Love is... 1 (Marcus and Justus) - 3. Chapter 3

Time passed, and the next tennis class rolled around. Ever since what happened in the library, I hadn’t really talked to Justus. I didn’t even go to his house last Saturday like I told Chubby I would. It felt like we were drifting apart again, just being classmates in different social circles.

And more importantly, I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at him so often or from losing my nerve whenever we spoke.

But I knew I couldn’t keep going on like that forever.

“I’ll do my best, okay?”

“Huh? What’s that?” I turned around to ask as he followed behind me.

“Today’s another test day,right? I’ll try my best so you won’t have to stress. I’ll even help pick up the balls,” he said with a smile.

If this were back at the beginning, when we’d first been paired together, I probably would’ve snapped at him. But now, seeing his smile made my chest tighten.

“Just… just play properly,” I mumbled. I wanted to say ‘You already play like a pro, so it’s no big deal,’ but I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.

After we finished the test match, we left the court together. He invited me to sit with him under the tree, but I politely declined and walked over to Chubby, who was practicing volleys with his partner.

"The fuck, Marcus. Get out of my way!" he said without even looking at me, focused on the ball. "I’m not as good as you or Thomas, okay?"

"I don’t know how to act, dude."

"Yeah, I know. I’ve noticed." He said without glancing at me, but only the ball in the court.

"Why didn’t you say anything, then?"

“Dude, I’m telling you. Life’s not that simple. You gotta figure yourself out first, Marcus. It's none of my business, plus you didn't come to me for advice, did you?” Chubby said, giving the tennis ball he just scooped up a hard smack with his racket. The ball hit the net pole and bounced off violently.

“Shit! Sorry, Frank! Didn't mean to!” he yelled out.

“I don’t think I like him that way. I really don’t feel the same way about him like before…” I murmured.

“Oh, really?” He looked at me with a smug expression. “Then why are you avoiding him?” ”

“I am not!”

“Yes, you are. You’ve been ignoring him the whole time. You know it too. You didn’t talk to him because you’re scared that he’d figure out how you feel. You’re scared he’d find out what you’re thinking. You’re scared you’d feel awkward every time he smiles at you. Every time he looks at you, right?” Chubby poked his racket into my stomach, “Because if you didn’t feel that way, then why would you act so damn weird around him while he, on the other hand, I don’t think he even knows what’s going on with you, because if he did, he wouldn’t be smiling like that. He wouldn't be looking at you like that during the tennis class?”

Chubby’s words hit harder than a damn tennis ball straight to the gut. Fuck.

“Go. Go away already, you coward. Go warm up or take a shit. We’ll talk later. But if you’re serious about this and want to understand yourself better, then go talk to him. Tell him you’ll be at his place to practice. Tell him you’ll be playing tennis with him.” He smiled and shoved me forward. “And I’ll be there for you.”

What a rare friend this guy is.

I walked back to where Justus should’ve been sitting alone, only to find that some of his friends had joined him. They were talking and laughing as usual, so I turned and joined another group instead. And if you ask me whether I knew what my friends were talking about or what I was talking about—I honestly had no fucking clue.

After lunch break, right after the late-morning class, I headed to the library, thinking I’d chill in the air-conditioning and flip through some books. Maybe I’d read something just to kill time. Taylor and his crew were probably off playing soccer like always, and I wasn’t really in the mood anyway.

More importantly, Chubby kept asking me when I’d talk to Justus. He accused me of being a coward and shit. So, the library was the best place to avoid those jocks. But on the flip side of the coin, I had successfully avoided the jocks, but not the nerds. As expected, just as I was about to pull out a paperback and walk to a random seat, I saw Justus sitting there alone, quietly reading with his phone still in hand.

I stood there frozen for a moment, unsure whether I should go sit beside him, sit elsewhere, or just walk out.

Chubby’s words from our phone call still echoed in my head.

In the end, I decided to carry my paperback over and sit quietly next to him.

Justus didn’t react at all. He kept reading the same book, eyes scanning calmly across the page. At first, I thought he hadn’t noticed me, but eventually, he smiled a little and removed one earbud.

“Wanna read horoscopes again?” he asked.

“Huh? Oh, nah.” I blinked in surprise. “Just reading some news, really. Nothing much.”

