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It was a normal day for Crawford. Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, greet his mother, and head to school. It’s how he likes it. A nice easy, predictable routine. However, there’s one factor Crawford always seems to forget.
Hawthorne. His rival-turned-best friend since he was 7 years old. He was a nuisance most days. Always bothering Crawford at any opportunity, talking to him non stop even when Crawford wouldn’t respond; and, of course, always dawdling during piano practice. He can’t believe he’s put up with this for almost 9 years now.
He was supposed to take this seriously. His dad was a world renowned pianist, for crying out loud. They— he was going to become a famous pianist someday, too. He better act like it. Even if Crawford wouldn’t admit it out loud, Hawthorne was incredibly talented at the piano. He shouldn’t let all this talent go to waste.
Today was no different. They were always partnered together for piano practice, for whatever reason. Their teacher seemed to think they worked well together. Crawford believed that couldn’t be further from the truth. Hawthorne was childish, messy, and loud. Everything Crawford wasn’t.
And no matter how hard he tried, Crawford could never get rid of him. They were attached at the hip since day one, even when Crawford got no say in it. He was starting to think he somehow got cursed as a baby, or something.
Crawford was deeply concentrated in the middle of his piano practice, when a loud slam of the door was heard. Crawford jumped, and reactively slammed his hands onto the keys, making a loud combination of notes. Almost as loud as the door. Then, laughter could be heard. Annoyance filling his chest, Crawford turned his head sharply to see Hawthorne standing at the doorway, hand clutching his stomach and doubling over.
“Oh man! I got you so good!” Hawthorne said, mixed in with his laughter.
“What. Are you doing here?” Crawford said through gritted teeth. Hands curling into fists, Crawford was seconds away from striding over there and strangling him.
“Piano practice. Duh. We’re partners, remember?”
Crawford let out an annoyed huff. “Again? Why am I always paired with you?” Crawford rolled his eyes at the reminder. He was seriously getting tired of always pairing with Hawthorne.
“Must be ‘cuz we’re destined together.” Hawthorne said dreamily, batting his eyelashes with his hands clasped together. Approaching the other piano, adjacent to Crawford’s, Hawthorne continued, “You know you secretly love being with me.”
“As if.” Crawford said with furrowed eyebrows and blushing slightly. He did not love being with Hawthorne. He was immature, chaotic, noisy, a little cute, amazing at piano, so, so pretty—
“Hey, wanna work on our piece?” Crawford’s thoughts were rudely disrupted, and he was left a little distorted. Face still a little pink, clearing his throat, Crawford replied,
“Ah, yes. I suppose so now that you’re here.” Crawford started retrieving his music sheets, when Hawthorne replied to him,
“Yes! I’ve been working on it.” For some reason, despite the usual zoning off and not paying attention Hawthorne usually showed during their piano practices, He always was eager to play their piece they’ve been working on. For a competition. A duos competition. He still doesn’t understand why his mom was so insistent on him participating. She hated Hawthorne. Something about wanting to prove that he’s better than him. He doesn’t know why it has to be during a duo’s competition, though.
“Ready?” asked Hawthorne.
“Whenever you are. You have the starting note.” Replied Crawford. Hawthorne gave him a little nod, and began.
Notes begane to fill the air. Sounds were converging as Crawford joined in. The beautiful melody could be heard from outside the practice room, turning heads towards its direction. Their timing was near perfect. It surprised Crawford, he couldn’t believe they could achieve almost perfect sync the first time they played together. Hawthorne’s part was picking up speed, and Crawford was once again amazed at how he was able to execute the notes at such precision.
As Crawford’s fingers glided across the keys, close to fully immersing himself in the music, the sounds suddenly became empty. Looking up, he found that Hawthorne had stopped playing.
“What's wrong? Why’d you stop?” Asked Crawford, a little concerned.
“I’m missing sheets.” Hawthorne replied, sounding a bit confused. “I swear I had all of them…”
“Maybe you left them in the classroom?” Suggested Crawford with a shrug. As if a light switch had gone off in his head, Hawthorne’s face was met with a look of realization.
