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He was staying at Roier's house tonight.
Richarlyson sat up in bed, waiting patiently for the sounds of banging silverware and quiet voices to cease. The pale light of the moon reflected softly in his dark brown eyes. A stray coil of black hair hung over his nose and Richarlyson blew it away, yet it only came to bounce on his face once again.
Soon enough, the bright lights of the house were switched off and he could hear Roier exit the house. As soon as the wooden door closed, Richas jumped out of bed and watched his father teleport to the intimidating castle in the distance through his large glass window. Roier always insisted that he didn't leave his home late every night to visit Richas' Pai, but the young boy knew the truth.
Cautiously, Richarlyson slipped off his bed and pulled the door open, careful to delay the inevitable creak that the door held. He crept down the stairs and paced into the kitchen - on his toes, as not to make too much noise.
The kitchen, bathed in moonlight but nothing else, slightly creeped Richarlyson, but he persisted to the basement, where Roier's crops grew plentifully. The wheat was tall, and its pollen irritated Richarlyson's eyes, making him blink multiple times. Still, he fought his way through the undergrowth until he came out on the other side. In the corner of the room was a hay bale.
Using all of his strength to lift the straw, the boy placed it down a few metres away and stared down at the inconspicuously hidden pistol that was on the floor in place of the bale of hay.
Bobby's gun.
Richarlyson took it up in his tiny hands, turning on the safety and stuffing it in the Brazil shirt he wore constantly. Turning back, he edged around the crops this time and scampered up the basement steps.
Excited, he burst open the front door before realising the noise he was making. He took extra care to be silent while closing the door with a click.
It was a cool summer night that had followed a sweltering day. The sun had retreated into the ground and was replaced by a refreshing breeze. The sky was void of clouds, revealing an unblocked view of the stars. Richarlyson simply stood staring upwards with joy for a few seconds, before shaking himself out of the trance that the stars had put him in.
Taking out the gun, Richarlyson pushed his hair out of his eyes and carefully picked his way through the weeds surrounding the house, before coming to rest at the river's beach.
Sitting down on the rocky sand, he looked down at the gun that once belonged to his best friend. Nervous, Richarlyson undid the safety and pointed the gun at the sky.
In the few seconds before he pulled the trigger, he prayed for two things; one, that the bullet would not fire back at him. Two, that nobody was around to hear the gun go off.
Bracing himself for the noise and his heart seizing up, Richarlyson pressed his finger down on the trigger.
A harsh bang went off, and Richarlyson gasped at the sudden noise.
And then there was silence.
Each second that passed with the clamour of Richas' thoughts made the boy more and more anxious as the air became unbearably suffocating. Maybe his dream of the previous night was just that - a dream.
Then suddenly, warm light bathed him and he widened his eyes in disbelief. The light, which could be compared to a tiny sun, started to level out and revealed a translucent figure wearing paint-splattered dungarees, shielding his eyes and squinting.
Bobby.
Richarlyson's eyes grew watery as they met his best friend's, and they stood staring at eachother with a dumbfounded grin for a couple of seconds.
"Richas..."
"Bobby!"
Bobby sprinted out of his ball of light and practically jumped into Richarlyson's outstretched arms, wrapping his subtly scaled legs around the other boy. Startled by the sudden change in weight, Richas stumbled backwards and before they knew it, they were lying in a heap on the grassy floor, laughing.
The gun lay on the ground next to them, momentarily forgotten before Bobby picked it up and gave it back to Richarlyson.
"You can keep it, Richarlyson! So that we can talk to eachother," Bobby explained with an ear-splitting smile. "I really don't know how I managed to tell you how to summon me, but I'm here now!"
Bobby suddenly grabbed his summoner's wrist and ran in the direction of the bridge, Richarlyson following soon after. The unexpected movement made him slightly out of breath.
"Where are we going, Bobby?" he asked, while the other boy was focused on locating wherever he was headed to.
"Uncle Mariana's base. I'll explain when we get there!" Bobby exclaimed, briefly glancing behind him and at Richarlyson, who was frowning in confusion.
The ground was hard from the days of heat, and they both had scraped their knees falling into the places Vegetta's mines had exploded by the time they arrived, breathless, at the entrance to Mariana's stone house.