“I thought you had started to believe in that kind of nonsense now.”

“Not really. It’s not like I take it seriously,” I said, flipping my newspaper open.

“Mmm.” He nodded slightly, then put his earbud back in.

I figured that was a sign that he didn’t want to talk anymore, so I let him read in peace and stayed quiet beside him.

But the truth is, I didn’t say anything Chubby told me to say—not because I didn’t want to—but because I was already sucked into watching him. Even though I pretended to read the paper, my mind was somewhere else. I couldn’t help wondering whether he was actually listening to music or if he was just wearing those earbuds to avoid conversation like he used to do.

Curious, I slowly leaned in closer to him, inch by inch, trying not to make it obvious—like I was shifting out of boredom—and finally ended up sitting close enough to see what his eyes were following on the page. But in the end, all my focus was on him alone. My ears filtered out everything else around me.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he suddenly said, snapping his head toward me, laughing a bit.

His voice jolted me so hard I almost choked on my breath and almost fell sideways off the chair.

“H-Huh? What?” I jerked back to my seat like nothing happened.

“I asked ‘what were you doing?’” He took off his earbuds. “What's the matter with you, hmm?”

“Nutthin’ I just feel a bit sore around my waist from playing too much tennis.”

“Oh really? I thought you wanted to lean on my shoulder or something.”

“Oh hell no. Stop that fucked up thought right now. I’m not gay and do not think of you that way even one bit.”

He stared at me before giving me a little smile, “That’s good because I’m not gay, either. And if you had a thing for me, it would probably be very fucked up, right?” After he finished talking, he turned back to his book and put the earbuds back on.

His voice and his face stabbed me more than what Chubby told me during the tennis class. I sat there, stunned, for a moment before angrily sweeping the newspapers on the table, making a messy stack before I abruptly left.

“Fuck!!” I swore loudly while walking back to class.

“Whoa! What’s your damn problem, Marcus?” Chubby asked. He was standing in front of the classroom.

I walked over to him and poked my finger hard into his chest, angrily. “It’s because of you, asshole!”

“Hey, hey! What did I do wrong?!” He slapped my hand away from him.

“If you hadn’t fucking suggested talking like that, I wouldn’t have needed to…” I couldn’t even finish my sentence before exhaling forcefully through my nose in frustration. I walked inside, slumped down heavily into my seat, and surely after that, I hardly understood a thing during the afternoon classes. And even Chubby himself seemed equally tense, so he didn’t ask anything anymore.

I kept telling myself Justus was just being sarcastic. I wanted to believe he was being sarcastic when he said he wasn’t gay, even though deep down he knew he actually was. I wanted to believe it that way, hoping it might make me feel a little better. But his voice, his smile, and that expression on his face told me it wasn’t sarcasm. He was being completely honest. He wasn’t teasing me at all, not even one bit.

I started asking myself again: Why did I want him to be sarcastic? Why did I care so much about what he said? Why did I worry so much about whether he was gay or not? And why the hell did it hurt so bad hearing that from him?

“What’s wrong with you, Marcus?” Justus’s voice rang out just as I was packing up after class. I looked up to see him watching me. “Today at the library, were you mad at me?”
Chubby was sitting nearby. He made a strange look and then kept his face blank for a moment before slowly sliding out of his desk, leaving us alone.

“Nothing,” I answered flatly before standing up. “Move. I’m leaving.”

He took one step back, tilting his body to make space for me to walk past. I moved past him and left the classroom. After that, I went straight home.

I didn’t talk about what had happened at noon with Chubby. Even after several days had passed, I also hadn’t talked to Justus about it either. I didn’t go anywhere with him, didn’t eat with him, didn’t do his homework, and didn’t stop by his desk when he was sitting alone.

During tennis class, we only partnered up and rallied together just enough to get by. Even when Justus tried to chat with me like usual and asked how I was doing—I didn’t answer. I never answered those questions again.

All of that only happened during the first few days. As time went on, he seemed to lose interest in asking. He stopped trying to ask me what went wrong like before and we pretty much stopped talking entirely.

