Upside Down (COMPLETE) Inside Out, Book 2 [BoyxBoy]

Keith

He should've stopped gawking at Ivan Fickler by now.

Keith realized that he had been watching Ivan for years from a distance. He found his classmate to be hot. It wasn't so much about Ivan's physical appearance that staggered him, but his reclusive demeanor had a very appealing sense. He was ... mysterious.

He didn't know exactly how to approach Ivan, so the admiring was only done from afar. Ivan's group of friends were the class clowns, those who liked to fake loud sneezes to interrupt whatever the teachers were doing in the class, so those were definitely not Keith's favorite.

But among his friends, Ivan didn't seem to fit in too. He had zero presence in any of their social media accounts, and Keith was good at internet stalking to not find any trails of it. Ivan and his friends didn't even follow each other. In fact, the boys in Ivan's clique all had super-popular girlfriends except him, and the fact that he seemed to be indifferent about it made him cool.

Well, Ivan Fickler not dating was another problem to Keith: was he straight or not? Ivan made Keith's gaydar beeped on and off. Since they had the chance to be in a few classes together, Ivan had caught Keith staring at him a few times. Strangely, things didn't turn out awkward between the two of them; there were a couple of times where Ivan stared back, inviting Keith for an eyeing game. Then they dared each other not to blink. In some occasions, Ivan just returned Keith a smile, or made a funny face that had never failed to make Keith laugh. He was easily entertained with Ivan—if other boys did the same thing, Keith would find them annoying.

Of course, a typical straight guy wouldn't engage in such vaguely flirty interactions, would they? But Keith had also caught Ivan fooling around like a straight douchebag with his friends—sometimes he'd slur around about female body parts, hyping up about sex positions and whatnot, so these had messed up with Keith's head too.

Keith wanted to forget him, now that he'd be moving to a new place. But since it was his last day in school, he thought he would attempt another eyeing game with Ivan, for what maybe could be the last time.

He was in Biology, sitting at one of the large tables in the science lab. Ivan was sitting across of him. Keith put his chin on his hand, staring ahead of him right into Ivan Fickler without even trying to hide his action. Ivan was fooling around with his friends, laughing so loud Keith wondered why the teacher hadn't noticed by now. Smiling to himself, Keith secretly hoped Ivan would stare back this time, because this might be the last eyeing game they would have together.

Ivan's cackles came to a stop when he caught Keith's eyes.

Mimicking Keith, Ivan placed his chin in his hand, his elbow on the table. Keith knew the game had already commenced, so he stared right into Ivan's eyes, lowering his body to a more comfortable position. There were some other guys who threw him a look as they noticed the both of them, but neither Keith nor Ivan cared to care. For what felt like a minute later, Ivan started to lower himself too, trying to get a good hold of his eye contact with Keith. Then he let out a smirk, as if he knew that would make Keith's heart skip for a split second.

Tears started to sting Keith's eyes, but he didn't want to blink. He wanted to win this round. Adrenaline flowed through his veins, his eyes started to tremble.

He refused to blink ...

Ivan shut his eyes and let out a baffle of disbelief, looking away.

Keith screamed in excitement to himself. He watched as Ivan stomped a hand on the table, feeling displeased for the defeat. Keith laughed and started to wonder how he'd miss all of these little things when he was no longer here.

I'll miss you bad, Ivan Fickler.

The rest of the final period didn't feel long at all. When the bell rang, Keith collected his books and started to walk out of the lab, suddenly sensing an extreme sadness tightening in his chest. He didn't want to suit himself to a new environment; he didn't want to worry about trying to blend in a new kind of crowd while he was so comfortable here.