Thomas was hiding in the bathroom when Minho found him.
"Thomas?"
Minho's voice echoed off the tiled walls of the small room, sounding far away and frail. Thomas winced, uncomfortable memories of second grade and Elmer's glue coming back to him. This wasn't the first time Minho had had to come looking for him in filthy bathrooms, and apparently, the two weren't quite done with it yet.
"Hey, Thomas, Brenda from math class said she saw you come in here," Minho continued, and Thomas could practically hear him rolling his eyes at Thomas's antics. He held his breath and prayed for Minho to go away. Minho paused and Thomas dared to hope. Then,
"so I know that you're here, even if you pull your feet up onto the toilet."
Thomas cursed under his breath, groaned, and stood. His legs were as shaky as his hands when he opened the stall door and glared at Minho.
"What do you want?" Thomas asked tiredly.
Minho studied him for a moment. "That's what you were hiding from me this morning? Some kind of sappy love note?"
"Poem," Thomas snapped distractedly. "Love poem."
"That's a thousand times worse," Minho laughed. "Oh, God, Thomas. Really?"
Thomas moaned and sagged against the side of the stall. He banged his head against the hard plastic for good measure.
"Teresa told me about it," Minho said, his voice was becoming gentle now. "She said you thought the notes--sorry, poems--were from Newt Isaacs."
"He was across the street outside when I found the first one!" Thomas said loudly. He lowered his voice. "Who else could it possibly be?"
Minho winced. "You sure you aren't just seeing what you want to see? Projecting your desires or whatever?"
"Projecting my desires?" Thomas glowered at Minho. "Did Teresa tell you about what happened in class? Between Newt and I?"
"No..."
"Yeah, well, Newt... I.... we.... I mean, accidentally, not really, and it... well..."
Blushing furiously, Thomas pressed his fingers against his lips and silently begged that Minho would get the message. But the other boy just looked at Thomas liked he'd gone nuts.
"Lip on lip contact!" Thomas finally blurted out. "Kissed, you dunderhead!"
Minho looked surprised for a moment, but then he smirked. "Wow. Sweet, Thomas, sweet. Newtie putting the moves on you?"
Thomas hung his head and groaned for what had to be the millionth time that day. Why him? Why did this have to happen to him? And why did he have to have such a truly terrible best friend?
"Hey," Minho said, "it's all going to be fine, Thomas. I'm serious. Everyone is going to forget about this tomorrow, you'll see. Honestly, no one really cares about your love life all that much. Check yourself, Tommy boy."
Thomas frowned. He really didn't think he was overreacting... But maybe Minho did have a point. Maybe this would all blow over. Maybe not by tomorrow, but...
"And even if it doesn't blow over," Minho continued, thoroughly crushing Thomas' spirit, "even if everyone else abandons you and decides you're a loser, you'll still have Teresa and me. And your secret admirer. Newt, or whoever it is."
Thomas sighed.
"Yeah, okay."
Minho grinned. He kept talking, telling Thomas about how he better show him those love notes, all of them, so they could gush like proper teenage girls, but Thomas tuned him out. He just nodded along and agreed to whatever Minho was saying.
Because, whatever Minho said, Thomas really believed that he was thoroughly and permanently screwed.
❁ ˖*°࿐*ೃ . ⋆
Chapter by Hope_325
Thanks for reading! Hope you like my bromance thominho scene. ;)