Don’t ask me why I did all of that. I don’t even know how I feel about any of this. Not even a little. I’ve never known why I did what I did, or what it was for. All I knew was that it came from some kind of resentment. I didn’t mean to be cruel. I didn’t know how to talk to him the way I used to. And most importantly… I missed him so much. I really didn’t know why. His words that day still echoed in my ears. His voice and smile—his whole expression from that moment—still haunted me. It stuck with me so hard it never faded. If I’m being honest… it was just like a wound on the skin of a delicate fruit that was permanently cut so deeply it left a scar.

Every day, I felt a sharp sting whenever I saw his face. And the pain only grew worse. Every time I saw him smiling or laughing with someone else, I couldn’t tell what they were even talking about. I just knew he looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. Meanwhile, I couldn’t even bring myself to smile. This sharp pain had carved itself so deep I couldn’t stand it anymore. And even though Justus could still smile like nothing ever happened, I couldn’t do the same. I think that hurt even more than his words. It was seeing him again and again, day after day, still so cheerful—while I… If I didn’t figure out a way to deal with it, if I didn’t do something to fix it, I think one day I might just explode.

So, I tried turning all those feelings of longing into hatred, into fuel that would stop me from missing him. I turned it into a desire to win, to beat him at tennis, to make him look like just another rival, which seemed to work.

However, I started to drift away emotionally. More than I ever thought I would. I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t find it fun. Tennis was just the same as always. But before this, when I saw him chatting and laughing with other people, I would just feel slightly annoyed. Now, it was pure pain. Deep, raw pain. When I saw him doing well in class or in tennis, I didn’t just want to beat him—I wanted to destroy him. I felt like I was losing face. I wanted to escape the confrontation. And yet… in those moments, I still felt a strange kind of admiration for his shine.

But now, I felt only regret. Regret that I’d ever wanted to get closer to him again. I didn’t even want to show my face to him anymore. And because of that, I had to admit that everything I’d tried to rebuild… all of it… had failed.

One day, on the way back from the cafeteria with Chubby, we happened to pass by Justus and the group with Parker. Four or five of them were sitting and chatting. They waved us over to sit, but we didn’t join. Instead, we stopped beside one of the pairs and stood talking for a moment. After finishing catching up with those guys, that’s when Chubby spoke up.

“It’s been way too long, Marcus.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked at me. “You know what I mean. What the fuck do you think it is that I asked?”

“God, Chubby! If I’d known, would I have asked you?”

“It’s about Justus, you dimwit,” he said.

I groaned, “Why bring this up again?”

“Don’t do this to yourself. I saw it. Back then.”

“Saw what?”

“I saw you didn’t look at him. You were trying way too hard to pretend he was invisible. As for the other stuff, you haven’t been talking for ages. I always knew that. It’s been too long for a short high school life, Marcus.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that if it’s none of your business, you won’t pry into mine? You have nothing to worry about. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

“Uh-huh… You sure? Because I am sure as hell he looks like he cares a whole lot.”

His words made me glance over at him immediately. “What?”

“I said Justus was looking at you the whole time back then. And you—you just try so hard to ignore him.”

“I told you it’s not like that. I think you were just being delirious,” I replied. “It’s just impossible.”

“Uh-huh… You sure? Because I’m pretty observant. At the court, in the classroom, when he was walking past us in the cafeteria, while we were playing soccer and when you were talking to other guys… so yeah, I must have been delirious.” He was walking behind me, kept ranting, “Oh right. When he called me to ask about you, I must have also been out of my ass, too.”

I stopped in my tracks. “What did you just say? He called you?”

“And now it’s the business between me and Justus, and you cannot do shit about it.”

“You fucker! I’ll…”

“LOOK! YOU STUPID LITTLE SHIT!” he interrupted before I could finish my sentence. “If you don’t hurry up to realize that you are about to lose your good friend, good guy and something even more than ‘good’ in your heart soon; I will really have to smack your head with the tennis racket, using the frame hitting your fucking throat!”

I opened my mouth to say something—but nothing came out.

