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Theta is leaning against the wall, smoking his cigarette, enjoying those last few moments before the ceremony begins. He’s never been the one to be worked up about, well, anything, really, but he’s feeling a little nervous now. This particular university isn’t anything ordinary, it’s fucking prestige and that alone makes Theta’s skin crawl. He’s never been good at playing serious, after all.
Beside him, there are two other students, a boy and a girl, Theta standing in between, all three of them smoking in total silence since they have no idea who the other two people are. They're just standing like that until the silence is suddenly broken by the girl. She turns her head towards Theta and makes eye contact so direct it almost freaks him out.
"Your fashion sense is so horrible that you would look better even with your body completely bloody naked. I have an existential crisis just from simply looking at you."
Theta blinks, then raises an eyebrow, then smirks a little.
"I do not know if you're using reverse psychology because you're way too awkward to start a normal friendly conversation, or if you are just asking for some later shagging in passive aggressive language, either way my scarf and I are flattered."
"Your scarf is the worst part of your whole outfit, you moron."
"I disagree. It's the coat. Look at it. It looks like someone sewed a shitton of hankerchieves together." Says the second boy.
"Oh lord, don't make me blush! I haven't received that much flattery in years!"
The two exchange the stares, then look at Theta's feet.
"No. Those sneakers are definitely the worst." She says.
"At least they go with the color of the coat, but look at those socks ."
"Hey, no one's touching my question mark socks!"
"Oh, do believe me that I would rather amputate my own hands then touch anything that even slightly touched your feet, question mark or not." Says the girl, disgust in her voice.
"Oh god, okay,” he laughs. “Well, if you're quite done with insulting my outfit, I'm Theta. Nice to meet you, normies. "
The girl hesitates for a moment.
"Ushas." She says. “And who do you call a normie, you walking fashion disaster ? ”
"And I'm Drax. Nice to meet you two. But seriously, take that scarf off at least. It's not even that cold. "
"Oh, believe me, you wouldn't like it either that way," says Theta, smirking even more than he has before.
Ushas and Drax both make confused faces.
"There's a bowtie underneath."
There was a ceremony, some speeches and then they were all free to go.
"Wait up, where are you two going now?" Yelled Drax as he was making his way to Theta and Ushas through the crowd of confused students.
"Probably to smoke once more, finish the box, then head to the college dorm to get a room. I suppose that's what you two are gonna be doing in the next several hours as well," said Ushas.
Two boys just stared at her, unsure whether to keep their group or let it die before it even had a chance to begin properly.
"Well, am I wrong?" She called. "Come on then, we don't have all day."
"What are you even here for?" Asked Drax, sitting in the bathtub, beginning to be a little bit high.
"I commited the crime of graduation," answered Theta, who has - in fact - passed the point of being just a little bit high nearly an hour ago.
Drax rolled his eyes. "I meant what are you gonna study, what department are you part of and stuff?"
"Oh. Geography. Cool stuff, you know. What about you? And Ushas?"
"Math and physics my friend. Even cooler stuff than geography," said Drax.
"Oh I beg to differ!"
"Yeah, I beg to differ, because you both suck . Chemistry rules."
"U-uh, it does not!" Yelled both boys. They fought over it for a while.
"Uh, but to be honest, you look more like some sort of a disaster artist than a man of science, Theta" Drax pointed out.
"Who says I'm not a disaster artist as well as a man of science? You gotta go all renaissance style these days to impress."
And then, before anyone managed to come up with an answer to that, Ushas finally pulled the cork out, raising the bottle up. Theta and Drax laughed as they drank and smoked some more. And the evening went on.
"Let's go outside, you two," said Ushas several hours later, into the dark as none of them bothered to turn on the light after the sun went down. They all agreed.
The city was pretty amazing at night, Theta decided. So many lights and flickers. Almost like the Starry Night but in real life. The trio was still slightly drunk but they managed to make their way into the subway somehow.
