Twenty minutes later, in the car and still laughing and discussing what we had just done, we were about a mile away from the pastry shop, and out of town. The radio was on, in case they talk about us on the news, but there was nothing for now. We didn’t see any police cars either, actually there weren’t many cars at all, maybe because it was around that time in the morning, when it was too early for lunch, but too late for breakfast, the time when everyone’s somewhere – kids are still at school, their parents are at work, old people are home, watching TV or reading the newspaper, and everybody’s either too bored and lazy, or just too busy to go out on the streets.

Now Vic was practically covered with about twenty boxes, all full with different kinds of cake, and he was still holding the cheap but realistic-looking watergun.

“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got here.”, he took a random box and opened it, still grinning a bit. “That’s… What is this, is that an orange? I think it’s a orange… lemon… kinda thing… It isn’t even cake, not exactly…”

I glanced at the box he was holding.

“Dude, that’s definitely not an orange, those are apricots. That’s an apricot cake.”

“Apricot cake? Eh.”, he closed the box and put it back down.

“Why, what’s so wrong with apricots?” I grabbed it from him. “I like apricots!”

“Well, I don’t know, like… I don’t, know, man, just, apricots. I mean, they’re alright, but it just looks weird in a cake.”

“No, it doesn’t!”, I objected. “Besides, you said it yourself, that’s not exactly a cake. C’mon, give me a fork.”

He shook head at me and blinked.

“Where am I supposed to get it from? They didn’t give us any.”

“Well, damn that service, then. They were impolite, running around like crazy, throwing stuff and breaking plates, and they didn’t even give us forks. What kind of service is that, huh? Unacceptable!”, I chuckled.

“We didn’t ask for forks, actually.”, Vic reminded. “And everyone was too panicked to remember to give us any.”

“No wonder, you scared the living shit outta them.”, I smirked.

“Yeah, right.”, he rolled eyes with a small grin. “They were scared of you. You’re the scary one of us two, Kellin, you’re the real criminal, and they knew it.”

“Nope, they didn’t. You were very fucking convincing, and badass.” I looked down at the cake, risking to hit the car somewhere, and took some with my fingers, as I added: “…And since we don’t have any cutlery, we’ll eat like this.” I put the small piece in my mouth and grinned. “Well shit, this is delicious! Try it!”

I handed it back to Vic. He frowned.

“No, I don’t want it, I told you.”

“Okay then.”, I shrugged. Then I took the box from him again and threw it on the back seat. The noises that followed let me know that it didn’t land very successfully. “Next one!”

“Alright, we have…”, Victor opened a random box, “…oh, chocolate! Awesome.” He followed my example and took some with his hand. “Mm, yeah, this one’s good, here...”

After we sampled about fifteen different kinds of cake, we got to the conclusion that the chocolate ones were the best (though we got in a little argument about the nuts). After taking all that sugar we were both hyper, and my back seat was looking like some crazy blindfolded witch with ADHD had tried to build a candy house. I glanced at Vic and noticed he had chocolate over his upper lip, like moustache. I giggled and took some cream from another cake, making myself a big white one, too. Victor turned to me to tell me something, but when he saw me, he burst into laughter. I made a face.

“Don’t laugh at the old man, you silly boy! Shame on you! You, young children, should watch your attitude.”, I shook head disapprovingly and let out a deep sigh. “Where is this generation going…”

Vic was laughing too hard to reply, and in a moment I couldn’t help it anymore but join him.

We spent the rest of our trip singing with the radio, laughing, and, at some point, throwing cake at each other. I could feel how that distance and pressure between us slowly disappeared, replaced by a weird new forming friendship. It turned out that we had similar taste in music, movies and other stuff, and we had a lot of things in common in general. Amazing how things change so fast – yesterday he was afraid of me and, well, I was threatening him with a gun, and only two days ago we didn’t even know each other. Now things were totally different, it was almost like I knew Vic for years, and even still a bit cautious, I trusted him. For the first time for weeks, even months, I was having fun. And Vic, well. He was still a little awkward around me, but his true personality, which had been hidden behind his fear the last day, was now showing.

