Work Text:
The playground buzzed with shrieks, but where the fences met, at the furthest point from where the teachers sat, it was quiet.
Sofía sat in the shade, she was already doodling in her notebook. Her tongue poked out the side of her mouth in concentration as she pressed hard with her crayon, the wax leaving bright lines on the page.
Bob plopped down beside her with the kind of gracelessness only a five-year-old could manage. He peeked over her shoulder.
"Whatcha drawin'?" he asked, voice small and curious.
Sofía didn't answer right away, she was too focused. When she finally leaned back, there was a messy drawing of two stick figures, one in a blue triangle dress, the other with a mop of brown hair. Above them, in big, uneven letters, she'd scrawled:
"Best Freinds"
She looked at him, eyes bright, then closed the book and wrote on the cover: "Sofía + Bobby."
Its our book now," she declared.
Bob blinked. "It is?"
"Uh-huh." She nodded, tapping under the words with her crayon. "You hafta draw stuff in it too. 'Cause we're best friends." She opened it to the next clear page, then handed it to him.
He picked up a purple crayon from her pile and, with great care, drew a little dinosaur. It looked like a lumpy potato with legs, but Sofía gasped and whispered, "that's so cool," like it was the greatest thing she'd ever seen.
They spent the rest of recess like that. Shoulders bumping, crayones rolling into the grass, the rest of the world forgotten. When the bell rang and they had to line up again, Sofía hugged the notebook to her chest like a secret.
Bob smiled back at her from his spot in the line, and she smiled back, giggling when their teacher scolded him.
☆
They sat cross legged on the classroom carpet, tucked into the reading corner where no one else really went during indoor recess. Rain tapped softly against the windows, and Ms. Werner was distracted with a stack of papers at her desk.
They were leaning over the notebook. It was the third addition, the first two having already been filled. The cover was the same as the last ones. "Sofía + Bobby" scrawled in Sofías messy handwriting. The stickers had been picked at by Bob, leaving most of them as just blank outlines.
Sofía picked up her pencil, hesitating for a second before writing in the corner of their current page. 'i dont think im Sofía anymore.'
He didnt look up after he wrote it, keeping his eyes on the paper. Mama told him to be careful with who he told this too. But Bob said they'd still be friends even if he ate his cheetos with ketchup. Hes pretty sure thats worse than being a boy.
He felt Bob lean in to read, their heads knocking together slightly. He didn't say anything. Not out loud. But after a moment, he tilted the book toward himself and wrote beneath her words. 'then who are you?'
It wasn't teasing. Wasn't mocking. Not like mama said might happen. Thats gotta be a good sign.
He sounded out the words as he wrote, 'mama sugested Joaquín.'
He paused, then looked up at Bob. "It was my abuelito's name," he explained. "She said he was really brave."
Bobs eyes didn't leave his. He nodded slowly, thoughtful. Then he grinned. "Joaquín's a cool name."
Relief bloomed in Joaquíns chest. He smiled back, small and a little shy. "Its pronounced Joaquín, actually."
"Joaquín," Bob repeated. "Still cool."
Joaquín ducked his head, trying to hide the way he was smiling too wide now. Before he could say anything, Bob got up, coming back with artist tape and a sharpie, waving them happily.
Bob plopped back down and stuck out his hand expectantly. “Gimme.”
Joaquín blinked. “What?”
“The notebook. We gotta fix the cover.”
Joaquín handed it over, watching as Bob carefully tore off a piece of tape and smoothed it over their names. Then he uncapped the sharpie and wrote, as big as he could.
'Joaquín + Bob'
Joaquín stared at it. The sharpie bled a little on the tape, but he could still read it just fine. It was real now.
He swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. "You didn't have to do that."
Bob shrugged, casual. “Yeah, but I wanted to. I mean, it’s our notebook. Can’t have the wrong name on it.”
Joaquín nodded, brushing a hand over the tape like he was afraid it might disappear. "Thanks," he said quietly.
"Duh," Bob replied, already flipping back to their page. "Now let me finish my drawing."
Joaquín laughed and leaned in again, their heads knocking together as they huddled over the page again, like nothing had changed at all.
☆
The auditorium buzzed with restless boredom. Onstage the principal droned on about responsibility or teamwork or something neither of them were listening to. Joaquín and Bob were slouched in the back row of the bleachers, knees bumping, yet another new notebook balanced on the arm rests between them. This was their dozenth one, the rest of them piled up in the back of Joaquíns closet.
Joaquín had a mechanical pencil and a mission. He was halfway through a caricature of Assistant Principal Coke, complete with devil horns and a tail.
Bob was hiding laughter behind his hands, glancing up at the stage, then back to the drawing.
"You're gonna get us killed," he whispered between chuckles, "we're gonna get sniped or something."
"You're the one who told me to draw it," Joaquín whispered back, then turned the notebook over.
