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Sergio insisted once again on holding a short lesson outside, eating, chatting, and enjoying the warm spring weather. Well, almost warm, but soon a strong wind picked up, and most of them quickly fled indoors.
But a few stayed.
Rio, Nairobi, and Berlin. Actually it’s quite an interesting company, arguing that Rio rarely goes anywhere without Tokyo, while Berlin prefers to spend time alone.
Silence fell between them, Nairobi biting into a whole apple while Rio finished frying the sausages that no one needed anymore.
“Nairobi, please change the song." Rio asked without taking his eyes off the grill.
"Why me?"
"The music speaker is closest to you, and my hands are greasy."
"Actually, there's still Berlin here, and his hands aren't full.”
"If you can't see, I'm very busy, dear Nairobi." Berlin didn't look up from his sketchbook, continuing to diligently draw something.
"Oh yeah, I forgot, Picasso." Nairobi grinned and switched the song
First a whistle was heard, and then the familiar melody of the Scorpions.
Berlin exhaled, closing his eyes to the rhythm of the music.
Nairobi smiled and began to sing along. “An August summer night, soldiers passing by. Listening to the wind of...change." She drawled the last words, winking at Rio.
He picked up after her. “The world is closing in, and did you ever think-"
They started singing together. “That we could be so close like brotheeers”
"Come on, Berlin, don't you know the words?Sing along!"
His throat tightened painfully and he remained silent.
“The future's in the air, I can feel it everywhere"
“I’m blowing with the wind of change"
Unwanted memories appeared before his eyes. And words. The words echoed in his head. He knew them by heart.
The pages began to blow away in the wind until they accidentally stopped on one. Instead of his familiar drawings, he saw mathematical equations, unfinished, smeared somewhere by hand.
For the first time in a long time, tears involuntarily welled up in his eyes.
He'd forgotten it was in the sketchbook. He'd simply forgotten. And how could he have forgotten? After all, he remembered perfectly well the evening when those equations had been written.
A couple of glasses of wine and warm, achingly familiar laughter.
"What is this?" Andrés leaned forward, resting his head on the Argentine's shoulder.
“It’s Darcy-Weisbach equation. A fundamental fluid mechanics formula that relates head loss or pressure loss due to friction along a pipe to the average velocity, pipe diameter and pipe length. It’s mostly used for both laminar and turbulent flows for various liquids and gases. To be simple it just calculates how much pressure is lost as fluid flows through a pipe due to friction.”
"Hmm...I love it when you talk about things I don't understand. You're a genius. You know that?"
"Well, 'a genius' is a bit too much, it’s just a standard equation…”
"Don't act so humble, I know that you know how great you are."
"Great?"
"Perfect" Andrés left a soft kiss on his cheek, not yet fully understanding what he was doing. He simply lowered his head on the engineer's shoulder, hugging him with both hands.
"You're going to turn the wine over, carefully now."
“I can't help you, you see, I have no desire to move even an inch."
"You're drunk"
"Maybe"
The man shook his head, smiling fondly from the corners of his mouth. He abruptly flipped him over his shoulder and onto his knees.
"Ouch, what do you think you’re doing? I fell right on top of your equations!"
"If I hadn't done anything, we would have to continue drinking apple juice."
"You have juice?”
"Giovanni brought a whole barrel yesterday, sooo if you’ll continue your inappropriate behaviour I’m going to have to take serious precautions.”
Andrés laughed in response, lightly slapping him across the face.
From behind the veil of tears, he was suddenly pulled out by someone's voice, and then two pairs of hands seemed to grab hold of him. Andrés sobbed, brushing away his tears with his hand.
"Berlin, can you hear us? Are you there?" Nairobi's voice rang out, Rio was standing just as close, looking at him in bewilderment.
"I'm fine." He quickly closed the sketchbook. Behind him he heard another familiar voice.
"What’s going on?" the Professor asked. coming closer.
Finally coming to his senses, Berlin pushed his colleagues hands away from him.
"I don't know, we turned on a song and Berlin suddenly started crying." Nairobi shrugged.
"I didn't know he was so sappy when it comes to music." Rio chuckled.
Nothing they said helped. He was on the verge of a breakdown and didn't know what he wanted more: a good punch in their inquisitive noses or to continue crying from desperation of it all.
He met Sergio's gaze and completely lost control of his emotions.
The song was already ending.
“Take me to the magic of the moment "
"On a Glory night...Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams..”
Sergio quickly assessed the situation. "Okay, you better go into the house, I'll deal with him.”
Nairobi exchanged glances with Rio, but they didn't arque. They certainly didn't want to be the ones to comfort Berlin.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," Sergio knelt down in front of him and Andres began to sob even harder.
“I don't remember his face. I don't remember his face. Sergio...How could I forget his face? His handsome, intelligent face?"
"Who are you talking about?"
Andrés’ lips trembled and he turned his head to the side, looking at his brother for a long moment. He said nothing, but they understood each other.
Sergio sighed, hugging him tightly. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here”
"Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams..With you and me...”