It was quite hilarious to hear about the pastry shop robbery on the news, and oh, it was all over the local radio stations, everywhere. Obviously there wasn’t anything much interesting happening around here, so such event was immediately discussed by practically everybody. What made it funnier was that they made it sound like we’ve done something truly horrifying, like we brutally killed someone. And I even paid for that guy’s hat, hey, show some respect to the honest criminals, you shameless reporters.

Soon we lost most of the local stations, which made it obvious that we were entering another state. And really, here it was - a sign near the road:

“WELCOME TO KANSAS”

Why thank you.

* * *

“Dude, admit it. We’re lost.”

“We’re nooot, calm down. We’ll get to the hotel in a minute, okay, it must be here somewhere...”

“You said that fifteen minutes ago! Are you absolutely sure you remember the place correctly, I mean, you said the last time you’ve been here was long ago, you maybe forgot where exactly it is…”

“I didn’t! It… It has to be near, I’m sure it was in this area, I just have to remember where exactly.”

“…Damn, you’re totally lost, aren’t you.”

“I’m not! I’m just… a little confused.”

…Truth is, I was lost. Five years ago, I’d been in this town with Jenny, my ex, and we really stayed in a hotel here, but now I had the feeling that we were in a completely different part of the city. I don’t know where and when I got it wrong, I thought I’m walking in the right direction. We even left our car, because I thought we’re close to the hotel, but since then, we walked for half an hour without finding the goddamn place.

And what was worse was that it looked like we’re getting in the more dangerous quarters – you know, those parts where suspicious guys, who had more tattoos than skin, were glaring at you from around the corner, and you could barely tell what the real color of the buildings was, because they were all covered with graffiti. There were barely any people around, and it was getting dark and kinda creepy. My hand unconsciously slipped in my inside pocket to check if my gun is still there, for reassurance.

“Kellin, I really don’t think that’s where you stayed on a holiday with your wife.”, Vic bit his lower lip. “Maybe we should just go back, don’t you think…?”

I hesitated. Yeah, maybe it was a good idea to go back to the car.

“Don’t you have GPS?”, I finally asked. “You have a cool mobile, it must have GPS.”

Vic rolled eyes.

“Yeah, it is a cool phone, and it yeah, it does, but you took my its battery. So even if it had, it would be kinda hard to use it, y’know.”, he murmured sharply.

“Hey, no need to bitch about it, man, I’m sorry.”

“But I’m not bitching about it.” He frowned slightly.

“But you aaaare bitching about it. So shush, I’m trying to think.”

He spread arms, like he was saying: ‘Go ahead’. I sighed and looked around. There weren’t any street signs, probably because someone had stolen them long ago, and all the streets around seemed just the same – dark, dirty and dangerous. Suddenly I spotted a few figures in the far end of the street on our left.

“I guess we can ask those guys over there.”, I pointed at them.

“You sure they’re not gonna rob us, or stab us, or something?”, Vic tilted head. “This doesn’t look like a very safe part of the city, God knows what they might do to us.”

“Well, they can try.” I grinned and pulled out my gun to show it to him, then put it back inside. “We’re the more dangerous criminals here.”

“I’m not even a criminal!”

I shrugged.

“Neither am I, but that’s not what people think. So let’s stick to that version, how ‘bout that?” I winked at him. “C’mon.”

I started dragging him by the arm towards the guys in the street. At first they didn’t seem to notice us, but when we came closer, I saw that they were just a bunch of kids drawing graffiti on the wall.

“Hey!”, I smiled, trying to look as friendly as possible. “’Sup, guys? I was wondering if you know-”

“Shit! Cops, let’s get outta here!”, one of the boys shouted, dropped the spray paint he was just using, and before I could even finish my sentence, they were gone.

“No, wait, we aren’t cops, we were just-” I sighed, realizing I’m talking to the wall – they had vanished. “…asking for the road.”

Vic picked up a spray from the ground and looked at the latest artwork, still fresh.

“ ‘Bob iz a dik.’”, he read. “Oh dear, someone skipped classes. A lot.”

