Symphony in Blue | a gay love story

Rivers

Owen and Arthur: school

word count: 680

Arthur had always enjoyed geography for some reason or another, never really sure why, something about the landscape and learning about the world around had always intrigued him.

Today was just another mundane thursday morning geography lesson at the end of the corridor. Mr Grahams was great, at times, but the rest of the time he sucked the life and soul out of every unfortunate soul to be in a lesson of his, especially when the topic was the different types of erosion.

He then caught himself looking out of the open door and catching a short glimpse of Owen out of the corner of his eye, sat on a curved benched, in front of the big glass wall; facing the door of the room he was meant to be in, head in hand, sighing.

Arthur sat looking at him with a slight smile, the feeling of fondness betraying his usual stoicism. Letting Mr Grahams' words completely flow into one ear and straight out of the other, not paying a single second of attention to his attempt at teaching about erosion, much to Mr Grahams' dismay.

Owen put his hands underneath his chin, heels of palms touching, fingers splaying outwards from each other, tenderly cupping his own jaw. Smiling widely, almost sarcastically, like a young child getting a much wanted present for their birthday.

He snapped his disgustingly clear Mediterranean green sea eyes to Arthur's deep burnt honey brown eyes, for a few moments of intense prolonged eye contact, still rather comforting, and equally thrilling.

Arthur smiled, shaking his head and let out a silent laugh through his nose, resting his head back slightly, Adam's apple bobbing gently.

He glanced at the clock above the projection board with a powerpoint to do with attrition for a moment before realizing that Owen would get in a decent amount of trouble if he didn't go into his lesson in the next couple of minutes. Arthur gestured for him to go into his room, he rolled his eyes and smiled whilst dragging himself up off the bench, sighing and stretching, taking a step forward, mouthing the words "I'll speak to you after" smiling at the end of his sentence.

Arthur heard him open the door, almost immediately apologizing to his teacher, Miss Hammond, for being late. Arthur finally shifted his attention back to Mr Grahams and now a new type of erosion, hydraulic action.

A few processes of erosion later, the bell sounded, the class shifted into action, everyone putting their books in a not-so-neat pile on a desk near Mr Grahams' own. They quickly filed out into the corridor, through all the chaos of everyone trying to leave their classes at the same time, Arthur pinned his back to the wall just next to Mr Grahams' door. While waiting for Owen he looked out of the window through people passing by, a few seconds later his muted deep ginger hair and piercingly intense blue-green eyes appear from the neighbouring door.

"You alright?" Arthur asks with a small amount of concern evident in his voice, standing up from leaning on the wall.

"Yeah," Owen says mostly trying to convince himself, hands in trouser pockets dropping his shoulders slightly.

"What was all that about on the bench?" Arthur follows up, sensing that there was more going on that he was letting show.

"Just didn't want to go in." He replies with a small shrug and a neutral expression.

"That all?" Arthur asks with a raise to his eyebrows.

"Most of it...canteen?" He says with a slight hint of flatness in his voice.

"Yeah, I need to get water anyway," Arthur replies, failing to hide his concern.

"I thought the fountain got fixed?" Owen looks to Arthur seeking clarification.

"It was fixed for about three hours." Arthur replies with an expression of frustration in his tone.

"Canteen it is then." They both start walking to the canteen knowing Arthur needed to buy water and Owen wants to talk to him about something that's evidently been bothering him.