mind is all”

Valentino ruffled hair embarrassingly,

Enzo stood frozen,

 “I...”

Valentino turned around noticing the silence, 

“You okay hun? Did I-“ his sentence was cut off with Enzo hugging him,

“I would love to have a family with you....”

His hug tightened. Nearly crying.

Valentino smiles shockingly, staring down at Enzo's relieved-like expression, then hugging back.

“Let’s go to bed for now okay? We still have a kill to make for tomorrow night.”

Enzo sniffs as he wiped away his tears,

“Yeah…”

Getting ready for bed. 

Valentino thought about when they were kids. Remembering Enzo’s first at first. He really likes when Enzo speaks Russian since he can hear the voice he first heard from when they were kids, so it does have sentimental value for him. 

He snuggled up against Enzo’s chest who then shuffled down into the blanket and as he reached for the light to turn it off.

Arriving back to Valentino’s tent.

Enzo never knew how to speak much English, he was a very quiet kid and wouldn’t talk much, especially since of his parents. Valentino then makes a dramatic introduction, 

“Andddd here we are. La Casa of the Vicious Valentinoooo!!” Pulling a blanket aside showing a beautiful glimmer of his little hide-out tent. Little lights hanging from the top and walls, a small cat bed, a few books and a little sleeping spot on the corner along with a knife pinpointed on a piece of wood that was pinned on ground. Enzo felt amused and amazed,

 “Woahhh”,

 “I know right! Cool isn’t it? I made it myself and-“ he stares at Enzo’s confusion, 

“Oh...right-“ he stands up, grabbing out a box filled with slightly dusty books and sits down, patting his hand on the ground telling Enzo to come sit with him. 

Valentino starts pointing at the books as Enzo stares in silence, paying close attention. Valentino explained as he pointed at the book, 

“This is a book! You read from it, and you can write into it too! It’s like a diary but also a dictionary.” 

He gently opens the pages and points at the English words. Enzo stares tilting his head a bit in silence. 

“C'mon! Say it with me.” as he pointed at his mouth indicating to repeat what he’ll be saying. Enzo nods in agreement, 

“This is my name-“

 He gently guided his finger, pointing at his name slowly,

 “Va-len-ti-no! Got that? Now say it with me.” He guided his hand as Enzo still stood quiet, he was shy to speak. Valentino smiles,

 “Maybe next time then!” He then hears his parents call for him,

 “Ah, I gotta go now. But we can hang out again!” As he held Enzo’s hand taking him outside and took him back near his home. 

Arriving at his window,

“Ah wait! I forgot to give you this.” Handing him the book, 

“You can keep it! I think it’ll help you :D. Bye bye now, see ya next time!” Enzo gasps, holding onto the book out of surprise, looking back at Valentino who's already disappeared into the bushes. Enzo glared back down at the book, caressing the leather front gently as he warmly smiled, jumping back into his room through the big window. 

He closed his window along with the blinds, sitting down under his blankets holding a little lantern, trying to follow the words like Valentino demonstrated, and spoke,

 “Val...en-ti..no!” He was surprised but inspired and willing to learn more. 

A week passed.

Back from school. Morning struck. Enzo woke up from his head planted onto the book, lifting his head softly,

 “hmMhg?” He groans then yawns, stretching his arms looking around as the sunlight shined through the blinds. As he got up, he had a plan. He decided to make a little gift for Valentino as a payback for the book he was gifted. Peering through his door, making sure his parents weren’t in sight, and ran into the kitchen quietly, whispering to himself in his foreign language,

 “Hmmm…maybe I can make him some cookies!!” He smiles in excitement as he passionately starts to mix the ingredients, eggs, flour, vanilla extract, and even sprinkling in some chocolate chips. He then inserts the raw batter into the oven and sets the time to bake.

“Yay! Should be done in a few minutes. I just hope ma and pa don’t notice the smell too much while they’re asleep…it’s good they work at night.” He mumbled to himself pacing around the house before arriving in his room. 

After a few long minutes, he heard a loud beep coming from the oven followed by a delicious aroma that filled his nose from his room,

 “They’re ready!”

He ran into the kitchen, so quickly that he nearly slid into the sink cabinets,

 “Time to frost them. Hmmmm I know I left the frosting somewhere in these cabinets..” Enzo searches and searches. Jumping onto the counters and cabinets, looking in every nook and cranny to find the frosting, eventually finding it in a small cabinet on top of the microwave, 

 “Found it!” He exclaimed as he gently stepped down from the counter and placed the freshly baked cookies onto the table. After taking a while finding the frosting, the cookies had already cooled off. He gently started to apply the frosting onto the cookies and let them cool up a little more for the day.

