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Evan felt him tap on his shoulder twice, a code to be careful not to spook him, before he sat on top of the kitchen stool next to him, leaning one of elbows on the granite counter, and using his other arm to hold his hand. "So tell me," Jared smirked, making sure he had his attention. "Did any new boys steal your heart this summer?"
A moment or two passes before he can cooperate with a response back. "Oh! N-no. There aren't many people that actually go to the park." He wavered. "How was, um, camp?"
"Pretty boring. It's a hard life with no tall, cute, family friends in your bunk."
Once again, Evan had to focus on every word Jared said, but the confusion stemmed from a different place than the hearing loss. "What?"
"I said," he readjusted his voice, trying again slower and clearly, "It's a hard life-"
"No! I, um, got it this time. Y-you know," Evan muttered out, "I can't flirt without getting flustered by you too much."
Every year for the past six or so years of their friendship, they would always go to Jared’s house, which was just a few streets over from his, to eat ice cream after the stress of the first day of school. It wasn’t ever noted in the books, and they’d always hang out after school anyway, but they both knew the unspoken and sacred value of the tradition. They always had flavors from basic French Vanilla to Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food in his freezer prepare.
Both of them were particularly antsy for this first day. Jared came home from camp two weeks ago, and Evan was working as much as possible while Jared raced through his summer reading in record time. They would have had homeroom together, but he was late to class and missed it anyway.
Jared smiled at his boyfriend and in thought of past first days, before noticing the absence of the helper on his left ear. "You're not wearing your aid?" He frowned a bit.
"I, I tried to at school this morning but y'know it doesn't," he tried to piece together a slew of words, but his voice wasn't as clear as it was on good days. "help. The s-stupid audiologist thinks that just because he's the 2nd best in the state or whatever, he knows my ears better than I do." His voice quickened to get his ramble over with.
"I know. But it makes your mom happy." Jared placed his hand on the small of his back, where one of his classic blue polos laid atop. "You gotta get used to them, right?"
"Yeah, but I hate it. They make it all… muffled. Worse? Maybe." Evan exhaled. "You know I couldn't even talk to the, um, t-teacher, to put me in the front of the class today? 'S pathetic. The principal said they would accommodate but," He placed his hand on top of Jared's, letting his thumb rub circles on top of the smooth skin. "I'm not sure if I was just afraid I would sound weird? Or if it was just me being too weird too."
He frowned, and in response Jared left a kiss on his temple, making his freckled cheeks and nose begin to spread a dark wash of pink over his face. "T-that makes it better, t-though."
"You're too much, Hansen." He placed another kiss on the opposite temple. "You know you're fine with the speaking too, Ev. You always sound great to me."
"You just have to say that 'cause you're my boyfriend. It’s easier to understand you too, you’re just used to me and are patient with me." He paused. "I wanna keep talking but I'm, um, giving myself a h-headache. I can barely hear myself."
"You can always barely hear yourself, Hansen.”
Evan gave Jared the nonverbal version of flipping someone off with your eyes.
“Sorry. Do you wanna sign or just chill out for a bit? I haven’t even shown you the flavors I’ve gotten yet." Jared saw he was unraveling and usually the best way to lessen his worries was to distract him, even if he was being more protective than enough. "You don't have to talk if it'll make you upset."
He nodded in response. Jared led him to the sitting room, even if he was well aware where it was himself. Jared turned on the television for him, and got up to find a disk and put it in the player. He chose episode V of Star Wars, which was one of Evan's favorite movies. He set up the closed captioning for his boyfriend. He knew his head was hurting, and ringing ears were most of the time the start of that. So, he turned the volume down low for Evan to fidget around with. Jared then motioned that he would be right back.
He opened up the stainless steel freezer to reveal the ice cream, knowing exactly what they both needed, thankful he bought in bulk. Jared grabbed two spoons mindlessly out of a drawer, walking back to his boyfriend.
Before sitting back down, Jared attempted to finger spell Neapolitan. It went very terribly, making Evan giggle. “How the fuck are you supposed to spell Neapolitan?” he laughed quietly aloud, before jumping onto the couch next to him, and tossing a big fuzzy blanket over them and under the tub of ice cream.
He pulled his arms out from under the blanket, taking one of the spoons out of Jared’s grasp and stealing a bite from the strawberry section only. Evan left the spoon in his mouth and used hands to begin slowly signing to Jared.
Evan actually used PSE around Jared more than ASL, which he used with his mom and Deaf people in his community, because it's grammar and syntax was closer to what Jared was used to not growing up culturally Deaf and didn't want to confuse him.
"I wish you weren't such a shit signer," He signed proudly and fluidly, a foil of his normal babbled, stuttered voice. Being around Evan so much, Jared was pretty good at reading his boyfriend's sign, even if he had to go slow for him. Yet, he was terrible at doing it himself, but persisted on getting better at it for him.
"Hey!" Evan giggled at his exclamation. "Broken sign is better than no sign. At least I can sign this," Jared said. "I love you." Jared signed.
"I love you too," Evan signed, following with his sign name for Jared at the end. Like a muscle memory, he pulled the other boy closer to him for a prolonged kiss on the lips. Jared felt like silk underneath him, melting and falling to his touch, before pulling away.
"That was kinda gay, Hansen." Jared tried to sign.
“You taste… sweet.” He hummed before deciding what to say with his hands next. Evan smiled and turned away, gripping his hands into the couch. "You know it's the last first day, right?"
"Hm?"
"The last first day of high school? I mean, after this we'll be apart, probably. You know?" Evan spoke monotone, but his worry was always seeping through the edges.
Jared didn't really give much of a reply to his statement, but still acknowledged it. He leaned forward to squeeze his boyfriend into a hug, sliding down to cuddle him afterward. Having his hands unavailable do to the snuggling, he croaked out a simple, "I missed you so much, Ev."
Evan kissed him once more on the top of the light brown mess of a hairstyle he was trying to sport that day. He could tell he hadn’t gotten in cut since camp, due to the amount he could comfortably grip in his hands. "Me too." They relaxed into each other, and continued to watch the movie in quiet, and ate their flavors of ice cream on the small couch without restless anxiety.