Invisible Ties

Chapter I. "Friends"

There was this grammar school with its ordinarily usual students in it. It was a calm, cozy school where almost every student knew each other. Many grades, many people, even more personalities.
There were two boys waiting at a tall white door, talking with each other.

"I don't understand." said one of them all of a sudden.

"What?" looked at him the other one, he was confused.

"Love is weird. Everyone feels that way, and it also changes them somehow. I mean as in energy. You stayed the same person, but now you have an interesting vibe now." he explained.

"I've just thought you were going to say that I became an asshole." the confused one now laughed.

"No, I wasn't. But there are others who just became so different that they tend to act like a bitch, or something. They forget their own friends and so their relationships with them are ruined. And also the couples... Damn, they can be toxic as hell too. Possessive, manipulative, controlling bitches." continued his random, nonsense monologue the other one.

"Yeah, those are called fuckboys and whores." his friend agreed with him.

"Exactly. But like, falling in love with someone is weird too. I don't even know how does it feel. Would I even know if i had fallen for someone?" the ginger haired guy — who said the weird monologue — started doubting himself, thinking deeply about what he's just said.

"I'm sure you would. It's really weird, not gonna lie. I can't describe it either." his friend giggled, he tried to calm the ginger guy.

The guy who brought up the topic feels off amongst the people who have already been in several relationships. He thinks that he won't ever experience love, although he longs for that feeling. He just wants to love someone else, he wants to protect that important person, he wants to live happily ever after with them. These thoughts use to flood his mind sometimes...

It was already that time of the year when students undergo a quick and simple physical examination. The school nurse gets to measure their body mass, and height and so on.

"Next!" shouted the nurse from inside the nurse's office.

"It's your turn, I've already been in there." the other guy said to his friend, the red-head guy.

He nodded, stood up and walked in, changing places with an unknown guy whose examination has just been finished. Those who are the following patients should take off their shoes on the rug, and step right on the scale next to the nurse. The ginger did so, too.

"Name?" asked the woman with a notebook in her hand.

"Kane Matlock." he answered.

"Age?" she asked while she wrote down the name.

"18." the ginger guy answered again.

"Let's see your BMI index now." she made the last stroke on the paper, and looked at the scale.
"It looks good. Good job."

"Thanks." Kane said with an embarrassed smile on his face.

"Let's see your height then."

He stepped to the wall, and so the nurse peaked at the number above his head.

"5 feet, 6." mumbled silently while she took a note.
"We're done!" she smiled kindly.

Kane put on his shoes back, and ran out with a polite good-bye.

"Next!" the nurse shouted again.

At that moment, time has seemed to stop all of a sudden — at least for our hopeless romantic guy, the time didn't actually stop, of course.