“Listen, damn it. Just shut up and listen to me. I’ll only say this once, alright? I don’t normally say shit like this. But I care about you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I want the best for you. I want to see you happy. When you’re happy, I’m happy too. But are you really happy right now? Are you really okay with everything in your heart? Please don’t just say ‘yes, I am very happy,’ because I’m gonna argue with you—and you know damn well I’ll always win. Think about it, you rotten toenail. I’ve already told you to open your heart and not to fight against it. Oh, and reduce that stupid pride and ego of yours too. Lower your guard and pay attention to what you really wanna say. Do what you truly want to do. And frankly, between you and me, whatever you decide to do, you don’t even have to tell me. I’ll understand, as long as it’s from your heart. I’ll accept it and stand beside you no matter what.”

I just stood there listening, stunned. I couldn’t come up with a single thing to say back to all that he had poured out from his heart.

“Just say somethin’ already, you ugly amoeba,” he smacked the back of my head.

“OWW!!”

“The bell is gonna ring soon! Go upstairs now, you piece of shit!”

“Goddamn it! Why do you always have to ruin the moment, you pig’s shit!”

Chubby grabbed me by the neck and laughed, “This is exactly how our friendship should be!”

I didn’t really know how to explain it, but what he said—while it didn’t exactly fix anything about how I felt about Justus—it gave me this strange, indescribable strength.

The problem was… what he said about Justus. That Justus might be feeling down about me, the same way I was now about him. That he might have something in his heart too. I wasn’t sure I could believe it. It didn’t seem likely, thinking about that incident at the library. Plus, I still didn’t see how he would express any feelings or care toward me at all—like what Chubby said. Still, I decided to try believing it just this once.

“But… Chubby… I... I...” I mumbled to him while we were whispering under the desk in the classroom.

“What?!”

“I… I…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, my face got all hot. I even felt suffocated. “I don’t know how to even start talking to him again… I… I think I’m too shy to do that, fuck! I’ve never lacked my confidence this much before.”

Chubby grabbed his own head and his body shook violently before he finally managed to lift his face again—When he looked at me, I saw his face turning red, and his eyes welling up with tears.

“What the hell’s wrong with you!” I hissed, scared the teacher might overhear.

“Marcus… Marcus… Marcus… Marcus…”He just kept repeating my name, “You feel SHY!!??” He was still trying to stifle his laugh.

“If you don’t stop laughing in five seconds, I swear to god, we’re through, asshole!”

“Okay… okay…” He slowly straightened up and took a deep breath. Then looked me straight in the eye.

“Okay, just forgive me a little. I didn’t mean to… Marcus… I was just... I didn’t think that my best friend would be so...” He was already smiling again, “So… so… CUTE!”

My face flushed harder than before. “You BIG FAT BITCH!!”

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry, alright! But seriously, if you can’t say it to his face, why not just text him? Wrote him a letter if you want. Anything short and easy will do. No need to think too much about it. You’re not submitting an essay.”

I muttered, “Would this really work?”

He raised his phone with a smug look. “Right now. At this moment. This momentum is perfect. Do it fast before you chicken out again.”

I pulled out my phone from my pocket. Chubby was still smirking with that smug face, pushing me to do it. So, I began typing out a short message on my phone. Once I was done, I hit send to Justus’s number.

“Sent,” I said.

We both looked toward Justus, who happened to be sitting nearby, not too far away. He was seated in front of one of the nearby desks, facing the windows. A moment later, he reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his phone, and tapped to check the new message.

As soon as he saw the sender’s name, his head snapped in my direction.
But Chubby and I were faster. We both pretended to be paying attention to whatever was on the whiteboard.

When I glanced past Chubby, I saw Justus reading my message. And when I actually turned to look at him, I saw that he was smiling faintly. He looked at me again, but I quickly avoided eye contact and kept my eyes glued to the whiteboard for a minute before glancing at him again. This time, my eyes met his—his smile, his gaze—both waiting for me.

I read his lips as he mouthed something to me, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“What did you tell him in that message, Marcus?” Chubby asked.

“Not gonna snitch. It’s about me… and him,” I smiled.

“Bleghhhhhhhh!!” he squealed in the tiniest voice he could manage.

It felt so damn good to finally get back.

“What did you send to him? If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask him myself!”

“I just said I wanna go play tennis at his place tomorrow. That’s all.”

Chubby looked confused, “That’s all?”

“Yup, BUT you have to go with me, got it?”

He snorted with frustration then turned to jot down what was on the board. “You made me excited for not-fucking-thing... But fine, I’ll go with you.”

