Aberration ≫ Jarchie

S E V E N

Six Years Old ❣︎ May

Kindergarten graduation, a small gathering of teary eyed parents coming together to watch their children play the kazoo and sing songs about moving onto bigger things, which only happened to be first grade. Still, it meant a lot to the parents because they felt as if their little babies were growing up too fast, and all and all the parents loved to take off work to watch their children dress up in pretty dresses and fancy suits for a day.

Usually graduations were supposed to be fun, especially a kindergarten graduation, but Archie felt that it was the exact opposite. It took a lot of puppy dog eyes and crocodile tears to get both of his parents there at the same time. You could almost taste the tension between the two adults, and Archie didn't like it all. Archie thought it almost tasted like the beach.

Salty.

Obviously things haven't gotten much better between Mr. and Mrs. Andrews. After Archie's little disappearance with Jughead back in January, the two realized that it wasn't best to keep arguing in front of Archie.

So they did it in private.

Archie isn't stupid, he realizes his parents are still going at it, and he doesn't appreciate his parents lying to him and pretending like everything is okay when it isn't. It really isn't.

"I hate singing these stupid songs." Jughead's voice sounded from behind Archie, making the redhead turn around and giggle.

"I don't really m-mind the s-singing." The scarlet hue shrugged. Archie often found himself humming the words to their cliche graduation song whenever he heard his parents slip up, or whenever he was around both of them in general. The tension was too much for him to manage, and the singing distracted him, even if he did have to agree that the songs were a teensy but stupid.

Jughead shrugged as if to say 'fair enough', already knowing about Archie's obvious love for music. Jughead often sat in the scarlet hue's room, cross-legged, watching the boy learn to play the pretty guitar he had got him.

The darker hue always found himself admiring his friend when he had the guitar in his hand. He wasn't sure if it was because he wishes he had the ability to pick up something as fast as Archie was, or if it was because of the cute way the red headed boy would stick his tongue out in concentration when trying to figure out harder chords and notes. Maybe it was even because if the way the scarlet hue's eyes would light up when he finally figured something out, or talked about music in general.

Whatever it was, Jughead loved it.

"We're going to go ahead and get started with our graduates this fine afternoon!", their teacher Miss Murphy speaks towards the small classroom bursting at the seams with parents.

Archie immediately sends his best friend a nervous look, causing Jughead to understand immediately and squeeze his hand to comfort him. Archie isn't really that nervous about the graduation as a whole, he honestly doesn't even understand the point of it. He is more nervous about the possibility of his parents blowing up and getting into an argument right here.

Archie believes that most of his parent's arguments are somehow caused by him, since whenever he hears the screaming he's usually the topic of discussion. This is why Archie wants everything to go perfect today, he wants to stop causing them problems.

Jughead spent the last few months trying to reassure that the scarlet hue was not the problem, but nothing could make the boy believe otherwise. Archie believes this whole debacle is his fault, and he'd do anything to fix it.

He'd do anything to hear his mother's flowery language about all the things she loved in the world again.

He'd do anything to see his dad give kisses of addiction to his mom again.

He'd do anything to have things go back to normal.

He almost felt as if nothing was really stable anymore, a thought no five year old should be having.

Even his fifth birthday party was painful to be at, because his parents started arguing over why the frosting was purple and not blue, and it caused an eerie type of silence to fall over the party goers for the rest of the hour.

"Give it up for our first graduate, Archie Andrews!"

Archie takes a deep breath and adjusts his purple bow tie before calmly stepping out into the middle of the classroom to collect his 'diploma'. All of the parents make it a point to cheer and applaud for the scarlet hue boy, and he was surprised to find both of his parents cheering along with bright smiles on their faces.

After each name is called, the kindergarteners sing through their songs, eat the refreshments laid out, and before you know it it was time for them to go.

Archie can't help but to feel a little sad about graduating. He knows school is only going to get harder from here, and he can't help but to feel a little bit stupid since he could barely make it through this year without much help.

However, he feels the sudden familiarity of Jughead's soft hands on his own, and allows the boy to pull him along to the exit, the stress fading away as Jughead's scent fills his nose and makes him smile.

Although the duo had no clue what the future held, they knew it involved the two together through whatever life decided to throw at them.

"Good bye Kindergarten." Jughead whispers before taking the first step out of the safe classroom doors with Archie right by his side.

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Jughead and Archie's birthdays are somewhere in between January and May I've decided, so that's why they are now five years old. I might do a chapter based off of one of their birthdays but it just seemed like a waste of a chapter.

Also, this book is gaining a lot of growing pretty fast and I believe I only stated it about a month ago if anything and we already have 400 views.

And I accidentally published this chapter when it was barely half done so no one saw that I hope

😬

- Anna