So we left the hotel in that light rain. Rick led the way with Gio by his side, chatting freely about the latest Pokémon game he had finished.

Manuel stayed back with me. I offered him some space under my umbrella, but he preferred to pull up his hood and walk in the rain.

"You're good," Manuel said with his big brother smile. "What do you think you'll do in the future? Pastry chef?"

"I think so."

Rick turned, walking backward as he interjected into the conversation. "Then get ready for a future of heavy drinking."

"Stop it, Rick," Manuel retorted in a rare, serious tone.

"Stop what? It's true. Find me a single chef who has been doing this job for more than a couple of years without getting drunk to handle the stress. And then there are those who get into heavier stuff."

"I'm not stressed," objected Manuel.

"Really? Are they all alcoholics and drug addicts?" Gio asked.

"Yes," Rick replied.

"No," Manuel said.

Rick turned back to walk straight and draped his arm over Gioele's shoulders. "How can they not be? They spend ten, twelve hours a day in a suffocating hole with no windows. By age thirty, they realize they've wasted their twenties. By forty, they realize their kids have grown up without knowing them. It's a shit career, and I'll quit as soon as I can. And you guys who are still in school would do well to realize it now and change course while you still can."

Manuel muttered something under his breath.

"What are you muttering about, apprentice? If they paid us what we deserve, I could still understand your stupid devotion. But they make us sign contracts for thirty-five hours a week and make us work sixty. They give us head chef responsibilities but pay us like interns. And if you complain, they tell you it's the same everywhere. This job is shit."

Rick's outburst wasn't new to me. Even us students had heard that story told in every possible way. I wasn't too worried. Maybe it wasn't the right life for many, but I felt like it was what I was meant to do.

It was with this cheerful preamble that we arrived at a place that alone illuminated much of the street. When Rick opened the glass door, loud music and the smell of beer and peanuts spilled out.

I closed the umbrella, ready to walk through the entrance, when I noticed Gioele had frozen.

"Aren't you coming in?"

"Of course I am," he replied in the tone of someone who would have preferred to have his bones peeled with a vegetable peeler. "It would be stupid to come all this way and not go in."

Rick had already slipped inside, while Manuel held the door open for us.

I had the feeling he would have to hold it open for a while.

"Uh, we'll be there in a moment," I apologized to Manuel, who nodded and retreated inside.

I opened the umbrella again and approached Gio, who was standing a little away from the glaring lights of the bar.

That silence returned, interrupted only by the rain. Gioele was looking up, where the drops were hitting his umbrella.

I mimicked him, watching the sheet above my head being hit at a regular and harmonious rhythm.

"Tut tut."

Gioele snapped his head. "What?"

"Ah? Nothing. I was just... making the sound of rain."

"Rain goes plic plic," he replied, almost offended.

"Well," and here comes my polemical side... "If we want to be precise, rain doesn't really do anything. It doesn't make a sound that can be reproduced in words."

Gioele pursed his lips and gave me a dirty look. "Yes, it does. It goes plic plic."

"In comic books, maybe."

Gio shrugged and retreated into himself. He mumbled under his breath: "No, in real life."

I rolled my eyes because, come on... he was as much argumentative as I was.

"In my life, it goes tut tut."

For some reason, this seemed to make Gioele very sad. He stopped looking at the rain and started staring at his feet.

"What's wrong?"

Gio shrugged. He looked at his bandaged thumb and moved it a little.

"Does it hurt?"

"No," he replied confidently. "Things that bother others almost never bother me. The things nobody ever pays attention to are the ones I can't get over." He lowered his hand again and rested it on the umbrella handle. "It's like everyone feels the world with a different tune than I do." His lashes fluttered several times in the humid air, as if he had just realized something that had eluded him for a long time. "I feel so... out of place. Everywhere. All the time."

"Hey," I quickly closed the umbrella and let it drip onto my leg as I moved under his. "No, don't say that..." I took him by the shoulders and pulled him close. "It's not true, you're not out of place. You're doing well in the kitchen now, aren't you?"

He nodded, but it didn't seem to comfort him.

"Actually," I admitted, "I didn't think of that myself. Tut tut, I mean. It's just something I read in a book."

Gio rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. Was he crying? In that dim light, I couldn't tell.

"I didn't take you for someone who reads a lot."

"That's right. This book was a bit of an exception. I picked it up from my elementary school library one day when I was bored. When I got home, I told my mom about it, and she was so excited that I liked it that she went to every bookstore in town to buy it. She devours books like a termite. She always hoped I'd have her same passion, but after this one case, it never happened again."

"What book was it?" Gio turned his head to look at me. I was still holding him close to me.

"You're going to make fun of me."

Gioele smiled, which was enough for me.

"It was Winnie The Pooh. I've read it a million times, I still have it on the shelf above my desk."

Gioele smiled even more.

"It's the very first Winnie The Pooh story. The bear wants to steal honey from a beehive, but he's afraid of getting stung, so he asks Christopher Robin to walk back and forth with the umbrella open, saying loudly: 'Tut-tut! It looks like rain!' to make the bees believe there's rain and make them fly away."

His still watery eyes lit up with delight.

"That's how you are! Just like Winnie The Pooh!"

I burst out laughing in surprise and confusion. I didn't even know what he meant! "Am I being promoted from one of the Seven Dwarfs to Winnie The Pooh?"

Gio lost his smile and became cautious. "Did I offend you... with that? I'm sorry. I didn't mean it maliciously. I really like your big ears."

I chuckled again. His attempts at repair were only digging the hole deeper. "Okay, they're not that big, they just stick out a little."

Gioele smiled again, shifting his gaze from one ear to the other. He rested the umbrella handle on his shoulder, holding it in a precarious balance. Then he raised his hands to my face and cupped my cheeks.

He's not about to kiss you. Calm down.

Gioele's hands slid a little further forward, touching the shells of my ears.

"You're handsome."

That caught me so off guard that I immediately lost the ability to string words together sensibly. "Uh, y-yeah? You too... I mean..."

The door of the bar opened. Manuel seemed ready to say something to us, but when he saw us, he just blinked. "Oh, sorry." And went back inside.

Gioele lowered his hands and took the umbrella handle again.

"Uh..." Should I tell him what Manuel might have thought? Maybe rumors would start circulating about us now. They probably had been since we showed up on the first day, with Gioele holding my pinky.

"I don't think I'll go in, Nico. The smell of that place makes me want to vomit. But you go ahead if you want. I'll see you later, in the room."

He didn't wait for me to respond. He turned his back to me and walked away.

He stuck his arm out from under the umbrella's cover, letting the drops fall onto his palm.