Work Text:
Emil walked into the crowded lunchroom of their high school, paper-bagged lunch clutched in their hands. They immediately headed to their typical spot, where they sat with their group of friends every day. One of their best friends, Leon, saw them right away and waved them over excitedly. Raivis, a short Latvian boy, was sitting to his right side, poking his fork into some food.
Emil smiled a little, waved back, and headed over. They sat down in the remaining spot next to Leon, who had a black cap on, backwards, and earbuds in. He took off those earbuds to speak to Emil. "Hey!" he greeted. "What's up?"
Emil shrugged. "Nothing much. You?"
"Eh, okay." Leon rolled his eyes. "Mr. Fields was being an ass. Again." Raivis, who'd poked his head up from eating, nodded solemnly in agreement.
Emil sighed a little. "Doesn't surprise me." Mr. Fields was a crappy math teacher who seemed to get some kind of thrill out of yelling at any kid, giving pop quizzes nearly every day, and punishing students for the stupidest things. "Where's Mei at?"
Leon hummed and took a bite out of an egg roll. "I don't know, actually. Probably messing in the bathroom with Michelle and Lili."
Emil nodded and opened up his own lunch bag. He removed the contents—a sandwich, a bag of chips, an apple, and a couple of cookies. Same old, same old. Except...there was one thing missing. Lukas' note, he quickly realized. Every day for school since Emil was in kindergarten, Lukas packed Emil a note to go with his lunch. The notes usually had things like Hope you're having a good day or Hope you get an A on that math quiz written on them—basically, little positive reminders. He couldn't believe that, after over ten years, Lukas still wrote those notes for him, and Emil wished he would stop, as he saw it as extremely babyish. He was deeply embarrassed by it and, although he did read the notes every day, he kept them cupped in his palm as he read them and then immediately stuffed them back into his bag so that his friends wouldn't see them.
However, Emil would probably never admit this to anyone (not even himself), but there was a small part of him that actually enjoyed seeing those notes, written carefully in his brother's familiar cursive calligraphy. (It was the reason Emil didn't tell Lukas to stop writing them.) And there was that same small part of him that was disappointed when he looked into his paper bag and saw no note. However, he very quickly shrugged it off, thinking that maybe Lukas had finally decided that he was too old for the notes. Finally, Emil thought. He scrunched up the bag, then popped open his bag of potato chips.
The trio of teens ate contently for a few moments—well, except for Raivis, that was. He was the only one that'd gotten a school lunch, and he seemed to mindlessly poke through his depressing tray of overcooked meatloaf and lumpy mashed potatoes.
After a while, Leon noticed this and cracked a grin. "Doesn't taste good?" he asked Raivis, which made both him and Emil lift their heads up.
Raivis, already knowing what Leon was about to say next, dropped his fork immediately. "No—it tastes horrible."
"Want some of my lunch?" Leon asked, holding out some of his packed Chinese food, which looked miles better than Raivis' lunch.
Raivis grinned from ear to ear. "Yes." He immediately took two egg rolls and a Chinese donut and pulled out a fork so he could put some orange chicken and rice onto his own tray.
Leon laughed at this, while Emil chuckled along as well. Raivis took Leon's food so much that Leon might as well pack food for the both of them everyday.
The small teen ate the Chinese donut in one huge bite. He tried to say something, but it was greatly muffled due to the fact that his mouth was stuffed.
Leon made a slight grossed-out face and turned away a little, keeping a hand between his face and Raivis'. "What?!"
Raivis swallowed and tried again. "Your dad makes the best food ever."
"Um, yeah," Leon replied, lowering his hand, "I can tell you think so." Emil snorted at that.
The trio continued to eat for a few more minutes before Mei, Michelle, and Lili walked to the table together, holding bags of what looked like fast food (which Emil was pretty certain was against the school rules, but they didn't say anything about it). "Hey," Leon greeted as the three sat down in their seats, "what took you guys so long?"
"Bathroom," Mei answered, giving a small shrug and smile. "Plus we had to go pick up these." She held out a large brown bag.
Leon stared at it, taking another bite of his food. "What did you guys get this time?"
"Tacos!" Mei answered, her grin growing larger, as Michelle and Lili opened up their bags, indeed containing tacos, as well as some nacho chips.