I didn’t know what Chubby was hoping I’d get out of this. But for me… just being able to send Justus a message—and having him reply—that alone gave me a lot of courage. In fact, I hadn’t thought about whether Justus would like me and not even me liking him that way. I just wanted to go back to how things were. I mean I just wanted to talk to him again, not even as good as before would be fine for me. I just didn’t want us to be like this because, apart from the fire in my heart that kept making me tortured, I also made Chubby unhappy, and Justus, who had no idea what went wrong, feel suffering as well.

And I started thinking—if Justus really didn’t think anything of me in that way at all, then fine… at least I wouldn’t have to keep wondering what he thought of me, how he felt, or what I should’ve done so things didn’t feel so awkward.

So, I gave myself the answer—to avoid getting tangled in the emotional mess. I just needed to talk to him like usual, like nothing was going on. Just like when we first got paired up to play tennis.

Well, at first, I thought it’d be easy… but when it really came down to it, my heart felt so soft and exposed. When class ended, my friends started getting up, chatting, and slowly heading out. Some stayed behind, talking or messing around. Chubby’s group and Justus’s group were still hanging around too.

I kept sneaking glances at Justus’s face. Sometimes it seemed like he knew I was looking—and he was watching me too. But that was it—just glances. Glances that made me feel so shy and made me look away every damn time.

See? Just looking at him made me feel like this. So how the hell would I survive talking to him—or going to his place?

In the afternoon, I got up from the table where my friends were all gathered, and headed to the restroom. After I finished, I walked back toward the classroom to grab my backpack and hang out downstairs with everyone until we headed home. But just before I turned into the hallway, I saw Justus standing against the wall by the door, talking on his phone. As I drew nearer, he ended the call. When he looked up from his phone and saw me walking toward him, he gave me a small smile.

“You’re really going, right, Marcus?”

“Ah... uh, just like I said, man.”

“And what if Tony and Thomas couldn’t go?”

“Why?”

“No... I mean, I just want to know, like, if those guys can’t go, will you still go?”

“No, no, dammit, I meant why can’t they go? Didn’t they say they go every Saturday already?”

“Oh, I heard Thomas is going to get his teeth fixed, and Tony will tag along as an emotional support animal. So the others kinda ditch this. That’s why I’m asking you if you still want to go. But I already called my mom and told her my friend is going to our house, so she’s super happy.”

“Huh, why is she happy?” I wondered.

“My mom’s just like that,” he smiled and shrugged. “She freaking loves having guests. Loves when my dad’s friends or my friends come over to the house. She’s a housewife, you know, just staying home, so she likes to cook meals, bake stuff, things like that. She loves feeding other people, and once you eat it, you’ve got to praise her, man. That’s it, and she’s the happiest ever.”

“Oh, yeah, seems like your mom… uhh… she seems really sweet, right? Seems like she’s a cheerful person.”

“Totally, man. But actually, at my house, everyone’s in a good mood,” he looked away, then glanced back at me again. “So… geez, are you still going or what?”

I hesitated a bit. “Uh… but I wasn’t going alone anyway, man.”

“You mean Chubby, right? I already know that, man.”

“Uh… and maybe there’ll be others too, like Morgan or whoever. I don’t want to go with just one or two people, you know?”

“Hey, fine, whatever. I don’t care. Just please go, Marcus, because I already told my mom.”

My heart beat a little faster. “Just now… did you say, ‘please go’?”

“Yeah, it’s you guys—I don’t care how many of you. Just go together. My house welcomes you.”

“Oh that’s what you meant…” I felt my heart sink a bit, feeling disgusted with myself for overthinking that much. “Heh, I should have thought of that… yeah, okay.”

“So, should have thought of what again?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but luckily I realized that my mouth was about to run wild again, so I decided to change the subject at the last second. “Well… I was saying that maybe Parker and those other guys also might not go.”

“Heh… how do you know that?”

“The sixth sense of a handsome guy,” I shrugged.

“Yeeeeaaaah right,” he laughed.

I stood looking at Justus’s face and felt strangely… odd. The anxiety about not knowing how to start talking, how to look at him, completely vanished. And when I saw his smile and heard his laughter like that, it made me feel more and more like a crazy person who just overthinks everything alone, losing my mind by myself more and more.

