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1. The One Time in the Corridor
It was bad enough Charlie was spending all his free time with Nick Nelson. Now Tao had to face the crucible of stupid rugby meatheads as he entered the school all alone. They were just so loud, so present, taking up so much space in the world, it nearly overwhelmed the front gates of Truham Grammar School.
Harry leaned against the stone gate, flipping his silly rugby ball in the air like he was Danny Turner or like he owned the school. He was laughing too loudly at jokes he was telling that no one else found funny. Even his sycophantic cronies weren’t reacting, and they haw-haw’d at nearly every neanderthalic nonsense their “brilliant leader” brayed.
Tao tried to walk past, to avoid responding or saying anything that might draw Harry’s attention. He truly did, but he couldn’t help his natural irritated resting face. Before he could fix it, Harry called to him.
“Oi, Xu! Not hiding in the library today? Didn’t know you left your natural habitat.” It wasn’t clever by any metric, but it finally earned some snarky laughs from the neckbeards next to him. Tao stopped and turned, immediately regretting it as the laughter intensified.
“Didn’t know you had one,” Tao shot back. “Outside of an arsehole.” He grimaced when he heard himself. It came out sharper and louder than intended. He’d just called one of the biggest dicks at Truham a piece of shit, albeit without saying it directly. He hoped no one put two and two together, and he was confident they wouldn’t since, well, rugby. He peeked behind him, expecting to see balled fists.
Harry was blinking in surprise. The rest of the lads looked as confused as he did. Tao didn’t stick around to see what came next. He just thanked the cinema gods and kept walking, heart pounding like he’d just escaped a life-threatening situation instead of a school confrontation. His imagination went to a rumble like in West Side Story and he chuckled at the absurdity of Harry dancing like a Jet. He looked to his left to tell Charlie and then sighed at the blank space, frowning.
2. The One with the Group Project Disaster
For their chemistry class, he and Tao got paired together because, of course, they did. The universe had a sick sense of humor. It was almost embarrassing for Tao to have to work with this wanker because despite seemingly not knowing any elements on the periodic table, Harry thought he knew all about chemistry.
Harry smirked. “Try to keep up, yeah?”
Tao didn’t even look at him as he inserted the electrodes to the potato. “Don’t worry. I’ll translate everything into simple terms for you.”
“Funny.”
“I try. Someone in this partnership has to bring something to the table,” Tao muttered waiting for the LED light to flicker. Nothing happened. He waved his hand for Harry to write notes, and Harry grunted.
“You did it wrong, Xu,” Harry bleated. “One end needs to be zinc, and the other needs to be copper. And you need to have the opposite not attached to wire so you can connect the charges to see if it worked.”
Tao shot him a glance of pure annoyance, channeling his frustration as far back as he could roll his eyes, before he took Harry’s suggestion, adjusting his sad potato. For a moment, it reminded him of his subpar artistic skills and his crush on Elle, and he felt a pang in his chest as he finished preparing the experiment.
Harry took the wired LED light and touched the unwired ports, making the light flicker weakly.
“Paha!” he crowed triumphantly as Tao seethed. “I remembered this lesson.”
It was painfully awkward after that. They worked in silence for the rest of class with Tao aggressively writing notes and Harry scrolling on his phone like none of this mattered. Tao told himself he didn’t care either, but he’d be damned if he shared that with Harry.
3. The One at the Rugby Match
Tao hadn’t meant to show up at Charlie’s rugby match. Well, he had intended to stomp over from the art building to the rugby pitch to see Charlie, but he hadn’t planned on staying to watch Charlie actually playing rugby and playing decently. But he was a supportive friend, and it’s what supportive friends did when they weren’t shitting all over their friend’s crushes on straight guys.
What he definitely hadn’t meant to do was stand near Harry.
“Didn’t peg you as the sporty type,” Harry said, eyeing him as drank from his water bottle. He reached towards Tao, offering the bottle. Tao took it, their fingers brushing.
“I’m not,” Tao replied instantly, staring at Harry through glaring, ragey eyes as he took a squirt himself. “I’m here for the cultural experience. It’s like visiting a zoo and seeing lads in a spectacle. Besides, why aren’t you playing?”
“You’re such a nerd,” Harry snorted, watching the game and the boys and gesturing towards Charlie. “We have to give our alternate some pitch time.”
That made sense, Tao supposed. He and Harry watched in silence and then he looked at Tao. “So what am I, then?”
Tao rolled his eyes but glanced at the pitch. “It depends. Are we assuming you’re a predator or endangered species?”
Harry laughed, actually laughed. It was an alien sound, unlike anything Tao had ever heard him utter.
“I’m an endangered species, Xu,” Harry muttered, offering another pull on his water bottle. When Tao took it, their fingers brushed again. Tao watched him as he released a stream of water into his mouth. “There’s only one me.”
Tao choked on the water, and for a second, he didn’t know what to make of Harry’s comment, so he crossed his arms and looked away like it hadn’t affected him at all.
