Hong Kong x Iceland ~The First Steps~ 1

~The First Steps~ 1

“Say that again?”

“I wanna go to senior ball with you.”

Emil scowls, a gesture that will eventually get him premature wrinkles from hanging out with Leon all of the time. Not too long ago, both of them received acceptance letters into Eliatha University, their first-priority university. As high school seniors have it, senioritis has hit the two of them—hard.

“Leon, th-that’s great and all…” Emil has to stop a few times to hide the blood rushing to his cheeks. Over the few years he has known his best (and only) friend, he has progressively grown tolerant of Leon’s eccentric ideas and actions one moment only to be baffled by his behavior in the next.

“…but what I’m trying to say, Leon, is…”

“Yeah?” He is staring intently at his bashful, lavender-eyed friend with a placid expression as if he doesn’t care about his reply. Then again, it’s difficult to read Leon.

“No,” Emil answers him. “I can’t. What if people think that we’re…? You know…”

“A thing?”

Emil swallows. How can he say something like that so easily?

A blank expression on his face, Leon appears unfazed by his friend’s direct rejection. “Does it matter, Ice? We’re seniors. We’re going to go to one of the best universities in the world. Do you care what people think of us in our last moments as high school students?”

“Well…it’s not like they really cared in the first place…” he shamefully admits.

“See?” his amber-eyed friend smiles. “This way, you’ll be remembered as that one white-haired guy that went to senior ball and crashed the show.”

“Crashed the show?” Why am I getting a bad feeling about this?

“Leon, I don’t want to be the guy who’s remembered just because of senior ball. I want to be remembered for being that quiet kid in school who went on to make a difference.”

“But no one’s gonna remember you if you don’t stand out in the first place, Ice,” Leon points out. Most of the time, he’s right, and this is no exception; but Emil is stubborn.

“No means no, Leon,” he firmly responds. “Besides, from what Mathias said, you have to prepare so much in advance. There’s renting a limo—and I know that’s not happening—renting a tux, paying for the ticket, talking, and dancing…Leon, that’s not me.”

His friend raises a thick eyebrow. “Seriously, Emil, if you keep this up, you’re going to turn into your brother.”

In response, Emil’s lips twist into a pucker-faced frown. “I’m not going to end up like my brother. I have you.”

“Cute,” Leon casually replies. It’s as if he expects such a comment from his modest companion. “But it’s actually kind of late for you to be saying no.”

Emil doesn’t understand. “Wha—? Did I miss something here?” To his shock, Leon’s hand that was in his pocket the entire time finally reveals itself with two fancy lace-framed tickets, both displaying the words, Academy W Senior Ball, in bold, elegant letters.

“Leon, what in Eliatha! You bought two tickets without consulting me?!”

“And they were expensive, too,” he whines. “I used my own money, you know. You know how my old man is, never letting me get what I want.”

“You have a smartphone, a flat-screen TV in your bedroom, and every video game system I can think of, and you tell me you don’t get what you want?”

“Point is, I have two tickets, and there’s no way in Eliatha I’m going to ask anyone else to the ball,” Leon smirks while waving the tickets around like one of Cheng’s fans.

Well, this is a pickled mackerel, Emil sighs. And those tickets are at least two hundred heta each…

“So, Ice?” A note of amusement toys on his sneaky friend’s tongue. “Didja change your mind?”

He’s got me. There’s really nothing else to say. Besides, it isn’t as if Lukas will oppose. He’s still at the university. And Leon has a point. This is our last year. We’ll never be able to do this again.

At last, he sighs. “Fine. Just don’t tell Lukas or anyone at school until then, okay?”

“Ha! I knew you’d say yes!” To Emil’s further annoyance, his friend claps his hands together like a child who has won an argument against his parents.

Why do I end up being the mature one in our relationship? he wonders. True, Leon is barely two weeks younger than him, but he thinks he should be more mature after living in Hong Kong for nearly all his life.

“You’re going to promise you’re not going to tell my brother or our classmates, right?”

“Sure, sure,” he grins, “but, like, I’ve still gotta tell Cheng. He’s gonna be the one to drop us off.”

Emil rolls his eyes. “Of course he’d be the one. He spoils you more than Yao.”

Then, out of the blue, Leon brings something up that he doesn’t expect. “So where do you want to meet up for lessons?”

“Lessons?” he repeats. “What lessons? Unless I’m missing something again—”

“Our dance lessons, silly!” Leon laughs as if it is supposed to be common knowledge. “We’re not going to show up to senior ball without showing off some dances moves.”

“D-Dance…? Leon, you cannot be serious.”

“I’m totally serious.”

Hoping for a flicker of sarcasm, Emil searches in his friend’s golden-brown eyes for any trace of mischief. To his dismay, he finds none. Leon continues to stare with his perfected blank expression. The more he stares, the hotter his face begins to grow, until…

“You’ve really got nice eyes, Ice.”

“Shut up!”

“Okay, it settles it! We’re meeting at my place!”

“Who made you the boss?!”

“Saves time for me, and that means after practice, we don’t have to eat any of your mom’s awful cooking.”

Emil can feel the blood boiling in his veins. It’s one thing for him to force him to go to senior ball with another guy; it’s another for him to insist on dancing lessons; but for him to insult his mother’s cooking!

“My mother’s cooking is not bad!” he cries, his adolescent voice cracking from rage. “Her food is healthy—unlike your stupid grease-slathered dumplings and noodles and crap!”

“Don’t call Chinese food ‘crap,’ Ice.”

“I’ll say what I want just like you say what you want!”

The argument continues on with no give until the two end up talking about salmon tasting better caught from the river or from the ocean. How they end up talking about sportswear swimsuits and French cuisine from there remains a mystery.