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Mischa hisses at the stinging pain of the alcohol-soaked cotton ball touching the cut on his cheek. “Sorry.” Noel mutters, before continuing to dab at one of the many cuts on Mischa’s face.
The two boys were currently in the school clinic, with Noel patching up Mischa after a fight (which started because some kids decided to pick on Noel) had left him with many bruises and cuts.
“Hold still, Misch,” The taller boy chides, lightly grabbing the Ukrainian boy’s chin, keeping him still.
Mischa feels his face grow warm at the action, suddenly hyper-aware of how close the taller boy was. He finds himself unconsciously staring at Noel, studying his friend’s face as he works on patching him up.
He watches as the aspiring novelist’s eyebrows scrunch in concentration, his tongue slightly poking out as he takes great care not to dab too hard on the cuts. How cute.
He eventually finds his eyes travelling down to Noel’s lips, taking note of how soft they look—What flavour chapstick does he use?—He thought about how close he was, and the fact that he could just… lean a little bit closer and kiss him.
Mischa catches himself on that thought—Woah, what? That’s fucking wack. Why’d I think that?—He lightly shakes his head, earning himself a bemused look and a raised eyebrow from Noel before the boy went back to cleaning up the rest of his wounds.
If he’s being really honest… he’s been thinking that a lot lately, finding himself thinking about Noel and, well… kissing Noel. And Mischa knows that, despite what Ocean may claim, it’s not exactly normal to think about kissing your best friend on the lips.
(He sees the way the redhead looks at a certain green-eyed soprano and frankly, he thinks the ginger is stupid for even trying to deny her very obvious feelings.)
Despite that, he’s still not exactly sure what this feeling was. He’s been trying to figure it out, to put a name on it, but all he knows is that when he’s with the dark haired boy, he feels this strange… warm and fuzzy feeling. Something akin to how he had felt with Talia… yet not at all. It was similar, yet not the same.
In his inner turmoil, he doesn’t even realise that Noel had finished.
“And… there,” The poet says, patting Mischa’s shoulder after having put a bandaid over the last cut. “All we gotta do is get ice for your eye, and we’re all set.”
“Thank you, poet.” Mischa smiles softly at his friend, who only shakes his head with a soft smile of his own. “No, Misch. Thank you. That was really cool of you to defend me back there. Sorry, you got a bit beat up, though.”
Mischa gives him a small huff as he hopped off the bench he was sitting on. “‘S no worries, poet. I’d defend you from those losers any day,” He says, patting his best friend’s cheek.
Noel’s smile widened, touched by his friend’s words. “Thank you, Mischa. That really means a lot.”
Mischa doesn’t know how or when he started moving closer but he finds that their faces are now only inches away. He’s pretty sure it was him that was leaning closer as Noel was looking at him with a slightly confused expression. Cute.
Fuck it.—and all of a sudden, the small gap between them was gone and Mischa’s lips were on Noel’s. He hears the other boy make a small surprised noise before he eventually feels him kiss back.
After what felt like eternity, (it was only a few seconds, really) the two boys pulled away.
Mischa was the first to regain his bearings, suddenly realising that—oh, fuck. I just kissed my best friend.—and started panicking internally, scared of Noel’s reaction.
The other boy could only stare at him, starstruck and red in the face, still trying to process what happened.
“I—” Mischa, in true disaster queer fashion, bolted out of the room as soon as Noel snapped out of it, leaving the other boy dumbfounded and alone.
“Wow…” Noel, still slightly out of it, could only bring a hand up to his lips, relishing in the lingering feeling of his friend’s (are they even still friends now? friends don’t exactly kiss each other on the lips…) lips on his own.
He soon realises that Mischa had already run off far far away (Noel wasn’t athletic at all and he’s well aware that he’d never be able to catch the other boy) and supposes that he could just talk to him after choir tomorrow.
…and maybe even get another kiss if he’s lucky.