Justus is a bit shorter than me—looks to be around a bit above 5’8. His skin is fair and smooth, but I think most students of Chinese descent at my school look like this. He’s a bit on the quiet side, but he’s still friendly, lively and smiles a lot. Actually, he’s not someone whose face is that striking by any means. Except that what makes him seem so charming in my eyes—and in many others’—is his smile, the dimples on both sides, and those insanely clear, sparkling eyes of his.

Uh… so this means I really like him, right? Normally other guys wouldn’t think like that about their own friends, right?

“…So confirmed you and Chubby, yeah?”

“Huh… heh… huh, what did you say? Oh, yeah, I’ll go, of course, and with Chubby. I told you."

“What were you spacing out about, man? Fine, fine, so will you take your bag with you?” He pointed into the classroom. “Then I can go in and grab my bag, too, if you’re going to take it.”

“WHAT THE—to do it today of all days?”

“Well, if you’re not going today, then when? I told you already, and I have to return this book today. So, are you going to go to the library with me as a friend or not?!” he said, looking

puzzled, “I texted you earlier as well, remember?”

“Oh that…?” My brain processed it slowly. “Yeah, yeah—going to the library, since you were just inviting me to go to the library…”

“Well, of course. What did you hear, man?”

“No, no,” I shook my head, thinking to myself, Actually, I didn’t hear anything you said at all.

“So, are you going to take your bag or come back to fetch it later?”

“Yeah, let’s go ahead, take it,” I walked past him into the room, feeling shy and somewhat disgusted with myself. Was my face really turning red right now or what?

“Hey, Justus’s finally here,” Chubby, who was sitting at my table, spoke up. “Dude, Brad Face, we were going to sit downstairs together. You’re making us wait here forever! Was it number one or number two?”

“Get your ass off my table right now, you sperm-crossbreed. I need to get my bag,” I said, shoving him off my table and lifting my own bag. “Damn it—there’s plenty of space, but you chose to sit on my bag again. Bastard!”

“Alright, go, go,” Chubby said, reaching to grab his own bag just like the others did. “Our prince is here.”

“You guys go on ahead. I’ll catch up in a bit.”

“One sec—where are you going?” Brad asked.

“To… the library.”

“With who—by yourself?”

“No, I’m going with…” I glanced at Chubby. “Justus. I’m going with him to return a book—just for a sec, man. After it’s done, I’ll text you guys.”

“Oh? I thought you two were having a problem. So, you two cleared things up now or what?”

“What? No, we’ve never had any problems,” I said, though it didn’t come out wholeheartedly.

“No cap? Then why did we see back then that…?”

“Hey, hey, just go already. Forget it. Hey, Brad, whenever you finish talking, let’s move our asses already,” Chubby cut in. “Then just text or call me when you’re done, Marcus.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, looking at Justus, who was standing and talking with his own friend. He turned, caught my eye, and gave me a slight nod. So I turned back to my friends. “Alright, I’ll go first—see you later.”

“Hey, wait up, Marcus,” Chubby stopped me before I reached the door.

“What now?”

“So, I can see you ‘dance’ for me, yeah?” He grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.

“Go fuck yourself!” I flipped him off. “You’ll never see me do that—no way!”

“There he goes again—big mouth, all talk, but no action,” he said, smiling lightly.

“Enough, you beast! I cut you off before you finished—you’re the one with the big mouth, asshole!”

“Marcus, are we ready to go?” Justus’s voice called out near me.

I turned to look at him and saw he was already walking up to me. I nodded, and the two of us walked out of the classroom together.

We walked to the library without saying much. I honestly didn’t know what to say. Just walking next to him like this made me so tense. And who was I to dare say anything? To be truthful, I still hadn’t forgotten his words and tone from that day in the library; every time I thought about it, I felt a weird pain inside.

“Hey, I want to ask you something, Marcus,” Justus said as he handed a book back to the librarian. “What was it that pissed you off that day?”

I was stunned for a moment because I really wasn’t ready to talk about this with him yet. And, to be honest, even if I were ready, I still wouldn’t want to say it out loud.

“Did I make you really angry?” he continued, still not looking at me. His voice dropped and sounded hurtful.

