Blank Slate

Chapter Nineteen

In which Bam both panicked and finds his calm.

Bam's POV

And so they started dating. While it was definitely awkward at first, the two easily danced around the kinks in the relationship and settled on happy mediums and compromises. Bam wasn't used to too much contact, so even things like holding hands and hugging were foreign to him. This was proven on the Tuesday after they started dating, when he instinctively pushed Michael away when he had gone in for a hug.

Fortunately for Michael, Bam got used to it. By Wednesday, they held hands in the hallways and hugged when Michael dropped Bam off at home. Bam saw less and less of Isu and his other friends, and he even reduced his hospital visits to once every other day, but he didn't really mind or even notice these changes in his schedule. The fact that Michael liked him back filled in every hole in his heart. Even the one that Khun personally punctured.

Wednesday after school, Michael asked to stay at Bam's house for a while to have a quite place to study for the next day's finals. Bam openly agreed, nodding vigorously and grinning from ear to ear. Of course, Bam proved to be rather distracting, and not too much study was to be done. In fact, the two even played video games for two hours. Turns out, Bam was weirdly good at the games. Never once did Michael even have a chance at beating him, no matter what the game was. After the two hours of gaming, Michael demanded they studied for at least half an hour. When Bam finally (after many, many complaints) agreed, Michael helped him with his review work. After precisely half an hour, not a second later, Bam demanded they stopped studying and put in a movie.

Both party members quickly fell asleep only a few minutes into the movie. Bam's head leaned on Michael's shoulder, and Michael's head leaned on Bam's head. The two's hands interlocked as their bodies pressed close to each other.

---

Neither one woke up until the next morning, courtesy to Bam's alarm. Bam shuffled around for a few seconds, taking the extra time to deeply inhale the addicting scent of cologne. The two continued to groggily move about, Bam turning off his alarm in frustration. After laying back in peaceful silence, Bam was the one who, in an embarrassed rush of adrenaline, jumped off of the couch. Michael was still in the slow process of waking up.

"Wha. . .? Hm?" He asked, yawning. Then, his squinty eyes shot open as he reached for his phone. Over a dozen missed calls from his siblings. He cursed and called his little brother, the older of the two siblings.

"It's Mikey!" Bam heard a little girl's voice come from the phone. Then, static as the phone shuffled around.

A boy's voice answered this time. "Michael?"

"Hey! I'm sorry I didn't come home last night. I fell asleep. Did you hold up alright?"

"No," was all he said.

Silence.

Bam didn't even know if he was joking, and, by the looks of it, Michael didn't either.

The boy finally spoke up again. "Just kidding! We had chocolate cake for dinner. We're about to catch the bus. Bye!"

The call ended.

After a moment of silence, the two boyfriends broke into a fit of laughter.

"Well, since they're okay," Michael sighed, "we should focus on getting ourselves ready for school."

Michael didn't have time to go home, take a shower, get dressed, and pick up Bam to go to school, so he used Bam's shower and slipped on some of Bam's clothes which, thankfully, fit him well enough to not be suspicious.

In the ride to school, Michael placed his hand on Bam's thigh, which made Bam blush. He didn't move it away, though. It was a nice feeling. They arrived at school ten minutes before class started and decided to head straight to first period, rather than go to the cafeteria to meet up with Bam's friends.

Only when he sat down in his seat and saw the was covered in black construction paper did Bam remember what day it was: finals.

He groaned, but Michael tapped his shoulder and gave him a silent thumbs up. The test commenced.

Thankfully, Bam happened to be pretty decent at math. It was his favorite subject, after all, and the only class in which he had an A. He finished relatively quickly, an estimated 4th quickest in the class, which gave him time to think and worry about English. He couldn't even remember studying for English-not even once. They read a book in class. What book was it? Something about a bird? A mockingjay? Bam buried his head in his hands. He had a C in English; he couldn't afford doing badly on this next test.

Bam's attention turned to Michael, who turned in his paper twenty minutes after Bam had. They silently smiled at each other, a rosy blush brushing their cheeks. When Michael saw Bam in distress, he tilted his head and raised his eyebrow.

Bam mouthed, "English," and his Pre-Calculus teacher turned livid.

"Mr. Grace, no communicating with classmates, even when you finished your test. If you're so bored, you shouldn't have turned in the test so quickly."

Bam only groaned again and laid his head down on his desk.

---

After class, Michael walked Bam to his second period as Bam complained about not reading the required book.

"I've just been distracted with a lot of things, you know?" He huffed.

Michael only laughed and patted his back a couple times before taking his hand. Bam blushed as the two walked down the hallways with their fingers interlocked.

English, as per usual, sucked pretty badly. Bam wouldn't be surprised if he had to take a supplementary class during winter break.

Which, he learned that afternoon in Michael's car, he did. Bam had to go to the school once a day for two hours to correct his work and earn his way up to a 70% in his English class. How embarrassing.

However, Michael encouraged him and said he would take him to and from his classes whenever he needed and that he would help him study for his third and fourth period finals: Music Theory and Global Economics.

Bam actually enjoyed Music Theory. He was a huge fan of music, and Music Theory was an interesting way to learn why things sound the way they do and how to make euphonious sounds rather than cacophonous ones.

Bam, however, invited Michael over to help him study for his Global Economics class. Bam wasn't necessarily bad at it; in fact, over half of the class was just math. But some things, like memorizing other countries' GDPs per capita and remembering which "solution" was which. . . That was a whole other monster. Luckily, Michael was not only good at economics, but also a good teacher.

They studied for two hours straight before deciding to order Chinese takeout for dinner. While eating, they talked and laughed like always, and Bam's worries about English and his tests for the next day disappeared. Michael had a way of doing that to him.

They decided, just for kicks, to put on a movie again. Secretly (but not so secretly), Bam hoped Michael might fall asleep again, and that, just maybe, Bam would wake up to the same smell of fading cologne.

As the movie progressed, Michael's hands started roaming around Bam's body. Bam enjoyed the adrenaline-inducing touches, but he knew he shouldn't let it go too far. They went from holding hands to cuddling against each other's torsos, to Michael's hands climbing up Bam's shirt. . .

"Michael," Bam whispered in warning.

His boyfriend looked down at him and apologized with sad eyes. "Sorry, sorry. . . I guess I'm just used to being touchy with my boyfriends, especially since we're official now." He sighed. "Forgive me, Bam. I'm working on it. Really."

Bam just smiled as Michael removed his arms. "It's okay, babe."

Michael seemed shocked, but only for a moment before he leaned his head on Bam's. "Thank you, babe."