Chapter Text
Thomas walked over to the common room, their local college’s facilities weren't much to marvel at. Low budgets and all. He looked around, searching for someone familiar in the sea of sat down students, then he spotted Edd waving him down.
He sat down with his hands in his jean pockets, then made eye contact with Edd. He was grinning as he spoke at a blissfully unaware speed, Tom squinted his eyes in confusion trying to decipher what he was saying. He couldn’t lip read at all, fumbling to tear his earbuds out. The surrounding sounds of chatter came first, then he caught the last part of Edd’s sentence.
“—In the woods.” He heard the taller man say with an enthusiastic grin. Tom raised an eyebrow, “Pardon? Sorry, I had music playing..” He always got pissed when he had to repeat himself to someone, but Edd seemed to cheese wider. He took the courtesy to summarise the main points of his previous sentence, “Party in the woods. Tord’s driving us in his brother's car.”
Tom rolled his eyes, Tord. He was always designated driver, even in year 10 about 2 years ago. He’s always been interested in things like dirt bikes and cars, despite not having a license, even now that they were in year 12.
It pissed him off, anything concerning Tord did. He didn’t care that it was illegal or anything, it annoyed him because Tord liked to make it out to other people that he enjoyed driving without a license because he was all hard. Tom knew he was just a neek about all mechanics and whatnot. Tord was smart, especially for someone who was supposedly one of the chavs. A loud, obnoxious one at that. He supposed he couldn’t fault him, being the only one out of the four to do A levels in comparison to the three of them doing level 3 qualifications.
“You gonna go?” He asked, as he dug his fork into his plate of chips. Edd knew he could only go to things like that if he was drunk throughout the whole length of it. Otherwise he wouldn’t enjoy it, couldn’t be sober around those nobs. He didn’t even know why he still bothered going to parties anymore. It was always the same, get drunk, black out, and then wake up the next morning only to walk back home, or drive courtesy . The same rinse and repeat cycle that they’d been doing since they were about 14. But he couldn’t deny that it was almost familiar to him now. Almost like a tradition.
Tom replied, “Yeah alright. Is Matt coming with us?” He gave Edd a knowing look, simply because Matt was a lot closer to the proper chavs now, drifting from their closely knit friend group for status, most likely. That's why he wasn’t very close to Matt anymore, because Tom grew out of his chav phase and into his own style and personality, Matt however insisted on staying the exact same.
“Probably.” Edd replied, then finally taking a bite of his food.
Tom then snorted, “One second, did I show you Matt’s new instagram story?” Edd replied with a shake of his head as he leaned in, cheeks full of potato.
He pulled out his phone and pulled up Matt’s account. He showed Edd, “Everyone’s frying him for it, cuz he looks like a poof.”
It was a photo of Matt in the mirror, hair voluminous and his skin almost orange. He had a purple jacket on with some jeans. He was showing off his silver watch with a peculiar look on his face. He must’ve been trying to suck his cheeks in, enhance the cheek bones. He just looked like a numpty, like he always did. The song “Freak like me” by Lee Walker was added to it.
Edd shook his head, chuckling as he leaned in to see Tom’s phone screen. “Jesus. He does look like a poof —Is he wearing fake tan?” Edd asked, looking extremely perplexed. Tom shrugged lazily.
Him and Edd weren’t extremely chavvy in secondary school, but hung around those type of people and always mitched lessons when they would. They grew to be more independent with their personal styles and weren’t as close to those kinds of people anymore. The transition from secondary to college felt like a large lift of pressure, no one on your ass for dressing ‘emo’ likely because all those people couldn’t get into college. Edd and Tom still dressed pretty similarly though. It was like every phase they went through, they went through together. Matt and Tord stayed mostly the same in terms of style between the transition to college, Ralph Lauren polos, puffer coats, silver watches. Matt was the most distant now, but it wasn’t like he meant to hurt anyone's feelings, he was just too dense to realize he’d sort of ditched them since college started.
Tord and Tom? That wasn’t hard to figure out, actively and proudly hating each other. They wouldn’t deny it if someone asked if they were friends but it wasn’t like they were close enough to hang out alone together.
