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brett shut the door behind him as he walked into the empty classroom. eddy was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, legs sprawled out. the sunlight weakly streaming in from the window hit his neck and cheekbones. brett was transfixed, watching the way the light highlighted his long, long throat. eddy looked strangely vulnerable, eyes closed, head tilted back, chest rising and falling gently.
‘i’m not supposed to be here, man,’ brett said.
eddy opened one eye. ‘you have tuition now?’
‘yeah.’
eddy laughed. ‘do you want to be there?’
brett smiled, put down his violin case and sat next to eddy. he carefully made sure his knee touched eddy’s leg just accidentally enough that eddy could move away. eddy didn’t notice, or didn’t care, because he didn’t move his leg.
‘what’s up? what did you want to talk about?’ brett asked.
‘i don’t know. it’s… it’s been weird, recently. i don’t know how to put it.’ eddy said. he was studying his fingers, rubbing the calloused pads of his left hand fingers with his right thumb. violin hands. brett rubbed his own fingers in sympathy.
‘start at the beginning,’ brett said.
‘easy advice, man,’ eddy said, and fell silent. he wasn’t usually like this, but brett hadn’t properly talked to him in a while. maybe something had happened, something that eddy hadn’t told him about. that made his chest clench something fierce.
‘it’s just. kiera said she’d had her first kiss already,’ eddy said, after a while - hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure if brett would laugh at him.
brett huffed out a laugh-shaped sound, quickly changing it into a cough. ‘that’s it?’
‘don’t laugh at me! i don’t know, it’s something that i want to do!’ eddy said, voice hilariously high, the way it got when he was embarrassed and too proud to admit it.
‘what, kiss someone?’ brett said, smiling.
‘well, yeah! have you ever kissed anyone?’ eddy asked, turning to brett. brett was startled with a face full of eddy. this close, he could see each and every one of eddy’s pimples, dotting his cheeks like constellations. he’d always thought they were cute - preferred them, actually, to a clear face - but eddy always got defensive about them when people brought them up.
‘i- i don’t know,’ brett stammered out. he hadn’t kissed anyone before; never really saw the appeal in it. he was the nerdy asian violin kid in his grade; no one had ever asked him out.
‘what’s that supposed to mean? have you, or haven’t you?’ eddy asked, smiling a shit-eating grin.
‘i don’t know! let’s talk about something else! why do you want to talk about this so much?’ brett said, desperate to end the topic of discussion. eddy laughed and sat back, like he knew brett had something to hide.
they talked about eddy’s homework assignment. it was some stupid new project the teachers had come up with that year, meaning brett hadn’t done it before and eddy couldn’t copy off of his stuff like he usually did. eddy was ranting about it, saying it was pointless to pair him up with people whom he hadn’t worked with before for no good reason other than a misguided attempt to get students to get to know new people when obviously if he did it with his friends he could properly give them shit for not doing their part. brett dutifully hmm’d and ah’d at the appropriate places, smiling gently.
the conversation fell into a natural lull. eddy shifted, more of his leg touching brett’s. brett didn’t move away. ‘does the… kissing thing bother you a lot?’ brett ventured.
eddy shrugged. ‘it’s not like it affects what i do everyday.’
‘that’s not what i meant.’
‘i don’t know? i mean, i do know, but, like—‘
‘like what?’
‘i guess… i just want to have that experience. it’s what you see in all those high school movies, some white chick getting it on with her boyfriend in the back of his car, making out while music plays in the background,’ eddy said, hands waving to illustrate his point.
‘so, what you’re saying is you want the quintessential american experience.’
‘the… what?’
‘you know, the entire thing where you have a girlfriend at high school and all. get drunk at parties.’
‘i don’t want to get drunk.’
‘okay. but you want the other part of it. one out of two. fifty percent.’
‘no! i don’t know. maybe? i don’t know.’
‘stop saying i don’t know. you know, man. you do.’