"Bobby, are we going to break in? You know, it isn't allowed..." Richarlyson started, before being shushed with a finger to his lips. Bobby smirked, his eyes gleaming with the prospect of doing something adrenaline-inducing.
"Richas, you know what I always said. It's not a crime if we don't get caught," he whispered, throwing a stray pebble to activate the automatic glass doors that were the entrance to Mariana's house.
"Plus, he's been away for weeks, hasn't he? Chances are, he's not in." And with that statement, Bobby tiptoed into the house, Richarlyson following soon after with an uncertain expression on his face. He could see Bobby's excited grin, even in the near-darkness that was Mariana's house.
The house was completely silent save for the ticking clock in the corner of the room. Bobby, however, chose to be loud, talking normally about what he was doing.
"Hey, Richas, do you know where Mariana could keep Flippa's gun?" he asked, turning back to look Richarlyson in his eyes. In reply, Richarlyson quickly brought a finger up to Bobby's mouth - an iteration of what the other boy had done to him - to stop him talking.
"Bobby! Be quiet!" Richas hissed, trying not to laugh. "We don't know for sure if Mariana is away or not, you might wake him. Idiot."
Nodding, Bobby started looking under tables and opening the wooden cupboards in the kitchen, growing increasingly more frustrated as each one proved to only have what you would expect.
Suddenly, Richarlyson's ears pricked up and he heard muffled steps coming down the stairs.
"Bobby!" he whispered, with a panicked expression on his face. "Hide!" But Bobby was already safely behind a couch, which only left Richarlyson to crouch behind the nearest thing he could find - a dresser.
Barely a second after the boy had found his lackluster hiding place, a tired and very confused Mariana appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He heard Mariana talking to someone.
"My love, are you sure you weren't dreaming? Nobody's here."
A couple of seconds later, a shirtless Slimecicle stepped down the stairs and slung a loose arm around Mariana's waist. Bobby and Richarlyson looked at eachother and quickly stifled their giggles.
"If we hear anything else, then I'll go get my sword. But I think we should just go back to bed," Mariana mumbled into Slime's ear, in which the other man nodded anxiously, before leading them both back upstairs.
Bobby and Richarlyson both let out a sigh of relief.
"To be fair, Bobby, I think you would have fully convinced them you were dreaming if you'd shown yourself," Richarlyson joked through whispers. Standing up, he gently opened the dresser that he was hiding behind - and there it was.
"Juanaflippa's Gun! Bobby, I found it!"
Bobby raced to the dresser, almost knocking Richarlyson over in the process. He smiled widely and took it up in his hands.
"Thanks, Richas! Now let's go, I don't like being quiet."
☆ ☆ ☆
They were stood, hand in hand, with Juana's gun in Bobby's other one while Richas jumped up and down in glee at the prospect of seeing the girl he'd heard so much about from all of his friends. He glanced down, vertigo hitting him slightly as he saw just how high Juana's statue was from the top. But Bobby was there - and he was strong and steady, alike to an anchor.
"So... How does it work?" Bobby asked, trying to hide the excited grin slowly infiltrating his expression.
Richas took the gun from Bobby's tight grasp with a tug, and quickly undid the safety, before aiming it at the night sky, which was now aglow with hundreds of stars. It reminded Richas of looking upon the horizon of a busy dock, the flashing headlights of ships drawing his attention away from the water. He gazed in awe for a couple of seconds, eyes shimmering in admiration.
He looked back down, at Bobby.
"Don't ask me how I know, but I need to aim this to the sky and shoot."
The ghost boy nodded enthusiastically, his face beaming like the sun, high in the sky.
"And then will Juana come and join us?"
Richas contemplated his answer for a moment, still slightly in shock and disbelief that his vision of the night before had been correct. Although, this island had always been strange with death. Two lives, revivals, Abueloier's miraculous recovery...
It wasn't worth worrying about. Richarlyson smiled a radiant and confident smile, before nodding determinedly.
As if in slow motion, Bobby reached towards the gun and pointed it to the sky, before triggering it with a click before Richarlyson could react.
"Done! When will she arrive?"