Tom and Edd spoke for a bit longer, until Tom’s free was unfortunately over and he had to return to lesson.
-
That night, Tom got ready to go to that party in the woods. He ran a hand through his hair, which was pretty pointless since his hair refused to sit in any position other than spiking directly upwards. He glanced in the mirror at his outfit.
He put on a black The Police t-shirt on, which he loved ‘cause it was vintage and he found it at a charity shop so it was cheap as chips, with a studded bracelet and black baggy jeans.
He remembers how he used to dress back then, those bright neon shirts with black Nike shorts. He shivered at the thought. Him and all his friends looked like a pack of little ice lollies walking around with their different coloured shirts.
He pulled out his phone and began messaging their snapchat group chat, he hated using snapchat but that was the only app all his friends were on, and he wasn’t that bothered enough to make a fuss about it. He just hated how it would show every single thing he did, sometimes he needed to just read over peoples messages again. Was it necessary to show his bitmoji doing a fuck ass pose whilst he did it?
“What time are u guys coming?”
Then he @ Edd to notify his phone. He knew Tord would pick Edd up first because they lived in the same neighborhood, so hopefully they would already be together and it wouldn’t be him and Tord alone.
To his disappointment, Tord replied instead. Shouldn’t he be driving? He groaned seeing Tord’s bitmoji’s head bob up. He kept it in mind to avoid contact with him if he could help it. It wasn’t like he was going to purposefully avoid him, but if he could just not be near him that would be best case scenario in his mind.
He finally replied
“about 5 min away. Edds just grabbin the alc”
then he added unnecessarily,
“don’t make us wait long when we reach ur hous mate. Don't want one of them council house druggies damaging my brothers car.”
He rolled his eyes hard at that, he messaged like a flippin druggie. He practically was, at least his brother was, like a proper one too. Despite that, Tord still had the audacity to make fun of the fact Tom lived in a council estate. Tom didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction through an angry text, just shut his phone off and went downstairs to put his shoes on.
Eventually he heard a car horn from outside. His mum wasn’t home for him to say bye to, she never was, at least at the same time as when Tom was home. He often wondered if it was deliberate, even though he knew the answer.
He then left his house, hunching over and locking the door behind him, then walking through his front yard up to the parked car. He got into the back. Edd was in the passenger seat and Tord was obviously in the driver's seat.
Edd spoke then, “Matt’s going with his own friends. He said he’s already there.” Tom rolled his eyes,
“Yeah, I bet he is. Wasn’t expecting anything less.” He was about to say something else, probably something spiteful about Matt, only to be jolted forward by the car moving suddenly, he gripped Tord’s seat in front of him, holding on tight as his knuckles went pale from the tension.
Tord yelled, “Seatbelt on, Tom.” He snickered, turning up the music playing on the car head unit in preparation for the imminent onslaught of profanity that was about to spew from Tom’s mouth. It effectively drowned out Tom’s cursing as he yelled back at Tord furiously, still holding onto the car seat. Eventually he gave up as he realized Tord was mumbling along to the song and not even attempting to listen. He was playing some song by Dizzee Rascal. He hadn’t listened to Dizzee Rascal since year 9.
The rest of the drive was mostly in silence, at least conversation wise. The music however, was deafening. He observed his two friends, Edd was staring out the front windshield. He was a tall, large guy. His baggy jeans and zip up only made his stature look even bigger. In secondary, he was the tallest one out of the people they hung out with. So if they (mostly Tord or one of their chavvy friends) ever needed to threaten someone, they’d usually claim to “Get Edd on them.” Despite the fact Edd wouldn’t ever have agreed to it anyways, at least for nothing super petty, which it was in most cases. He then turned his scrutiny towards Tord, he was almost always in that same red Ralph Lauren polo with the blue embroidered logo. He either never washed it or washed it way too often. His hands skillfully steered the vehicle. Out of their group, tallest to shortest went; Edd, Matt, Tom, and Tord. A list he only knew so well because they’d compare heights super often as growing preteens. Their heights didn’t range much though, only about an inch difference between them all.
His eyes laid back on Tord’s arms, they were pretty slender with only a slither of muscle on them. Despite that and being the shortest in their group, he was oddly hefty, like breaking the laws of physics level heavy. It needed to be studied, and whilst they were at it they could try and find out what was wrong with him mentally too.