‘okay, okay. fine.’ eddy fell silent. it really looked like it was bothering him, this whole thing about kissing. why was it affecting him so much? it wasn’t like brett had ever given it such serious thought. a kiss was a kiss, it would happen when it was supposed to, and he was pretty sure that he would get kissed before he died. probably.
but eddy had always been slightly insecure about being asian and having parents that didn’t express love openly. he’d always been a little awkward about speaking chinese to his parents on the phone when other people were around. it made sense that he’d feel insecure about this too, about something as trivial as a first kiss. brett could understand. when people didn’t have anything to talk about, they’d talk about how many girls they’d banged or which chick was the hottest in their grade. it wasn’t like brett didn’t participate, but it never did anything to him, and he could never relate to their idea of casual sex.
a sudden surge of protectiveness came over him, and he put his arm around eddy, crushing his head against his chest. eddy was getting taller - he was slightly taller than brett, standing up, but he still fit under his arm the same way he did two years ago. his hair was fluffy, and brett pet it lightly, feeling the strands bounce.
‘dude.’
‘what? It’s nice.’
‘sure.’
eddy didn’t move out of the embrace. if anything, he snuggled even more, making himself comfortable. they were both teenage boys, limbs awkward and ungraceful, but somehow they fit together. it felt good, somehow.
‘bro. is this gay?’ eddy said, voice muffled by brett’s shirt.
brett laughed, a few strands of eddy’s hair puffing up. ‘i don’t know. don’t really care. haven’t you seen so many girls do it?’
‘yeah, but they’re girls. we’re, like, guys.’
‘holy shit.’
‘stop being a dick.’
brett decided to call his bluff. ‘i don’t see you getting up and going.’
‘don’t want to. s’nice,’ eddy said, and brett could hear the smile in his voice.
brett pet eddy’s head, mind wandering. he absently wondered what people would think if they walked in on this, two boys cuddling in an empty classroom, then realised he didn’t care. he scritched eddy’s neck and eddy shivered.
‘oh. sorry. forgot you were ticklish,’ brett resumed stroking his hair.
’s’fine. it’s nice,’ eddy said again. brett scritched eddy’s neck again, enjoying eddy’s full body giggles that had eddy shaking against him. was it weird that he liked it? probably. but he’d probably never the chance again. he was, after all, someone who hadn’t been hugged a lot, and he did like physical contact when he got it. it wasn’t everyday that he cuddled up to his best friend, and he was going to make the best of it while he could.
one scritch had eddy mumbling under his breath. brett paused. ‘should i stop?’
‘no, no, it’s okay. it’s not you,’ eddy said.
‘bro.’
‘it’s fine. keep going.’
‘mmkay then.’ brett resumed scratching eddy’s neck, this time running his fingers through his hair too. eddy had recently cut his hair, and the shorn ends felt nice. brett didn’t think he was imagining it this time, but eddy seemed to be curling in on himself. a sudden, dangerous thought struck brett.
‘bro, are you getting off on this?’
eddy squeaked and stiffened. he didn’t pull away, though. ‘um,’ he said, voice constricted.
‘you are!’ brett said, looking down at him. eddy’s ears were pink, and he unconsciously traced his fingers over them. eddy jolted.
‘bro. bro.’ brett
‘stop judging me! I’m stressed and i haven’t jacked off in a while, okay?’ eddy said.
‘yeah, but this much, man? wow,’ brett said, grinning widely.
‘sorry,’ eddy’s voice was small. ‘i’ll... go to the toilet or something. take care of it.’
‘is it really, like, that much?’ brett asked.
‘i don’t know. if you keep doing that, maybe.’
‘i’ll stop, then.’
‘okay.’
they sat like that, eddy’s sort-of boner probably uncomfortable. but he made no move to get up, and brett wasn’t going to start pushing him off. the air between them was different - not weird, per se, but different - and brett didn’t want to break the spell.
‘i actually haven’t kissed anyone before.’ brett suddenly said. he didn’t know what possessed him, but he sighed. too late to take it back anyway.
‘loser,’ eddy laughed softly, but there was no real heat behind it. he stayed curled up against brett, hips carefully angled away, tracing mindless patterns on brett’s shirt
brett didn’t want to think. he knew what it looked like, what they looked like. he didn’t want to think about what it meant, because he didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
it wasn’t like he’d never thought about it. about them, together. brett didn’t really care about what was between someone’s legs, not the way eddy did. but he did want emotional connection, at the very least. someone to understand him. someone to hold him. he didn’t want it now, but it was nice to think about. and eddy being eddy, sweet, kind, naive eddy, was an easy target for his fantasies to project on. it was nice to think about but he didn’t know what he’d do if the thoughts went anywhere beyond the relatively safe space of his brain.