Richas stared at the sky. There was a strangely dark, metallic star that looked like it was getting closer and closer to earth as the seconds passed.
"BOBBY! The bullet!"
Richarlyson ducked out of the path of the falling bullet, but Bobby simply stood, glued to the spot. Richas peeked through his fingers, expecting a gory scene to have presented itself in front of him - but Bobby was just standing there, trying his best to stifle a giggle.
"Richas, I'm already dead! Calm yourself," he chuckled, covering his mouth with one of his hands. "Juana! Safe travels?"
The world seemed to have stopped in the few seconds that it took for Richarlyson to twist himself around.
Behind him was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen.
Her caramel hair, which came down to her shoulders, was braided seamlessly into two loose plaits, tied with blue ribbons at the ends. She had thick, square-framed glasses that nestled themselves comfortably on her freckled nose. As for clothes, she wore a long skirt and a t-shirt that looked like it had been borrowed from Charlie Slimecicle's chester drawers.
She grinned nervously, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand.
"Hi, Bobby. Hi, Richas. I'm Juanaflippa," she started, before cutting herself off with an abrupt sneeze. "Sorry, ah... Hayfever."
Richarlyson's plastered smile only got wider as his eyes started to gleam like the stars above him.
"Hi, Juanaflippa," he whispered in amazement. The tall girl waved in response, keeping her arms close to her chest. Their eyes pierced eachothers' skulls as they tried to comprehend that this meeting could possibly happen.
Juana opened her mouth if to say something, but clearly decided against it as it was clamped shut again. This happened a couple of times before Bobby spoke.
"What is it, Flippa?"
The girl seemed to have a debate inside her head about the answer to the question before shaking her head.
"It's okay. It doesn't matter."
These five words seemed to turn Bobby's 'pleading' mode on as he walked up to her with stars shimmering in his large hazel eyes. He jokingly put his hands together into a praying fashion and looked up at Juana.
"Please, Flippa? Pretty please?"
Juanaflippa, in response, put her head in her hands, stifling a laugh at the situation she had dropped herself into. Her eyes twinkled happily.
"Fine, Jesus! ...Do you think we could visit my parents?" she asked, returning to her nervous state as the question was being asked. Richas and Bobby shared a look that was practically a whole conversation of blinks and eye-raises. They turned back to the girl.
"I think so, yeah! They're sleeping though, so we'll have to wake them up," Richarlyson explained, starting to become excited once again. Juana's expression shined as she heard the reply and her mouth curled into a confident grin.
"I can do that, it's okay," she said, laughing and turning herself towards the house. With one swift jump off her statue, she landed steadily on the gravel a couple of metres down. Bobby followed behind her, though a lot less gracefully - he crashed onto the floor in a heap of energy, immediately getting up as if he hadn't even registered his fall.
Richas' vertigo started to return as he stared down at the destination of his jump. The gravel seemed impossibly far away, and he could just imagine his legs snapping feebly from the impact of the landing. He felt sick at the thought of the hot, pulsing blood seeping through his clothes, staining the floor...
"Richas." It was Bobby. "You're going to be okay."
He reached up to hold a hand out, in which Richarlyson took gratefully. "Just look at me. If worst comes to worst, I'll catch you. Don't worry."
Taking a deep breath, he squeezed his eyes shut and jumped.
For a couple of seconds, the world stopped. It felt like he would never stop falling, never reach the gravel and grass outside Mariana's house. He was falling, falling, falling.
But as soon as it started, it was over, and Richarlyson's feet were safely on the solid ground, and he was surrounded by Bobby and Juanaflippa congratulating him on overcoming his fear. Richas could barely breathe, overwhelmed by his friends' pride.
"Thanks, you guys," he whispered through a couple of tears. Bobby and Juana only beamed at him, and he felt an emotion similar to joy.
Suddenly, Bobby had wrapped his hand around the other two's arms, and was pulling them impatiently towards the Mariana's automatic doors that they had snuck into just twenty minutes before.
Before he knew it, the three of them were stood at the entrance to Mariana's bedroom. They could hear Mariana and Slimecicle snoring loudly throughout the house, and if they cracked the wooden door open slightly, they would see trails of drool trickling from their mouths and onto Mariana's feather pillows. It was not a pretty sight.