He could see his faint arm hair, now lightened from a recent holiday contrast against his now slightly tanner skin. His watch was tightly secured onto his wrist, parting through the arm hair. Thomas glanced at the way Tord’s hair slid down his neck like a slope, then flicked up at the ends. He hated how his hair did that, it was odd. He then looked up to the two little pieces of hair at the top of his head that curled up like little waves.
Unfortunately, he made eye contact with Tord through the rear-view mirror due to his gaze already being near the top of his head. He saw the reflection of Tord’s green eyes staring back at him. Then he raised his eyebrow at him and Tom looked away, he didn't want to give Tord the wrong idea. He wasn’t looking at him because he wanted to, he just got bored of looking at the smeared view from outside as they sped across the almost empty road. He glanced at his phone then, opening Tik tok, trying to occupy his mind with something even if it was just doomscrolling.
-
They parked the car on a random neighbourhood street. It was dark out. They had to walk up through a park, then through a gap in a small green fence that someone had pried open years ago. Edd and Tom walked side by side, whilst Tord sort of sped ahead of the two. They arrived then, music from a small speaker playing getting louder as they approached the group of people. He couldn’t stand house music anymore, they all sounded the same to him. The identical uns uns uns beat they all had now drove him nuts.
He glanced around, someone necking someone else on the floor, a small campfire, bottles and cans of alcohol on the floor, balanced next to a tree adjacent to some plastic cups. Everyone was chatting loudly, zero awareness probably due to already being intoxicated. He needed to get into that state immediately, he was not going to be the only one sober. Him and Edd went over to place Edd’s drinks down next to the pile of others. Tom picked up and assessed the different bottles from the pile, checking the percentages and deducing what would get him drunk the fastest. He settled on a cheap bottle of vodka, pouring some into a weak plastic cup. He glanced over at Tord, who had found Matt and was taking a shot of something brown with him, probably Jagermeister. He hated that stuff, it was disgusting, but he did really want to take shots too. However the stack of cheap shot glasses everyone was using were half buried into the woodchips on the ground. Someone must’ve stupidly knocked them over trying to get a drink. He decided the plastic cup would do, he’d just take gulps of it occasionally.
He joined Edd around the campfire, who was preoccupied talking to someone who he remembered was in Edd’s fine art class. He sat down on the same log. Edd was much more sociable than Tom. Even when Tom was drunk, he would go even quieter than he was. At least now, it was different when they were younger. Not that it was something he wanted to change about himself, he didn’t care much for socialisation outside of his friends. Him and Edd had known eachother since nappies, so he just stuck with him. Even when Matt became their friend in year 8, then Tord in year 9, he put up with the additions because Edd always vouched for them. He also didn’t want to hold Edd back from making friends, simply because he was antisocial, so he didn’t protest. Though, there were some incidents that he wasn’t very proud of, he would still say he tried.
He drank from his cup then, eyebrow twitching at the sensation as he gulped it down. The strong, burning sensation that trailed down his throat and through his oesophagus soon evaporated. When it did, he took another sip to fill the gap. He cringed at the taste, all his senses felt like they were in agony. But he could find enjoyment in it, as each gulp would lessen in impact. Tom could smell sick nearby, and his ears hurt from being sat so close to the small speaker, he was sat on some dirty log that was hardly comfortable, and then to top it all off the fire blaring in front of them caused him to see a purple-y blueish afterimage taking the fire's shape and burning into his vision even when he shut his eyes. He just wanted his drink to kick in, he wanted to not feel anything. He hummed along to some Beyonce song that was now playing from the speaker. It was better than the average house music slop they played at these functions for sure.
After a while, everyone was congregated around the campfire. Well, everyone that wasn’t blacked out, those people were just lying somewhere nearby. Like Matt, who was laid up against a tree stump on his phone, he was probably drunk texting someone from the way his fingers absentmindedly moved across the screen despite the fact his glossy eyes showed he wasn’t fully there. Tom wasn’t going to stop him from most likely embarrassing himself completely, because he didn’t care. He couldn’t tell if his apathy for Matt was because he was feeling a little buzzed himself or because deep down, he didn’t care about Matt at all.
