Chapter Text
Monday
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Cherry was standing in a random spot in the hallway when he heard a voice call his name. “Yo Cherry, what’s up,”
“Oh Theo! Nothing much.” Cherry shrugged.
Theo stared at him a second before questioning his motives.“Why’re you standing in front of Riku’s locker?”
“Huh?” As Cherry looked around and took in his surroundings he figured out he was, in fact, in front of Riku's locker. Cherry stood by Riku’s locker waiting for him. He didn’t even know how he got here. “O-oh yeah, uhh I was waiting for you.” Real smooth Cherry, real smooth.
“What?”
“Ah well I know you normally come this way for first block and I was already over here, sooo yeah.”
“You could’ve just met me outside like normal.”
“That’s so far though.” Cherry groaned. Omg, drop it, just drop it already.
Theo shrugged. “Whatever you say man.”
“Welp, I gotta jump, bye!” Cherry tried to make a quick escape for the door, he didn’t get as far as he thought he would. When he turned the corner to go up the stairs he bumped into Riku. Because of the size difference Riku had more trouble stabling himself so Cherry tried to catch him (key word tried) sending him plummeting straight for the floor. He landed on top of Riku with a loud thunk.
Riku groaned. “Aghh fuck, Cherry what the hell man…”
“He could tell Riku was pissed, but the only thing he seemed to process was how good Riku looked under him. He couldn’t help but let his mind wonder.
“..ry, ...erry, …CHERRY!
“Huh?”
Riku squirmed underneath him. “Get the hell off me!”
“Oh r-right, sorry.” Cherry quickly stood up, lending a hand to help Riku.
After helping Riku pick up his stuff that fell they decided to walk to class together since they were both going to the same place anyways. When they walked into Psych it was quiet, not like the peaceful quiet when students are actually doing their work for once, no, this was unnerving. There were some whispers here and there, but immediately stopped when Professor Abreo walked in.
“Hello class, I’m sure that you’ve already heard that I am giving a new assignment from other students, but unlike what you may have heard, this is not meant to be a burden. This is simply meant to be a progress check to see how far you’ve come. I know that most of you are already friends with each other, so I expect this to be fairly easy.”
“I want you guys to go out on a date.” noticing the looks on everyone's face shift, she decided to continue. “I’ve realized that this project can be stressful to a lot of people and I want you to have a little bit of fun before the stress of your exams gets to you, so I want you guys to plan a hangout, or in this case a date, and film it. There is no requirement on where you guys go, but there are some things I am looking for in particular.”
She walked to her desk to start passing out the rubric as she continued talking. “This is technically not a project to do with the egg in the case that depending where you go it could break, but managing to include your egg in the hangout will earn you extra credit, so if you have failed to meet a few of the requirements, but you brought your egg to the date, then you have a possibility of still making an A.”
“The main thing I want you to focus on is your partner in this, one person will be handed the responsibility of actually planning the date. I want to see that you guys have developed a bond, it is unrealistic for parents to not know anything about their spouse.” She looked over to the boys. “This will be a surprise to the other person, I don’t want this to be so easy that it feels like a free grade, and if you’ve been on track with the project you should know at least a little about your partner. The person that ends up being surprised will end up rating the hangout on a scale of one to ten at the end, so I expect you to find out what it is that your partner is interested in before taking action.”
“I expect the video to be no less than 20 minutes, and it should not exceed the time we have in class. This should be easy to accomplish since you’ll have plenty of free time. This assignment is due on Friday, since we are off for the rest of the week, which will give plenty of time to film and edit the video before it is due. I want to make it clear that this is due Friday morning, not at the end of the day. So it would probably be smart to submit it on Thursday. We’ll be starting presentations next Monday.” She took a light pause. “I have to catch up on some grading, so this would be a good time to plan when to hang out, and who will be doing what. Please use the rest of your time wisely.”
Cherry looked over to Riku who seemed to be taking notes. He wondered how Riku could be so composed, especially because she just said they had to go on a date with each other!
Riku looked up at Cherry after scribbling the last few notes. “Okay, so do you want to surprise me, or should I do the planning.”
“Uhh, I’ll surprise you.”
“You sure? I don’t really talk about my interests much, it’ll probably be more work for you.”
“I’ve known you for long enough, plus, I already have some ideas.” That was a complete and utter lie, he had absolutely no idea what Riku liked.
“Okay, well I’m free whenever, so it just depends on your schedule.”
“I can pick you up early tomorrow? Also I’m free the rest of the week, so you can come over to work on the project together pretty much whenever you want.”
“Okay, just text me when you’re on the way. ”
The rest of class was spent planning and writing down things that could get them extra credit. Riku did most of the note taking (of course), while Cherry looked up places to go. After what felt like hours of searching he landed on something he knew Riku would love. It was a place not too crowded and it had a low noise level. He also found some shops nearby that he thought Riku would like.
He’s known Riku for his whole life, he didn’t know why he was panicking so much. He’d obviously taken girls on dates before, but it was never like this, he’s never really gotten nervous around a girl before. Before he knew it, the bell rang for the next block. The rest of the day passed in a hurry, he was so ready to go home, but he remembered he promised to practice with Theo at the gym.
When he arrived they chatted for a little before they started volleying, Theo, noticing Cherry zoning out more frequently decided to check on him. “Okay I’ll bite, what’s up?” Theo walked over to the benches taking a seat.
“Huh?” Noticing Theo’s sudden movement he quickly snapped back to life. He grabbed the ball and went to sit next to him.
“Dude, you look like a kicked puppy, what happened.”
“O-oh nothing really.” Theo crossed his arms, obviously not believing him. “I-I mean we got a new project in psych.”
“You got a project in the middle of a final.” Theo said, baffled.
“No, it's not like that-I mean she said it was meant to be fun, and it's relatively easy.”
“So what's the problem?”
Cherry scratched the back of his neck. “The assignment is to take our partner on a date, and since Riku is my partner…”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“N-nothing, I mean it’s just that I’ve been acting weird whenever Riku’s around.”
“Weird how…?”
“I mean I get like a hundred times clumsier when he's around, and I can’t stop thinking about him, and…” Cherry paused, debating if he was saying too much.
“And what?”
“Okay tmi warning, but you know how Chloe’s birthday was yesterday, right,”
“Yeah?”
“Well, on Saturday Riku came over to bake a cake for her and we got dirty, so he went to shower and he didn’t have any clothes so he had to borrow mine and… well…”
“Just say it already, I won't judge.” By this point Theo could already guess what happened and what Cherry was feeling, but he wanted to tease Cherry a bit more, since he obviously has a crush on someone he said he wouldn't be caught dead with.
“I kinda maybe gotaboner.” He winced as he whispered quickly to get out the confession, quickly burying his face in the palm of his hand. He took a small peak when he noticed Theo’s reaction, or, well, lack of one. He expected for him to have a big reaction, or at least make fun of him a little, I mean who gets a boner from seeing their friend wear their clothes. But when he saw Theo’s face there was a small smile with a softly knowing stare.
Theo laughed softly. “Maybe you just like him.”
“What? No way! I mean this is Riku we're talking about.”
“I mean it sound like a crush, you want to be around him all the time, you get clumsier when he's around, you’re nervous to hang out with him, which I don’t remember you ever being nervous taking a girl out, and you got har-”
Cherry covered his mouth. “Okay! Enough, maybe I do like him… Whatever, let's just go practice.” He said, hugging the volleyball.
Fuck, I'm so fucked.