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Luke waddles up to the pool, grinning widely and showing everyone he passes by his brand-new Batman floaties.
He's so excited to finally be able to swim like he's seen his big brothers do, but his enthusiasm drains when he sees the pale boy from his preschool class sitting smugly on the steps and smiling up at him.
Luke's hated the boy, Michael, ever since he refused to let Luke play with the firetruck toy, claiming only people who wanted to be firemen could play with them. Luke didn't want to be a fireman, so he was forced to play with the less-cool police car, and it didn't even have a ladder on it or lights that actually lit up, like the firetruck did!
All because of Michael.
Luke got in the pool and sat on the steps like his swim teacher told him to. Michael moved next to him and began to tell him a story that Luke only was mildly interested in.
Then, Michael insulted his floaties, saying Spider-Man was much cooler than Batman. Which caused the two boys to get into an argument about superheros, and that resulted in Michael splashing Luke in the eyes with the chlorinated water.
That really hurt and Luke was only four, so, naturally, he started crying, saying he never ever wanted to talk to Michael and that they weren't friends anymore.
Michael apologized and even let Luke splash him back and told him that he actually really liked his Batman floaties.
-
"This is my slide!" Michael declares from the top of the forest green slide, stretching his arms across the place where the ladder opens up into the platform, so that no one else in the playground can climb up.
"How is it your slide? I was there first," Luke shouts up from the second rung of the ladder, his blue eyes narrowed at the boy above him.
"Yeah, but you left! And you're six and I'm seven, so I get it."
"I left to go to the potty! And I'll only be six for a little bit more," Luke pouts. "Stop being mean to me!"
"Shut up, Luke, and get off my slide." Michael turns his nose up to the sky and speaks in a child's immitation of an accent that's somewhere between French and British, "I'm the king. You're a servant, and off with your head!"
"I'm not a servant. That's not fair!" Luke says, crossing his arms across his chest. "Just because you're older than me doesn't mean you can be a meany."
Michael just sticks out his tongue.
"You are too a servant!"
Luke glares at him, "I'm telling the teacher!"
"Do it, stupidhead!" Michael snaps, and this causes Luke's eyes to fill with tears because this kid has been mean to him every single day since first grade started.
He bawls until Michael lets him up the slide and introduces him to the "royal court" as a prince.
-
It's the first day of middle school, and Luke is really, really nervous. He's moved to a private school, the same one Michael moved to the year before.
He won't know anyone except for Michael, who he luckily became closer friends with that summer when they went to the same music summer camp.
He sees Michael right when he enters the school, but when he waves, Michael just turns the other way.
Michael doesn't talk to him at all in the three classes they share, and Luke ends up crying in the bathroom during lunch because this year is going to suck without friends.
Michael goes to use the bathroom after lunch and immediately feels stupid once he hears Luke crying because he only ignored him so that the annoying thoughts of sharing his first kiss with Luke would go away.
He invites Luke over to his house after school, carries his bookbag around for a week, and invites Luke to sit with him and his friends every day from then on.
-
They're sixteen and at a party that happens to be their first. They're best friends now, somehow, and closer than ever.
But, even with them being practically inseparable, Michael still ditches Luke after they enter the crowded living room.
Luke waits in the room for a half hour, thinking maybe Michael went to get them drinks and was going to come back. When that doesn't happen, he wonders around for another two hours, hoping to find Michael somewhere in the throng of drunken teenagers.
When he finally finds him, tears immediately crowd up in the corners of Luke's eyes.
Because Michael is talking to Jessica Levi, the girl that Luke has a crush on, and he's telling her that she doesn't want to date Luke because he's a dork and is pathetic.
Michael doesn't make it up this time. He doesn't know to without admitting that the reason he did it was because he wants Luke all to himself.
-
Five years later, and they've made up (Michael said that he was just saying that to protect Luke because Jessica was a bitch and "would only hump and dump him anyway" and, dammit, Michael would have to "pick up the pieces" of his heart after she "tore them to shreds with her fake acrylic nails." And his claims turned out to be true when Jessica was pregnant two months later and didn't know which of her four boyfriends was the father).
They're roommates in college, both music majors, and have kissed a few times, but never really done anything else or established if their relationship was anything more than platonic.
They're studying for their finals when Michael gets up and goes to lay down next to Luke on his bed.
"Luke," his voice is as soft and as vulnerable as Luke's lips have always felt against pressed to his.
"Yeah?" Luke asks, uninterested, as he skims pages and pages of Bach and Mozart and facts about their childhood and pieces.
Michael swallows hard. "It's kind of important. Can you, uh, look at me?"
Luke looks up, concerned, and gestures for Michael to continue.
"Luke, I love you."
Luke giggles. "Aw, I love you too, man."
"No, I love you. Like, I think I want to marry you one day." Michael says and immediately regrets it because that's such a weird thing to say, and Luke probably thinks he's a freak now.
"Oh... oh." Luke's eyes are wide and Michael is being suffocated by his bright blue irises.
"Oh, shit. You don't feel the same way. I...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
"Michael."
His head snaps up and he looks alarmed when he sees the droplets littering Luke's cheeks. "Why are you crying?"
"Because, you idiot, I've loved you for, like, ever." Luke sniffs, wiping at his eyes and feeling rather stupid for being twenty one years old and crying over a boy telling him he loves him.
Michael grins. "Even when I was an asshole kid?"
"Especially when you were an asshole kid."
Michael asks Luke to be his boyfriend, and this time it's not to make Luke feel better.
Because he's finally got something right.