They asked to play ‘spin the bottle’, which Tom did not want to play, but he couldn’t really move with how dizzy he was. There were around 16 odd girls and 18 guys around the campfire, including himself. The parties they went to, they always made you kiss even if the person you were assigned to was the same gender as you. Tom didn’t particularly care about that kind of thing, he knew he was straight and it was just a game. He wasn’t insecure about his sexuality, so why would he care about kissing a guy? They played a few rounds, some people would start straight snogging as opposed to others just giving short pecks. Everyone would get pissed if the kiss wasn’t straight on the mouth, they were strict about how they played spin the bottle. Drama hungry vultures. He didn't really care about that either, he'd never treated kisses like some kind of sacred thing. His first kiss was in the school yard at lunch in primary, when he ‘married’ this girl. He was brought out of his daze when Edd nudged him and told him it was his turn to spin the bottle. He didn’t even see who Edd had supposedly kissed, he’d just been staring at his own shoes. After taking the bottle, he stumbled over to the center, crouched down and spun it on the uneven ground. He followed the nozzle’s direction until it slowed down. Then he looked up, eye twitching as it was dangerously close to Tord. There was no way he was going to put his mouth anywhere near that guy's rank, dry lips. That guy put anything in his mouth, who knew what germs were festering in there. He exhaled as it skipped past Tord and landed on the girl next to him. He had no idea who she was, she was blonde, quite pretty actually, or maybe the alcohol just clouded his vision and made her more appealing to him. He walked over, slightly crouching as he took her face in his hands and tilted his head. He slotted their lips together and a bit of movement ensued, until she pushed forward a bit too much. He was already fighting to stay upright and balanced as it was, her small movement knocking him backwards.
He landed on Tord’s lap, just on the edge of his knee. He grumbled, not caring at first as he held his forehead and just trying to recover, the trees and forest around him felt like it was spinning. He imagined how stupid the they must’ve looked with his larger self on Tord’s shorter stature. Tord just nudged his shoulder with his palm,
“Hello? Get off me, man.” He spoke, his accent subtly hidden. He always tried harder to mask it around people other than himself, Edd and Matt. Tord furrowed his brows.
Tom just rolled his eyes, “Fuck off, Jesus.” He stood up, stumbling around trying to find where he was sitting earlier, he only then acknowledged the laughing around him. They were probably laughing at him, he didn’t care. He didn’t want to play anymore anyways. He didn’t even want to be there in the first place. He felt much more lightheaded than when he'd initially spun the bottle, probably from the vodka finally getting to his head and also from completely losing his balance and falling over. He diverted his path to a gap in the circle of people. He stepped over their legs to get behind them and tried to find somewhere quieter and colder to sit. He found a small foldable beach chair someone must’ve brought to the party a few feet away and sat down on it. The rusted metal poles strained trying to support his weight. He rested his arms on the armrests, craned his neck up and stared at the sky. He could see the stars, kind of. It was definitely calming him down for sure. Despite the fact he could hear the chatter still, it was a little quieter from a distance. He hummed.
Then he heard footsteps approach him, he was hoping it was that girl he’d kissed. Sort of just assumed it in his head, the alcohol clouding what he was imagining with reality. Tom couldn’t be arsed to tilt his head down and look at them. He grumbled out a “What is it?”
Then he heard their voice, that familiar accent, speaking calmly. “You left your phone at the campfire.” Tord spoke calmly, Tom just kept his neck extended, staring at the sky.
“Okay?” He folded his arms, displaying that he was annoyed at his presence. Tord waited around for a moment, Tom’s gaze still firmly up at the sky, then he rolled his eyes and used his pointer finger to pry open Tom’s front jean pocket, shoving his phone in and pushing it in so it was snuggly in the small opening. He was about to walk away before Tom spoke, tone neutral. “How’re you not drunk? I feel aaaaawful.” He moaned.
Tord turned back to face him. “I didn’t drink as much as you. I didn’t want to wake with a hang over. I’m driving you and Edd in the morning, remember?”
