BOYS OF SUBURBIA [boy x boy] [Wattys 2018]

✗ NINETEEN ✗

Whenever it rained and they couldn't hang out at the forest to chuck random barks of a tree into the fire, they would pile up at Sebastian's room and play video games until their eyes glazed and their stomach growled with hunger. It was then they would take a short and brief detour downstairs, hopefully avoiding Sebastian's parents, and raid the pantry cupboard. Normally, they would just draw up some shitty cup noodles that already went stale and watch PewDiePie YouTube videos as they ate.

They went back to normal, really. They still hung out and lived out the cool cliches they had become, smoking in plastic cars, drinking on park benches, ditching school days for cruising around the shopping malls without buying everything, breaking into swimming pools for night swimming. Niko hardly hangs around Roger anymore, escaping with him to the library to read all the restricted books that the librarian never bother to tell them off for. But there was a sense of animosity between them that emerged ever since the kiss. Ever since Niko had drunkenly made out with Sebastian, Sebastian could feel the discomfort between the both of them. Like every time Niko randomly touched his wrist, both of them would misread it as something else.

So now they were curled on Sebastian's bed, legs entangled within each other, watching a Game Theory video when Sebastian's mother, Juliet Faze, called out, "DINNER!"

Sebastian sighed. "Guess you have to go now."

"Yeah," agreed Niko, heading out the door. Sebastian closed his laptop by slamming the lid onto the keyboards and unplugged the charger to converse energy, then proceeded to race down the stairs with Niko.

As Sebastian showed him down the hallway of his house, even though Niko had been here a thousand times, Juliet popped out from the dining room and frowned at Niko. "Who's this?"

"It's- uh- my friend." It ached more than possible to say that. "Niko Salinger."

"Your friend?" Juliet brightened at this. Cladded in a neon orange apron with a spatula in hand, Juliet looked like a typical mother this time. His mother was beautiful, just like Violet. Dark hair and green eyes, pale skin and red lips, his mother invested money into making herself look good and keeping her skin young. She would often showcase her willowy body in tight dresses, choking her surroundings with that flowery perfume of hers, and every time she showed up at Sebastian's school for Parents-Teachers conferences, the boys in his class would catcall and make fun of him, describing vivid details of what they would do to his mother. Sebastian would go home, embarrassed and humiliated, and begged his mother to stop dressing so promiscuously and un-mom-like but his mother had adamantly refused, saying if she looked this good, why shouldn't she show it off? It was just like his mother's beauty enhanced in the cakey makeup and bandage dresses that attract entitled assholes like Greg. But Greg wasn't around or seemed to be around, and she appeared normal, especially in front of Niko right now- Thank God.

"Really? Why Sebastian never told me about you!"

Sebastian could feel Niko's stare burning into him. "Really?" Niko slowly said, smiling as Sebastian shot him a withering glare that could've to melt metal, "Well, then I'll be damned."

Juliet chuckled good-heartedly, rubbing her hands together. "Oh, but I would love to get to know some of Sebastian's friends! Why don't you join our family for dinner?"

"Mum!" outcried Sebastian, aghast, freckles appearing when his face turned paper white. "He needs to go home."

"Not really," quipped Niko cheekily, just to spite Sebastian. if he wasn't in his mother's line of sight, Sebastian would've kicked him by now. "My parents don't mind me being a bit late."

"Yes, they do," said Sebastian stubbornly.

"Not really."

"I don't see what's the problem, Sebastian," chided Juliet, brandishing her spatula like a weapon, hands on her hips. "Greg's not coming home for the night," his mother told him shortly, much to his elation, "And we have a room for one more. So why not?"

"Fine," grumbled Sebastian, glowering at Niko who was smiling jovially, and his stomach squelched and it was not from hunger, but from something else entirely.

I'm so fucked.

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in more ways than one. amirite???

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