Bob took the notebook as soon as Joaquín flipped it, immediately getting to work. His tongue stuck out in the concentration as he added demon wings to the drawing , then gave Coke a pitchfork. "There," he muttered, proud. "Now she looks extra evil."
Joaquín bit down on his sleeve to keep from laughing, but it still came out as a muffled giggle.
"Shhh!" Bob hissed at him, immediately starting to laugh himself.
"You shhh!" Joaquín whispered back, pushing him slightly.
One of the teachers, Mr. Johnson, turned his head to them, eyebrows raised.
They froze like deers in headlights. Bob coughed to cover a laugh, and Joaquín raised the notebook in front of their faces like a shield.
Once they were in the clear, Bob scribbled under the drawing, 'if we die it was an honorable death. i regret nothing.'
☆
The notebooks were all hidden beneath piles of clothes Joaquín didn't wear anymore. Joaquín hadn't touched it in months. Not since Bob left. The only reason he even went near them again is because his mom was getting on his about cleaning up his room.
He wasn't sure why he opened it. He could've just left it where it was. He should've left it where it was.
Instead, here he was. Sitting in his closet beside the large pile of notebooks, flipping through the most recent one.
The pages smelled faintly like pencil shavings and something vaguely school. Whatever that meant. He flipped past drawings, bad inside jokes, secret codes that only the two of them understood. They'd only had this one for a few weeks, so most of the pages were empty, but they'd been going through notebooks faster since they ended up sharing a study hall this year.
Eventually, he paused. on the top of the page was 'super serious question: if i disappeared one day would you steal my captain america figurines??'
Joaquín remembered laughing when he first read that. Scoffing. Rolling his eyes. He’d written back without thinking.
'duh. im no fool.'
At the time, it had felt like a joke. Like every other weird thing Bob said when he was trying to make him laugh, or when he was high. Usually both. Just another episode of the neverending comedy that was their friendship.
But now..
Now Joaquín sat with the notebook in his lap and realized it wasn't a joke. Not really. Bob had been saying goodbye, in his one crooked, careful way. Testing the water. Waiting to see what Joaquín's reactions would be. Maybe if he would pick up on it, call him out.
He hadn't.
And suddenly the silence that had been consuming him since Bob left felt sharper. Louder. It settled into Joaquín's chest like something heavy and unmovable.
He stared at the page for a long time. The ink had smudged a little at the edge, like someones thumb had rested there too long.
"Idiot," he muttered. Not at Bob, but at himself.
Because maybe if he'd looked closer, listened harder, asked just one more question… maybe things would be different.
Maybe Bob wouldn't have left. Maybe he wouldn't have felt the need to.
☆
The café was small and warm, the kind of place that played soft music and smelled like cinnamon even when no one ordered anything with cinnamon in it. Bob had gone to the counter to grab their drinks. He always insisted on paying, no matter how many times Joaquín rolled his eyes about it.
The notebook came out of Joaquín's bag like muscle memory. Edges curled, cover faded. It was the first one. The original. Still labeled 'Sofía + Bobby'.
He flipped through the old pages slowly, carefully. Drawings, jokes, things that made no sense out of whatever context there was, but still made him smile anyways.
Then he found the last page. Blank.
He didn't remember why they'd never used it. Maybe they were saving it from something important. Maybe it was superstition.
Now, Joaquín figured, it had waited long enough.
He pulled a pen from his coat pocket. Wrote slowly, carefully.
'i love you.'
No joke. No sarcasm. Just that.
He closed the notebook and set it on the table in front of Bob;s seat.
Outside the window, traffic rolled on like it always did. Someone laughed from the back of the cafe. The barista called out a name that wasn't theirs.
And Joaquín just waited, fingers curled tapping on the table as he watched Bob finally grab their drinks, waving them just like he always did.
He placed the mugs down on the table, with a soft "here ya go."
Joaquín didn't say anything, just nodded slightly to the notebook.
Bob blinked. "Is that–?"
"Yeah," Joaquín said, almost a whisper. "The original."
Bob sat down, reaching for it slowly, like it might crumble under his fingers. He opened the cover and smile when he saw the stick drawing. Nearly 30 years old and still just as bright as they remembered.
The words best friends still sat underlined in crayon. Joaquín remembers adding a line every time Bob asked if they were really friends.
He flipped through it slowly. Joaquín waited, sipping on his frappe with faux-casualness. Finally, he reached the last page.
He didn't say anything at first. Joaquín saw the way his eyes went back and forth, rereading the words. He let out a soft breath, one of those ones that felt heavier than it probably should be. The, slowly, carefully, he turned the book back to the first page.
And under best friends, in the tiniest, neatest handwriting he could manage, he added: '+ boyfriends'
He slid the book back across the table. Joaquín saw it and laughed softly. "Took us long enough."