1.1 | constellations of you and me ✓

20 | ursa minor

IF JONAH WASN'T PANICKING BEFORE, HE CERTAINLY IS NOW. There were so many of them—so many colors and sizes—and his sanity starts to wear thin before he loses all self-control. Just thirty minutes ago, he'd been directing suicides and sprints with his team for evening practice, and a bit of guilt nips at his chest because he can't lead them like he used to. Coach Meyers won't let him run so much now with his injured knee, and so their team spends a majority of training focusing on strength-building. Although his attitude is a bit down, Jonah's started to become used to it: he's accustomed to the burning sensation at the back of his legs, to the slight tremble whenever he overworks himself. And it's fine. He's fine.

"Oh, fuck," he mutters under his breath. The aisles are stacked with multitudes of products (why are they so colorful?) and it takes a full ten minutes to comprehend his situation and the incoming stares. It's almost ironic the more he thinks about it: feminine products look like the whole goddamn rainbow, and yet everyone who's picked something off of the shelf looks like she couldn't be more upset. Adrian looks just as lost and his blond curls bounce with pure embarrassment as he discreetly makes an effort to hide behind his friend.

Damn you, Eloise Park, Jonah thinks morbidly. Damn you and your perfect manipulation. Subconsciously, he lifts a hand to adjust his headband before returning his attention to the catastrophe in front of him, and he's both confused and dreadful at once. When his girlfriend had called him earlier in the day and asked him to do her a slight favor, he'd just been getting out of the locker room and mindlessly agreed to her before realizing what he was getting himself into. And now, as he paces down the aisle in an unfamiliar section, regret lines his collarbones and seeps into the downward curve of his mouth in a cold motion.

Adrian gingerly picks up a box of tampons and grimaces. "Wouldn't this shit hurt you? I mean, it really doesn't look comfortable—"

Cutting him off, Jonah sighs and bites his lower lip. "Adri," he says sharply. "Stop being so goddamn loud." The middle school girls next to them offer looks of pity (or amusement) and stroll off together; Jonah almost curls up on the floor right then and there.

Having been raised by women nearly all of his life, he isn't a stranger to odd sights. When he was eleven, he came home from a sleepover to see Sue and his mother crying over old cartoons with sweet whiskey (they told him it was apple juice) and Korean candy. When he was fifteen, Eun-Joo gave him a lesson on how to remove blood stains on clothing for sometime in the future when he got himself a serious girlfriend. And when he was seventeen, he punched Devan Marshall for calling out the new girl when her 'accident' left an odd mark on the plastic seat.

"Can't help it," Adrian grimaces before pausing. "So does Eloise want diapers or makeshift light-sticks?"

Jonah checks his phone, rolling his eyes and biting back the comment that someday far in the future, he would feel sorry for Adrian's future medical patients. "Pads," he confirms. "But we're looking at tampons, so—"

"Holy shit, get down."

The Korean boy's eyebrows draw together. "What the hell?"

"Get down," Adrian hisses, pulling him into a different aisle altogether. "I think that's Safiya Arya."

The image of Adrian getting scratched by her sharp nails as she slapped him flashes through his mind, and it's a struggle to hold back a snarky laugh. Playing with Safiya's feelings to distract him from Kennedy was probably one of the dumbest things his friend could do, but there's nothing much Jonah can say to comfort him—the stinging sensation from the salt in his wounds must be a constant reminder. The boys stay silent as she picks up some pads (ah, there it is) and discreetly come out of their hiding spot once she heads to the register. Quiet on their toes and even more subtle crawling on their palms and fingertips, Jonah's jaw drops once he stands up again.