Kleinsen Oneshots, Drabbles, and Prompts! [REQUESTS OPEN!!]

Memories

   requested by -Just_A_Ravenclaw-

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   Evan's voice was muffled from the closet. "Look what I found," he held out an old box, the lid sitting on the bottom of it. 

   "What's that?" 

   "Old pictures," Evan smirked.

   Jared sat up. He didn't recall ever having that in his closet.  

   Evan walked over to the bed where Jared was sitting and sat the box down. "How long have you had this?" 

   "Uhh," Jared thought for a minute. He honestly forgot ever having that box. The last time he ever interacted with it was when he moved it from underneath his bed and moved to the closet, where Evan had just found it. "I dunno. For a while. I haven't looked through it really ever, my mom gave it to me one day," he explained. 

   "Wanna look through it then?"

   Jared shrugged and scooted the box closer to himself, it being right in the middle of the couple, already reaching his hand in the box and pulling out a few pictures. 

   "Oh my god, these are not old photos of us," Jared made a face at one of the pictures. The picture he was looking at was one of him when he was probably around the age of 10. It was Halloween and he was dressed up as Ash from Pokemon. The background was fairly blurry, but Jared was able to make out Evan in the background. You couldn't see much up him, but he was dressed in something yellow.

   "Lemme see," Evan took the picture from Jared and inspected it. "Oohh, that was the year we dressed up as Ash and Pikachu. Yeah, I hated that."

   Jared laughed a bit, looking back at the picture. "Why did you hate that so much? I remember you threw an entire fit over it."

   "Because I didn't want to be Pikachu. There was probably more to it as well, but I don't remember."

   Jared hummed, looking at the other picture he grabbed. It was a picture of his family and Evan's gathered together on Thanksgiving one year. Due to Evan's dad being there, Jared made the assumption that they were under the age of 6. 

   He sat the pictures down and pulled more out, looking through each one. Some made him cringe intensely, those ones were because of pictures strictly of himself, while others made him smile, recalling the memories with Evan. 

   "I just realized in all of these, there's no pictures after middle school," Evan commented, not exactly thinking about why that is.

   Jared shifted uncomfortably. "That um, might be because, y'know," he gestured mostly to himself. He sighed and decided he would just say it, "Because I was an asshole to you in high school and wanted really nothing to do with you. I mean- I did, but at the same time I didn't."
 
   Evan frowned, regretting what he said. He didn't mean for Jared to feel bad. Although, Jared was right. He wasn't exactly the greatest to Evan, but Evan wasn't much better than Jared, either. 

   "I wasn't anything better. Especially considering senior year with the whole, uh, Connor Project. But- but we're better now, right? Like.. we've mostly moved on from that. Because, you want to be around me now, right? And I want to be around you. We've both gotten better. At being people. So."

   Jared smirked and pecked Evan's lips. "You're cute."

   Evan flushed a hue of pink, brushing it off and going back to looking through the pictures. 

   "Oh, look. Here's one when our moms' forced us to go on that road trip," Evan handed the picture to Jared and shuddered. "That went to hell."

   "Didn't you end up getting car sick?" Jared snickered. 

   Evan rolled his eyes, ignoring Jared and pulling out another picture. 

    Jared went on to look at other pictures from the box, trying to ignore Evan's not-very-well stiffled giggles. 

   But it kept happening. 

   "Okay, why are you laughing? Show me it," He demanded. 

   Evan held onto picture, still looking at it. "I remember when you had braces."

   Jared's eyes widened. "No. Absolutely not. Show me it. We're burning any pictures of that."
 
   "How come? I think and thought you looked cute with them," Evan smiled, handing Jared the photo. 

   Jared looked it over, frowning. "Because I looked weird with them."

   "You did not, you looked fine!"

   "I don't think so."

   "Jare, I pro-"

   "Can you just drop it, Evan?" Jared snapped, throwing the picture into the pile.

   He grabbed a different picture and looked at it, not saying anything.

   Evan stared at Jared with a soft expression, watching as he would mutter things under his breath, throwing the pictures he looked at into the pile angrily. 

   He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

   Jared continued to avoid making eye contact with Evan, instead occupying himself with photos. 

   He stopped abruptly, looking at Evan, face full of guilt. "I'm- I, um, I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I don't know, I just, I shouldn't still be insecure about them. I had them.. like, 7 years ago."
   "It's fine. It's okay."

   "No. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. You were just trying to make me feel better. But because I'm still so fucking insecure about myself and things I had years ago, I didn't- I wouldn't let you."

   Evan frowned sympathetically, "But you're getting better at that, though, right? So, so as long as you're working on it that's all that matters. And I still think you looked good with them. They really suited you."  

  "Sure. The only good thing that came from that was the fact that they fixed my teeth," Jared scoffed.

  "Still cute."

  Jared rolled his eyes, grabbing another picture. It was one of him and Evan after graduation. They were somewhat better then. They had started talking again, occasionally hanging out. It was still a bit awkward, but they were getting better. 

  "Meh."