“Uh… no, not really.”

“It’s just that I wanted to tell you that….”

“All set here,” the librarian said as she returned his student card, cutting him off mid-sentence. Justus turned to face me. “Let’s go outside—you’re blocking everyone’s way.”

“Oh, shoot.” I quickly scooted to let the other students pass by me.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said, lightly tapping my back before stepping ahead to lead me out—but he tapped me pretty low.

Aw, fuck! When I’m trying not to think, you go and make me think!

“Hey, Justus,” I called to him.

“What?” he turned back to face me.

“Uh… so where are we going next?”

“I don’t know—you’re supposed to go find Chubby, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, okay—go ahead, then. You can call me tomorrow. Actually, better call tonight—let me know how many of you are coming, I mean in case the other guys change their minds, and what time you’ll be here tomorrow so I can tell my mom.”

“You… want to go sit at the cafeteria with me?” I asked, basically asking him out for the first time.

“Oh? Why? What for—going to eat?”

“Yeah, basically. I just want to grab something to snack on.”

“Aren’t you supposed to go meet up with your friends?”

“I’m not in a hurry. But fine—if you’re in a rush or if you’ve got stuff to do, you can go ahead without me. I know you probably don’t really want to go with me anyway.”
God, I wanted to smack my own face for real—damn it!

“Then go. I’m not in a hurry, either,” he answered nonchalantly.

“Seriously?”

“Well, you invited me, didn’t you? So, what do you want?”

“Oh right, yeah, fine. Let’s go.”

The two of us walked to the cafeteria together. Fortunately, it wasn’t far from the library, so I didn’t have to worry about coming up with something to say while we walked, nor did I have to worry that we might run out of things to talk about and it would get awkwardly quiet. And I wasn’t sure if he would bring up that question again right away.

By the time we reached the cafeteria, he’d already gone to sit and wait at a table. I went over and bought a dessert so I could sit and eat with him, even though I wasn’t hungry at all. I really didn’t understand myself—why was I dragging him here to sit with me when simply talking to him made me feel awkward and I didn’t even know what to say?

Once I sat down across from him, I quietly started eating my dessert while he fiddled with his phone. We sat like that for a moment, and of course it was him who finally broke the silence.

“So, what was that?” he said, even though he was still tapping on his phone.

“What was what?”

“You know, that thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing I asked you in the library,” he said, looking up, meeting my eyes, and slipping his phone into his pocket.

“I forgot. You’ll have to ask again.” I wanted him to smile, but he didn’t.

“I want to know what I did to make you so mad at me.”

“And why would you want to know?” I looked down and slowly picked my dessert with my fork.

“Because I just want to apologize.”

“Then apologize.”

“But I need to know what I did wrong first.”

I looked up and met his gaze. “You’re stubborn, you know that?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, man. I’m not saying, ‘I won’t say sorry unless I’m in the wrong,’ or anything like that. I mean, I want to apologize specifically for whatever bad thing I did—not just say ‘sorry’ without knowing what it’s for, making that word meaningless and hollow, you know?” he explained, which left me a little stunned.

“Don’t look at me like I’m such an asshole, Marcus.”

This time I was even more stunned. If it had been me earlier, I probably would have shot something back at him. But Chubby’s face, looming in my mind, shut my mouth before it could start barking something awfully wrong.

“No, I didn’t think that about you…” I lowered my head again.

“Hmm,” he made a soft sound in his throat.

We were silent for a moment, and then I spoke in a voice so quiet and distant that even I could barely hear myself.

“I’m sorry…”

“Huh?” he leaned in a little toward me. “What was that?”

I was so embarrassed my face felt hot all over, and I didn’t dare lift my eyes from my dessert.

“Hey, what did you say just now?” he pressed, genuinely puzzled.

“Nothing. It’s not important. Never mind.”

“Man, how can that be unimportant?”

“Just let it go, okay?” I managed to look up, but I still turned my gaze away.

“No, no—tell me what you said.”

“For God’s sake! Stop being so stubborn! You mother—” I stopped myself; however, my voice was already loud enough to echo in the cafeteria. I lowered my voice so he could hear it: “I said I’m sorry that I acted like that toward you. Are you happy now?”

This time he grinned widely, and the dimples on his cheeks made his glossy face look even brighter than before.

