Enchant Me, Please

“Thanks for being such a great big brother…”

Yeah, I’m such a great big brother. Hah, I sure as hell don’t want that to just be just that. Too bad I can’t do anything about it. Or at least, I can’t do anything about it without causing problems.

I forced a smile and released my brother from the hug.

“No problem.”

Strangely, my brother’s sexual preference didn’t bother me. I mean, it didn’t really surprise me. I saw how nervous Chris was when he entered my room. When he did so, I expected the worse. He was stuttering a bit, some sweat was building on the palm of his hands, and well, by just looking into his eyes, it seemed that he was just about the have a panic attack. I thought he’d say that someone died or something.

Oh shit!

If Chris is homosexual, that means that he has a crush on Derik. I just thought that they would become close friends or something. But by the way he was acting… He totally has a crush on Derik. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn!

I then decided to change the topic and revert my thoughts before I said something that I shouldn’t.

“So, you still want to learn to play the guitar?”

“Yeah, I do!”

Chris was so adorable… All right Oliver, stop thinking non-brotherly thoughts about your brother.

“Are you thinking about learning a specific song or just the basics?”

“I dunno. I mean, learning the basics would be better, but I like just learning the play a certain song for something.”

He debated about his choice for a second as I shrugged.

“We can do both sooner or later.”

That statement seemed to push him the make a decision.

“Ohkayy, I guess the basics should go first.”

“With that, let’s learn the chords first.”

I looked into my closet and picked out one of my old acoustic guitars that seemed to look best on him and passed it to him. It was a midnight black guitar, one of my firsts, but not my last.

“You should be able to use that for now and if you find that you’re dedicated to learning to play, I’ll buy you your own.”

I winked at him with a smile. Chris’ cheeks blushed a rosy pink and I smirked knowing that I caused the momentarily rush of blood.

“Awesome.”

I took a seat on my bed, and motioned Chris to sit on the bed also. Then I started with E major and allowed my fingers to lie on the correct strings. Then I used a pick and strummed the area above the hollow hole.

“That’s E major.”

I moved his right hand over to the neck of the guitar, and showed him how to rest his fingers before passing him a pick. He strummed the chord. It was a bit murky considering the fact that he was a beginner at playing.

“Not bad…”

Chris looked at me and narrowed his eyes a bit.

“Liar, even I know that I sounded horrible.”

I arched an eyebrow at his bitter tone.

“When I felt started, I was a lot worse then you. You should remember. Remember when I was seven? It sounded like a cry from a dead cow or something.”

He laughed, feeling a bit better about himself.

“Yeah, sorta. I was five years old back then though. So the memories are a bit blurry.”

“Well, either way, practice makes perfect or at least you’ll sound better through time.”

I nodded and gave that piece of advice, before going back to the lesson.

“Here, this should help.”

I moved his fingers down a bit on the neck, nearer to the mental edge, and smiled at the contact.

“Try again.”

Chris strummed once more and the sound was a lot clearer. He smiled at the improvement.

“Good.”

I complemented him.

Slowly, I taught him the chords one by one. He was good for a beginner, and I told him that. Time quickly passed by and eventually it got late. Within that time, mom called to tell us that she had to work late for the day so we could just order pizza if we get hungry or just get whatever was inside the fridge and heat it back up.

Taking a rest, Chris used his left hand to rest the guitar on my bed. It was small, put I noticed he flinched a bit when he did. Suddenly, I remembered that he was still new to using guitars in general.

“Give me your left hand,”

I demanded softly.

“Why?”

Chris said avoiding my eyes but when I didn’t reply, he slowly allowed me to see look at his hand. His soft fingers were scarred and bruised from over applying pressure on the guitar strings for long periods of time. My fingertip’s skin hardened overtime but Chris was still new to the musical instrument.

“Why’d you force yourself to keep practicing?”

“I wanted to play as well as you and you said that to be good, you had to practice.”

He still avoided my gaze and I sighed. I seemed to be doing that a lot.

“Practice at your own pace. I’ve been playing for nine years; excluding the two years I stopped playing.”

When he didn’t respond, I softened my voice. I just didn’t want him to practice until his fingers bled.

“Don’t hurt yourself, all right?”

He nodded before going back to his cheerful demeanor and changing the topic.

“Are you hungry? I’m starved!”

He went over to pick up the home phone before I snatched it out of his hand.

“Nah-ah, you are resting your hand. Both of them.”

My little brother pouted.

“Finee.”

I smiled.

“Anything specific you want on the pizza?”

“Yeah! Onions and mushrooms please.”

“No meat?”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

He explained.

“Kool.”

You learn something new everyday.