I chuckled.

“Yeah, obviously… Hey, can you give me that, please? The spray paint, yeah. Thanks.”

I stood in front of the wall and then, after thinking for a moment, I scratched the sign. After another moment, I wrote bellow: “Bob is a dick, and you’re an idiot if you can’t spell that right. XO Kellin.” I heard Victor giggling behind me and that made me grin again.

“Let’s correct all of them!”, he laughed and took another bottle of spray.

“Suuure, sounds good.” I chuckled and stepped back, checking for other mistakes. I noticed more than just a few.

Fifteen minutes later we were out of spray and there were still some uncorrected graffiti left. Jeez, did those kids go to school at all? Apparently not. It was amusing reading and fixing their ‘pieces of art’, though.

Vic looked up at the sky – it was almost dark now, though the air was too polluted to see any stars yet. It was a bit too quiet for that time of the day. Car engines were roaring somewhere in the distance, someone was watching to a loud football match on TV, but otherwise everything was deadly calm. Not in the good way. Although I couldn’t see anyone around, I could feel curious, but quite hostile eyes watching us from the windows. We were definitely unwanted here.

“I think we really should go back to the car.” He bit his lip and looked around nervously. “It’s getting too dark, and I’d rather not get robbed today…”

“Good point.”, I giggled softly and threw the empty bottle of spray paint away. “We better go now, then.”

I turned to him, and as our eyes met, I recognized the fear I saw in them yesterday. He was trying not to show it, but he was starting to get slightly scared. When he noticed I’m watching him, he quickly looked away. I hesitated, then gently put my hand on his shoulder, hoping that’d make him more confident or something like that. It obviously just startled him, though, and I instantly regretted for doing it, so I quickly pulled back and tried to smile.

“Hey. Don’t forget, I’m armed and dangerous. And even here, at a place full with more dangerous people than me, I won’t let anyone get near you. So don’t worry, okay?”

“You thought I’m worried? I’m not, really.”, he shook head, trying to look calm. “I’m fine, I don’t get scared easily. Um… And I say, let’s not waste any more time of your birthday here, let’s go somewhere more fun and less creepy, what do you think?” Vic smiled a bit and for both mine and probably his surprise, he carefully took me by the arm and started leading me back to where we had came from.

“Sounds like a plan.” I glanced down at his hand on my arm, then back up at his face. “And let’s hope that back there in the civilization, someone would know where the fucking hotel is.”

Vic shrugged.

“Who said we need to go straight to the hotel? We can do whatever you want, and the night is still ahead us. What do you feel like doing?”

“Hmm.”, I furrowed an eyebrow, thinking. “I don’t know. But I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

* * *

The third glass of whiskey didn’t make that guy’s singing better, but it surely made it funnier. I didn’t even know the song, it was some new pop song, but even without knowing the melody, I could tell the guy was singing it horribly. I don’t think he even cared, though, everyone around us was drunk enough to not give a fuck either. They were just having fun, and so was I, actually.

“He needs some work.”, Vic said critically.

“WHAT?”, I shouted in his ear. The music was so loud that I could barely hear him.

“I SAID,” he yelled back, “THAT HE NEEDS SOME WORK!”

I knitted eyebrows.

“…I DIDN’T GET IT, WHO’S IN THE MORGUE?”

“WORK! WORK, NOT MORGUE!”

“AAAH! YEAH. HE DOES.” I glanced at his empty glass. “WANT ANOTHER ONE?”

Vic hesitated.

“MMM, YEAH, PLEASE.”

I nodded, then waved at the waitress. As she approached me, I pointed at Victor’s glass. The girl understood me right away and poured him some more. At a place like this, people had to learn to make a conversation speechlessly. I raised my glass at Vic.

“CHEERS!”, I grinned.

He grinned back and raised his now full glass, too.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KELLIN!”, he drank almost all its content at once. I raised eyebrows. “AND - hic! - CHEERS!”

I giggled when he hiccupped.

“THANKS!”, I replied, taking a small sip from my own drink.

