WHO: Anthony Liu and Chelsea Blake WHAT: Romantic date by the lake, AnthonyxChelsea style. WHEN: Backdated to October 27th WHERE: The lake of course. WARNINGS: Cuteness. STATUS: Complete
The second date was a ~romantic~ one, as Chelsea had said. Well, she thought the idea of a date by the lake qualified as romantic, and the fact they both had agreed to call it as such was good enough for Chelsea. They had gotten there pretty fast, and set up a nice blanket-towel-something to sit close by and not get dirty -Chelsea’s idea. So the idea was to sit and talk, and once they got about that she realized it was really easy to talk with Anthony, and as long as she didn’t consciously reminded herself this was the second date, things rolled naturally. She liked naturally, yes.
“So, tell me more about your family?”
To be honest, Anthony had limited knowledge on what was romantic and what was not. Fortunately, he had more or less instinctively figured that hanging out by the lake was far better than sneaking into the cafeteria late at night -- mostly because he was, in general, an outdoorsy person. Besides, he quite liked the extended area of the school; it was familiar to him now, as he regularly jogged around it in the morning.
“My siblings are the worst naggers, “ he rolled his eyes, though there was clear affection in his tone as he went on, “They liked to tell say --” at this, Anthony suddenly started speaking in Cantonese to accurately mimic them, but realized three seconds later Chelsea wouldn’t be able to understand him. A little sheepish, he backtracked on what he had been saying. “They liked to say ‘are you kidding? No, we can’t do that, what are you thinking?’ to me a lot.”
He shifted his gaze towards the lake, though he wasn’t really focused on it. “My younger brother -- Joshua -- is really smart and likes giving out his opinions even when it’s not needed. Sometimes he’s harsh, even though he means well. He thinks he’s grown up, likes to remind me that he doesn’t need me, but he’s only 16,” Anthony let out a small laugh, his arm moved and his hand ended up on top of hers, though he didn’t move it away. “My younger sister used to be studious. Nowadays she’s too busy fangirling celebrities, going to concerts and trying to see there are any boys I can introduce her to.” He turned to Chelsea, giving her a wry smile. “People used to think they were older than me than the other way around.”
Moments after his hand rested on top of hers, Chelsea’s fingers locked onto Anthony’s, her attention still fully in what he was saying. She was about to say she wasn’t taking Cantonese (maybe she should?) but he corrected himself quickly. “What would they nag about to say that?” Ah, the joys of not having siblings capable of much coherent speech as she was growing up.
Chelsea smiled as he talked about his siblings. “Well, it’s not weird for young people to wish they were adults, only to have them wish the contrary once they are adults, although I think nowadays that’s a changing tendency, what with all the new technology flowing in.” Still, Joshua sounded pretty self-sufficient and entitled as many teenagers she knew. “And she’s at least living more now that she’s not focused entirely on her studies? I mean, as long as she doesn’t get careless, right?” Nothing good with doing something you liked, even though Chelsea had never been too fond of celebrities.
She leaned a bit closer, tempting him rather than kissing him. “You can be such a little kid sometimes though, I think it would have thought the same if I had met them before.”
“Almost everything. House chores, where to eat, the gifts we get for our parents,” he crinkled his nose as memories flashed through his mind. It wasn’t difficult to remember these small moments, even if some time had passed. As annoying as he might have found those moments when it happened, he realized later on that they helped make him feel better whenever he missed them. “I haven’t seen them in a while but my sister still sends me reminder emails.”
There was some sort of disapproval on Anthony’s face, simply because he was doing that protective older brother thing that, well, older brothers were prone to do, whether they realized it or not. “That’s true,” he finally relented, aware that it would be hypocritical to simply say that he would prefer that his sister focused on her studies when he wasn’t much of a model student himself.
As tempted as he was to kiss her, Anthony smiled mischievously and held back, if only because she referred to him as a kid. He shifted closer to her, though still made no attempt to do anything, giving her the most nonchalant look. “What about yours?”
“Well you are the oldest, you have to worry about them, annoying as they are.” The idea of Anthony being disapproving of her sister’s studying habits, when taken into account he was a lot laxer than people would give him credit for was short of amusing. Still, she would probably act the same way. “Besides, if she’s sending you reminder mails you can use them to check on her progress. Sublty, you know.”
She inched a bit more for a moment, nose touching before she settled back again, a seepish smile in her face. “My parents? Dad is something of a weird mix between a landscape artist and a private photographer, so he travels all over the place when working. Mom teaches English in a couple of universities. Suffice to say, mom is the responsible one and dad is another kid in the Blake household.”
Chelsea seemed to consider something for a moment before her smile turned into a grin. “I wonder how it would be if our families met. A bit too crazy, perhaps.”
A faint pout appeared on Anthony’s face when she pulled away before he could do anything. Instead of saying something about it, he pulled her close to him again so that she was almost leaning against him. He had discovered that he liked having her close to him -- a normal thing when you were with someone you liked, obviously, but besides giving Anthony all sorts of fluttery, happy feelings that he couldn’t quite put into words (he wasn’t sure if he could without embarrassing himself), he enjoyed how comfortable and reassured he felt.
