#deon

Original

Now that Radish is officially dead, here is a link to all of the officially translated novel of Roxana or How to Protect the Female Lead's Older Brother by Kin with the italics! You can now only officially support the novel on Tapas. But I hate that my free chapters are only open for 72 hours and that the last like 77 episodes you have to pay for unlike Radish. So I copied all of the novel into docs and epubs in the style of the physical Korean novels. Volumes 1-4 plus a version with all of the volumes in one with a table of contents.

I kinda like the beginning, and the rest of it is shit except the last few chapters which are pretty nice, and the ending is shit again.

Yeah, I guess Leon and I are dating now. Or we didn't officially agree to anything, but I think if he kissed me, he also wants to date me. And it feels good. Hell no, it feels really weird to think that, but I really like the way Leon's hand feels in mine and his soft hair and his smug grin and the way his face feels between my hands and the way he says he hates me and his lips touching my lips and his arm around me and his.. okay let's just start.

I sit at my desk just staring out the window and thinking about everything possible (...okay, I'm thinking about Leon, but what about it?) when I hear the phone ring in the living room. I don't even know why, but I quickly get up from my chair almost knocking it over and run into the living room to answer the phone, only to see my dad raise the phone to his ear. Someone says something on the other end of the line. Father glances at me with a surprised look, and then asks:

"Who's there?"

I don't like the slightly suspicious tone of his voice, but soon he hands me the phone and says:

"It's for you, son."

I take the phone and raise it to my ear with a slightly confused smile. Nobody almost ever calls me.

Dad leaves the room, glancing at me once more over his shoulder.

"Hello?" I ask into the phone, and no matter how hard I try, I can't prevent a smile from appearing on my face when I hear Leon's voice.

"Deniz?" He asks, and for some reason his voice is more cautious than usual.

"Hi," I reply, and I can hear myself smiling in my voice. Leon laughs nervously.

"Hi."

A long silence, to fill which I decide to ask:

"Did you have something to say, or did you call just to hear my charming voice?"

I can almost feel Leon blushing on the other end of the phone. I smile with satisfaction.

"Shut up!!" his voice is very irritated. "I can end this call if i want and never call you again."

"Okay, what were going to say?" I ask before he actually hangs up. Another moment of silence, which ends when Leon says:

"So.. uh- I was thinking that.. if you wanted to go with me... somewhere, to do, uh, something?"

I laugh.

"So like.. a date?"

I ask, because I know my choice of words annoys Leon.

"NO!" he shouts. "Or, sort of.. yeah? Or nothing too official now or it'll be awkward. But, if you wanted to come?"

Leon is always self-confident and trusts that everyone either likes him or is so afraid of him that they don't dare to disobey him. That's why it's rare to hear his voice so cautious and probing, uncertain. "Yeah," I say.

"What 'yeah'?"

"I want to come. Really."

~~~

When I arrive behind the museum, where we agreed to meet, Kalle is already there. His bike lies on the ground beside him, and he staresfor some reason an empty wall in the museum. He has his back to me and hasn't noticed my arrival yet. I quietly get off my bike and sit next to him. He doesn't notice me. He looks pretty nervous. I grin.

"Nice wall, isn't it?"

Leon almost jumps in fright. I laugh as he turns to look at me. I laugh at him freaking out, his cutely messy hair, the fact that he called me, and the fact that I'm with him now. I'm just so happy.

Leon tries to hit me in the side, but I grab his wrist and pull him closer to me. He looks at me and I look at him. It's not as romantic as you might think, but if it was, it would just be awkward.

"Am I supposed to kiss you now?" Leom asks. I glance around, make sure no one is nearby. There isn't.

"Yeah," I say quietly. "You are."

Leon also glances quickly to both sides before he kisses.

~~~

At some point, we stop caring if people notice we're dating. We cycle around the city without figuring out where to go, we laugh and talk about everything as normal and at some point Leon grabs my hand without slowing down. Our fingers automatically find their way into each other's recess and Leon's hand in mine feels warm and comfortable. The wind blows in my ears and I squeeze Leon's hand, and we don't slow down. Only a couple of guys shout homophobic slurs at us, but that doesn't bother us that much. We grin at each other, and Leon shouts behind him "Same to you!".