Tom just scoffed, “I asked you one question.. why the hell are you waffling?” He exaggerated, considering Tord said about three sentences.
Tord just chuckles, the noise was oddly pleasant. He remembered how people would compare Tord to a Hyena with how much he would snicker. “Fine then, goodnight Tom.” he said before walking back to the campfire, he assumed at least, he still didn’t want to look anywhere but the big, now dark blue, sky.
That’s about the extent of the conversations Tom and Tord ever had between each other, they never spoke about anything meaningful generally. It was just when they absolutely had to, they would talk and probably bicker a bit. He remembers in year 9, about 2 months after Tord had moved to their school, he and Tom got into a fist fight. He remembers it clearly, it was in the yard, backs rolling around on the concrete floor and getting their uniforms all scuffed and dirty. There was a crowd of people from varied year groups. In secondary, fights were always a common occurrence simply because everyone was a lot more dramatic. Everyone would love it when two people started fighting, finding some morbid fascination from seeing to people try to harm each other as best they could. People fought over small, silly things that seemed a lot more of a big deal at the time, proven by the fact he doesn’t even really remember what he and Tord were fighting about in the first place. He just remembers he was on top of Tord, a tight grip on his collar, also vividly remembering the image of Tord's bruised and bloody face, with the addition of Tom’s own blood dripping from his nose onto Tord’s tie. He remembers Tord was crying angrily, yelling at him in Norwegian, baring his teeth like a dog. He always said when he was upset or angry, he didn’t want to bother translating what he was thinking into English, he just wanted to get the words out. He remembers it being mostly an equal fight, either one of them not being significantly stronger than the other. it was broken up after only 6 minutes. He remembers getting isolation for an entire week for it. He also remembers that Tord was in isolation for the fight too, which was a poor choice on the teacher's part, since they got into another fight right after being put into the same room. He remembers, after the whole situation, that Edd was the one who made them agree to be civil with each other, he always the mediator to their many conflicts.
He stared up at the sky, feeling his eyelids getting heavier. He decided here was a good place to fall asleep. He'd fallen asleep in a similar position before, likely on the couch of his living room. He let himself fall back in the chair slightly before finally dozing off.
-
That morning, he was woken up by someone shaking him by his shoulders harshly. He groaned loudly. “Fuck! I’m up, I'm up!” He exhales, rubbing his eyes. He stares up at the now bright spring sky. His entire skull felt like it was made out of chalk, grinding together constantly. His head was pounding with an immediate headache. Finally he opened his eyes then, Tord was staring back at him, in the middle of a yawn.
“Car. Now. I want to get home so I can sleep in my actual bed.” Tom begrudgingly got up, not because he wanted Tord to be able to sleep in his bed, but because he found the idea appealing for himself.
The two got Edd up and all headed to the car, as Tom opened the door to the backseat, he heard a familiar voice calling from a few feet away. It was Matt.
“Hey! Wait up mush.” He jogged over to Tom and peered into the car where Tord and Edd were already sitting down, the two now turning back and looking back over at Matt. He hated that stupid nickname, everyone did except for the people dense enough to use it. He never understood why Matt hung around people like them, he was just so stupid that he didn’t see how shallow all his new friends were. They just gassed him up, and he liked it. Whatever, he didn’t care, Edd didn’t seem to anyways so why would he bother.
Tord chuckled, “Eh.. sorry mush," he mocked with a grin, teeth on show "I forgot I promised you a lift home last night." Tom just folded his arms. He got in first, not saying anything to Matt, it was way too early to deal with him. Matt got into the backseat next to him and they started driving. Matt, Tord and Edd started talking, Tom sometimes butting in during their conversation if it concerned him. He didn’t mind talking to them all, but it wasn’t as easy as secondary anymore. In secondary they were all so similar, so much more closely knit as a group. Obviously they were, they were in the same form as each other, had almost every class together, they all dressed the same, liked the same things. They never had to catchup because they were there eachother for everything. Then they all got older and they didn’t share a lot of common interests anymore, they just developed their own personalities, ones that didn’t necessarily mesh as well together anymore, but they could at least talk. Sometimes though, it was disheartening when they would speak nowadays and it would be apparent that all they had in common was history, it was simply nostalgia and memories keeping their friendship from falling apart. There was no drive to make any new memories or bond anymore. At least that's how it felt as a group, Tom felt him and Edd were still close and Edd was still close with Matt and Tord equally. It was just them all together that felt so shallow.
