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Mattholomule realized it was already halfway through the week and he still had made zero progress talking to Gus. How could someone so cute and dorky throw him off so much? He wished he could just approach the boy and geek out about human things he discovered or ways to booty trap the graveyard. His brain just had to go all- overthinky. Not even Bria, being as cute as she was, made Matt go all haywire like this.
His feet kicked up dust as he trudged along to school. He had to walk to school now since his older brother with a staff attended Glandus, and he still hadn’t gotten a palisman of his own. Usually he enjoyed not having to put up with his older brother’s ploys early in the morning, but today he was just wallowing in self-pity. Maybe he should consider thinking of a good conversation starter for when he saw Augustus’s illusion in his construction course. Or maybe he could say something suave and flirty just to see how Augustus would respond. Definitely not because he liked Augustus like that, because he totally just wanted to be friends with him. Agh. He was barely convincing himself at this point.
Well skipping all the previous steps and jumping to something crazy was one of his favorite pastimes. Like that one time, he read one book about illusion magic and thought he could make himself giant, but didn’t attempt it the first time until he was in front of the entire school. Yeah… that one did not work out well for him. But what’s the worst thing that could happen this time? There was no way it could be nearly as embarrassing as some things he had done. He could just dissipate the illusion if he embarrassed himself too much. Plus, now that he had another terrible great idea, he was dying to see how Augustus would react to see if he really had a chance.
Butterflies swarmed in his stomach as he approached his construction course. He normally never felt this nervous when he was about to do something stupid, and that was saying a lot because he was always doing dumb stuff.
Mattholomule marched into class, hoping his confident facade would cover the fact he was internally panicking. He sat down in the seat next to illusion Augustus with his back as straight as a board.
“Are you ok, Matholomule? You look really tense today.” the illusion Augustus questioned, concern was dripping from his voice.
“Are you an illusion? Because you’re too good to be real!” Matt blurted back in response. He immediately facepalmed. “I mean- ugh.” Why could he not act like a normal witch for one second of his life?
Tugging at the corner of his hoodie to hide his blush, he slowly turned to Gus to gauge his reaction.
Huh.
Gus looked dumbfounded, but mainly… flustered?
“Aghhh! Nevermind! This is too embarrassing.” Mattholomule said mainly to himself, and he went to shove the illusion. It was a thousand more times embarrassing seeing Augustus flustered too, after Matt said the dumbest pickup line in the world.
However, his hands met solid mass instead of air where what he thought illusion Gus was. All the force he used caused Augustus to fall out of his chair and Mattholomule was so startled he somehow managed to fall out of his own chair on top of real Augustus. So he did what anyone would do in a situation like this and screeched at the top of his lungs.
“Why is it when you two are together there is always trouble?” Principal Bump chastised them.
Of course, Matt screaming loudly in the middle of class and causing a commotion did not sit well with the teacher and successfully got them kicked out of class and put in the principal’s office. Especially since it looked like from an outsider’s perspective that he had attacked Augustus. Though Mattholomule was almost relieved because if the principal was scolding them, at least he could avoid confronting the awkward situation with a very much not illusion of Augustus.
“I know it looks bad, but I take full responsibility, Principal Bump.” Gus pleaded before Matt could even get a grip on his thoughts.
“Funny, that seemed to be your excuse last time you got in trouble. You know friendship isn’t about sacrificing everything for the other person.” Principal Bump lectured.
Mattholomule was basically holding his breath at this point, nervous about how Augustus would explain this debacle.
“Well, sir, I was sending illusions of myself into Mattie’s- I mean Mattholomule’s class so I could spend more time with him.” Gus started. Matholomule already knew he looked like a swarm of fire bees had attacked him; he was so red. Augustus had really just used his embarrassing nickname in front of the principal . Thankfully, the illusionist hadn’t noticed, and continued talking “And today I decided to go in person instead of send an illusion and-”
“Alright that’s enough,” Principal Bump cut him off. “I am too old to be hearing about your strange courting ritual. Now leave my office and next time don’t let your flirting escapades get out of hand.”
“Yes sir,” they both choked out. Mattholomule was relieved to see Augustus was also quite flustered.
They both did the walk of shame out of his office. As soon as they were out of his view, Mattholomule started speeding up in hopes he could run from his problems and pretend this whole fiasco never happened. Getting teased about his crush by the principal was going up there with his top five most embarrassing moments. And he wasn’t trying to add anymore moments to his top five list today.
Unfortunately, he only made it a few steps before a hand grabbed his wrist. He wished he had pulled up his hood to hide his blush before he made a run for it, because he was becoming increasingly red as the seconds ticked by.
“Mattholomule, wait!” Gus cried out.
Mattholomule was hit with an overwhelming amount of dread, he had already been downgraded back to his full name. He messed up big time.
“You know I actually liked it better when you called me Mattie…” Crap! He didn’t mean to admit that out loud. “I mean! You know what-”
Gus was shocked enough by his confession that his grip had loosened, and the shorter boy took this as an opportunity to run for it. By the sounds of it, it only took Augustus a few moments to snap out of it before he started chasing him.
Curse Augustus and his stupid growth spurt! The footsteps were getting louder and Mattholomule knew taking a peak would just slow him down more. Gus suddenly tackled him, sending them both sprawling across the hallway.
“I am not sure if it was this run or you that just took my breath away.” Gus shouted louder than necessary, considering he was partially on top of Mattholomule.
It took a few seconds for his brain to catch up with the pickup line Augustus used on him. WAIT. Use a pickup line. On HIM? His head snapped up to look Augustus in the eyes, to find a completely flustered and out of breath illusionist looking back at him.
Oh.
“I thought Principal Bump just said to keep out flirting escapades from getting out of hand, Augustus.” Mattholomule leered. Whelp, that wasn’t as bad as some of his attempts to talk to the illusionist.
“How about you call me Gus, and I’ll call you Mattie?” Gus suggested. His ears and cheeks were red from Matt's comment, but of course he handled changing the topic smoothly.
“I don’t know. I don’t see any benefits for me in this deal.” Mattholomule retorted, his face once again heating up at the mention of his nickname.
“Your face says otherwise.” Gus teased, poking his cheek that was most definitely apple blood red now.
This action reminded Mattholomule that they were still in the hallway, where they could easily get caught again. He quickly scrambled up knocking Augustus off him, and started dusting off his robe, pointedly not making eye contact with Gus, who was doing the same.
“Ok, fine.” Augustus began. “I will call you Matt. How does that sound?”
“Whatever.” Mattholomule responded while beating himself up internally. His ability to form words was lacking due to the fact that his mind was still on overdrive that Augustus- no, Gus potentially liked him back and wanted to be friends with him or something.
“Gus.” He added a few seconds too late, but Gus smiled at him affectionately in return, meaning he must not be doing too badly.
“Umm… Did… did you want to hang out with me at my parent’s bookstore after school, maybe?” Matt finally stuttered out. He was pulling his hoodie back up, trying to hide his face, that was basically stained red at this point.
Gus approached him and causally pushed the hoodie off his head again, as if just to invade his personal space in the most annoying way possible before responding. “Sure! See you after school!” and skipped away. Somehow, Matt couldn’t find it within himself to be too mad about it, though. Besides, after school, he would get his revenge.