Twelve Hours In Heaven (Thanks To Maximilian’s Private Birthday Party)

July 24, 2021 @ 5:26 PM

It was in early December when Adruna got invited to Maximilian’s Birthday Party through a text, sent by Max himself.

“Please, for this time, come,” he texted, sounding so desperate. “I know you hate parties, but this one will be a private party with only 12 people, including you and me. You won’t get drained, I guarantee!”

She shook her head reading his text. Then she replied, “Okay, but may I come with my own cook? Just assume it as your birthday present, though.”

“Okay. We will love it to feed ourselves with your cook. Thank you, Adruna.”

Strangely, her friends who were invited to the party too, also convinced her to come — almost begged her, somehow. So she definitely couldn’t refuse and ran away.

All of her girl friends dressed her up in an all white suit, long sleeves and shorts ones, looking all simple and chic.

After she put her own belongings and excitedly greeted the Birthday Boy, being squeezed and smooched by everyone around, Max came to her and embraced her warmly.

He said, “Before the party starts, I need you to do me a favor. I lost my favorite vinyl and I want you to help me find it.”

Adruna nodded obediently, following his steps to a large room which seemed like a multipurpose room. There was a boy in the room already, dressed up in all black, crouching around the messy vinyls on the floor.

“Oh, wow. You must’ve tried really hard to find it before I came here, right, Max?” Adruna finally spoke, her eyes rounded looking at the mess.

“Mhm, yeah, since I thought I would never make it all by myself, so… hehe.” Max chuckled before continuing, “It’s only you and this one grumpy boy who I’d dare to ask for favors, the others won’t understand my problem losing things anyway.”

“Don’t call me like that.” It was the crouching boy’s voice.

“Just don’t listen to him nagging, Adruna,” Max murmured to her, moving backwards to the corner. “I’ll start searching from this spot, okay?”

Adruna crouched beside the boy already, loudly asking, “What’s the title again, Max?”

“Blue Moon. Frank Sinatra.” And three of them were busy looking for the lost vinyl now.

But then there was a time she was too busy searching, she didn’t realize that it was just two of them in the room. The crouching boy and herself. When she finally turned around and looked up, the door was already locked. She flinched in surprise.

“Oh my goodness,” she got up as she jogged towards the door, trying to open it. “Why did he do this?!”

The crouching boy finally grumbled, “Tsk. I knew it. I should’ve trusted my guts first!” He flopped onto the couch, crossing his arms on his chest. He left the vinyl still a mess behind.

Adruna was still trying to get out by aggressively banging the door with her fist. It nudged the crouching boy — or the couch boy, now — to speak again, “Get over it. They won’t open the door for us until we get along.”

Adruna sighed loudly, stopping her action to keep trying to open the door. When she turned around, she saw the boy was on the couch already, holding a black guitar. Now, since she could completely put her eyes on him, this boy was wearing a not so formal outfit — a black shirt covered by black suit — which fit perfectly with his pale face.

She sat on the edge of the bed, right across from the couch which that boy was sitting on. “So… you know about Max’s plan?”

“Not completely,” he answered with his deep voice. “What I know about this all is, he couldn’t stop talking about a girl named Adruna and he was acting weird when he invited me over. Like, begging too much? When he had never been begging on me for something? Weird, isn’t it?”

She nodded repeatedly even though he didn’t see it, the boy was still busy with the guitar on his lap. “What did he say about me?”

The question could make him stop paying attention to his guitar. He looked straight at her, raising one of his brows. “So… you’re that Adruna, the girl who was often mentioned by Max to me?”

Adruna nodded again, waiting for his response. But what she got was the boy only looked at him with his brows wrinkled, his body was completely frozen for a moment, it made her blushed somehow.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She tried to break the silence between them. He finally blinked.

“Did you wear makeup before you got here? Like — what do you usually call something to make your cheeks red?” He pointed his own side cheek repeatedly to make his question clear.

“Uhh… blush on? No, I only put compact powder and lipgloss on… Why are you asking?”

He shyly threw her a little smile, looking a bit awkward. “Oh. But your natural rosy cheeks are beautiful from here, if I’m allowed to say that.”

She felt embarrassed by the compliment. Instead of replying to his words, she got up from the bed and walked towards the messy vinyls, crouching herself again on the floor. “We can’t leave this mess here.”

She could hear the boy behind her sighing. “You really don’t wanna get Max in trouble a little bit, no? Even after he trapped you in here?”

She ignored him as she kept collecting and managing the vinyls on the right place, listening to that boy starting to play guitar and hum softly. She enjoyed it in silence, and when she was done with the vinyls, she saw that he took his suit off already. He looked like a home boy now.

“I guess I need to change my outfits too.. it’s getting late here,” she mumbled to herself, turning out the boy heard it all.

“I think Max has something in the cupboard, Adruna.” He stopped playing his guitar and put it down already, pointing the cupboard on the corner with his chin.

Adruna kept silent, walking straight to the cupboard and peeking in. She found a huge size of white plain shirt, and couldn’t find any pants to wear tonight. She bowed to look at her current pants, thinking, ‘Ah, I can stay with these pants only for this night,’ and jogged into the bathroom.

As soon as she was done with her stuff in the bathroom, she found out the boy was already lying in the bed, one arm covering his eyes. His black hair was already a mess, his black shirt was also not neat anymore.

And Adruna was suddenly all nervous. There was only one bed for them and one couch. And he said that Max wouldn’t open the door until they got along. That was probably why he left an empty space beside him.

So, she walked to the other side of the bed, too nervous to make a voice. But, it turned out she bumped into his free arm when she tried to lay down and relax, both of them facing each other with shocked faces and little gasps from their mouths.

