Tense

Chapter One

Roan watched as Kai kissed a brunette whose name he never bothered to learn. The kiss didn't last long, it was barely a few seconds but Roan couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. He didn't know why, but seeing Kai kiss a stranger was very off putting for him.

He didn't want to play the stupid game in the first place. This isn't 2014, he thought when Derek, a friend of his, suggested playing spin the bottle. Roan knew Derek did so because he hoped if he kissed a few random girls then atleast one of them would end up going to bed with him. He wasn't going to play, but when he saw Kai sit down in the circle, he automatically did too.

They were best friends, after all. They did everything together.

Derek's eager grin fell from his face when the bottle landed on Roan, making the latter groan. Great, not only did he not want to be there, now he'd have to kiss his classmate. Sitting next to him in Chemistry would be very awkward now.

Derek was hesitant about it as well at first, but then he shrugged and brought back his classic wide grin. Derek moved towards an annoyed Roan, he was on his knees as he leant towards the taller male and pressed their lips together. Just as they were about to pull away, Roan heard a whisper.

"That's so hot." Said some girl.

"Yeah." Said another.

That was all the encouragement Derek needed as he kissed Roan even deeper, making their kiss last longer than anyone else's. Derek finally pulled back, the smile still present on his face as he sat back down.

"Damn Ro, if I had known you were such a good kisser I would've switched teams long back." Derek said with a chuckle, making Roan sigh in annoyance.

"Shut up, dweeb." Roan muttered.

"It's your turn." Said the girl, Fiona, finally someone whose name Roan knew, to Kai.

Roan looked at Kai to see his best friend already staring at him, quite intensely. Kai was someone whose face did the talking for him more often than not. He was a very expressive person, making him the complete opposite of Roan. But at that moment, Roan couldn't figure out what was going on in his best friend's head.

Kai ran a hand through his dark hair, and Roan kept looking at him even when Kai broke their eye contact. Roan watched as the yellow lighting of the room brought out Kai's golden brown complexion even more. His hazel eyes were now focused on the empty beer bottle on the ground, and his face was void of any expression.

Roan watched Kai's tongue quickly swipe his lower lip as he spun the bottle. The blonde didn't remove his eyes from his best friend's face to see who the bottle landed on, but after a few seconds, Roan figured out who it was.

Kai looked up in slight shock, meeting Roan's eyes once more. Roan didn't have to look down to realise that Kai would be kissing him now. The idea of this didn't make him groan in annoyance like it did when Derek had to kiss him, but it did make him feel something.

Something that he couldn't quite figure out.

Roan didn't feel nervous. Roan never got butterflies. Ever since he was a kid, Roan was as nonchalant and indifferent as ever. So why was he getting a weird feeling in his stomach now? He quickly recalled everything he ate that day, and nothing stood out so far.

"This is gonna be interesting." Roan heard Derek mutter to the girl sitting next to him.

Kai didn't break their eye contact as he kneeled and slowly made his way towards Roan. Kai's poker face had always sucked, and Roan could tell that his best friend was nervous. He always got nervous very easily, and Roan always knew it by the way Kai kept licking his lips over and over again.

Kai was barely a breath away, when he tilted his head to the side, and broke their eye contact to look at Roan's lips. Suddenly, as if Roan was broken from his trance, he kept a hand on Kai's chest and gently pushed him back.

"I'm not playing this bullshit game anymore," Roan said as he got up, "I'm out."

"Oh come on dude, you can't—" Wes stopped mid sentence when Roan glared at him.

Nobody wanted to mess with Roan in Bloom High. He was that guy for who students would part way in the hallways. Who could have anyone he wanted, whenever he wanted, in whatever way he wanted.

So, when Roan said he was out of the game, more than half the girls sitting in the circle, and a couple guys, got up and left too. Probably feeling sad that they couldn't get a taste of the 6'1" blonde with blue eyes so deep and pretty, you felt you could drown in them. He was the classic American dream boy, except for his attitude, of course. But nobody cared about his attitude when he looked just that good.

Roan didn't look back as he walked to the kitchen to grab a drink. Some random person from school tried to hand him one, but he denied. One of his rules at parties was to always make his own drinks. The only person he trusted to make his drinks apart from himself was Kai and a couple other close friends he had, no one else.

He poured himself some whiskey, mixing it with water when he couldn't find anything else. He gulped it all down in a single go, in an attempt to get rid of the weird feeling that was still present in his stomach. It had gotten even worse now, and was making his heart beat a little faster.

Roan wiped the corner of his mouth from the sleeve of his varsity jacket that he rarely ever took off outside from his home, and left the kitchen to find his best friend that he had deserted in the room upstairs.

Once Roan finally located Kai somewhere in one of the living rooms of the huge mansion they were in, he walked over to the dark haired boy.

"Dude I—" Roan was cut off by Kai.

"Fuck off." Kai grumbled as he bumped Roan's shoulder with his own before walking away, leaving Roan frozen at his spot in confusion.

Roan stood there for a solid minute, wondering what the fuck just happened. Kai rarely ever cursed, his mom had ingrained it in his head that cursing made you a bad person. So hearing him say what he said, that too directed at Roan, his best friend since the two were three years old, was a shock to say the least.

"Huh?" Roan said to himself. Another person bumped into him, quickly apologising when Roan threw them one of his classic glares.

Roan left the room, in search for his best friend yet again. He didn't know why Kai was pissed at him, but he had every intention of finding out. The house, scratch that, mansion was huge. And this time Roan had even more trouble trying to track down Kai. Eventually, after asking about half a dozen people, someone finally told him that they had seen Kai step outside to the backyard.

Roan quickly made his way outside, and finally sighed in relief when he saw Kai leaning against a wall as he looked down at his phone. Kai looked up when he heard Roan's footsteps, groaned and slid his phone in his pocket.

"What do you want?" Kai asked.

"What the fuck was that?" Roan questioned back.

"What was what?" Kai shrugged.

"You telling me to fuck off, what was that?" Roan raised an eyebrow, though Kai couldn't see it because he was busy looking down at his shoe.

"Nothing." Kai said, making Roan sigh. Kai was the type of person to always say nothing was wrong even when something was very clearly wrong. He'd never admit to it, and then randomly burst out in frustration after bottling it up didn't work.

"Don't be like that, Kai," Roan walked closer to his best friend, grabbing his arm to make Kai look at him, "Just tell me."

"Why didn't you kiss me?"

***