“Yeah, it ain’t that hard, is it?” He said.

“See? You heard me, asshole!”

“What? I never said I heard you. How’d you know?” he said teasingly. “I just simply asked you to say it again.”

“I could tell from your sly face!”

“You’re imagining things again. Sheesh…. Okay, okay, so will you tell me now what I did wrong back then? I want to apologize, because that thing pissed you off so much you wouldn’t even talk to me, right?”

“I don’t remember,” I said, looking away.

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t remember? You still hadn’t talked to me today—until just earlier when you sent me that message.”

“All right, I’ll ask you back then, Justus. Why do you forgive me so easily—even though I acted like an asshole and refused to talk to you for so long, and you didn’t even know what I did wrong? And more importantly, why did you call Chubby to talk about me?”

“I just called him to ask if he knew what was up with you—why you wouldn’t talk to me. That’s it.”

“And you even cared about that?”

“Of course I do! You’re one of my friends. How can I not care about you?”

That sting in my left chest came back again.

“…And when Chubby told me that you kept glancing at me all the time because you were worried— is that true?”

This time it was him who looked a little caught off guard, but damn—he recovered fast.

“What do you mean glancing at you? I didn’t mean to look…” His voice trailed off into silence before he looked the other way. He scratched his head lightly before turning back to look me in the eye. “Right. Yes, I was worried. I admit it. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. Besides, it just felt wrong and kinda suffocating, you know what I mean? We had been friends and talked on a daily basis, and then suddenly you disappeared, and I felt like it was my fault.”

“It’s only one friend, and honestly speaking, you and I are not even that close,” I blurted it out before thinking.

“That’s true. You and I may not even be that close,” he said, “but you are important to me.”

“Me, important to you?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“I don’t even know how to explain it….” He lightly scratched his head, looking for words. “Just consider that you are important to me because you are my friend. That’s probably the simplest way to put it. I really value the word ‘friend.’”

“Okay, I get it.”

“So answer me, Marcus. Exactly what did I do wrong that made you mad at me?”

Shit, stubborn bastard… He hasn’t even answered my other questions yet, but okay, I don’t want to know about those right now.

“Let’s just say…” I rested both arms on the table and leaned my face toward his. “I’ll get to the point—short and simple, and don’t ask me again, okay?”

“Okay, okay.”

“Right—I was really mad at you back then, but you didn’t do anything wrong. Not at all. It was not your fault. It was mine.”

“Oh, then why were you mad at me?”

“I told you not to ask. You already promised,” I said, pointing at him.

“Okay, okay, sorry—sorry,” he raised both hands in surrender. “I’ll stop. I fold.”

“Good, because I’m selfish. It’s good that you give in to me often.”

“That book didn’t mention at all that Aries is selfish, you know.”

“But you said you didn’t remember.”

“I said I normally can’t remember.”

“Then how was it not normal for you back then?”

Just as I finished asking, my phone rang. I picked it out of my pocket, and when I saw the screen, I realized the caller wasn’t anyone else but Chubby.

“Hey, what’s up?” I said into the phone after pressing the answer button.

“You asshole! You completely disappeared—were you making out with him or what? Jesusss—just to return a book you vanish for this long!”

“I’m gonna kick your ass and shut you up, you beast! We’re all sitting in the cafeteria, damn it!”

“Oh, really? Okay, okay, I won’t bug you then. Haha!” As soon as I finished speaking, he hung up immediately.

“Chubby’s calling for you?”

“Not really ‘calling to find you.’ He was just wondering why we disappeared for so long—that’s it.”

“I see… if you’re not gonna eat, then let’s go. I also have to call Parker, otherwise he’ll probably call me to check up on me just like Chubby did,” he said, turning and grabbing his backpack to sling it over his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, picking up my own backpack to sling over my shoulder, too. Then we parted ways in front of the cafeteria door to go find our friends.

That night, I talked with Chubby and we decided the two of us would probably go together. But before we could even discuss this, I had to dodge his prying and insults as he hammered me for my feelings toward Justus for a long time. By the time we reached that conclusion, I had already been on the receiving end of his scolding for quite a while too—because I was so tense that I felt like I wanted to change my mind and not go to Justus’s place several times.