I Hate Marshal Yun (Boy × Boy)

Chapter Eight

Marshal's POV:

When I was a little kid I always wanted to be like my cousin. My cousin Clark played in the NHL for the Toronto Maple leafs. Every time we went to Canada to visit my dad's sister he would bring me to the rink and we would skate together.

I once even got to go to one of his games. That was the moment I realized I wanted to be just like him. My dad noticed my interest in hockey and convinced my mother to let me go for my dreams. Of course she was hesitant but she agreed eventually and enrolled me in lessons.

It wasn't until I got to middle school and started playing for real that I met some of the figure skaters that use the same rink as my team uses for practices.

I started staying about half an hour later than usual to watch them until one of the girls about two years older than me invited me to skate with them.

The girls took a liking to me and started teaching me different moves and eventually I was skating entire routines with them. I still skate with them occasionally to this day.

I laid back on the couch thinking about my math grade and how to get that stupid project finished.

I decided to get out my phone and text Keaton about how we were going to go about completing it.

"Keaton, by any chance could you choose 15 equations from chapters three through five of the textbook and write them down on a paper?"

"Okay. Do I need to solve them too?"

"Yes, I will worry about drawing the design for the skate and organizing the equasions and creating the color code."

"That's no fair. You know i suck at math. You are actually good at math you just dont want to do it."

I sent him an eyeroll emoji. "Boy I'm not really that much better at math I just wanted to do the design."

"You're better at everything. You get to be smart, charismatic, and good at skating. I wish I were good at skating."

I thought for a moment about what he said. I didn't necessarily think I was good at everything but it was flattering that he thought that I was.

"You're bad at skating?"

"Well, not terrible but I would look terrible skating next to you."

I didn't think before sending my next text. "Wanna test that theory?"

...

"Howso?"

"Come skating with me tonight. Me and a couple of the guys have the arena to ourselves tonight. Unless you're busy."

He sent a smiley face emoji.  "Okay."

"See you at six thirty."

I don't know why I decided to invite him to skate it's not like we were friends or anything. I guess I just felt bad that he was spending his Sunday sitting at home all alone. It's not like he could hang out with my sister tonight.

Part of me worried about what the boys would think when they seen him. The guys I play hocky with are usually pretty chill compared to the guys I hang out with at school so I hoped they wouldn't say anything to Keaton.

I ate dinner and tried not to worry about how the guys would react to Keaton. I knew he would probably dress the way he usually does and honestly i wasn't entirely sure what the guys thought about that kind of thing.

I pulled up to keatons house and sent him a text telling him about my arrival.

He got in my car and then I caught myself eyeing his outfit. He wore a oversized yellow sweater and a pair of mom jeans and a white fluffy ear muffs. And he looked good. I shouldn't have been thinking about how good he looked. I didn't think boys looked good. But when he dressed like that, he looked very good. I stopped myself from staring and took off.

"What are you thinking about Marshal?" I felt called out.

"Oh um, I was just wondering how much ice skating experience you have. Are you a virgin on the ice too?"

This made him chuckle. "Wow. No actually I used to go skating occasionally with my mom. She wouldn't let me do much though."

I remembered back to when Lilliana told me how his mom wouldn't even let him go to camp that one year because she was afraid he'd get hurt out in the woods. It made me a bit upset because I couldn't even imagine missing out on doing fun things like that. I couldn't imagine how I would have felt if I weren't allowed to play hocky.

"You're going to have fun today I promise." He rubbed his arm. I've learned that meant he was nervous.

We pulled up to the arena and I studied his outfit another time before we walked inside. Had Keaton always looked this good? Id noticed he'd started to look a lot more mature in this last year. He also shot up a couple of inches too.

"Hey guys! This is Keaton my sister's best friend."

The three boys looked toward Keaton and waved. One of the boys, Bryan reached out to give him a fist bump.

"Marshal told me earlier that you don't skate much. You're in good hands though. He will however laugh every time you fall."

Keaton bounced lightly on his toes. He was nervous. I helped him lace up his skates and we got on the ice.

He could in fact skate in a straight line and he had some speed. He wasn't very good at stopping though he proved this by crashing into me a couple of times but I'd caught him before he could fall.

"You're not to bad Keaton. I'd like to see you try to do a spin."

"Oh boy. I don't think I could do that."

I did a simple spin just to show him what I had in mind. "I bent down and touched his leg. Here just keep that foot planted on the ice and push like this with the other foot." I demonstrated one more time.

I watched him try and fail a couple of times before he got frustrated. "You're almost there!"

This time he tried, and he spun, and spun and then spun. And then he came crashing full force into me knocking us both into the ice.

We looked at eachother and cracked up. "Oh no, your hand is bleeding." I reached out and helped him off the ice and we skated out to the box and I left to grab first aid from behind the counter.

"Here give me your hand. I'm going to clean it off with some wipes and cover it with a bandaid." He flinched as I wiped it clean."

"Are you ready to call it a day?"

We looked into eachothers eyes for a moment and I felt my heart flutter. I never noticed his eyes had golden specks amongst the green before. Why was I thinking about his eyes. They were just interesting. There's nothing unusual about admiring someone's eyes. That someone just happened to be a gay guy.

"Yeah, you can take me home now I think I've had enough of a thrill for one day."

"Cool."

"Yes very I should have brought a jacket."

This made me smile widely. He didn't realize this but his awkwardness was actually quite charming. This must have been why my sister crushed on him so hard.

I actually had fun hanging out with Keaton that night. It's not like we were really friends yet but honestly I might not have been against the idea of becoming friends with him over time if the opportunity presented itself.

He must have caught me smiling. "I'm on my way to making you love me. Watch were going to become friends. Don't you try to deny it."

"Goodnight Keaton."

"Goodnight Marshal."

I watched him walk through the front door of his house before pulling off.

When I got home I pulled up my contacts and selected boy I don't hate. "Do you want me to give you skating lessons?"

I watched him type for a while before sending a response.

"Really you don't think I'm hopeless?"

"Of course not. I think you'll do well." I quickly sent a smiley face emoji before I could ask myself what I was doing.

"Okay thankyou!" I turned onto my side and shut off my lamp before falling asleep.