eddy shifted slightly, leaning to put his head on brett’s shoulder. brett moved to adjust. he hoped eddy couldn’t feel his palms sweating. the silence felt too still, too sacred. brett felt like he would break it with his clumsiness, and it would shatter with all the grace of a shoulder-rest falling. eddy felt much heavier than a violin, of course, but he still felt the tell-tale nervousness of having something precious resting on his shoulder, something that was fragile.
brett couldn’t breathe. he finally let out a sigh, letting out all the air he had trapped. ‘you okay, man?’ eddy said. brett nodded, hoping that eddy couldn’t feel how nervous he was. he didn’t know how it had suddenly become that eddy was calm while brett was the one who was calming his errant thoughts and sweaty palms.
‘hey man,’ eddy said.
‘yeah?’
‘like, feel free to hit me, okay?’
brett felt his chest grow tight. ‘yeah.’
eddy tilted his face up from brett’s chest. the light from the window illuminated the back of his head and the few strands of hair that were floating from static, strangely making some sort of halo. his eyelashes were so long. his lips were so red. he needed more chapstick.
brett watched him carefully, keeping his breaths shallow and even.
‘i lied,’ eddy whispered, breath fanning over brett’s lips. ‘don’t hit me.’
kissing wasn’t that spectacular, actually. it was just another pair of - of lips, he supposed. he didn’t feel fireworks, or anything. what actually felt good was eddy sliding his hand up to cup his jaw, nails scratching through his hair. what felt good was the intimacy of it all, the pure simplicity, though he had never done anything more complex than this.
it was unhurried. sweet. eddy also seemed to not know what to do - he was just opening and closing his lips, like small nips. it still felt - nice. like it was right.
eddy sat back, hand coming to rest on brett’s chest. ‘that was a lot more anti-climatic than i expected.’
‘yeah, i mean.’ brett didn’t know what to say. what did you say to your best friend after kissing him?
he didn’t know what to think. it felt good, and yeah, it was one item off the bucket list. as far as first kisses went, it wasn’t bad. and he liked it. eddy more than liked it, if the way he was grinning was any indication.
‘thanks, man.' eddy did look a lot more settled now, a lot less fidgety. but maybe that was brett projecting his own feelings onto the situation. it was probably a coincidence that his palms weren't sweating anymore.
brett thought that if he was going to keep lying to himself, he should’ve probably tried harder.
see, the thing was this. brett had thought about this. about how it’d go down. about maybe brushing eddy’s hair off his face. he’d done it sometimes, maybe as a joke, but had never let it go farther than that. he valued the friendship they had too much for that. and he’d always felt a bit weird about feeling that way, with eddy being one year younger and all. but if eddy was the one starting it…
eddy was cute. when he scrunched up his nose when he talked, when he whined about being ticklish, when he sang blaringly off-key. his hands were so pretty, fingers long and sure as they practised whatever piece they had to play. and he was heartbreakingly, gorgeously beautiful.
brett hadn’t thought this far. he had never even imagined this happening, so he was surprised when eddy cuddled up against him, like nothing had happened. but he took brett’s hand and started playing with his fingers, pressing his nail gently into the pads of brett’s fingers.
‘does this mean anything?’ eddy asked, his voice carefully nonchalant. ‘like, are we a thing, now?’
‘i don’t know how this works either, bro,’ brett replied, keeping his voice similarly even.
‘wait, so you were lying about that chick last year? you said you guys were dating!’ eddy said.
‘nah. wasn’t into it.’
‘mmkay,’ eddy said. ‘so…’
‘so?’
‘are you still going to, um, be my friend?’
and in that moment brett felt his heart break. whatever reservations he’d had went away. ‘bro, you’re still eddy. you’re still my friend. if you want to kiss, we can talk about it. if you don’t, that’s cool too. it’s okay, alright?’
‘are you sure?’
‘yeah. don’t worry, bro, we’ll figure this out. i’m here, right?’ brett said.
eddy was smiling; brett could feel it through his shirt. brett knew that eddy would probably brush it off later, say it never happened, it didn’t mean anything, and one day drunkenly revisit it or something. brett knew that things would definitely change, and he didn’t know what he’d do.
but in that moment, he was here, eddy was here, and that was all that mattered.