“What? Ow!” I heard a muffled voice and then a loud bang coming from under the bed, and I watched as Ichthys shuffled out from under there. “Ah, nothing.” He sheepishly said as he rubbed the back of his head.
“Uh huh….”
I observed him as he looked from my bed to me, then his eyes drifted to what I was carrying in my hands.
“Why do you have that?” He asked so bluntly, whilst pointing towards the bird in my hands.
“You mean this little guy? I found him last night.”
Ichthys moved a little closer and bent down to look at the bird.
“That is not a ‘little’ guy, nor is he really a bird.”
“What are you on about?”
Before I got an answer, the bird had leaped from my hands and flew off. Ichthys tried to grab him, but he just narrowly missed him.
“Dammit. Get back here!”
I blinked in disbelief, as I saw Ichthys trying to capture this small bird.
“Would you leave him alone?!” I called out to him when I finally found my voice again, although I did not realise that I shouted a little.
My raised voice made Ichthys stop, and the bird flew back to me and landed on my shoulder. However, I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to have stuck his tiny tongue out at Ichthys.
“Look, he’s just a baby bird, stop scaring him!”
“Well… Hmm….” Ichthys folded his arms and continued to stare daggers at the bird. “You won this time.”
“Well, good… That is settled.”
Ichthys continued to eye up the bird as he sat on the small sofa that I had in my room. I moved around him and placed the bird on my desk. I quickly noticed that neither of them took their eyes off each other.
“By the way? I need to get ready to go to college, ok?”
As I said that, Ichthys turned his attention from the bird to me.
“Can I stay here?”
I blinked several times at him, and I wondered to myself: he wanted to do what?
“Excuse me?” I had to make sure what I heard was right.
“Stay here. Technically, I have nowhere to go, and it looks like the fatty bird over there doesn't either.” He casually states as he points at the bird who, in turn, seemed to have moved a leg to flip him off? Yeah, that couldn’t be right, I was still in a daze with what that weirdo just said.
“I….” I trailed off. In truth, I had been home alone for months now. Maybe it would be ok to have a housemate? Wait, what? Why would I even think of saying yes? But I had the feeling that if I said ‘no’ to him? He would end up randomly appearing at my door, and probably break even more things. I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Fine. But no more attacking the bird!”
With my answer, Ichthys grinned at me, then grinned at the bird, and I watched him as he moved off the sofa and patted the little bird on his head.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, we’re the best of buds now. Always have been, huh?”
There was some weird tension in the air.
“No attacking!” I firmly reminded him. As I glared at Ichthys, the doorbell rang.
“Oh, dang! Is that the time already?”
I started to scamper about my room, shoving things in my bag as I go, including Arlo’s notes from yesterday. As I was just about to leave the room, I turned to Ichthys once again.
“Remember, no attacking the bird, and no touching things either!” I had to reiterate, before darting out of the room, and down the stairs. As the doorbell rang again, I swung open the door, to see Junie’s beaming face.
“Took you long enough!” Are the words that came out of her mouth.
“Sorry, I woke up a little later than usual…”
“Ah, well…” Junie shrugged as she stepped out of my line of sight as I was putting my shoes on. “Man, what are you doing? If you needed to pee, you should have done it before you left.”
“I am not… Nevermind…”
My ears perked up at the second voice, and I noticed that it was Arlo. I sure hope his migraine got better. As I thought that, they both appeared in front of me, as I just finished putting my shoes on.
“Do you have someone around?” Arlo flat out asked me, as I stood up.
“No?”
“I see….” Arlo scratched his chin as he turned around and started to walk down the pathway.
I just stood there confused, and then Junie spoke to me.
“By the way, why did you ring me last night about birds?”
“Oh!” Now that I am back to my senses, I moved out of my house and closed the door to lock it behind me. “I found this bird, and I thought he might be someone's pet.”
“I see, well dad still says there is no mention of reports about missing pet birds.”
As I turned the key to lock the door, I hoped that the weirdo that I left in my house wouldn't destroy the building.
“Ah well, I might’ve gained a new pet then.”
“Didn’t I tell you to yeet it?” Junie questioned me, as we started to walk down the pathway to meet up with Arlo.
“He’s somewhat too special to ‘yeet’.”
“Uh huh….” Junie nodded along. “In all honesty, I thought you would get a cat as a pet. Not some bird.”
Both of us met up with Arlo who was staring up at the house, until Junie prodded him in the stomach to remind him that we were both there, and all three of us started to walk down the road together.
Back in Lucette’s room, the brown haired stranger, who referred to himself as ‘Ikky’, was glaring at the small bird.
“So…. Out with it, why are you here?”
The bird, in return, looked in his direction and a wide grin appeared on his little face.
“Wouldn’t you like to know? However, the better question is why are you here? I thought you were banned?”
Ikky shrugged as he slumped back onto the sofa. “When there is a will, there is a way. However...” He sat back up. “I didn’t know that you were so taken with humans. It’s a new side of you, it’s kinda cute.”
The bird made an odd grunting sound and hopped off the desk, and flew onto the bed.
“However….” Ikky turned around to sniff the air. “You smell good…”
“We will not talk about that….”
“Bath time, right?”
The bird frowned at him. “Stupid human and her bath time…. Such unnecessary things…”
With another grunt, the bird hopped off the bed and started to walk to the other side of the room.
“Seeing you act like this again, is really adorable. You’re so cute!” However, Ikky was surprised when he said ‘again’. Why was that? And why did it seem so familiar?
The bird stopped walking and turned around.
“Shut. Up…”
With that, the bird huffed at him and continued walking and disappearing behind a giant stuffed bear, causing Ikky to grin.
Letting his eyes close, Ichthys realised that the sofa that he was relaxing on was awfully comfortable and, trying his best to curl up in it, he thought this sofa would be quite a nice napping place; and it wasn’t long until sleep came to him.
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