Dusk (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 8 - An Imperfect World

Dusk hit 2k! I love you guys! Thanks to everyone voting, commenting and giving this story a chance by reading it at all! And my classes got postponed a week due to the fires so here's an early update!

tw: graphic violence, homophobic slurs.

Rowan stood above me. He wore a white tee under a black track jacket and navy blue jeans. A dark blue sports bag was slung over his shoulder. I pushed myself to sit up and leaned back on my arms, looking up at him.

"Hey, it's been a while." He said. His voice was soft and contained none of the venom or hate that I'd heard a few months back when he'd confronted Ben. That was the voice of a completely different person, one I didn't know.

"Yeah... What are you doing here?" I asked, hoping my voice remained neutral and he wouldn't bring up the last night we'd seen each other. He put his hands in his pockets casually and nodded over to the gym building.

"My old club coach asked me to help with tryouts."

I nodded, glancing over at the gym building. His gaze followed mine so I watched him instead. His dark hair was a bit ruffled up as if the wind had combated it all day, but there had only been a slight breeze. He turned back to me and our eyes met. He seemed as if he wanted to say something else, but stayed silent. There was a slight stir in his auburn eyes and I felt myself being drawn to them before realizing I hadn't said anything. I snapped my eyes away from his.

"Oh. You don't have practice at Creighton?" He looked around us, his hands coming out of his pockets and resting on the thick strap of his gym bag.

"I do, but it starts a bit later." I nodded and there was a brief moment of silence before Rowan put his bag down and sat across from me on the grass. I tried to hide my surprise by covering it with a friendly smile. He looked at the book I'd discarded and picked it up, turning it over in his hands.

"A Brave New World. How do you like it so far?" He asked me, opening it to where I'd folded down the page. His eyes were narrowed as they looked over it.

"It's pretty good, have you read it?" He nodded, folding the page neatly and setting the book back down on the grass.

"Of course, it's a classic. Dystopian literature is really interesting."

I was a bit surprised. Rowan Williams had a geeky side? The basketball bad boy that had the whole town swooning? Maybe I'd only seen the version of Rowan that all the rumors had painted, and it seemed unfair to him. I crossed my legs and started picking at the grass, nervous but intrigued.

"So, as a fan... Do you ever wonder if people hundreds of years ago would've thought of our current world as a dystopia?" I asked.

I caught his gaze again and his eyes searched my face, the corners of his lips curling upwards. My cheeks flushed lightly and I broke eye contact, focusing on which blades of grass to pick.

"You don't think they'd consider it a utopia?" I frowned, slightly.

"No."

"Why not?" He asked, his eyes trailed down to my hands on the grass. I shrugged lightly.

"I don't know. I'm not trying to be pessimistic but technology has brought almost as much bad as good, including zero privacy and the rich just keep getting all the power. I know that generally we have a better living standard than back then, but a utopia is supposed to be a perfect world. I don't think the world is perfect by any means."

Rowan nodded, watching a few people play soccer on the field next to us before answering.

"You're right." He sighed, before leaning back on his hands. He hung his head back, looking at the sky. "The world is very imperfect."