earbuds

six

"Are you here yet?" I hear him in the earbuds.

"No. It's a far walk. You told me not to bring anything except myself. I couldn't ride my scooter." I said, rolling my eyes to myself. "I'll be there in a little bit. I'm not as far."

"Good. Good." He mumbled.

It was a good 5-ish minutes until I arrived at the park. I walked around for a bit until I saw a man sitting on a bench, scrolling through his phone. He looked tense, his fingers gripped his phone tightly. I stood a few feet away from him and opened my mouth to speak, but he spoke up.

"You must be (Y/n)." He said, slowly looking up. I clamped my mouth shut and nodded. "Earbuds off?" I nodded, looking at them to make sure, and they were indeed off. "Ok. So."

"First your name, asshole." I said, taking a step around him and sitting on the bench next to him.

"'Asshole'?" He looked towards me, his green eyes barely visible in the dark, but you could see them in the soft light that the streetlamp gave off. "You call me-" He started doing the quotes with his fingers, "Asshole?" Putting his hands down, one palm on his forehead and one on his stomach. He started laughing, wheezing even. I looked at him, bewilderment covered my face. He regained composure, "Sorry. Sorry. I didn't expect that to be my nickname." He held out his hand, the one that was previously on his forehead. "Hi. I'm Clay."

"I didn't expect you to be this cheery, for how grumpy you were over the earbuds." I said, not taking his hand for the handshake. "What did you want me here for?" I ask, turning away from him and facing forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him drop his hand and scoff.

"Ah- Of course. Well, eh. I'm gonna tell you stuff that you might not want to hear." He says, turning away from me. "Your parents, I assume are the head of scientists working on the earbuds, right?"

"How'd you know that?" I face him, slowly questioning how he knew about my parents and their specific job. I only remembered it was their job because I overheard their position on a phone call one time. One was at work and one was at home at the time. I couldn't sleep and I was on my way to go bother my mom, but ended up just eavesdropping on the phone call and leaving before she noticed I was even there.

"Do you know what they're actually doing or are you just as stubborn and stupid as the rest of the people?" He gets up and takes a stretch before looking over at me.

"What-?" My breathing hitched.

"Come ride with me?" He threw his hand back in a pointing motion. "I'll tell you everything you want to know to the best of my ability." He says, pulling out his keys, hitting a button. His car lights up, not too far away from where we were sitting. "And I'll tell ya, I know a lot. The truth."