“Your dad has a cool job,” he told her interestedly. It was different from a 9-5 desk job and he thought it was rather rewarding to be able to travel while being paid. “My mother would probably get along with yours,” he looked a bit amused at the thought of the two meeting. “I have a theory that teachers have to naturally get along with each other.” Anthony’s eyes shifted briefly to their hands, which were still intertwined, before looking up at her again. “My sister’s already questioning how I ended up getting an American girl to like me. I have a feeling she’d probably bug you about everything.”
“What do you like most about your hometown?” he asked, genuinely wanting to know, since Australia was the only other country that he had ever visited, and it was different when actually talking about it.
Taking that as a signal, Chelsea finished the leaning on Anthony operation by...leaning on him, of course; she was careful not to put all her weight on him though; she might not consider herself unfit -all the contrary- but it wouldn’t be nice to have someone being dead weight on you, at least not the way they were sitting. “Yeah he has. I don’t think he would have ever accepted any other sort of job. I mean, he didn’t have any other job before. And yeah it sounds like our moms would be terrible together.” She was pretty sure Anthony’s mother would make her own a lot more severe, which was sort of a bad idea altogether; Chelsea liked to take things at her own rhythm.
Laughing, Chelsea used her free hand to poke him on the ribs. “You got yourself an American girl to like you by being yourself, something most guys are not good about at all.” All she hoped was that his sister wasn’t the jealous type.
“Well...I don’t really know.” Perhaps as an apology, she shifted a bit more against him, making it easy to remain sitting, although she wondered if it wouldn’t be just easier to lie down. “I mean, there’s nice houses, nice people, friends, parties...I guess I just liked the happy little life I had there.” She sighed, although she was still smiling. “Lame, I know.”
Anthony lifted his shoulders to shrug, though his eyes softened a bit. Even if she hadn't elaborated more, it was clear that she seemed to have a good, normal life back home. And it was easy for him to understand how all of that could change abruptly.
"It makes sense to me," he replied, an after thinking about it for a few seconds, he lowered his head to kiss her on the forehead. "I can't pinpoint what I like most about mine. I never really noticed it at first, but when you're away from a place you like, you tend to start thinking about the smallest things." His eyes went up to the night sky, as if he could pick a memory from up there. "Like how breezy it is to ride the bicycle in the mornings, the loud chatter at my favorite food stall and how dirty we'd get after playing football in the rain."
She closed her eyes when he kissed her in the forehead, a small smile appearing. Good thing he looked up because she had started to blush furiously. “There was this mom of a friend of mine...she did the best chocolate cakes ever. I’m seriously, she started a little catering business and last I knew she was going inter-state already.” And she really did miss those cakes, now that Chelsea thought about them.
“Oh my God, at long last I found a guy that calls football what is meant to be.” She leaned a bit, kissing him on the cheek. “I haven’t kicked a ball in ages. Then again, the boys never were all too eager to play with girls, and most girls are, eh, pansies.”
"Thanks, Chels, you just managed to make me hungry again," he mock complained, tugging on her hand playfully.
Anthony's face lit up, and he looked at her expectantly. Not that he didn't already like her, but finding out that she actually played football made it even better. "You could play with me. Or some of us from the football club," Wondering if she thought their games were serious, he added, "We practice for fun too." Anthony let out a laugh. "It'd kind of be impossible to have serious inter-school games around here."
She tugged back, something of a grunt coming out her mouth as she did a little pretend fight for Tugging Supremacy. “I’m not much of a player, and it was mostly for fun, so if you guys can deal with that...sure? I should do more exercise besides the usual training anyway.” She didn’t debate the unlikely chance of competing with anyone, considering they were still stuck inside of that bubble. “But you have to promise not to go easy on me.”
That said, she rolled off him, falling softly on her back, hands on her stomach as she looked up at him, telling him to join her down there with her eyes.
“I promise I won’t,” he assured her.
Anthony looked down at her for a moment before allowing himself to lie on his back next to her. Both of his hands were placed under his head as a makeshift pillow. For a while, he didn’t say anything, enjoying the night breeze and just being there. “It’s weird that you can see the sky so clearly and forget how there’s a forcefield up there,” he commented, moving his head to look at her. “You wouldn’t be able to see any stars if you were in the city.”
Chelsea huffed, slightly annoyance coating her words. “Tell me about it. I don’t know if it’s better or worse I can’t see the thing keeping me bound.” She turned around quickly, looking at him in the eyes with intensity and something that might as well be an apologetic smile. “It’s gotten easier to bear with, I have to admit that much.”
He gave her a lopsided smile. It wasn’t something he hadn’t heard before. There was truth in her words that he knew couldn’t easily be argued with, nor did he want to. It would almost be the same as bringing up an argument about the tracking chip. Glancing down, his hand took hers again, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “That’s good.”