Chapter 33 Chapter 33
"Looks like you're enjoying, huh," Hendeix commented again while squeezing my hand. I looked at him. "Oh, fine, I won't bash you for that anymore. You might get annoyed at me again and we’ll end up arguing. But it's also in my favor because I get to hold your hand."
"So that’s why it seems like you're trying to annoy me again?" I narrowed my eyes at him. He just kept laughing. It looked like he was the one enjoying teasing me. This is really the truth—he’s the one who likes starting fights, then when I flare up, he becomes all sweet! Tries to win me over! He really enjoys messing with me!
"Why is it that we can only hold hands when we're fighting?" he pouted.
"I don’t know with you? Weren’t you the one who suggested that?" I asked sharply as we continued walking. I took my phone to take a picture, but then remembered I turned it off. Right, I’ll just watch everything with my eyes instead of seeing unnecessary notifications on my phone. No photo can capture how beautiful the Colosseum is in person.
"What I said was, to avoid arguments, let's just hold hands. Look at us, we're arguing again. Let's hold each other's hands now."
I laughed at how persistent he was. That's when I noticed I had let go of him because I grabbed my phone earlier. He held my hand again, like a child who didn’t want to be separated from his mother because he was afraid of getting lost. If anyone should be afraid of getting lost, it’s me—but thanks be to God he's holding my hand to bring me back to the right path we should take together.
Since earlier, I couldn’t get Hendeix's words out of my head. And I’m really proving that what he says is true. I have small doubts that I’m trying to push away just like he advised, but it still seems hard to remove them completely. It’s probably not my fault that I lost a huge amount of trust in people because of what happened to me before. And even though three years have passed, it feels like I still haven’t fully regained my trust in myself. I gave my trust to the wrong person, so of course I should also blame myself.
"Picture picture?"
I stopped walking when a man approached me and Hendeix. He was holding a camera as if he was inviting us to smile for a picture.
"Free?" Hendeix asked, which made me laugh. Even the photographer laughed and shook his head. I glared at Hendeix then nudged him with my elbow.
"Free, really? Is there still anything free these days? And it's not like you don’t have money! Don’t lowball the photographer!" I ranted, making him shrug.
"I was just asking. Am I that bad?"
"Shush! Mr. Photographer, how much a picture would be?" I asked calmly.
"Ten euro, one picture, printed," the man answered.
I gaped. "T-ten Euro? Wait, I know how much that is in pesos." I tried to compute it even though I wasn’t sure of the exact equivalent, but from what I remember it’s sixty-six pesos—so that’s six hundred plus??? "That’s too expensive, Mr. Photographer! Are you scamming us?"
"No scam, no scam. Honest. You're in famous place. I'm most cheap here. Photographer. But I'm good in taking pictures," he said with a smile as he gestured to his camera. Well, it wasn’t surprising. I was in a rich country, so of course services here would be expensive. I was about to speak when Hendeix talked to the man instead.
"Quanto costa quella macchina fotografica? La compro. Dimmi tu il prezzo."
I stared at Hendeix in amazement when he showed off again. Why does he seem so used to the language here? Are businessmen really like this? Bilingual? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if he knows many languages since he can manipulate businessmen around the world and crush them using his company.
"Come sarebbe che vuoi comprare la mia macchina fotografica. Questo è l'unico lavoro che ho. Non è in vendita questa macchina," Mr. Photographer replied, which I also didn’t understand. I felt like I was transported to outer space, and any moment now, my nose might start bleeding. This is crazy!
"Lo so, ma ti pago quanto vuoi. Puoi comprarne una nuova se vuoi. Ho solo bisogno di quella macchina per far scattare delle foto a mia moglie qui," Hendeix said, as if he didn’t realize I was already being left out. What were they talking about and why did it sound so serious?
"O-okay. Capisco. L'ho comprata per seicento euro. Forse adesso vale solo trecento, visto che l'ho usata per tanto tempo." Mr. Photographer even scratched the back of his head like he was thinking.
"E come comprerai una nuova così? Va bene, scattaci cinque foto. Ti pago cinquemila euro. Ti sta bene?"