Chapter Text
“You want to confess to Sunny?!” Basil clasped his hands across his mouth at the shock of what slipped past his lips.
“Shh!! Not so loud!” Kel hushed, passing a glance from one side of the cafeteria to the other so as to make sure a certain pink haired girl wasn’t around to hear. “What if Aubrey heard you?!” Kel shivered at the thought. Had she heard… there would be no end to the incessant teasing he would hear. He could just imagine it now… how she would poke his cheek or nudge him with her elbow, smirking at him to make a move every time they hung out with Sunny.
“Heh.. sorry! It’s just that I never thought this day would come! You’ve been telling me about how much you’ve liked him for so long, so I just think it’s sweet you’re finally making a move!” He chuckled, as he ran his hands over the leather cover of the notebook filled with all of his botany notes, setting it down on the table.
“Making a move would be nice n’ all… but how?” Kel leaned on the table with elbows, his chin in his hands. This is the first time he had ever had feelings for someone else, yet he was unable to completely capture the way Sunny made him feel in words. How could he convey all of the jumbled thoughts in his mind into something clear, something concise and something he truly wanted to say to him?
Suddenly, Basil’s eyes lit up. “Well…” he said, an undertone of restrained excitement laced with his voice. “Not only do I think you should tell him how you feel, why not make it a little bit more romantic? Like getting him a bouquet of flowers! Or maybe… getting him a box of chocolates too, like the semi-sweet ones he likes from the candy store, but in the shape of tiny little hearts! Oh! How about writing him a poem?!” At this point, Basil was standing up from his seat, his eyes sparkling as bright as stars in the sky… if you were to view them from about ten feet away.
“Woah Basil… I didn’t take you as a romantic.” He stared at the other boy in awe as Basil sat back down.
A light hue of pink dusted Basil’s cheeks, smiling as he bashedly scratched the back of his head, careful so as to not disturb the flower crown that sat atop his head. “Just a little…” he chuckled. “You’ve practically told me every single day how much you love him so I just think it would be nice to finally see you confess! Me and the rest of the gang are here for you, so don’t feel like you have to do this alone.”
Kel smiled, “I know, but hm…” he closed his eyes and tilted his head, humming as he thought. “I think we should start off with something smaller maybe?”
Basil hummed in response, then as if a light bulb appeared over his head, he smiled. “Ho-How about you walk him home today after school?” he suggested.
“But.. we always walk home together.”
Basil shook his head. “No no, you, Sunny, Mari, and Hero always walk home together.”
“So…?” he trailed off, the end hitching into a question. Kel didn’t understand what his point was.
“What day is it today?” Basil asked, his gentle voice holding the same patience it had always held for Kel.
“Wednesday…?”
“And what days do Hero and Mari have choir practice?” He asked again.
“Wednesdays and Fridays?” Kel answered, feeling as if something was supposed to click, but his brain was not picking up what Basil was putting down.
“So…” This time, Basil trailed off, hoping that Kel would understand by now.
“So…” Kel trailed off, then sighed, frustrated at himself rather than Basil for his incapability to understand. “Look Basil, I really need you to fill in the blanks for me here.”
“O-Oh, uh, sorry,” he smiled apologetically. “You guys walk home alone together on Wednesdays and Fridays, right? So why don’t you try holding his hand on the way home?”
Just the thought of holding hands with Sunny alone made his heart race. He felt his face flush at the mere thought of the two of them walking side by side, shoulder to shoulder alongside Sunny then, ever so casually, sliding Sunny’s cool hand into his warm one. He loved the feeling of Sunny’s cool hands… except when the other boy thought it would be devilishly humorous to sneak them underneath Kel’s shirts to give his lower back a chilly shock when he hugged him. Kel got it, maybe Sunny didn’t exactly like the physical affection he tended to give to his friends, but that was just plain mean.
Suddenly, it felt as if a swarm of butterflies had awoken in his stomach. Although the thought of holding hands with Sunny was nice, getting to that point was… not so nice. He would have to make it casual— natural. In his heightened state of awareness and his lack of experience, that would be a difficult task to accomplish. “I-I… I can try… wish me luck…”
“What could go wrong? I think you might be overthinking things just a little…” Basil reassured him. “You’ll be fine, Kel. Everything will be okay.”
He swallowed his nerves back down. He sure hoped so.
