You of all people - Stosuh

Coffee Date - Hosuh

Stephen seemed surprised to see me, but that surprise was suddenly replaced by a glare of hatred as he walked over and slammed his backpack down onto the table, pushing out a notebook and a large hardcover journal with the words : "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" and he turned on his heel and walked over to the front counter to order something. Probably something to drink. We were off to a great start.

He sat back down and opened up the book to page 234, and slid the notebook in front of me. I looked up at him to see that his eyebrows were knitted together and he started speaking before I had even gotten my pen out. "Okay, the concept of consecutive numbers may seem straightforward but if you actually paid attention in class you would see that there are some slightly different views on what this term means. Consecutive numbers are numbers that follow each other in order from smallest to largest, in regular counting order, but Consecutive numbers- or more properly known as consecutive ​integers - are integers n1 and n2 such that n2–n1 = 1 such that n2 follows immediately after n1.​ Algebra problems usually ask about consecutively odd numbers, or consecutive numbers that increase by multiples of three, such as 3, 6, 9, and 12. Learning about consecutive numbers, then, is a bit trickier than is at first apparent-"

"You need to slow down I-" I tried to say but he slammed his hand down on the table.

"Don't tell me what I need to fucking do!" Stephen spoke at me in anger while he ran his hand over the book, flipping pages without even looking at the book itself. It felt awful, his stare I mean. It felt like daggers purposefully stabbing into my chest as he stared. It was clear he didn't care for me.

I fidgeted in my seat as he stopped turning the pages and took the notebook from in front of me, doodling something down onto the side of it, before sliding it back in front of me. There were number ones with the letter x beside them, a small bulleted two point list of 1st and 2nd, and then Stephen spoke to me again.

"Give me the sum of two consecutive odd integers."
I blinked. I could feel myself sweating. I thought this would be a good chance to try and say sorry to him, but I just felt exposed by this point. This wasn't a good idea. Why had I let Dan do this to me?

"What are integers?" I asked.

Stephen stood up and grabbed his books, putting them back into his bag and tying up the top before flinging it over his shoulder and not bothering to grab his drink.

"You are helpless. Go find another tutor. This was a bad idea, and I regret coming here. Tell Dan I said sorry. Or don't. I don't care." He told me as he walked out the door. I sat there, but quickly gathered up my things and grabbed his drink, running out the door towards his figure that was walking off in the distance.

He didn't stop as I jogged up beside him, and he didn't pay me any mind either. He seemed tense and uncomfortable though. "You uh, forgot your.. Drink." I mumbled, verbally feeling sweat run down my face. He didn't look at me as he kept walking but responded nonetheless. "I'm aware."

There was a slight edge in his voice. I gently nudged the drink towards him, and he stopped walking and grabbed it out of my hand before I had even realised that he had taken it from me- and for a moment I was scared that I had accidentally dropped the drink. Gripping the cup tightly, he threw it down against the concrete and stomped on top of it, before kicking it off to the side angrily. He and I stood there in silence, staring at the large puddle of coffee that now stained the sidewalk. It was dripping down the edge of the concrete path.

He was breathing heavily. But he picked up the cup and walked a few steps over to it, and proceeded to drop the cup into the garbage pail on the side of the street. Neither of us said anything. Then the clouds broke, and buckets of rain poured from the sky.

* * *

His room had changed so much since I had last been in there. It was painted dark black and had a bunch of either black or white furniture, I mean- it didn't look emo or anything of course! Just casual. There were a bunch of band posters hung up along the walls and his bed was covered in old vintage horror movies, and some new ones of course. There were some plants littered around the room, but they seemed fake, and a few shelves that hung in the corner which held random things on it. I realised something, it wasn't just any shelves full of random things, it was a shelf full of our mall shopping sprees.

It was an old little tradition between him and his friend Jay, before I had come along. They would go to the mall and spend ten minutes running through the mall trying to find eachother one thing, that was either funny, stupid, or thoughtful. They brought me along a few times. There were so many things there now, it looked like they still did it, seeing as there were more shelves now. It had a little clock, some gardening gloves, a tiny bell, a little figure of a chef rat, but nothing that I had gotten him.

Which, was fair.. He probably got rid of them after our fall out, and I too- well actually, I hadn't gotten rid of anything. They were probably still around somewhere, maybe in the storage unit full of my mom's things, well, our things. I just haven't had time to go through them.

He came in and I panicked, quickly turning around to face him and I gave a small wave. Stephen stared at me, his purple hair dangling damply on his head, and he had a damp towel around his neck which I assumed was for drying his hair. But at that moment he suddenly seemed more panicked than me, suddenly dropping his bag and running over to his bed and grabbing an arm full of the movies, waddling over to his closet. "Fuck! I forgot to clean!" He hissed, quickly stacking them into a little shelf in his closet, before turning back around and raking all of his dirty clothes into the floor of his closet as well. He started to throw random things into it, not seemingly thinking about whatever he was putting in there anymore. Eventually, he just shut the two bifold doors of his closet, but it didn't seem to work.

He kept trying, and finally just gave up and shoved his desk chair in front of it. "That'll keep the monster at bay." He said, looking at me. He must've understood my expression when he followed his sentence up with a: "Not an actual monster you dumbass." And sat me down onto his bed.

He walked over to his desk and pulled out a different note book, before handing it to me. It seemed old, but not like ancient or anything. The cover was bent and a little worn away as though it was thrown a bit, but it looked to be only a few months old, or a few weeks old if it wasn't treated with care.

He sat down and started to explain the notes inside, starting with basic stuff that I already knew, before teaching me a few new things. It went by pretty slowly, and it was super fucking boring, but this was tutouring. It was expected for it to be boring. Stephen seemed almost as bored as me, and he looked to the small clock that sat on his bedside table.

"Finally. Get out, you've made my life a living hell for enough today." He said, getting up and stretching before kicking on some slippers. The clock read 6:43, an hour and thirteen minutes past our study time. But then again, we had wasted an hour walking to his house and the whole cafe shenanigan. I looked at him, and inside I couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt at those words. He walked over to his closet and took the chair away, the doors immediately opening and spilling a few things to the carpeted floor.

"Ugh." He hissed as he stepped onto the dirty pile of clothes protruding from his closet, before he disappeared into it completely. There was some shuffling in there and some curses from beneath his breath, but I didn't go to investigate. I just gathered up my stuff and put on my sneakers.

He came out and stood in front of me, holding something. When I looked up he nudged it quickly into my hands and crossed his arms. "You left something here, a long time ago. I don't know if you want it back, but I don't want it. So, you can go now.."

I stared at it. It was an old journal of mine from when I was a kid, that I had completely forgotten about. I didn't meet his gaze as I got up and left his bedroom, but I froze midway towards the door.

"What are you waiting for? I have things to do, I need to clean my room. It's not raining outside any more, get out. We can continue next week." He said, eagerly pushing me out the door.

"Yeah- Yeah okay." And with that I left. But he had kept something. A dirty grey rabbit stuffed animal. It was dirty and it seemed abused. I remember it having green button eyes, but one of them was visibly loose and falling off while the other had been replaced completely by a brown button that was just a little smaller than the original size.

Why had he kept it?