"Okay," Juanaflippa started in a hushed voice. "I think that Richarlyson should wake them up and explain beforehand, because Pa Charlie tends to think he's going insane--"
She was interrupted by two forceful hands to her back, bringing her forward into the push-door, which swung open into Mariana and Charlie's room with ease. She shrieked at the sudden movement.
And her shriek had suddenly awoken Charlie, who instinctively shook Mariana's shoulder and reached for his sword by the bed.
Mariana shot up like a switch being turned on, his eyes blown wide and alert.
"Charlie? Did you--"
He stopped suddenly upon seeing Juanaflippa regaining her composure outside his bedroom door. He rubbed his unbelieving eyes, once, twice, three times, before nudging Charlie and gesturing towards the girl with a trembling finger. Charlie's gaze followed his point, before coming to rest on Juanaflippa, who was now staring at them which an expression akin to a deer in headlights.
Charlie clutched his husband with one hand.
"Mariana. Wake me up."
But Mariana was unresponsive, tears starting to form in his glazed eyes. All he did was pry Charlie's grip off his arm and take it softly in one hand. Finally, he replied with one word.
"Flippa."
Juanaflippa, in response, performed the same nervous wave she gave Richarlyson what seemed like an eternity ago. This simple movement seemed to snap Charlie and Mariana out of their trance, as they only spared one confirming glance at eachother before racing out of bed to take Juana in a tight embrace. Charlie was the one who spoke next.
"Oh, Juanaflippa. We've missed you," he gasped between silent tears. The girl simply hugged them tighter, the family drowning in emotion at being reunited. Not one of them questioned how Juanaflippa had gotten there, and it seemed like it would stay like that.
Bobby whispered a few words into Richarlyson's ear, and the boy nodded his head in response before they both crept back down the stairs and into the cool midnight air. Bobby, who had clearly been trying his best to keep quiet up until that moment, let out a loud and joyful burst of laughter, smiling at Richarlyson with gleaming eyes and a warm face. Richas opened his mouth to speak.
"I'm tired. We should go and find someplace to sit for a bit."
Bobby nodded in understanding.
"The beach, maybe?" he offered, checking his map. "I know it's a while away, but we could warp. I've never warped on my own before, but I'm sure it's okay."
Richarlyson agreed.
"Okay, let's do it! And warping is okay, it's really the same whether you do it with your Pai or not."
☆ ☆ ☆
They were sitting on a bench, dubbed 'Forever and Richas' Bench' by a sign nearby. Bobby's legs were tucked comfortably under his chin, and the breeze from the water was a refreshing contrast to the stuffy midsummer air that they had been experiencing beforehand. Richarlyson sighed contentedly, watching the quiet waves lap into the shore.
"Richas?"
"Yeah?"
"Give me an in-depth explanation of everything that has happened since I died, 'cause I have no clue."
"Oh, wow. I forgot. Okay, so, the last thing that you remember is the plane crash, right?"
Bobby nodded, biting the inside of his lip with his teeth.
"Okay, well..."
Richarlyson then went on a twenty-minute rant about everything - good and bad - that happened to the island since that dreadful May. And Bobby, usually one to interrupt every few seconds, simply listened in a silence occasionally punctured by a shocked gasp or giggle. He was enraptured by Richas' words, his mouth hanging open slightly in disbelief at his best friend's storytelling skills, which had remained dormant until this moment.
Richarlyson used his inquisitive to shape the most beautiful of words into a captivating tale of joy and grief, excitement and tranquility, heartbreak and reconciliation. Bobby felt like he was listening to a fairytale, and he wished he had never left the island. But he was stuck on one detail.
"...Pa Roier and Tío Cellbit got married?" Bobby asked after Richarlyson was finished recounting the last few months. Richas silently smirked in response.
"Yeah. It was insane."
Bobby continued gawking at the other boy, who grinned with his teeth at being able to incite such a shocked expression with his dramatic story.
"I knew it. I don't even know why I'm surprised. My Pa was always talking about Cellbit, I literally couldn't catch a break sometimes!" Bobby laughed, clearly overjoyed about the information he had received. "What about Jaiden, though? Is she still around?"