And Adruna was trapped into his beautiful brown eyes. And that boy thought that she had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.

“You have such a really nice smell, if I can say so,” he spoke as he licked his lips nervously, putting his palm on her cheek in hesitation. “And your natural face… damn it.”

Adruna didn’t interrupt him, nor beg him for a continuation. She just smiled at him shyly, putting her palm on his hand which was on her cheek, caressing it fondly.

“You’re warm, too… at least for my hand.”

She finally giggled loudly, breaking the awkwardness. “No, it’s not my face. But it’s your hand that’s cold. Are you okay? You aren’t short on oxygen, are you?”

“No, no. I’m fine, Adruna.” She could hear the awkwardness from his voice was gone already. “Well, yeah. I’m a bit nervous, honestly, but everything else is fine.”

“Why are you even nervous?”

“So, you are not?” Adruna responded by shaking her head softly. Then, he continued, “You are a pro at being around boys, I suppose.”

“I guess, I’m just a pro at distracting myself. I talk too much or… doing anything nonsense to avoid myself getting blushed. If you have eyes, you’ll notice it eventually.” She breathed in as she moved his hand from her cheek to her right palm, eyes on them. “Our skin is matched now… from the color and the temperature. And you have such great shape of nails, if I’m allowed to be honest.”

He chuckled with head shaking slowly, eyes up to the ceilings. “It comes from your skin — I mean, the warmth. I took the warmth out of you.”

She stuck out her tongue mockingly. “I still feel warm here, wle.”

He sighed loudly as he casually took his hand off hers, softly mumbling, “Let’s see…”

And then, he quickly wrapped his arms around her waist as he pulled her onto him, right onto his chest. He moved her until her face was completely hovering his, her hair falling on his face. Their eyes were trapped to each other again, enjoying the silence around them for a while.

“You are even warmer than my blanket at my place, Adruna. Surprisingly, with your body size.” He warmly smiled at her, his hand caressing her cheek again. “And your beautiful bare face is better to see at this close. Your glowing face is… amazing.”

Adruna’s voice cracked when she finally spoke, “W-what’s your name again?” She asked it right on his lips, eyes were still into his.

“Augustus,” he answered with his deep voice, at once his eyes exploring the whole part of her beautiful face, very slowly. “I never introduced myself with my birth name to a stranger before. But for you, I’m Augustus. Augustus Bluford.”

She almost lost in his minty breath, but she quickly blinked to collect herself again. “Augustus.”

“Augustus.” He repeated his name with a louder tone, but still soft. He let the atmosphere around them be a comfortable silence once again, they used the moment to explore their eyes on each other’s bare face. Until both of them noticed something in silence.

“Well, since Max won’t let us to get out of this room before we get along, we should do something here, don’t you think?” He threw his sights off of her as he placed his arms around her waist, hugging her fondly. “Aren’t you sleepy? May I cuddle you to sleep tonight, Adruna?”

She couldn’t help but shake her head responding to him and collecting her awareness at the same time. “No, I don’t wanna sleep yet. Besides, I have one thing to do for us to get along tonight.”

“Mhm, okay, I’m listening. What can we do tonight?”

She ignored his question. “Augustus, did you realize that your face was like… a clear sky with scattered stars?”

He chuckled as he covered his face awkwardly with his hand, a light blush showing up on his cheeks. “Uhh… what?”

She removed his hand from his face. “These moles,” she pointed one on his skin, tilting her head to look closely. “Have you ever counted on all of them? Would you allow me to count it for you?”

“You are curious, aren’t you,” he chuckled again. “But yeah, go on then. How many moles do I have on my skin?”

“I need a better position, Gus.” She quickly got up, crawling onto him, right on his stomach. She could feel Augustus gasping a little below her, but he smiled anyway.

She leaned her arms on the pillow beside his head, with one hand softly caressed his face. Her eyes explored his face very slowly, and she could notice everything in a low light. His bare face, his sleepy eyes, and his pinkish cracked lips — everything on his face was so beautiful. How come someone’s loveliness could make her a little blush, up here?

Right when she moved her fingers to remove his bangs from his forehead, Augustus mumbled, “I don’t mean to interrupt you but, you look more beautiful when you blush like that, below here.” And it made her blush even more.

“Ssshhhh, don’t talk, I need to focus here!” Then she leaned down, starting to count.

But she counted it with a kiss. One mole with one kiss, and Augustus didn’t respond but smiled.

She started the kiss on the tip of his nose as she found the first mole there. Augustus slowly closed his eyes, waiting for the other kisses on his face. She continued on his left cheek, his jawline, and the last one was in the crook of his neck. She kissed him very softly, with those giggles and tapping gestures on his skin with her tiny fingers, she did it all in a very cute way.

Her bravery, her aggressiveness, and the voices of the kisses that she did, made him brave enough to do this.

“Forget about the moles already, Adruna,” and Augustus cupped her cheeks gently and closed the gap between them by kissing her lips.

At first, Augustus felt hesitant, and all he did was just pressed his lips on hers. But after he could feel that Adruna hugged his head and squeezed his hair softly as a response, he continued the kiss. He dared to nibble her lips softly and smoothly, silently smiling in the friction of the kissing.

They both kissed till they got tired from the kissing and the laughing session, now their bodies were completely intertwined, cuddling each other up in the bed.

“So… this is how we get along, right?” Sleepily, Adruna finally mumbled in the dark.

Augustus answered in his faint tone, almost falling asleep. “Yeah. And surely, I owe Max one. I should treat him with something after we finally get out of here.”

“But, do you really wanna get out, Gus?”

“Hmm. No. Not really.”

And finally Augustus fell asleep, with Adruna as his pillow.