Wild Tiger Chase - Chapter 27: Chapter 27

— Phillip - around four hours ago —
You're not a part of us. You're nothing, Phillip!
He scoffed. Phillip shouldn't be surprised to hear that. No, really—he shouldn't have expected anything different coming from Roberto, that egotistical, tyrannical little fuck.
Phillip kicked a stone, his hands tucked into his pockets. He looked around, trying to recognize anything in that damned forest, but all the trees, leaves, and rocks looked the same. He was lost.
"Shit." He took in a deep breath and massaged the bridge of his nose.
Right after his fight with Rob, and without really knowing why, Phillip had followed Rafa's steps towards the northern side of the forest. He wasn't good at finding people and was kicked out of the boy scouts before learning how to follow tracks—the lighter and the weed were not his, and the fire was just an accident—so after almost twenty minutes walking, he was ready to lie down and take a nap.
Until a sound caught his attention.
He raised his eyes and sharpened his ears, trying to find a direction. When he did it, he heard the bubbling sound of water and the muffled noise of footfalls on the grass. Phillip followed the sound not caring much about his own steps. He ducked under tree branches and pushed big leaves out of the way until he broke the rim of the forest and found himself once again staring at the thermal lake.
In front of him, covered by a mantle of moonlight, Rafa moved in what seemed to be a dance. Or a martial art. Or both. She swung her body right and left and spun on her right foot for a high kick. The movement connected to another when she bent her right leg to complete the spin. Her left was still stretched, drawing a half-circle around her.
It might've been Phillip's imagination, of course, but he was pretty sure he saw the grass moving around her like ripples in a lake. He walked towards her, stopping at arm's length.
Rafa looked up and drew to her full height. "It's a new branch of capoeira," she said. "Something mixed with tai-chi, I heard. Good to clear the mind." Strong arms glistening, she turned to face him. There was a small red bird painted in the corner of her sports bra, but what caught his attention was...
Damn, her abs were more defined than his. His hands climbed up to his own abs, feeling them over the spandex of his survival gear.
"I can teach you if you want," she said in an amused voice. "It might put some muscles back in you." Rafa gave him a friendly slap in the chest and reached for her t-shirt. She walked towards the lake, soft steps on the grass.
Phillip narrowed his eyes and stared at the place she had hit him. He smiled at first, but the curve became a smirk when he dipped the tip of his tongue in venom. This was an opportunity. "I don't think your brother would approve of you checking me out like that. He's too... controlling."
Rafa's muscles tensed, and her grip tightened around her t-shirt. She was still pissed off with Roberto, that much was clear.
For a moment, Phillip thought he had reached her. For a moment, he thought she would start seething and hating Roberto as much as he did. Phillip was ready for this small victory.
But instead of the anger he expected, she gave him silence. Rafa bent over the lake and took a clean handkerchief from her back pocket.
"Listen, Phillip." She didn't turn around to face him. Rafa dipped the handkerchief into the water and paused, her voice lower and gentler than what he was getting used to. "But listen well, cause I'm not repeating this. No matter how much pain you've been through, you can never judge the pain of others. You'll never form real connections if you do."
Cold discomfort swirled inside him. "That's not what I'm trying to do."
"Isn't it?" She peered at him over her shoulder and dabbed the wet handkerchief on her arms and neck. "Aren't you trying to get me angry at him, so he'd have what he... deserves?"
Yes.
"No."
She scoffed and shook her head. With a sigh, Phillip crossed his arms like a shield. He sat down at her side and bit the side of his forefinger. Some of the birds in the forest had already awakened and now filled the silence with chirping and singing.
"Well, maybe I am doing that." Phillip plucked a blade of grass and tore a little piece of it. "What about you?" He threw the small piece of grass away. Tore another. "Why are you making excuses for him, huh? He should be judged, you know." Threw the piece away; tore another. "He's been acting like an entitled little fuck to you and Léon—you can't just let him."
Rafa didn't seem surprised by that. In fact, Phillip couldn't remember seeing her anything other than angry or cheerful. Now, for instance, she looked like a mix of both.
"I'm not," she said. She wrung her handkerchief and dried skin. "My brother's definitely not a saint and he will answer for the way he's been treating people; I can't protect him of the consequences of his actions, you know. I wouldn't if I could. But... I think you two might get along if you knew where he's coming from. And if he knew you better. Or"—she shrugged and put her t-shirt on—"at least you could hate each other a little less."
Phillip munched once those words. They had a bitter, uncomfortable taste. "All right, I'll bite. Where is he coming from?"
"From a destroyed tribe, Phillip." She rubbed her face and looked away. The words she said then sounded like the last drop of a thought she couldn't quite stop herself from spilling. "Beto can count in the fingers of one hand the people he cares about. I mean, that in itself wouldn't be bad, but the way he clings on people as if we would all just disappear in the fog to Neverland is just... it's sad, mate. I don't know what he bloody saw in our home the day we were attacked—he never told me or he was too young to consciously remember, I don't know—but something messed with him that night."
A crease formed between Phillip's eyebrows. He always heard that Rob had been raised by the Mayor, in the Heroic League—but if he needed to be honest, he never very much cared about Rob's biological family or what might have happened to them.
If Rafa's expression had been locked in only two emotions before, now it showed something new. As soon as those words left her lips, her small eyes widened, her full lips parted, and a lump of something rolled down her throat, slow like Monday morning.
"Shite," she mumbled.
