I was sitting in my garden painting feverishly. I wanted to pour out my heart and soul into this painting. I was scared that if I slowed down, I would not be able to capture what I wanted to express. In the past, I would sketch out my ideas first before committing it to canvas. But nowadays, I wanted to allow myself the freedom to roam so I simply just followed my feelings.

My life was burning with the flames of love and I'd decided to express this in the painting. And not only love, but also all the various emotions I'd been keeping inside me for the past 3 years. Sometimes I would yell out in anger and sometimes I would cry for my painful aching heart. One of my brushes was perched on my ear and another was in my mouth. The one in my hand was dancing in front of me. My face and clothes were covered with various pigments. My heart was aflame with passion and the whole October, I would spend the morning painting if the weather was good. Every time when I took up my brushes, I couldn't stop myself. It was as if I was inspired.

After three years, I'd finally released the pent-up feelings in my heart. I didn't have courage to tell anyone in the past. But Scott's love broke through the barriers around my heart. I let him in, and I couldn't control myself. I loved this man more with each passing day. And this inspired me to paint, challenging me to reach greater heights. I simply had to channel this inspiration into painting, expressing all my feelings on canvas.

After that night, Scott and I would try to stay together as much as possible. Mostly I would spend the night in his home. I wanted the whole world to know that I loved this man! Ahhhhh! No words could adequately express what I felt. I wanted to yell out with happiness, and I did. I used all my energy to yell, to let my feelings out. His love had filled my heart. And he had so much to give that I had to let some of it out or I would explode. So I shouted, whooped and yelled to release my feelings.

When Scott asked me to be his boyfriend, I couldn't stop crying. I was very happy but still, there was a void in my heart. Why? I don't know. I hoped that one day, Scott's love would fill that void.

When Roy found out that Scott was my boyfriend, he was very happy. He hugged me tightly, then held my waist, picked me up from the floor and kept turning us round and round, laughing like a little kid. Bouncer looked at us, and I'm sure she thought that we had gone off our rockers. When Roy put me down, he threw Bouncer up in the air. As she landed on the floor, she yelped strangely and quickly trotted away to my room. Poor girl, she was confused and must have decided that it was better to let the humans regain their sanity first before poking her head out again. Bouncer was my kitten and all of her fur was black except for the regions around her paws, which were white.

One Sunday morning at the beginning of November, Roy was up to his tricks again..

"Let go of me, I don't want to go!"

"Come on, Tin. It's fun!"

"I am not interested!"

"Don't always stick around at home, it's not healthy!"

"I want to finish the painting!"

"You are supposed to be my guardian! If you're not beside me, I may feel scared."

"Gee...Roy, I told you the puppy face is no use this time. And nothing can scare you, that's for sure."

The door was wide opened as Roy tried to pull me out of the house. If my neighbors were looking at us then, they'd probably think that I was being kidnapped again.

"Roy, I am not going to get a tattoo! You know that I prefer my body as it is. I'm not going to mutilate it! So let go of me!"

"No need to struggle, bro!"

"I know you want me to get a tattoo with you so that Dad would yell only at me when he finds out."

"Come on, Tin. You want to look cool, right? Come on..."

"I'm already very cool and I don't need to be cooler. Come on, let go of me!"

"I feel like puking..."

"What are you saying?" Both of us stopped struggling suddenly as I asked him.

He just laughed and said, "If you have a tattoo, you can surprise Scott."

"Yeah, right. He'll not only have a surprise, he'll have a heart attack too."

When I was sitting on the chair, I was thinking why on earth I gave in to Roy. Maybe Roy and I were not that different after all. Both of our minds were wild, only that he would act on his thoughts but I'd just keep them in my heart. Sometimes I think the reason that I let Roy do the crazy things was so that I could let him act out my fantasy. But I would let him think that he did it for me. It's a strange thought, but it was true. When Roy was getting his tattoo done, I sat on the chair and did some sketches. Suddenly my cell phone rang and I saw the call display. It was Scott's cell.

"Hi, Scott!"

"Hi, sweetie. How are you today?"

"I am good, how about you?"

"I am good too. Do you have any plans tonight?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"Will you come over tonight, Tin? You didn't spend the night here yesterday."

"But if I don't finish the project, my boss is going to kill me!"

"Please come tonight, I think Ego misses you. So will you?"

I laughed and said, "What a lame excuse."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Yeah, I will and you'll get a surprise too."

He laughed and said, "Ok, see you later. Love ya."

"Yeah, me too."

I put down my phone and starting drawing again. When Roy walked out of the room, his eyes were teary and his face was pale. I laughed.

"Yeah, laugh as much as you want. We will see after you finish."