 “Ma and pa should be asleep until night since they work pretty late, just don’t forget you left the cookies here Enzo! Wouldn’t want them to get mad.” He argues to himself as he gallops back into his room continuing to read and learn to gain better understanding and knowledge of the newfound language.  

Nighttime falls. 

Enzo was under his bedsheets reading and pronouncing out loud.  He then heard a knock at his window once more,

 “Heyyy!~” Valentino waves. Enzo gets up and peeked through his sheets and gasps in excitement and runs up to the window where Valentino was standing and squatted looking back at his door,

 “Hold on!” As Enzo sprinted outside his door. Valentino thought he meant for him to wait and so he did. Enzo then comes back, nearly bumping into his wall from rushing into his room. Coming back with a little plastic bag on his hand as he opens and exits his window.

Valentino then grabs his hand and pulls Enzo to run with him to his tent.

“Hehe! So how have you been doing for the past week? School has been busy I bet- Are you okay?” He questioned in concern. Though, Enzo nodded his head up and down expressing a “yes” motion. Valentino flinched,

 “Oh! You understood that? *GasP* Have you read the book?! Really quickly for a whole week?!” He shouted in excitement. Enzo smiles as he pulled the bag of cookies from his pocket and hands them to Valentino,

 “You!”

He started to speak in russian,

“I made for you!” As he held Valentino's hand and placed the bag onto his palm. Valentino’s eyes widened, 

“Me?” Pointing at himself. Enzo nodded once more only understanding little pieces of his words as Valentino chuckled and opened the bag and bit into one of the cookies,

 “MMM! THIS IS SO GOOD! DID YOU MAKE THESE!” He shouts with a muffle in between as he chomps on multiple cookies at a quick rate, “Yah!” Enzo responds happily as he thought to himself,

 “Oh my gosh he loves them!! That makes me so happy! I hope this pays back for the book he gave me. I can’t understand him too much but it seems he’s enjoying them so far!” His thought process cuts off with Valentino handing him the last cookie, 

“Here! You can have the last one!” Enzo gasps as he looks into Valentino’s eyes, then looking back down at the cookie and gently holds onto it hesitantly, then took a bite,

 “mMmm!” 

“I know right!!? You’re such a good baker!” Enzo felt warm knowing someone really liked his baking

“Oh wow…I have never had a real friend before. This was my first time sharing something I made. I like this.”

 He bounced a bit as he grabs the book and shows it to Valentino, indicating he’d want to learn more and practice,

 “Of course! Here lemme show you how to pronounce these words.“ 

After a few hours of their study session, Valentino pulls up a sheet of paper and pencil to end off the lesson for Enzo,

 “Here, names! Mine is-“

He wrote his name on the paper and pointed to it,

“Valentino! Here.”

 He flipped the paper to the back and shuffled it to Enzo,

 “Now it’s your turn!” Enzo gasps in a bit of hesitation, nervous to mess up but gets the courage to write it down in English the best he can from what he was able to learn,

 “E-n-z-o” he wrote. Valentino stares as he watches him point to himself indicating that it’s his name,

 “That’s your name?” Valentino questions,

 Enzo nods in agreement shyly. Valentino stares in awe,

 “That’s such a pretty name! How do you say it?” 

As he points to Enzo’s name letting him know what he was asking of him. Enzo flinches and points to the first letter and gently speaks, “Энzо….or uhm…En-zo” as he slides his finger across his name,

 “Enzo?” Valentino repeats. Enzo smiles and nods, 

“mhm!” 

Valentino cackled, feeling pride and success,

“Yess!!” Enzo then giggles a little bit and thinks, then points to Valentino’s name,

 “Oh? Do you wanna try again with my name? Sure! We just met a week ago. So I could see why you were nervous at first, but yeah sure!” He then points to his name and pronounces it to Enzo slowly,

 “Va-len-ti-no”

 Enzo inspected his mouth as he pronounced his name, then tried to attempt to say his name out loud,

 “Val-entino?” Val gasps and jumps up, 

“Yeah! Yeah! That’s me! That’s my name!” As he falls over onto his pillow making Enzo laugh a bit, 

“PFFt-Behehee” Valentino gets up and heard a far echo, a call from his parents once more.

 “Oh! Gotta go! I’ll see you next time, Enzo!” As he grabs his lantern and shuts the tent running back home, Enzo smiles and ram back to his.