More than Best Friends?

Chapter 7 - Envy

⚠️ - Strong language at end of chapter.

After about a week of being absent, Yuki returned to class, hoping to not be bombarded with questions about his leave.  As far as he remembered, he never missed a day of school, except when he had caught the "chicken" pox as a kid.  He decided to stop thinking about it and figured that he wasn't popular enough to be noticed for things like attendance anyway.

Yuki always arrived early for school, so he sat in his usual window seat in Mr. Omperponk's contemporary world history classroom, the first period of his day.  He stared out the window and took in the spring scene: a sakura tree billowed gently in the morning breeze, birds chirped their happy tune, and students walked around the courtyard.  He saw a flash of blonde hair sitting at the fountain and opened his eyes a little wider to get a better glimpse at whoever it was, hoping it was Kyle.  Alas, he was too far away for him to be able to tell, so Yuki just shut his eyes and waited for class to begin.

Kyle came in a few minutes before the bell rang, taking a seat at the front of the classroom.  At this point, he didn't even bother to look at Yuki's seat and assumed that he wasn't there again.  He folded his arms on top of the desk and put his head down, dreading the start of another day without Yuki.

"Good morning class!" Mr. Omperponk nearly shouted in a cheery tone.  Some students groaned in response.   "Today, I'm particularly excited because I will be introducing a new assignment!"  Cue, even more, moaning and groaning.  "Come on, it's not so bad, it's just an essay!"   It was as if his voice was a button that played the sounds of suffering students every time he spoke.  "Anyway, the essay will be a topic of your choice, to an extent.  The prompt is simple: choose a controversial topic of today's era, elaborate, and explain your personal opinion on it.  An example could be gun control, or perhaps mass incarceration.  It will be due in one month."

Yuki was pretty sure he knew about what he was going to write already: transgendered persons in modern society, and maybe a brief history of them as well.  He started to scribble some ideas down in his notebook.  Kyle wondered if he should write about the LGBTQ+ community because issues related to it impacted his life immensely.  He jotted down some bullet points in his notebook of what he might write about.

~*~

The afternoon portion of the day was when students partook in sports and extracurricular activities.  Kyle trudged to the track and field area of the school, hoping that today wasn't going to be stressful.  Besides the essay assigned in history class, there was much other schoolwork to be done.  He hoped Yuki wasn't struggling too much but figured that that girl he was staying with was telling him what he was missing.

That girl...Kyle still didn't know who she was.  She had mentioned that she was a close friend of Yuki's, but he wondered why he hadn't told him about her before.  He felt a pit in his stomach while thinking about her and Yuki spending all that time together, just the two of them, outside of school, her taking care of him, Yuki letting himself be vulnerable to her...he tried to push the thoughts of them away, but just thinking of them being together bothered him too much.  He felt like maybe Yuki didn't need him after all if he had a girl to take care of him.

Kyle stood at the starting line of the track, waiting for the rest of the team to show up.  He let his eyes drift to Yuki's usual spot on the bleachers, assuming that he wasn't going to show, but to his surprise, Yuki was there!  His eyes widened in shock, seeing a faint glow from the sun around Yuki's figure.  Without thinking, Kyle ran up the bleacher stairs and embraced him, as tears pricked the corners of his eyes.  Yuki stiffened immediately from the contact but eased into it after a few seconds.  He slowly wrapped his arms around his friend in return.  The boys hugged for a little bit before letting go of each other.

"I...missed you," Kyle said to him as he pulled away, smiling softly at him.

"Thanks...I guess..." Yuki replied quietly, looking at the bleacher floor.  He scratched at the side of his neck and tugged at his tank top collar before saying, "I think...I missed you too."  Kyle laughed his hearty laugh, for the first time in a while.  Yuki chuckled while watching him, admiring his cheery disposition.

"Let's get you back out there, tiger," Kyle said to him and held out a hand for a fist bump.  Yuki's cheeks felt heated and turned pink at the nickname, as he briefly pictured himself crawling towards Kyle on his hands and knees, but quickly abandoned the thought.  He extended a soft fist to him, and they shared a fist bump before walking onto the track.

They didn't know it, but someone was watching their interaction from the track while waiting for Kyle to start the practice.   He squinted at the sight of the two of them and noticed how Yuki looked so nervous.  His eyes were fixed on them, and he started to wonder if he should do anything about it.

"Dude, what are you looking at?" A friend lightly poked him, snapping him out of his trance.

"Nothing, you pansy.  Shut up." He retorted, smacking his hand away.

"Okay, if you say so." He followed his friend's gaze and noticed Kyle and Yuki.  "Ah. I see...Jealous, huh?" He elbowed his buddy's arm playfully and winked.

"NO!" he yelled, attracting attention from the others.  "I'm not jealous!  The fuck makes you wanna say that kinda bullshit, huh?!  I'll beat your ass!"  He made a fist and glared as his friend, while the other teammates snickered.  "Shut it, you fucks!  Unless you wanna get pounded too!"

"Alright, alright.  Everybody chill out, let's get started, yeah?" Kyle announced, making everyone turn their heads.  He was in front of the team now, and they looked in admiration at their captain.  Yuki stood beside him and watched Kyle motivate the team.  "We have a lot of work to do if we're gonna beat the other schools this year!"  He threw an arm around Yuki's upper back and pulled him close, causing his face to turn red.  The boy watching them earlier puffed his cheeks at the scene, crossed his arms, and looked away.

(1092 words, 30 October 2019)

(1108 words, edited 31 May 2020)