Tom often blamed himself, he’d been the one to change the most. He just couldn’t get on with Matt and Tord as well anymore. Despite Edd’s constant reassurance, he often felt the rift in their relationship was his fault.
-
Tom arrives home, he feels disgusting and generally awful all over. He thought he felt rough walking home from sleepovers at his friends house, this was definitely worse. He also thought he had it good falling asleep in that beach chair. He did not have it good, his neck was killing.
He huffed, calling out through the house for his mum as he entered and locked the door behind him. No one was home, she must’ve already left for work. He walks upstairs, sliding off his shirt and throwing it onto his bed.
Tom then reaches for his phone, he always keeps it in his back pocket. He feels around his ass for that familiar cuboidal shape. He blinks then, more alert as he realizes it's not there. He mutters, “Shit, shit no no.” his brain goes to the worst possible outcome, which is that he left it somewhere in the woods. One of those junkies at that party has probably taken it by now. They're gonna sell it for like, 120 pounds at Cex and use that money to buy ket or something. He groans, teeth molars grinding together out of frustration. How the hell could he be so forgetful?
He thought all of that whilst pacing around his room in a panicked daze. He then glanced at himself in the mirror, seeing a small speck of blue at his side as he walked by. He then looks directly in the mirror. He sees his phone poking out of his front pocket and lets out a sigh- no more like a yell of relief. He takes it out to confirm that it’s really his phone and exhales again. He thinks for a moment, he religiously puts his phone in his back pocket, even if he’s drunk, it’s muscle memory to him.
Then, like an epiphany, he remembers. He remembers why it was there. He didn’t see it but he felt it, the fabric of his pocket being pulled at and his phone being slotted into there. Tord put it there.
He tilts his head, now staring up at the ceiling of his room. He then takes his own hand, using his own pointer finger and pulling his pocket open and letting his phone fall into the pocket. He relives the sensation, his face going hot, along with his ears. He blinks, then pulls his phone swiftly out of his pocket with a scoff. A scoff at his own behaviour.
He was acting this way because he was embarrassed, embarrassed because.. because.. He tried to convince himself, whatever just possessed him to replicate how Tord opened his pocket was not out of being flustered, that feeling was reserved for girls. He just.. went warm because he had a headache, his brain was short circuiting. He shook his head violently, he didn't have anyone to prove himself to. He didn’t care, he could forget about it and let it go. It wasn’t like anyone knew he did that but himself.
-
He munched on some mushy Weetabix in a daze. He was in clean clothes now, freshly showered. He could forget about last night, it wasn’t very memorable anyways. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about Tord? It was like he was malfunctioning, he did a kind thing, he gave him back his phone and made sure he took it. It was so simple yet he couldn’t forget it.
He clenched his jaw, teeth trapping the metal spoon between his teeth in frustration. He exhaled through his nose. Then he kept thinking about how he fell on Tord’s lap, he didn’t care about that much. He’d fallen onto other people tons of times, usually while drunk. Tom was particularly clumsy when he was intoxicated.
It was just the way Tord steadied him, he didn’t know for sure but he swore he felt a hand on his lower back holding him up. This was backed up by the fact he fell onto almost the edge of Tord's knee. He really should’ve fallen onto the floor seeing as he was already dizzy. But he didn’t, he was able to stay upright because Tord was holding him upright. There was no possible way he would’ve been able to hold himself up mid-fall. He grit his teeth even harder and slammed his fist onto the table like he’d reached another epiphany. What was with him? Why was he so hung up on all those little touches? He probably touched Edd more that night, resting his head on his shoulder, dragging him by his sleeve, flicking his nose. But he didn’t think about those, thinking about them didn’t burn straight through the front of his brain all the way to the back. He gripped his spoon again, shoveling more wheaty slop down his throat out of desperation. Think of something else, now.
He went about his day just staying at home, he practiced bass, completed some of his theory work his music teacher assigned him and mostly just lounged around the house until his phone went off.