-
The butterflies in his stomach would not stop as they fluttered about, making him almost self conscious about everything he did. As a result, the school day painfully passed by, the seconds slowly ticking into minutes, the minutes ticking into hours, until the dreaded moment was upon him.
“You can do this, Kel,” he whispered to himself outside of the school’s main entrance at their usual waiting spot, waiting for the main cause of all his anxiety to appear. “You got this.”
Five painstakingly long minutes later, his eyes caught the figure of the shorter black haired boy exiting from the school building, one he instantly made eye contact with.
“H-Hey Sunny,” he mentally cringed at how awkward and stiff he was from thinking about his ulterior motive. Just act natural! “How was class today?”
They walked side by side, shoulder to shoulder as if it were something that naturally occured to them by second nature. The two of them walked at a leisurely pace, Kel intentionally slowing down from his usual long strides to soak in the alone time the two of them had.
“It was fine.” Sunny gave a curt reply, the small ghost of a smile playing upon his lips. This was something that many others were unable to see, something that came from years of studying and ingraining every single facial feature of his friend into his mind. His black hair, black eyes, pale skin, thin lips, Kel loved it all. Before he knew it, he couldn’t stop stealing glances of the other boy as they walked. “How about you?”
“O-Oh yeah… M-My day was good too…” they turned a corner, leading to a long sidewalk they’ve walked down several times. The sun dazzled so brightly in his eyes as they turned the corner that he had to put his hand above his eyes to shield them from its rays, also hoping it would distract him from how hot his ears were turning. “In fact! I only fell asleep in one of my classes today instead of all of them. My coach said that if he gets one more complaint from my teachers… the ball won’t be the only thing that’s being thrown through the hoop aha…”
A small chuckle escaped from Sunny’s lips, making Kel’s heart do tiny little cartwheels inside of his chest. “Aren’t you taller than your coach?”
“Yeah… but with how much muscle he has… he could easily lift me, bend me into a pretzel, then throw me into the hoop without hesitation…” A shiver went up Kel’s spine at the thought of it. In order to escape his basketball-shaped doom, he took the extra measure of cutting out his late night gaming so he could at least get eight hours of sleep a night. Plus, his ever-growing body always thanked him the next morning from the change in lifestyle.
A comfortable atmosphere settled over the two as Kel continued to one-sidedly chat to the other boy about whatever thought he pulled out of his mind. It wasn’t until they reached their final stretch in their walk home that Kel decided to finally make a move. He wiped his damp hands on his shorts once, twice, three times hoping that it would wipe off some of his nerves with it. “Everything will be okay,” he chanted those words in his head over and over again. “Everything will be okay.”
He took a deep breath to steady himself, letting his hand dangle beside Sunny’s, so close that they were almost touching. As they gently swayed their hands as they walked, a jolt of electricity shot up Kel’s spine as Sunny’s fingers grazed against his.
He firmly shut his eyes. It was now or never. As Sunny was just talking to him about Mewo’s latest excursion outside of the house, a story that barely reached his ears over the loud thudding of his heart, he grabbed Sunny’s hand, cool fingers sliding into his warm ones as if they were a perfect fit.
In that moment, it was as if the whole world went silent, the only thing in Kel’s mind was the racing of his heart, the headache it now gave him as it drummed against his ears. His face grew hotter and hotter as he waited for Sunny’s reaction. Would he pull away? Would he be confused? Or even worse, would he reject him completely?
Then, Sunny stopped in his tracks. This was it. He was a fool he knew he shouldn’t have grabbed onto his hand like that all of a sudden. It wasn’t his place to, they weren’t even dating! He shouldn’t have listened to Basil. He shouldn’t have-
His eyes went wide. While he was bracing himself for the worst, he swore he felt the hand squeeze back.
Kel gasped, releasing the hand he grasped at at once. There was just no way. His mind must be playing tricks on him. He turned towards Sunny, his eyes never looking up from the crack on the sidewalk his eyes decided to focus on. He scratched the back of his head as he raced to sputter out, “M-My mom told me I needed to be home earlier today, so-so I’m gonna go ahead! See you tomorrow, Sunny!”
Before Kel could even hear the other boy’s reply or stay around for the lack thereof, he sprinted down the street, hoping that the cool breeze whipping against his face would help the crimson blush on his face fade faster.