Crackerbox ✔

fourteen: like you

For the next three days, Lee rides on top of the world. It's a delicate feeling, dopamine and morphine and cocaine swirling together in a multicoloured cocktail of bliss that takes him higher than any drug ever could.

It's addictive, this boyish folly, the heroin of teenagehood needling its way into Lee's veins as he fills his days with friends, games, and junk food. And he's eighteen, but he's never felt more like it before---finally affirming his youth with things other than jacking off and squeezing air out of eyes too dry to cry.

He feels young. He feels wild. He feels alive.

It's a sensation that no words could ever describe, and for the first time, Lee understands why the protagonists in teen fiction novels feel the way they feel when they escape. He gets it like he gets the wind in his hair, the neon lights in his eyes, the uncontrollable laughter bursting out of his throat. He's free. Free.

Jon and Cory play their parts well, pulling him around the city streets like they've got minutes to live. With them, it's a whirlwind of madness, and Lee adores every second of it. (Even though Jon and Cory's faces usually remain stuck in permanent expressions of Why the fuck do you have so much money and No, we're not letting you pay for everything, you dumb fuck. It's not Lee's fault he doesn't know how to even begin spending all the money he sto---has.)

"Apparently, I heard through the grapevine that Mr Kang was spotted with a ring," Jon whispers dramatically even though no one actually cares about their conversation, teeth flashing bright white over an extra-cheesy slice of pizza. The lights are warm and yellow above their heads, the air laced with the homely scent of frying meat and melted cheese. Lee thinks about the last time he's gone to a pizza place. All he can remember is sitting at red-striped booths with happy, laughing parents, before everything went to shit.

The thought makes him sad. Lee decides he doesn't want to be sad anymore, so he throws it away.

Lee whistles lowly. The new music teacher in school's been stirring up waves recently, especially among the general female population---Sunny Tan especially loves talking about him, and even though Music isn't one of Lee's electives, he'd almost consider taking it just to stare at Mr Kang for two hours every week. "Really? The girls are going to be so disappointed."

"Yeah!" Jon laughs brightly, prompting a matching chuckle from Cory. It's almost envy-worthy, how the lines of their brainwaves run in perfect tandem, how they speak in each other's body language. Lee's jealous. He and Jack only seem to think alike when they're making fun of each other. And because he'd promised himself to not think about Jack during his grand escape, he shoves that thought out of his mind too. "And get this." Jon's grin widens, and he leans in more as if he's about to reveal some gigantic revelation, chunky glasses slipping off his nose. "Apparently, Mr Kang's engaged to a man."

"No way," Lee gasps, eyes wider than saucers. Truthfully, he's not all that surprised---after he'd caught Jon and Cory kissing, he's learned to not be surprised by anything---but it's fun to pretend, gossiping under flickering lights as the world spins around them, patrons whirling in and out as fast as revolving doors. It's comforting. New. Exciting, almost---going out with friends, eating whatever he wants, revelling in noisy intimacy that takes the weight of the world off his shoulders, even if it's only for a second.