The song finally ended and the guy came back to his friends, who all applauded him loudly. I smiled. It didn’t really matter how bad he sang the song, important thing was that they were having fun. Vic didn’t seem to think so, though. He was taking this whole karaoke thing too seriously, so seriously that if he could, he’d probably come dressed as Michael Jackson and bring confetti or something.

Now he smiled and patted my shoulder.

“Having fun so far?”, he asked.

“Yeah!”, my grin widened. “I am, thanks to you.”

“Nah, I think you are, thanks to Jack here.”, Vic motioned to the whiskey and winked. I chuckled.

“But really, Vic, thank you. It’s honestly the best birthday I’ve had for years.”

He shrugged. “I’m glad I could help with that. Personally, I think karaoke is dumb. Why did we even come here?”

“Well, sorry, I didn’t see any strip clubs around.”, I rolled eyes and laughed a little. “But seriously, why do you hate karaoke?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know, man, I just do. Like, no one can really sing, and they aren’t even taking the songs seriously…”

“Dude, this is karaoke. It isn’t supposed to be taken seriously.”

“Oh yeah?”, he raised an eyebrow. “Says who?”

“Um.”, I blinked. “Everybody?”

“Hah! No.”

I just shook head and smiled a bit, finishing my glass. I could feel the alcohol start to make me slightly lightheaded, but luckily I could somewhat control myself. If one of us was going to get seriously drunk tonight, that would be Vic. He was already at his fourth glass, and he was pretty much taking them like shots, so judging by the speed the content of the bottle was disappearing in his throat, I’d probably have to carry him home.

Suddenly Victor jumped up, surprisingly enthusiastic.

“Let’s sing the next song together!”

“I thought you just said you hate karaoke…?”, I asked, confused.

“It doesn’t matter, come on!” Vic started dragging me to the stage by the hand. For some reason, when he took my hand in his, I felt my pulse quicken and my blood rush into my face, but I decided it’s because of the alcohol and ignored it.

“Vic, you insane bastard”, I giggled. “You’re the weirdest friend I’ve ever had.”

“I’ll take this as a compliment.”, he grinned, then suddenly froze so fast that I almost tripped in him. “Wait… Friend?

I bit my bottom lip, realizing what I had just said. “…It… it just slipped, I’m sorry. I, um, really consider you a friend, kinda, but it’s okay if you don’t.”

He watched me for a few moments, a smile slowly appeared on his face.

“…I guess I do, too, Kellin, otherwise I wouldn’t be here with you, right? Come on now, let’s sing.” And he led me to the stage.

Picking a song, though, that was another problem, because he stubbornly wanted to sing Bohemian Rhapsody. And, trust me, you wouldn’t want to argue with Vic when he’s drunk. Not that he gets aggressive, not at all, but he’s just so damn stubborn. At some point, you’d just end up wanting to punch him. I simply agreed with him in the end, because in my opinion, Bohemian Rhapsody is the best song ever written, but I strongly doubted I could sing it. Anyway, I could try…

It turned out to be actually really fun to sing karaoke with Vic, or even just watching while he sings. He acted the lyrics and tried to sing the main and backing vocals at the same time (didn’t really work). Mostly, he was pulling a Freddie Mercury kinda attitude, which was actually turning pretty well, the only thing he missed was a moustache. He was so deep into the song that I couldn’t really participate much, I was just standing awkwardly on the very edge of the stage, dying from laughter. I wondered if he imagines the stage lights, and the smoke, and the fireworks, and all. But whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t just a bunch of half-drunk people, who weren’t even listening to him.

After a few more songs and even more drinks, I gave up and went back to the bar. It was absolutely impossible to catch up with Victor, who kept singing song after song and jumping around like crazy. And the fact that no one really cared about his performance except me seemed to make him want to prove himself even more. So much that when he got to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, he climbed on a table and tried to do the choreography, which ended up with him falling off the table.

“Vic!” I stumbled to him. “Vic, are you okay?”

He mumbled something I couldn’t understand, so I took it for a ‘No’.