"Hey, do you like, uh, have an idea where we're heading?" Asked Drax, leaning against a pillar, scratching his mess of a hair.
"Unlike you, besides being at least partly a responsible human being , I also possess a bit of an orientation sense, so in other words: yes. I do know, don't worry."
The subway was horrific and huge and confusing. Or it was just Theta not being used to big cities at all. But here he was - traveling with people he barely knew on a way to some unknown place. He wasn't scared. He was never scared. Not of things he knew nothing about. Quite the opposite of being scared, actually. He would jump into it all and swim into the deepest pits only to take a look at everything he could find. They arrived, got out of the train and continued on their feet.
"It won't take long. The way to the place, I mean," said Ushas. And then they walked for nearly two hours, arguing and yelling at each other about having an actual orientation sense that turned out not being in possession of neither of them, and after those nearly two hours of drastic verbal fighting, google maps took their rightful place. They had to take a bus.
The place was a bar. Or perhaps some kind of weird caffé and a bar, hard to tell, but once the door into it got opened, a blinding amount of smoke just sort of absorbed whoever tried to get inside. The place was crowded and the people there were pretty wasted as Theta and his two friends made their way through the sea of drunk people. Then a guy holding a cup in his hand appeared, staring at Ushas as she slowly turned around to face him. She shot him a glare.
"Oh my god,” she finally said. "Not you again."
"Nice to see you too," he winked. "Meet me outside? This place's too noisy anyway."
It turned out that they had a history together.
"Not in a romantic way," said the new guy when he noticed the suspicious faces of the other two boys. "Lord, even imagining it feels horrible. We were classmates."
"Troublemaking classmates." Said Ushas, smirking. "You were driving them mad. It was hilarious."
"Well, you, on the other hand," he started, then turned to Drax and Theta, pointing at the girl, grinning. "She blew up the whole fucking laboratory. And they didn't kick her out!"
"You stole a school bus, rode it to another country, used it like a caravan for two months, then drove it into the fucking ocean and returned back home. And you didn't get expelled either!"
"You did what ?" Theta wheezed.
"I'm smart, bitch, they wouldn't lose such a brilliance-"
"Suckers, I actually got expelled," Drax interrupted. "Hacked the school database, erased every single thing that has been here and replaced it all with memes."
"Oh my god!" The three of them shouted laughing.
"I actually did steal a bus as well," said Theta, giggling.
"No way, two bus thieves at the same place? Hell, what's the matter with you people!" yelled Drax.
"Old model. Locked, forgotten, in need of a rider, I couldn't resist. No one even noticed I took her." Theta continued.
" Her? Please, tell me you didn't name it," said Ushas.
"I did not, but it's definitely a lady. Old, but still a very sexy one."
"God, you're all so bloody weird," said Ushas again, matching another cigarette.
Soon they all ended up on the ground, in the middle of the street. No one minded them, as it was late in the night and they didn't make that much of a noise. Only talked a bit, smoked, drank, then laid on their backs with their heads close to each other, looking at the night sky beneath them.
"Looking at stars with buddies, what a great start to the college years," said Drax lazily, eyes closed.
"No stars, you idiot, all you can see are the city lights," Ushas replied, eyes closed as well.
"But the lights come from the ground, you know, the lanterns, you can't really see their light when you're looking straight up, it has to be stars, the flickers, oh god I think I'm gonna throw up," said Drax before he put his hand over his mouth and started getting up with a bit of quiet choking.
Theta had his eyes also closed. Right now, at the moment, he didn't give a damn about the stars, nor about the city, nor about anything else - he just felt okay. He felt like he belonged, like he had melted into this very place and blended into it, like he had become the ground, the street lights, the sound of cars passing by, the wind on the roofs of buildings that surrounded them. And he was just happy, smiling, hands on his chest, he opened his eyes and felt the whole universe spinning around him and that was it. The feeling he'd lived for. The feeling he could die for.
