A Certain Sort Of Loneliness

Mildly homosexual

Lessons had gone smoothly. He'd kept to himself mostly, the back of the classroom becoming a secluded alcove of solace to him; besides the occasional uncomfortable introduction, no-one bothered with him much.

It was comforting now, having been lonely and tense at first, but Lili's kindness had left a warm lull of safety settled around him, quelling his anxiety and slowing the adrenaline that had flooded through his body.

It was strange, being back in school. The environment had become foreign to him, but there was a certain familiarity to the rhythm of the school day. He didn't recognize many people in his class - to be fair, he had missed out on most of his last year, not to mention each year had a few hundred students - it wasn't exactly surprising, but Emil found himself torn between relief and disappointment at the lack of familiar faces.

Lunch came quickly - Emil wasn't sure if he liked that or not, but it came nonetheless and he found himself waiting a little uneasily in the corner of the cafeteria, to the left of the entrance, right where Lili told him to meet her. Her class has been let out late, he thinks - or hopes at least, he doesn't want to start imagining alternate possibilities: his mind is a little too....'creative' for his liking, no point in thinking now, right?

"Emil!" he turns to see Lili, followed by two other people, a wide-eyed girl with pigtails and dark skin and an inconspicuous-looking boy who's face seemed weirdly familiar, though Emil couldn't quite place why, "Sorry to keep you waiting, I had to go find my friends," Lili beamed widely, gesturing to the people besides her, "This is Michelle, and this is Matthew - there might be some more people joining us later, I hope it doesn't bother you too much," she added earnestly, clearly wanting Emil to feel as comfortable as possible - it was touching, in a way.

"It's fine," He reassured, giving Michelle and Matthew a shy nod as a greeting, raising his hand a little to give a feeble wave of sorts - he was never one for introductions, usually choosing to hide behind one of his various family members - here, he didn't exactly have that liberty.

"Great!" She says, clapping her hands together, "Let's go and sit down then,"

She leads him to a free table, patting the seat next to her on the bench, Michelle sitting down on her other side, flopping on to the table lazily, presumably to take a nap. Matthew meanwhile, opened up his bag and unpacked his food, sending him a friendly smile as Emil bit his lip, uncertain of whether it was appropriate to eat or not. Though he still wasn't quite comfortable, hunger won over and Emil reluctantly began to chew at his food, unconsciously hunching over a little to seem as small as possible.

A few minutes passed in a calming quiet, the hum of the other students' chatter creating soft white noise that served as a backdrop for Lili's occasional quiet conversation with Michelle, who seemed to only communicate in a high-pitched, quiet babble that Emil couldn't quite decipher from where he sat.

"Yo-" Emil looked up to see another person sitting down at the table, an east-Asian guy who seemed to give off a very different vibe to Lili's other friends, seeming more like the type to hang with the larger, louder crowds, "Who's the new kid?" he asked curiously, eyeing him up and down intently as Emil gave Lili a slightly desperate look. Sensing his discomfort, Lili gave him a comforting smile before looking to the stranger sitting across from him (still staring, very, very intently),

"Leon, this is Emil, I talked about him earlier-" Lili introduced, "Emil, this is Leon, he's another one of my friends,"

"Emil, huh," The stranger's - or Leon's, as Emil now knew him as, eyes never left him. At first glance, they were brown - and though Emil did his absolute, absolute to avoid eye contact, hoping that maybe then he would stop staring - on closer inspection however, his eyes were more of a yellow gold, near glowing in contrast to his dark hair. Emil shook the thoughts from his head, now was really not the time to contemplate a stranger's eye colour, especially when said stranger was still staring, eyes practically dissecting him. He couldn't figure out what he was thinking, or feeling - his eyes were....intense, to say the least but his face was monotone, perhaps even bored? Emil was about to open his mouth to finally say something, anything-
"You never said he was cute-" Leon said, slight teasing tone in his voice as a grin spread across his face, the statement clearly directed at Lili and yet his eyes still did not stray from him, watching with a smug expression as Emil pressed his lips together, face flushing red.

"I think I like him already," Leon decided firmly, ignoring his jumbled protests and getting out his lunch instead.

Emil did not need this right now.