He adjusted his position on the side of his bed and picked it up. It was the groupchat, Edd talking about going out camping, that he enjoyed sleeping in the woods out in the nature last night. Tom scoffed, just watching him type and send over and over again with tired eyes. He usually didn't reply to anything there unless it directly addressed him.
He perked up when he saw Tord’s bitmoji pop up. Sat up, fully straightening his back, and pulled his phone closer to his face. He watched him type and then promptly read the message.
“Sounds good to me”
With a thumbs up emoji following it.
Tom lingered in the group chat, the conversation had died out about 15 minutes ago.
Tom didn’t know what possessed him at that very moment, similarly to when he was putting his phone into his pocket and pretended it was Tord doing it, but he clicked onto Tord's profile and clicked message. The two didn’t actually have any existing previous messages.
He almost never messaged anyone directly, there was no need to when the only people he bothered to talk to were already in a group chat with him. Never needed to say anything that he couldn’t tell everyone else. Except for when he spoke to Edd really, which he mostly did in person anyways.
“Hey.”
He wrote out, then deleted it fully. He groaned, what the hell was he doing? Well now he had to message something since it would have already notified Tord that he was typing.
He then saw Tord’s bitmoji pop up in the chat. In a moment of desperation, he tried to think of something casual to text him, acting like he had a straightforward intention for wanting to talk to him. He didn’t. He had no idea what he was doing. He thought about what they had in common, they both did maths. Well technically Tord did it as an A-level, whilst Tom was resitting the exam from GCSE’s last year. Because he failed.
“You do maths right?” he wrote casually.
“ye”
Tord replied swiftly.
Tom wrote back then, “I need help with a question. It's algebra.”
Tord then sent a voice message instead of just typing, Tom’s cheeks went red. He felt a little giddy as he pressed play. “Tom, message your fucking teacher. Why are you asking me?”
His excitement died down right then and there. Tom remembered why he’d never asked Tord for maths help previously. It’s because Tord was a lazy, apathetic bum.
He sent a voice message back, “Cause i’m doing my homework now. My teacher isn’t replying outside of college hours. Just forget it.” He exhaled, swiping off the chat and shutting his phone off. Tom dropped it onto his nightstand. He needed to snap out of this daze, he’d never been so.. desperate to talk to someone. Especially not someone who he’s already known for 4 years. But for some reason his mind wouldn’t rest until he got his Tord fix.
He stood up, maybe he could grab lunch at the Subway nearby. His stomach churned, making a rumbling noise to express its emptiness just as Tom thought about food. He grumbled, maybe his hunger was the culprit for his strange behaviour today, though he doubted it. He’d been acting abnormally in the morning too, after scoffing down 3 bowls full of Weetabix.
Then his phone went off. He picked it up and clicked on the notification. It was Tord, he’d sent another voice message.
“What’s the question?”
Tom blinked, expression blank, sitting right back down and replying with a voice message too. “One second.”
He scrambled over to his school bag on the floor shamelessly. He grabs the algebra booklet his teacher had given them to complete. He flips the pages open and reads it out whilst holding down the voice button. “It’s like a triangle question.. I have to find x. It’ll be easier if I send you a photo.”
He could do the question himself, if he really tried, but he just felt some weird drive to take up Tord’s offer to now assist him. It wasn’t like Tord would know whether he could do it or not. He took a snap of the question on the paper and sent it to Tord.
Tord viewed the snap, then messaged now with words.
“are u kidding? thiis is so easy.”
He then sent, then a plethora of different laughing emojis to follow it up. His bitmoji showed he was speaking yet again, he let the message play.
“It’s an isosceles triangle, so the two angles at the bottom are..equal.” he kept taking small pauses during the message, it sounded like he was walking around his house. By the time Tom had listened to the first one, he’d already sent another. “So you would write it as 3x + 32 = 87 -2x. Then from there, you.. eh, make x the subject.”
Tom sent a simple message back, “Thanks.” to which Tord replies “no problem”. Tom waited until Tord’s bitmoji left the chat and replayed the voice message a few more times. He then simply shut off his phone, and decided to find something better to do with his time than be so pathetic. He should check if he had enough money for a foot long..