The other boy was next to him, they were touching. Shoulder to shoulder. They didn't mind, they just existed like that for a while, without even knowing the name of one another. Then Theta turned his head to the side. He just stared and stared until the other boy suddenly opened his eyes as well and their sights met and it was freezing but also warm and soft and sharp and dangerous but welcoming and kind of sweet and they could drown in the colors of the other and perhaps that was exactly what scared them both off enough to break the contact after less than four seconds.
"What's your name anyways?" Theta asked after a while.
"Koschei. And yours?"
It was around 2 am, Ushas, Drax and Koschei returned to the bar, Theta stayed outside, smoking, staring at the buildings in front of him, nothing and everything on his mind, until he was not alone anymore because Koschei somehow appeared next to him, leaning against the same wall.
"You know, I never really got into smoking. Usually makes me want to throw up when I inhale that crap," Koschei said, not even looking at the other boy.
"I don't inhale, only into my mouth and then back into the air" Theta giggled.
"What's the point of smoking, then?"
"The smoke, dude. It's the smoke, just watch it," he inhaled again, then exhaled very slowly, the smoke rising up and fading away.
"You can't even really get high if you don't inhale," Koschei said, unimpressed but also kind of secretly impressed as he watched the other boy exhale another cloud of smoke, with his eyes closed, expression so relaxed.
"I didn't say I never inhale," Theta replied, then threw his nearly finished cigarette to the ground. "Wanna go for a walk?"
"It's 2 in the morning and you're drunk as shit," Koschei laughed.
"So are you! Change of plans; let's go dancing!"
"Jezus bloody Christ," said Koschei, stepping on the cigarette Theta had thrown down. Then he headed back to the entry door. "Come on then."
Theta did.
They were on a dance floor, close to each other, in a crowd of other people, doing some really weird moves with their arms and legs one would hardly call dancing. The music has passed the point where one could hear his own voice, hearing the voice of another person was pretty much impossible by then. Or maybe it wasn't the music but the last drops of soberness that had left both boys to their own fates. They had no idea where their friends were at the moment. They hadn't even really thought of it as the only thing they could focus on was for some reason only the other. They didn't dance next to each other, they danced with each other, first without fully realising it, then without stopping because neither of them wanted to, and they moved together, responding to every single thing the other did, getting closer and closer until there was basically no space between them, world spinning around, hands touching, then holding, then pulling, then tangling together along with their legs, along with whole bodies, so close one could feel the heartbeat of the other. It was warm and easy and urgent and then they didn't dance anymore, they were pushing themselves out of the crowd and as soon as they managed to fulfill this task, one suddenly pressed his lips to the lips of the other, in complete uncertainty who actually started it, arms around one another, then hands into the hair, softly and tenderly. Their kiss was deep, slow, uncertain then fast and passionate and wild, there were suddenly no questions and no answers, just this alone, just one mind, just one decision, just a growing tension into a total urgency of going beyond all that, just to feel hands on a bare skin, on stomach, hips, back, chest, and lips all over the face, then neck, teeth into the skin, sucking on all the sensitive spots, hands on tights, then kisses going down into the lower places, the gentle quiet moans and groans, no shame nor uncertainty, no thinking at all.
They ended up in the bathroom, behind the locked door, breathing heavily, forehead to forehead. They kissed again, savagely.
There was a light when they woke up, still in the bathroom cabin, toilet seat on the ground, broken into two pieces. Someone was knocking at the door, loudly and aggressively. Both boys froze in horror, then opened the door slowly.
"Ladies room, you morons! And we're closing, get the fuck out!"
They were both dragged out of the bathroom, then to the street.
"Oh lord, what time is it anyway?" Mumbled Koschei while rubbing his eyes sleepily.
"Did we.. did we sleep together?"
"Well, both of us still have our pants on, even with belts and zippers untouched so unless our heavily wasted selves took care of taking it all off and then getting dressed again - which I highly doubt - nothing of that sort had happened."
"You seem angry."