Richarlyson nodded as a yes.
"Yeah. She made a new house after you died, though - I'm not supposed to know about it..." he trailed off, seemingly unsure of what to say next. "But I do. We can go and see it if you like. Maybe you could visit her."
Bobby's sharp eyes gleamed, but at the same time he slightly shrank into himself. His heart and mind were contrasting eachother when he spoke.
"Look... I really want to see her. I would love it. But I'm scared," Bobby admitted, embarrassed about his emotion. "I know she was really nice to me when we had our last moments together, but... After all, it was my fault that I died. That I got taken away from her. I was the cause of her pain, and I think she would be angry with me if I came back to her."
Richarlyson turned to stare Bobby down, right in the eyes with a determined expression.
"Bobby."
"Richarlyson?"
"Are you insane? She will not be angry! Jaiden has missed you desperately, she has been sad beyond anything I could imagine. Her new house is basically a Bobby haven. You need to see her," he expressed, trying his best to convince Bobby to visit the person who has missed him the dearest.
"Okay. Let's go."
☆ ☆ ☆
Bobby and Richarlyson stood on the hill, staring into the sea of fragrant, red rose bushes that invited them into the small cabin that sat at the edge of the display. Bobby's mouth hung slightly open in a small O as he took in the sights for the first time. His voice shook slightly as he talked.
"Wow," he breathed. "This is... incredible."
Each of the roses was messily planted with a crazed haste of someone with hands needing to be filled, to be used. The fields must have taken Jaiden weeks, if not months. Richarlyson had remembered wondering why he had not seen the woman for a month afterward - he had just assumed she was taking time to herself.
Richarlyson agreed with Bobby.
"Yeah."
Suddenly, he was sprinting down the hill pathway at a lightning speed, the only thing stopping him from falling over being his tiny purple wings, spread wide and dragging on the wind. Richarlyson attempted to follow after him at a slower pace, slowly catching up to see Bobby breathing heavily and smiling widely at Jaiden's door.
Richarlyson jogged up to him. "Are you ready to see her?" he asked genuinely. Bobby looked scared, but he nodded. The smell of the roses that were now within touching distance was powerful, and Bobby felt almost in a trance as he knocked on the door softly with both of his hands.
Almost immediately, it opened, and a Jaiden that clearly had not gotten to sleep stood in the doorway. Her eyes went wide as she looked down at the boy in front of her, her deep violet eyes glistening as she took in the unbelievable sight before her.
"...Bobby." Her voice showed not an inch of doubt as she said his name. Bobby's lip jutted out as he smiled, his eyes slowly filling with salty tears.
"Jaiden..." he replied, reaching his arms out. Without any hesitation, she picked him up from under his armpits and brought him to her chest as he wrapped his legs around her stomach and held onto her neck, hugging her tightly. Jaiden would have never known he was a ghost if it hadn't been for the slight transparency of the boy.
"Oh, Bobby..." She wiped a tear away from his face and he sniffed. "I missed you so." Bobby smiled a snotty grin at the statement.
"I missed you too, Mama."
At this point, Richarlyson felt he was intruding on a heartfelt family reunion, and backed away from the doorway with a guilty smile in Jaiden's general direction. Out of sight of the two, he decided to use a strong, green vine to climb onto the cobbled roof of the cottage.
After a few minutes of strength-draining work, Richarlyson finally pulled himself over the clogged gutter and onto the roof with a contented sigh. Shimmying himself up the slanted slate until he reached the peak, he finally got into a comfortable position and looked up to see the deep indigo sky interrupted by the start of red stripes across the sky. The contrast of the red that screamed energy and the indigo that invited calm truly felt like a metaphor for the eventful night he had had.
Realising that it had been almost twenty four hours since he was last asleep, Richarlyson lay back on the roof, staring up at the slowly fading twinkles of stars. The sky started to blur at the edges as Richas' tired eyes threatened to surrender to the calm doziness that overpowered him.
Giving in, his eyes fluttered closed as the world went dark and the unconscious crept up on him. Richarlyson felt a headache he didn't know he had unravelling as he felt himself falling asleep.
He slept with a smile on his face.