"Wow," Raivis commented, staring intently at Lili and her chicken taco, "thanks for asking if we wanted some."
Emil laughed at that. "Yeah, right—geez, I thought you were our friends."
"We are!" Michelle insisted. Right after saying that, she dipped her taco into some guacamole and took a big bite out of it.
Emil rolled their eyes at that. The friends argued for a few more minutes until it eventually dissolved into just regular conversation. All was fine and well—Emil mainly kept to themself, every so often contributing to the conversation, but mostly just observing the high school cafeteria. While looking around, however...something caught their eye. Or rather, someone. A seemingly tall, well-muscled man with fluffy blond hair that looked...strangely familiar. Horrifyingly familiar. Emil watched him walk out of the office and into the cafeteria. And that's when Emil saw his face and nearly wanted to fall into a dark hole right then and there. It was Matthias, his brother's long-term boyfriend. What the absolute hell is he doing here? Emil thought, rather harshly. They felt their face grow hot and cold simultaneously, the sheer embarrassment already starting to get to them.
Emil watched in frozen horror as Matthias made his way to their lunch table. Before he knew it, Matthias waved over at Emil, and all of their friends, who all one by one poked their heads up, some looking curious while others just looked plain confused.
"Hey, Emil!" Matthias greeted, loudly.
"What are you doing here?" Emil said slowly—it was, honestly, a miracle he could get it out at all, because he felt so tongue-tied.
"You forgot a little something at home today!" Matthias answered. And, lo and behold, he reached over to hand Emil the note, with all of their friends' eyes landing on them as well.
Emil wanted to speak, to yell at Matthias and ask him why the hell he drove all the way to the high school to give him Lukas' stupid note, but his jaw was clenched. His face was white as a ghost and he looked at Matthias, mouth agape.
Matthias twiddled his thumbs as he glanced at all the staring eyes, perhaps waiting for a response from Emil. When he got none, he brushed it off quite quickly and said, "Welp, that's all I came here for. Have a good day, you all!" He waved at Emil and all of their friends (some of whom waved back, more than a little awkwardly) and headed out of the cafeteria.
Once he completely left, all eyes turned to Emil again, whose face had finally begun to redden from humiliation, red splotches growing on his arms and neck too. He looked down at the note. Dear Emil, I hope you're having a fantastic day today. Love, your big brother Lukas. And then a little postscript (which appeared to be written afterward since it was in pencil—not pen, like Lukas normally used to write): I'm so sorry I forgot to put this in your lunch bag this morning. Matthias should've came to the school to drop this off to you. Love you again.
"What's that, Emil?" Michelle asked, starting to look over his shoulder.
They immediately held the note to their chest. "Um—nothing."
"C'mon, I wanna see," Michelle insisted. She grabbed the note from their hands and, before they could say anything to protest, she began to read it. Emil cringed, already prepared for the snickers and teasing.
However, as she read the note, her face grew from neutral, to a small smile, and then finally to a wide grin. "Awwww!" she gushed. "That's too adorable!"
"Wait, lemme see," Mei said. She raced from her seat in between Emil and Michelle, hand placed on her knees as she read the note in Michelle's hand. Soon, she too was gushing. "Emil, why is your face so red? This is cute!"
While Emil was relieved that neither of the two were teasing him, he was a bit confused at the same time. What the heck was so cute about an adult man writing lunchtime notes for his sixteen-year-old brother?
Soon, all of Emil's friends had crowded around Michelle and Emil, reading the note. All of their reactions varied (from Leon's slight amusement, to Lili's small smile, to Raivis' apparent jealousy ("I wish I had an older brother like you," he'd muttered under his breath near Emil)) but, none of them made fun of Emil, like he would have thought.
"Okay, okay," Emil eventually said after a while, putting their hands up, their blush slowly disappearing, "can I get my note back?"
"Oh—yeah!" Michelle said, tossing the note back to him.
As his friends went back to their seats, Emil cupped the note in his palm—and, making sure none of his friends were watching him, he smiled down at it. I love you too, Lukas, he thought. He stuffed the note back inside his lunch bag, just a bit more carefully than he had previous days.