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

✗ FOURTY-FOUR ✗

No one would look at him in the eye.

They avoided eye contact as if they were afraid he beat them up too, or as if they were fearful of him transferring an STD through his pupils. Niko found it stupid.

Yeah, sure he was making out with a guy in a bathroom, but it was fucking 2017. Being gay shouldn't be considered out of the ordinary but it was a small little suburban neighbourhood like Bristol, he supposed the behaviour made sense. The kids were raised with traditional 1970s parents, who grew up listening to their grandparents' war stories and dissatisfaction against the Germans and the Japanese, making judgement on century-old opinions.

Niko let a sigh pass through his lips and took out his jacket when he entered the hallway of the school, feeling a gust of overheated warm air from the cheap heater. His body immediately stopped shivering, blood turning into liquid after the icy onslaught of Bristol's cold rainy weather.

"He didn't felt gay when he fucked me," said a girl from the far corner- Niko turned his head to properly look at her. Rachel Naidoo, a reasonably good-looking Sixth Former from his Economics class, who he hooked up with a year ago at Terrence Kline's sixteenth birthday. Her friend, Kaiti Lim, gave a haughty laugh but stopped immediately when she saw Niko looking their way.

Niko forced his face to remain passive, trying to turn his skin into steel to deflect those words. It's none of their fucking business, he wanted to scream. He shouldered his backpack and head over to homeroom immediately to duck away from the sudden attention. His school didn't have lockers so he was left to carry around his books in shoddy JD Sports carrier bag.

Unable to take the looks anymore, Niko figured he was better off spending his morning in the bathroom until Homeroom started. Unfortunately for Niko, the bathroom was right at the end of the hallway.

The rugby boys from the left side of the hallway were staring at him with weird looks- they weren't mean, no. They weren't sneering, snickering or calling him names. They just stared, speechless from a distance, as if the boys from his rugby team had no idea what to do with him anymore- whether to go up to him and say hi like they usually did or shun him like what Roger probably told them to do.

Niko couldn't believe he used to be like them. Part of the rugby team like a wolf pack, judging others like they were judging him right now, talk about girls as if they meant nothing and calling them slags, trading around tricks about how to fool the drug tests in order to avoid being suspended. He liked being with them- part of a group, a flock people admired just because they were good at tackling and tossing an oblong-shaped ball across the field.

They even liked him. Both of them- Roger and Niko, the two biggest fuckups in the group, who threw the best parties and offered the best drugs. They slapped him in the back and laughed when he told them locker room stories about girls he slept with. They take group photos, tagged him with an endless amount of memes and treated him like he was part of their family.

Now all he felt was cold.

Niko felt vomit crawling up his throat as he passed them, eyes strictly on the floor as he walked. Niko swallowed uncomfortably as he came to the bathroom, then fling himself into the blue boys' door. The boys' bathroom was empty except for Sebastian, who stood there, waiting as if he just knew Niko would come eventually. Sebastian, the angel who appeared when Niko needed him the most.

Sebastian's eyes were misty as his hands embraced the boy, who didn't even need to say the word, and just like that, Niko felt the air around him grew lighter as he collapsed into him.

"It's gonna be alright, Niko," Sebastian murmured, "It's going to be alright." 

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