He leaned in. It would never make any difference as to whether Rob was a pile of waste or not, but Phillip was curious now. It wouldn't hurt to hear the whole story. "Hey. Tell me about it. What happened?"
Rafa opened her lips and closed them again. Opened. Closed. Then she scoffed, smiling in pure bashfulness.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything." Something shone in her eyes; an idea, perhaps. "All I can say is that the story has angst, drama, betrayal, love, bloody all of it. It's also BL, so I'm sure you'll like it." Rafa got up and stretched. "You should try talking to him about it. Just remember to show me the fanfics you'll write. And make sure you show his sister like the amazing woman she is."
Phillip blinked a couple of times. "Pfft. I'd never write anything about your brother."
"I never thought you were a snob fanfic writer."
"I'm not! I just don't feel like writing about your brother when I have so many good books and games to write about." He furrowed his brows. "And stop trying to sidetrack me! It's not gonna work."
"Please! I'll read whatever, mate. Regency AU, the Kingsguard trope, fantasy, sci-fi—you said you have a medieval, BL slash AU based on Haikyuu. The volleyball anime, I think?"
Phillip smiled. He looked at Rafa and the smart deviousness in her eyes and wondered what the hell she was trying to get at. Was this some elaborate way to make him confess something? He shook his head. Whatever it was, he wouldn't be fooled so easily.
"This conversation just took a turn at Nonsense street," he said. "C'mon, tell me about your tribe."
"The only thing I refuse is smut—I obviously don't wanna read that about my brother." She grimaced and shivered.
Or maybe she was just mocking him.
"I'm not talking to you anymore, Rafaela." Phillip tossed the blade of grass away and huffed.
"Don't be mad. Look, I'd appreciate your smut fanfics if you shipped, say, Tanya and Tulip, from I, were-vampire-wolf death machine 9000. Or Tanya and Effer! He is so funny."
Phillip's lips parted, but no words came out. "Wait." He was a simple man with a simple fanboy's heart. "Tanya and m-effing Effer? You gotta be kidding me."
Rafaela's lips curled up in a smirk. "Why? She's brilliant. And hot, too."
"Agreed. And Effer is a piece of shit who betrayed Lucca and Azziz in book one—you can't be serious about liking him. Tulip is the only valid ship for Tanya—they're not only friends; they are always there for each other and they grow together as characters." He scoffed. "I didn't enter this fandom to hear about human-garbage Effer and his solitude complex."
Rafa laughed. "Mate, what? Lerissa Queen is about to launch book thirteen. You should've forgiven Effer already, mainly after he helped Tulip with—"
"Hey! No spoilers. I'm still on book nine. I always watch the movie first."
She laughed even harder and the weird sound she made—a mini pig's snort mixed with a sneeze—made him smile, eyebrows almost reaching his hairline. "What kind of laugh was that?"
"Phillip," she said, pretending to dry a tear, "you're even worse than Effer."
"Shut up; I'm nothing like him." The smile on his lips withered. He lowered his eyes to the still waters of the thermal lake and pulled his knees closer. "I mean... I hope I'm not."
Rafa looked at him. With a sigh, she ran a hand through her hair. There was a short silence between them, leaves shuffling to a gentle breeze.
"Why are you here, Phillip?"
He blinked. "Uh. Well... I was angry with your brother so I walked off and just happened to—"
"No. Why are you here in Old Continent? Why did you come? Why leave your life in NC?"
Despite the impatience in her ways, Phillip recognized the softness in her eyes. Rio had a similar softness too.
"Because... because he's my friend. Léon. And I stand by my friends."
Something tugged at his chest and images flooded his mind. Images of him and Rio walking hand in hand down the street, laughing at the dinner table, sharing a beer, going to the movies, and the warm touch of Rio's tongue on his. Of the taste he had, his smell like menthol, roses, and aftershave, and the contained way Rio moaned against his ear, softly and low when he did something right, then with an ardent, broken symphony of silences and trembling gasps when he did something really right.
Fuck, Phil... you're... really improving. You're... uh... my muthe, aren't you?
And while Phillip never discovered what was the meaning of the word muthe, he knew it must be something good.
Rafa's voice broke his line of thought. "Very few people would leave everything behind to help a friend, Phillip."
He set his eyes on her and cleared his throat.
"Not without some ulterior motive," she continued, "something that they could gain in exchange." Rafa stretched; her backbones popped like firecrackers. "And don't get me wrong when I say this, but I don't think you're one of these people."
Phillip looked at her. It was his forged nature to answer comments like those with high doses of sarcasm and snark, but something in the way she said it stitched his lips closed.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he had an ulterior motive.
She must've noticed the weird silence, for Rafa averted her eyes. "I guess... what I want to know is..." She licked her lips as if preparing herself for her next question. "Do you still feel something for him?"
White anxiety spread, cold, inside his stomach. Oh. No. She wasn't talking about Rio, she was talking about Léon. Phillip crossed his arms. But as much as he wanted to be around Léon—and as much as his heart sometimes still burned for him—the last thing Phillip wanted was an encore of what had happened four years ago. He, more than anything else in his life right now, wanted to move on.
From them both, Rio and Léon.
But for the latter in particular, he wanted to reshape the obsessive passion he used to feel into the type of love that friends—real friends—feel for one another. He wanted to be honest and good, and nothing more.
Almost nothing more.
"Well?" Rafa insisted.
"I want to like him as a friend, Rafa." His voice cracked, so he cleared his throat and furrowed his eyebrows. "But I guess you're right. I came here for a reason—to forget someone else. Which only makes this whole shit a whole lot more complicated for me."