Emil was barely visible, now. Lalli decided he’d better give him a chance to catch up. So, at the top of the next hill, he turned into the scenic overlook parking lot and started biking in lazy figure eights.
He ended up doing it for quite a while. He was considering getting off his bike and, like, tuning the gears or something, when Emil finally appeared at the lot’s entrance.
“This has better–” he began, but then he saw the view. And dumped his bike in the first bay before rushing over to the cliff’s edge, panting, “Oh… It was… totally… worth it!”
Lalli looked at the view, which was nice. And then at Emil looking at the view, which was nice too. He looked so happy! Lalli did not even know how to make his face do that.
“Thank you for– Augh!” Emil had turned towards him, and was now panicking for some reason. “Why are you… Oh hell, I must look terrible. My hair!” He started to fuss with his head, drawing sweat-soaked tendrils back into his ponytail.
“You do look a bit… red.” He really did. Was that unhealthy? Or was it normal, for people who were bad at biking? “Maybe we… Do you want to turn back early?”
“Early?” Emil’s dark eyebrows shot up, “We’re not done?”
“No. We’re…” :Lalli thought about it. “Forty five percent of the way to our turn-around point?”
“Oh. That’s…” Emil stared out at the view again, blank-eyed, as if he were doing a calculation of his own. “Oh. Well. I guess– I guess I can do that. Maybe. It’ll be downhill later, right?”
“Yes, and then uphill again. And so on. We’re biking the hill route,” Lalli reminded him. “You said you wanted to see as much scenery as possible.”
“Right, right. Sure. But it gets easier over time, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh good.”
Emil looked so pleased with this mild encouragement that Lalli decided to give him some more. “After a few months of biking, you will definitely be less bad at it.”
“OH.” Emil stared out at the view again, but no longer quite as happily. His mouth was a straight line as he let down his hair, and then put it back up, a bit tighter this time. ‘So. Let’s get started.”
Lalli decided to try to go a bit slower. It didn’t seem to help. No matter how much he held back, Emil always trailed behind, too far back to take advantage of Lalli’s wind.
And he didn’t smile very much either, at least not until they had made it all the way back.
“Whooo!” he shouted then. “I did it! On my first day biking, too! Tell, me aren’t you a little impressed.
Lalli surprised himself by replying, “Yes.” And it wasn’t a lie: he was impressed both by how bad Emil’s biking actually way, and (more positively) by his tenacity.