"You seem dumb," Kochei said, then took his phone into his hand. "5:18"
"Oh lord, I think I'm gonna throw up." Theta choked out. They both did in the end.
"Where do you live?" Asked Kochei after his stomach calmed down a bit.
"Far away. Not quite sure how exactly we got here yesterday."
"That much of a blackout?"
"Nope. We just kinda got here randomly, can't remember shit when it comes to the subway."
"Well, anyway, you can come with me to my place since I live three blocks from here and you look way too hungover to survive in the wild of early morning city alone." Koschei said, already walking. Theta followed.
They walked slowly, tiredly as both of them were really close to collapsing right on the very place they stood on, but they made it to the doorstep of the house Koschei loved in after a few minutes. They climbed the stairs, then got into the flat, got rid of their shoes, closed the door carefully, got into the bedroom and turned on the light.
"Well," said Theta after he settled on the ground. There was a soft, fluffy dark green colored carpet all over the floor. "I guess we're the Bambi guys then?"
"What the fuck is a Bambi guy?"
"Well, it's originally a Bambi lesbian, you see, it's when people prefer cuddling and kissing over sex, oh lord, that's probably very, very wrong metonymy for what we've done, isn't it?"
Koschei choked out a laugh. "Dude, have you seen your neck?"
"No, but I assume that I probably look like a victim of abuse?"
"You have dried blood on a few spots, so yeah, pretty much."
"Your neck looks like a abstract painting." Theta pointed out. "Talent, that's what it's called."
"Talent for what? Shagging?"
"We haven't shagged, so talent for hickies at least."
"I've never done this before," Koschei said.
"You, the hardcore bus stealing guy?" Theta answered.
"Yes, me, the hardcore bus stealing guy. And hickeys can cause strokes."
Theta shifted closer, tried to do so without the other boy noticing. Koschei knew but pretended like he didn't, then shifted a little closer himself, not thinking properly or perhaps not thinking at all.
"Well, we'd better be more gentle next time, then." Theta smiled.
"Besides, Bambi lesbians are definitely not a metonymy." Said Koschei.
"Hell, don't tell me you actually do remember what a metonymy is." Theta whined.
"Bambi lesbians are, in fact, more of a metaphor," Koschei continued in a serious tone.
"Now are they?" Theta replied, voice equally serious.
"However we're not."
"What? A metaphor?"
"Bambi lesbians."
"No way Sherlock!"
"You're so stupid." Koschei laughed, hand covering his eyes.
"But also clever. Multi pack."
"Hm."
"Don't hum at me."
"I can hum at anyone I want, anytime I want."
"Asshole,” Theta said, eyes fixed on the other boy. They stared at each other in silence, then shifted into each other's arms.
"You know, once I tried to be romantic, so I bought candles, placed them by the window, lighted them up while my partner slept next to me and that's basically the story of how I set my old bedroom alfame." Theta said, smiling.
"Thanks for telling me. Now I can give myself permission to kick your ass every time you even try to touch my candles." Koschei replied, also smiling.
"You have candles? You, the hardcore bus stealing guy?"
"You're the bus stealing guy as well. Only not hardcore."
"What do you mean that I'm not hardcore?"
"You're wearing tartan trousers."
"Tartan is cool."
Kochei rolled his eyes, smiling, then buried his face into the other boy's chest. They curled up into each other.
Theta didn't panic over it even though he felt butterflies in his stomach, he didn't fight and he didn't think, he just snuggled even closer, closing that little amount of space that was left between them. He placed a small kiss into the hair of the other, then closed his eyes and let himself slowly drift into sleep.
They missed the first day of school and at the end of the day they were still in the exact same position as they fell asleep in during early morning hours.
"Hey," Theta whispered into the darkness of another night, still with Koschei in his arms. "Promise me something?"
"Depends?"
"Run away with me, after we graduate?"
Koschei smiled softly. "And with your stolen van?"
"With my stolen van." Theta answered.
"Gladly."