“Ah! I did leave them there!” Crawford rolled his eyes at Hawthorne’s forgetfulness. “Say… can you go get them for me? I still have a part I need to practice on, and I don’t wanna waste any time.”
“What? Why should I?” Crawford said, the annoyance rising again.
“‘Cuz you loooove me!” Hawthorne said with a silly voice and a dopey grin on his face.
“I do not!”
“Pleaseeee!”
“No.”
“Pleaseeeeeeee!”
“No way!”
“I’ll buy you ice cream.”
If Crawford had animal ears, they would have perked up instantly at the sound of ice cream. He did love his ice cream. Probably to the extent that wasn’t healthy. But ice cream was ice cream. Slowly looking towards Hawthorne, he saw a sly smile painting his face. Crawford glared at him before finally saying,
“Fine. But know this is for ice cream and not you, got it?”
“Whatever you say, Crawford.”
His chest slightly tingled at the sound of his name from Hawthorne’s voice, but Crawford rolled his eyes at him for the umpteenth time that day, and marched out of the room. Gosh, he was going to murder that boy one day.
It was a short walk to their classroom, and once inside Crawford spotted Hawthorne’s bag right away. Tucked away at his desk, Crawford opened it and rummaged through it for a bit before finally finding the missing music sheets.
With the sheets now secure, he made his trek of walking 500 feet back to their piano room. As he opened the door, Crawford announced, “Got your sheets, dingus. You better take me to the good ice cream shop or I will—” His rant was cut short when he saw that Hawthorne was slouched over at the piano.
“Hawthorne?” Crawford almost whispered.
“Hawthorne?” he said again, a little louder. Still no response. He walked closer and found that Hawthorne was dozing away. He let out a small sigh at the sight. He must have stayed up late again, doing who knows what. Placing the sheets down, he grabbed a chair to sit next to Hawthorne.
Once Hawthorne was out, he was out. Not even the loudest of sounds could wake him up. Crawford could slam every key on the piano down with the loudest forte one would ever hear, and he wouldn’t even stir.
He was going to be here a while. Hand now resting on his chin, Crawford took this opportunity to observe the sleeping Hawthorne. The bags under his eyes were looking a little darker, he noted. Crawford wondered if he was getting enough sleep these days. Moving a piece of his hair that was in his face ever so gently, Crawford found himself looking ever more intently at Hawthorne.
The slope of his upturned eyes, the little mole under above his eyebrow, the way they furrowed slightly in his sleep. His long eyelashes, the way they arched slightly at the end. The slight curve of his lips, the way they punctuated the tip of his cupid’s bow. The way they were slightly open, and if he could just— OK, now he was getting into dangerous territory. Crawford sharply turned his head away, cheeks steadily rising into a glowing red.
Crawford looked out the window and saw the sun setting. It was getting late. He shook Hawthorne’s shoulder slightly. “Hawthorne.” He said in a whisper. No response. He shook harder. “Hawthorne.” He said a little louder now. At last, Hawthorne stirred. He opened his eyes slowly, looking a bit disoriented.
“Crawford…?”
“Get up, loser. We have to go home.”
“Is it that late already?”
“Yes, and you promised me ice cream, remember?”
“Ah yes, how could I forget?” Hawthorne stood up from his seat and stretched his arms. “Oh wait, my missing music sheets? Did you find them?”
To be completely honest, Crawford had forgotten about those. “Oh yeah, I did. I still can’t believe you made me get them for you.” replied Crawford.
“You know you love me.” Hawthorne teased with a dopey grin. Crawford pushed him at the remark, heart rate steadily rising.
“Let’s go already. The shop will close soon.” Crawford deflected. What was with him and his teasing today?
“Yeah, yeah I know. Just gimme a minute!” Hawthorne was packing his things at a sloth pace.
“Come on! Ice cream waits for no one!” Crawford started shaking Hawthorne by the arm, and finally Hawthone picked up the pace.
In what seemed like forever, Hawthorne was ready to go. Taking Hawthorne’s hand in his own, Crawford rushed him out of their practice room and down the hallway.
Maybe Hawthorne was still a bit of a nuisance, and his flirty teasing was going to be the death of him, but they really only had each other. And that was enough for them.