Chapter 9 - Sleeping face

The morning light shone through the thin curtains, gently falling upon Gabriel's sleeping face and dying his hair with a layer of gold. His regular and faint breathing resonated in the silent room, his lips slightly parting at every breath. His discreet smile revealed what kind of pleasant dreams filled his sleep, making him look somewhat childish.

When Misha slowly opened his eyes and saw this scene, the child almost jumped out of bed in fright. His heart beat like a drum, and his mind flooded with thousands of questions.

Soon enough, his head tried to put his thoughts in order and calm his nervous heartbeat. Sure, the boy sleeping beside him looked like an angel that had descended on the earth in the middle of the night, but in the end, it was still Gabriel, a demon in human's skin. Only the face was angelic; the rest wasn't.

With slow movements, Misha sat on the mattress, his gaze locked on the teenager.

The child's small body was entangled in the white blankets, and only his head popped out, a few strands of his disheveled blond hair hanging down on his forehead. The corners of his eyes were a little red and puffy from sleeping for more than twelves hours in a row, making him appear somewhat lovely. But soon, his eyebrows knitted as hatred filled his eyes, and his upper lips started to tremble with anger.

The child took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to keep his wrath from running havoc at the view of the teenager's peaceful face.

In his past life, they also came to this hotel after a long and tiring day – Misha wasn't as well behaved as he had been in this timeline. He remembered throwing tantrums after tantrums, dissatisfied with Gabriel who he saw as an enemy the moment he laid his eyes on him. Once they entered the hotel room, his mother awkwardly asked him if he could share the bed with Gabriel for the night, and the child immediately refused to, screaming and stamping his foot for a long time while wearing a wronged expression on his face.

Back then, even though his mother tried hard to explain why she wanted them to share a bed, Misha didn't understand and also didn't want to. For all he cared, Gabriel could sleep on the floor like a good dog, or in the worst case scenario, with Camille. As long as it wasn't with him, his sister, or his mother, Misha didn't mind with whom the man shared his bed. The enemy just had to stay far away from his family. That was it, and his small brain couldn't think of anything else.

"A teenage boy and a teenage girl shouldn't share a bed. As long as they haven't entered a.d.u.l.thood, they shouldn't sleep together," his mother said, crouching in front of her son, her hands holding his tiny wrists while her thumbs stroked them in an attempt to appease the child's temper.

Both of his parents were a bit old fashioned and overprotective of their daughter. His mother didn't want her baby girl to grow up too fast. Moreover, Gabriel and Masha only started to date two weeks ago, and it wasn't 'appropriate' for them to sleep together. But most of all, when nightfall came, every teenage boy turned into a wolf in sheep's clothes in his parent's eyes, so it didn't matter if it was Camille or Masha, none of them was allowed to share a bed with a boy at their age, just in case.

Still, Misha didn't give in no matter what, and the girls, as well as the child, ended up squeezing in the queen bed, while Gabriel slept all alone in the double bed.

Misha's family was neither poor or rich, yet his mother insisted on paying the teenagers' parts for the hotel fees and their train tickets since they had to pay for their food and the activities, which included the Jardin Botanique, the cinema, and La Ronde, an amus.e.m.e.nt park. All in all, the weekend was already quite expensive. Thus, she only booked a room with two beds, a queen and a double size, thinking that his son wouldn't mind sharing a bed with another boy, and the girls were skinny enough to fit in the queen bed without suffocating.

In this timeline, Misha fell asleep on the double bed before his mother even had the chance to ask for his opinion, and since the child seemed to have somewhat accepted Gabriel, she let the teenager sleep on the bed with her son. Little did she know that Misha almost strangled the man right after he recovered from the shock of seeing his sleeping face first thing in the morning.

A few dozens of minutes passed before Misha opened his eyes, squinting as he stared at the youth. The child bit his lips, his teeth playing with his lower lip. All kind of emotions surged and stormed inside of him; he had suppressed them for so many years, and now, they suddenly tore his heart apart upon seeing that peaceful sleeping face.

His shoulders slightly trembled and his tiny fingers gripped the sheet so hard that his knuckles turned white.

It wasn't the first time that he saw such a serene sleeping face. Before his sister's death, he saw it quite often since Gabriel had this tendency to fall asleep on the couch while studying. How many time did he come home and stumbled on the man, snoring and drooling on the couch? He couldn't count them. It was an everyday occurrence.

"Why did you turn out to be an asshole?" murmured the child, his small voice seemed to break halfway, and tears welled up in his eyes.

Because she was alone to support the family, Masha often accepted to work overtime so they wouldn't end up in debts. Once in a while, she also wanted to dote on her little brother, hence needed to make more money. Since she dropped from school, she could only find two full-time, low-paid jobs. She worked seven days a week, twelves hours a day, sometimes sixteen hours a day.

When Masha came back home after work, she was always exhausted, looking more dead than alive. Every morning, she would hide the dark circles under her eyes and her dull and pale skin with a thick layer of makeup.

As a teenager, Misha never realized how much she was pushing herself. He only realized all her sacrifices and suffering when he was an a.d.u.l.t and had to work; when he was left alone and started to open his eyes to the world around him.

Back then, when his sister was working her a.s.s off, Gabriel helped to reduce her workload at home by taking care of Misha, cooking the boy's meals, driving him to school or his friend's place, and helping him with his homework. The teenager wasn't good with housework, but he still tried to do his best – after a few years, it even became one of his strong points. Thus, Gabriel was at their house almost every day. Along the way, Misha opened up his heart to the man and got close to him. He didn't take too long before he started to think of him as an older brother, and this thought lasted until the day his sister died.

The man had been his brother, his best friend, and his confidant for more than six years. Even so, Misha never saw what was hidden behind the gentle smile until it was too late and her sister broke down in his arms. He always remembered his sister's tears and sobs as well as her last words.

'All those years, I was never loved, only played with.'

At that time, his sister's crying voice was heartwrenching as if her lover had died in front of her eyes, and while listening to her cries, Misha felt like someone was trying to rip off his heart.

At first, he didn't want to believe her words. After all, the man had grown on him, but Masha was still his dear sister and she was the number one in his heart; he would always believe in her words over everything else. Then, the anger followed the helplessness and he couldn't stop himself from storming in the man's office at school the next day – Gabriel, who was a young a.d.u.l.t at the time, was a history teacher at his high school.

When Misha asked what the hell was going on, the man's perfect mask broke, revealing his dark, cold, and vicious personality, and the teenager lost it. The betrayal was too much to bear for his teenage heart.

The child took another deep breath, telling himself that everything was alright; he just had to make sure that his sister realized Gabriel's true colors before she falls all over the man. He still had time. Her love shouldn't be too deep after only two weeks of dating.

For the next hour, Misha sat on the bed without moving an inch, racking his brain over the problem without much success.

'Shit! I'm not good at scheming and deceiving people for f.u.c.k's sake! I'm an honest guy, dammit!' silently cried the child when the alarm rang, making him realize that he still hadn't found any ideas even though his poor brain was boiling. Even his ears felt incredibly hot!

'I need a partner in crime with a freaking brain! Right now!' thought Misha as he swiftly rolled in his blanket, pretending to be asleep.

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Autor's note

ML: Oh my! You love watching my face when I'm asleep? Hm? (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

MC: If watching your face while thinking of tearing it apart counts, well, yeah.

ML: … I guess it's better than nothing…•́ ‿ ,•̀