4. The One at the Party
Against his better judgement, Tao allowed Charlie to drag him to a party. Nick would be there, and he had made plans to meet up with him but wanted Tao there in case Nick flaked. Charlie failed to mention it was at Harry’s house. No sooner had they arrived, but Charlie saw Nick, made a beeline towards him, and disappeared into the obnoxious Euro pop playing over the Greene sound system.
With an eye roll that hurt his head, Tao wove his way to the snack table.
“Didn’t think you came to things like this,” Harry said, handing him a drink.
Tao eyed it suspiciously. The cup contained bright red liquid that smelled too strongly of watermelon and coconut. He took a sip and felt the sweet liquid burn down his throat.
“Didn’t think you were capable of basic hospitality, so I guess we’re both full of surprises,” he sputtered, taking another sip.
Harry rolled his eyes. “It’s just soda, Xu.”
“Wow. Growth.” Tao’s sip became a gulp, and he definitely knew it was more than soda. “And a lie.”
Harry almost smiled. “I didn’t spike it, if that means anything. I don’t need people getting sick on my parents’ carpets.”
Tao nodded, appreciating the words. He almost believed him and almost didn’t feel like immediately leaving. He looked around at the Greene’s parlour, taking in the generational finery. “I can’t believe your parents let you have parties here.”
“What they don’t know won’t hurt him,” Harry huffed. “They’re in the Maldives on holiday anyway.”
Tao started. “Who’s staying with you?”
“The housekeeper, I guess, and the valet and maid,” he said, his face bunching as he gestured like he was counting the staff. Tao sighed loudly and added to his eyeroll-induced headache before Harry laughed, an obnoxious, braying sort of sound. “I’m fucking with you. It’s just me.”
“Oh, well, good, I guess?” Tao said, and Harry shrugged. He looked away, and his face seemed pained. Tao didn't know if he should say anything else. It didn't matter. They didn’t talk anymore as some of Harry’s mates came to the table. Tao made himself scarce, checking on Charlie enough to know whether he was needed and receiving a shoo-ing hand as Charlie followed Nick towards a dark corner.
5. The One at the Rainy Bus Stop
Harry and Tao were the only two at the bus stop one rainy afternoon. Of course, they were. Harry stood in his mackintosh with his broad, wide umbrella mostly covering him. The rain dripping off the top rolled effortlessly off his coat’s waterproof fabric. Tao futzed with his own umbrella next to him, drenched to his skin.
A gust of wind made Tao’s umbrella flip inside out. He cursed. Harry turned and stared, wiping rainwater from his face. He laughed softly. “That’s tragic.”
“Thank you for your insight,” Tao muttered, wrestling with the bent prongs and trying to make his compact variety do its bloody job before chucking it into the nearest bin. “Truly groundbreaking commentary. Nobel Prize worthy.”
Harry stepped closer, holding his own umbrella over both of them.
Tao froze. “What are you doing?”
“Preventing you from dying of embarrassment in the rain.”
“I wasn’t embarrassed,” Tao huffed indignantly.
“You were fighting with your umbrella,” Harry replied with a smirk. Tao didn’t feel malice behind it.
“It started it,” he sulked.
Harry laughed again, softer this time, and Tao didn’t move away, staying under the shelter until their bus came. Later, he wondered why Harry was even taking the bus. Surely he didn’t need to. At the same time, he was happy to have had shelter.
6. The One where Tao Wasn’t Sarcastic
It happened after school behind the building where no one really went. Harry was there, sitting on the curb, unusually quiet. He didn’t have his audience. There was no smirking or cacophonous laughter, just somber silence. Tao almost turned around, feeling like he was intruding on something.
“Xu.” Harry’s voice was barely a whisper, almost a plea. Tao hesitated, then stayed.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Where he usually spoke to Harry with sarcasm, his question held no bite. It was simply normal, and it surprised him.
Harry shrugged, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. “Yeah. Just… stuff.”
Tao nodded, feeling Harry’s response before registering the words. It wasn’t sadness but something deeper, something he suspected Harry usually kept hidden. He didn’t push or make a joke. He had no repartee to armor himself. He just sat down beside Harry.
“My parents aren’t coming back,” he shared. “They’re going to be in Copenhagen with my brother as he gets ready for his wedding, and they’ll send for me when they need me to sit for pictures.”
Harry didn’t say anything else, not for a while. Tao didn’t speak either, and somehow, it wasn’t awkward at all. He thought of his father’s passing, and how he and his mother had grown closer in his absence. Yet he understood the feeling of abandonment shading Harry’s confession. It humanised him, and Tao felt pity for Harry.
He had no answers, no words of encouragement, so he put an arm around Harry’s shoulder as a feeble gesture and felt the other young man shudder as he sobbed. As he did nearly everything in his life, Tao ran through his cinema files to find a reference, a comparison point, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t seen a film yet that captured this human moment, so he stored it in his memory: Harry being vulnerable and him not reacting with snark. Someday, he’d make their story come alive for others.