I flip the bird to the shouters, and since both of my hands are no longer on the bike's handlebars, Leon of course turns his bike hard to the side and pulls me along. We fall on the asphalt and I fall on top of Leon. Leon looks at me angrily, as if it was my fault. I roll off of him. Leon stares at me pointedly, but I can see from his eyes that he's not really that angry. He is cute. I smile innocently, and Kalle pokes me in the chest.

"Look where are you going you fucking idiot," he snorts.

"Me?! I'm sorry, but you dragged me here! You could see that my hands had other things to do than hold the handlebars!!"

Leon pretends to be angry for a moment, but soon gives up and looks me in the eyes. I feel myself blushing. I'm not good at this. But on the other hand, Leon is neither, so maybe it doesn't hurt.

We drink a strawberry smoothie in a stereotypically romantic way from the same glass at an outdoor table of some stereotypically romantic little cafe. I demand to be able to pay it, it takes a long time to make Leon believe that I am the rich gentleman here. Everything would be perfectly stereotypically romantic if Leon didn't purposely blow smoothie drops on my face with him whistle and laugh evilly.

I like it. We are different from everyone else. We are not a stereotypical romance, far from it. I'm sure no one else's first absolutely-not-date would be like this, and that's why this is perfect. That's why I like this. That's why I like Leon. We're holding hands under the table, even though we know that if anyone here gave a fuck, they would have already shown signs of interest.

We decide to go to Cameleon. We sit on the edge of that ledge, below us opens the chasm into which none of us miraculously has ever fallen. I wonder how that would feel. Freedom. Air flow on the cheeks. Happy. Leon's hand in my hand.

Fortunately, there is other ways to experience all that than falling from fifty meters, after which you hit a rocky ground and never smile again. The setting sun stereotypically turns the sky orange above us, but it doesn't even matter, it's actually pretty good that way.

Leon is lying next to me, his legs dangling outside the plank floor over the chasm. He looks laid back and I fucking love him. I don't know if it's weird to think like that when you've only been dating someone for two days. I look at him for a moment, the sun glinting in his eyes. I fucking love him. I fall down to lie next to him and pull him closer to me, which is, compared to some things (all of which Leom is involved in), a little more uncomfortable than some other things because we are both lying down and I have to laboriously slide my hand under Leon to hug him, but still feels warm and comfortable. In some kind of gust of tenderness, I lay my head on Leon's chest. His soft hoodie and calm heaving of his chest soothes something in me that I didn't even know existed. Leon pats my head stiffly, but then relaxes.

"I fucking love you," I repeat my thoughts out loud, realizing it's the same phrase I whispered to him that night at the Junk yard when he left the Wilden Kerle, now it's just in the present. I smile at my own unintentional profundity. Leon laughs.

"Of course you do. Everyone does," he says.

I shake my head against him.

"Yep, of course"

The sun is setting and it's getting dark, I kiss Leon again, my fingers gently raise his chin, I want to give a princely image of myself. It fails, but it doesn't matter, because Leon already knows I'm not a some fucking fairytale prince. He tells me that's exactly why he likes me. He really wouldn't want any fucking fairy tale prince.

"But you want the son of the world's most famous soccer player?" I ask. I'm at least as rich as fairy tale princes usually are. I tell Leon that, as if he doesn't already know it.

"Yeah, but do you arrive at my place with millions of euros worth of jewelry straight from the golf course on your white horse? No, though you could very well do that. You play soccer in some old field, mountain bike through the woods and, well, sit in a tree house late at night with me. If you are wild, it doesn't matter how much money you own."

"Okay, wow".

I really am impressed. Leon's face is warm against my cold fingers and I love him, everything about him, and I love that he loves me too. Our lips touch, and every time it happens, I wake up from another dream to the beautiful reality, Leon's arms around me.

I take Leon home, I smile as we cycle side by side along deserted roads. We stop in front of his yard, I hug Leon, I kiss him, on his lips and many times on his cheek, until he tells me to stop, I laugh and he squeezes my hand so hard that it almost breaks, what if Marlon or their father saw us. I think they would react really well. Leon blinks towards the windows of his house, blushing.

"See you tomorrow too?" I ask. I can only make out Leon's outline in the dark.

"Of course," he says, smiling. "We have our football team, remember??."

Deon hardt: No

Lofty Knights: Cap-, We mean Marquis, please take better care of yourself 

Deon hardt: I am fine, there’s no need for your worry

Stigma Primiero: focus on your safety.