“Come on, get up…”, I tried to pull him up on his feet but he kept lying on the ground, cursing at me and telling me to leave him alone. I wasn’t sure if he was like that because he hit his head, because he was drunk, or both, but I didn’t have the intention to leave him alone at all. I continued trying to pick him up, until he finally decided to move his legs a bit and help me out, giggling hard. When he was up, I noticed there was a small wound on his forehead.

“…I think I’m gonna puke.”, he murmured and giggled again.

“Don’t you dare throwing up over me.”, I warned him as I started dragging him to the door.

“I wooon’t, don’t woooorry…”, he giggled again. “’Cause I knooow you haaave a gun, and you’re not afraid to uuuse iiiit…”

“Right.”, I nodded. “So you better try to make some effort and move your ass to the car.”

…Not that he could, his legs were like made of cheese. If I left him, he’d simply fall back down on the ground. Once we found ourselves on the street, Vic looked up at a street lamp above us and grinned widely.

“The stars are really bright tonight, look! Look at this huuuge little star.” He started humming. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, why the fuck aren’t you far…”

…That’s when I lost it. I laughed so hard that I almost dropped him, which just made us both laugh even harder.

“Because…”, I gasped for breath, “…because that’s a fuckin’ lamp, Vic…”

“Ooooh. One of those fuckin’, y’know. Yeah, now I see it.”

Still laughing, trying to calm down, I led him to my car. He just stood next to it and stared at it, like he didn’t know what to do with it. I motioned at the door.

“Come on, get inside.”

“I can’t, man. There’s a f’ckin’ door on my way.”, he shook head, still staring at it.

“Oh, sorry.” I giggled once more and opened the door for him. “Is that better?”

“Yup…” Vic kinda crumbled on the passenger’s seat. “Yeaaaah, much better.”

“Awesome.” I sighed and helped him sit up properly, then I leaned in to put on his seatbelt, because he obviously couldn’t do it by himself. “C’mon, Vic, help me out here…”

Well, with or without his help, I finally managed to do it and when I looked up, his face was only a few inches away from mine. I felt that strange feeling from earlier that night again, my pulse quickened just like before and I felt almost like I’m suffocating. Victor blinked and his eyes slightly crossed as he tried to focus them on me. For a few moments I remained like this, feeling his warm, slightly smelling of alcohol breath on my skin, looking him in the eyes. Then I coughed.

“Damn, I’m, um, I’m sorry…”, I chuckled and looked away, about to pull back. “I was just-”

But I couldn’t finish, because suddenly Vic pulled me back down and before I could understand what’s going on, he kissed me. For a second, I stopped breathing, unable to react. This just got me unprepared, my heart was beating frantically, so fast that I thought I’m getting a heart-attack. Victor’s lips were soft and warm, but not in an unpleasant way, his messy long hair slightly tickling my cheek.

I didn’t kiss back, but I didn’t pull away either, I just left him kiss me for a minute. Just as unexpectedly as he did it, he broke the kiss and opened eyes to look at me. I just stared at him, stunned.

“…What was that for?”, I finally said.

“I don’t know.”, Vic giggled nervously. “I’m sorry, it just… happened.”

I looked away and bit my lower lip.

“I guess… it doesn’t change anything, though? I mean,” I chuckled awkwardly, “we’re both kinda drunk, especially you, and maybe this is just the alcohol speaking.”

“Yeah… Yeah, I think it was, you’re right, I’m sorry.”

I smiled hesitantly and patted his shoulder.

“It’s alright, then, it’s not a big deal. We’ll just, like, forget about this. I spent an awesome birthday, so let’s not ruin it.”

“Mhm… Okay…”, he yawned. I smiled a bit wider, then I got in the car too. Thank God I was sober enough to drive and the hotel was nearby, only a few blocks away, otherwise I’d have to carry him there.

Damn, tomorrow we were going to have a hell of a hangover…

But it was worth it. It was totally worth it.


END OF CHAPTER 5, PART 2.

Notes

Fun fact #1: Vic really hates karaoke. He says it in this interview: [link] X"D

Fun fact #2: Both Vic and Kellin really love Bohemian Rhapsody, they say it in another interview (too lazy to find the link)