My Middle School Crush (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 34

Chapter 34: He Said, She Said

Mason was in a very good mood. After dozens of cancelled plans, many because of him, Mason finally got a chance to hang out with Jasmine again. He didn't know how many weeks had passed without them hanging out alone, or at the very least with Clark. But, Mason was excited to see her and have fun like they always did before. They saw each other if something was happening with the whole group, but simple hang outs seemed to have become scarce.

Tonight, they weren't doing anything spectacularly special, just watching a show with Clark at her place, but these were the sort of things Mason loved doing with them. The entire morning leading up to it, Mason was especially chiper.

"You're in a very good mood." Mason's mom commented as he hummed his way around the kitchen. "Do you have a date or something tonight?"

Mason chuckled at the thought, shaking his head.

"No, nothing like that. I'm just hanging out with Clark and Jasmine today." Mason told her, his satisfied smile wide on his face.

"Really, that isn't anything terribly special." She said, tilting her head slightly in confusion.

"I haven't been able to hang out with just the two of them in a while, so it's going to be nice to catch up." Mason explained, nearly done with his elaborate breakfast. While it usually felt like excess effort to even scramble some eggs, Mason had gone through the effort to make an entire omelette today, filled with onions, mushrooms, and some leftover ham. Mason was folding the omelette in half when his mother spoke again.

"That's nice. It's good you guys put in effort to meet up." Eleanor Moore commended her son, wearing a proud smile. "I still have to call the ladies so we can get some brunch. The last I heard, Elizabeth's son got engaged so we need to get together to congratulate her."

"An engagement, wow." Mason repeated while he sat down at the table, his eyebrows coming to his hairline.

"I know! When Aiden got engaged, I was the one who got all this attention for the first few weeks following from my friends, so we need to do the same for Elizabeth." She explained. It was obvious how excited Mason's mom was about all this marriage talk. Even though she was quite progressive, these little traditional things still excited her immensely.

"Well, good luck setting that up." He told her, cutting into his food.

"Thank you honey."

—————

Hanging out with Jasmine and Clark today brought a tension that Mason wasn't used to. Where before seeing them felt natural, like coming home, today there was an unspoken barrier dividing him from the other two. They said all the same words and laughed while making the same jokes, but something was off. There was an elephant in the room, but Mason for the life of him just couldn't tell what caused it.

However, that wasn't enough to stop Mason from trying. These were some of his best friends and a little hiccup wasn't going to stop them from having a great time.

The first thing they did after getting their snacks and drinks rounded up was pick what to watch. Because of Clark's insistence, they ended up going with Love 020, a fluffy Chinese Romance show on Netflix. Since it was a show and not a movie, they didn't go into the movie room and instead got comfortable in the lounge room in the basement. Despite the fact that the couch was open and available, they simply used it as back support while they sat on the floor.

Mason had been hesitant in watching it. He'd never seen a show or movie that wasn't in English before and was worried some aspects might not translate because of cultural differences. But after he went an hour without taking his eyes off of the TV, he realized he was wrong.