I walked into the room nervously. The big guy introduced himself as Josh and asked me where I'd like to get the tattoo done and what pattern I wanted. I showed him the sketch I did a few minutes ago. He asked me if I wanted to work for him but I just laughed. He thought the pattern was very cool. That was for sure, I was a designer!

The one that would go on my left arm was just like a question mark but with serrated edges and a circle inside the question mark. The other one would go on my back. I thought if I was going to get a tattoo, why be modest and get only a small one? So I decided to go all the way and get my arm and my back done as well. The one on my back had the same design as that on my left arm. In addition, there were also 3 pairs of angel wings beside the question mark. The big guy told me he couldn't get the whole thing done in one day and I'd need to come back later. I said that was ok. He only finished the one on my left arm that day.

When I left for Scott's, Roy was teasing me about spending all my time with Scott and ignoring him, leaving my poor lonely brother all alone at home. I just smirked. Finally I arrived at Scott's. I walked toward the door and used my key to open it. Ego came to welcome me and I patted his head, then started searching for Scott. He was sitting on his bed using straws to fold stars. There were so many of them that they could easily fill an empty bottle.

I walked toward him and gave him a hug, then put my head on his chest and nestled myself to him, burying my nose in his chest, savoring his manly smell.

"Hey, sweetie," he said.

"I missed you," I replied.

"I just came back from the gym, I smell bad."

I looked up and said, "I don't care."

"Ok, if you say so."

I kissed his lips and hugged him tighter. Life was good and I was scared that one day it would disappear. I'd bought him a cake and said this was the surprise. I wanted to surprise him with my tattoos only after they were fully done. His birthday was coming and I'd planned on showing it to him then. In the meantime, I'd used a bandage to wrap around my left arm and told him that I'd hurt myself carelessly. He was concerned and wanted to see the wound but I stopped him. Oh Scott, I love you.

The tattoo on my back was quite big and Josh had said that he couldn't finish it in one day or I'd develop a serious fever. When it was done, it was so hard to hide it from Scott so I told him that I had a big project to do and couldn't spend the night in his home. I was worried that he would be unhappy with that but he took it well. He was the best lover in the world.

Joe and Amy's wedding was fast approaching and they were very busy with the preparations. I tried to help them as much as possible. One night after having dinner at Joe's, I was sitting in the living room talking with him while Amy was tidying up and washing the dishes in the kitchen.

"Roy told me that you haven't been spending the night at Scott's these past two weeks."

"Yeah," I said. I concentrated on eating my green tea ice cream.

"Everything ok?"

"Yeah, everything is fine. Don't worry."

"I only worry that you'll run away again."

"No! We are fine, I had a big project right now and he has a big project too so I don't want to bother him."

"Ok, I just want to make sure that you are fine."

"Joe, you take things too seriously. Try to relax and have some fun."

Joe laughed and said, "Well, throwing my words back at me now, aren't you?"

When I told him that I was in love with Scott, I knew that he didn't quite believe me and I could see that Amy didn't too. Sigh...sometimes I couldn't believe it myself too. The feeling was so unreal. Was I lying to myself? It seemed that Roy was the only who really believed it.

When the tattoo was initially done, I developed a high fever so Roy called Scott and they ended up driving me to the emergency room. When I didn't let Scott come in with me to see the doctor, the expression on his face told me that I'd hurt him. Was I wrong? Should I have let him accompany me?

Instead, Roy was the one who came in with me. The doctor took a look and said that I was crazy. Sigh... He gave me some medicine for the fever and that was that. When Roy saw the tattoo and knew the reason for my fever, he said he was going to kill Josh. I'd begged Josh to finish the tattoo as soon as possible and he reluctantly agreed but warned me that the tattoo was too extensive, it almost covered my whole back, and if I wanted to finish it in such a short period of time, I'd most likely get a high fever. Scott, I was so silly but I just wanted to show you that I love you.

I begged Roy to keep this a secret as I wanted to surprise Scott. So he told Scott that I didn't want him to come in with me because I didn't want to worry him unnecessarily by seeing my pale face. I'm not sure if Scott believe that. In fact, I'm almost certain that he didn't, but he didn't say anything.

And so, I was hoping that his birthday would come as soon as possible. It was still four days away. That night, Scott spent the night in my home, taking care of me. He didn't ask me anything, he respected my reasons even if he didn't quite believe them. This man really loved me more than himself.

I knew that Roy and Josh had a big fight after that. They were good friends before. Josh was an art student and his dad was into the tattoo business. When Josh was young, he would sometimes help to tattoo his friends. Roy didn't talk to me for a few days, not that he was angry with me but I suspected that he was coming down hard on himself. He told me later that he was angry at himself for convincing me to get a tattoo done, but I told him that what's done is done.

So the next three days passed as I recovered. And finally, the day arrived when it was Scott's birthday...

tbc