Diversity

Him

6:00 AM October 5th
I wake up to my very obnoxious alarm blaring telling me to get up. I do, then I go take a shower, then I go to my room and sit at my desk. Then I do the day of school. I decide to clean the kitchen for my mother and as I do so, Hayden and Aoi walk through the door and see me. Hayden runs over to help and we get the kitchen completely clean while Aoi sits at the table working on math problems. As soon as we finish Hayden sits down with them and I look at what they're working on. It looked like a math homework assignment, so I decided to work on it as well. I pull out my book and we get to work. This type of math was incredibly simple and I was flying through it when we heard the keys jingle in the door. Mom was home,
"Hey, mom!" I yelled towards the door.
"Oh, Hey bud! Glad you're awake!" she replied.
"Welcome home mom," Hayden yelled.
We sat at the table and continued with the assignment. Once we finished Aoi said they had to go home and watch their siblings. Hayden being the person he is graciously asked if he could go help as well. Aoi responded with,
"I don't see why that's a problem, Noah I have a brother who I think you would get along with, do you want to come as well?"
"Maybe how many people will be there?"
"10 including you and Hayden, but they're mostly little kids."
"Ok, I guess that should be fine, I'll come along."
We walked to Aoi's house. We live in a small town so everything is pretty close together. What I didn't expect was the chaos that we would walk into once we got there.
"OH! Aoi's home guys!" We heard a little kid shout from behind the door even before we opened it. 4 little kids were swarming our legs and seemed very excited to see us.
"Mom and Dad just left. Ben was watching us for a bit but he just went to his room!" One of the kids shouted way too loudly. We walked into the house and the inside was much bigger than I had expected. There was a massive living room connected to an even bigger kitchen.
"Noah! Ben's room is that one on the right if you want to go in there!" shouted Aoi while they were being tackled by at least 3 kids. I walked into the destined room and took a deep breath. I had almost passed out. I looked over and there was a boy about 15 years old sitting on his bed he looked up at me and said,
"Hello? Do I know you?"
"Oh, I'm Hayden's brother, Aoi told me to come in here."
"Oh ok you can sit on that chair right there," he said while pointing to a comfy-looking chair.
As I sat down we started talking about random things.
"So what's your name?" He asked,
"I'm Noah, how about you?"
"Benjamin, but just call me Ben."
"Ok Ben!"
"Anything you like to play?" Ben asked, pulling out two controllers.
"Umm animal crossing, that's about it," I replied.
"I have a switch, I bought an animal crossing a while ago. I'm not very far. You can play if you want."
I flew over to where he was standing, he handed me the switch and I got into his game. He was right, he had done nothing, at least his character was cute. I was sitting there working on farming bells when he sat directly behind me and watched me play. We had been sitting there on the game for about an hour when Hayden and Aoi walked in Hayden said,
"Hey I just called mom she said we're going to stay the night here, you ok with that."
I looked at him, nodded, and returned to the game, Ben still looking over my shoulder.
"She's also bringing our things she told me to tell you to call her with what you want." Hayden continued.
"Ok, I'll call her," I replied. I handed the switch to Ben then pulled out my phone and clicked the contact that said 'mom' I was listening to the dial and then she answered.
"Hi, mom, could you just bring my switch, charger, and Pajamas?"
"That's what I assumed you wanted, just wanted to make sure, Love you bye!"
"Ok, thanks mom bye." As soon as I hung up the phone, 4 little kids barged into the room, one of them holding a baby. Then everything went blurry. It was too loud and before I knew it everything went black. I woke up and looked around. I was still in Ben's room but placed somewhere else. Hopefully, they didn't panic about it too terribly much and thank god Hayden was here. I felt something heavy on my chest and saw that the baby the kids were carrying was fast asleep. I slowly and carefully checked the time to see how long I was out but it had only been 10 minutes so I wasn't too worried. Then the door opened and it was Ben and Hayden who had seen that I was awake and Ben took the baby off me so I could move.
"Sorry about that Daisy had insisted that she was in here with you"
"It's ok she's a pretty cute kid so I don't mind."
"Ok, besides the point, are you ok? How did you not feel that? Why didn't you say anything?" Hayden asked.
"It was kind of sudden, I just wasn't used to all the noise," I replied.
"Ok, do you feel better now?"
"Yeah I'm fine, Ben let's play animal crossing now."
"Ok then let's do it then," Ben said while laughing. Hayden left the room in search of Aoi who was making dinner, and Ben and I got back to the game. A lot of yelling at Tom Nook later Aoi came in and told us dinner was ready. We walked out and they had made chicken nuggets and it was not just a few there were probably 50 or 60 of them. I sat down and just shook at the amount that was sitting there, in seconds the food was taken into separate plates and there were about 10 left so I took three and ate them. I saw that everyone else had at least 5 on their plates there were two lef    t on the tray. I let them sit there. Then one of the kids I'm pretty sure was Leo had set them on my plate. I looked at the plate that the kid had and said,
"Thank you" and smiled at him. He smiled back and I ate the ones he had given me. I then waited for Ben to finish to avoid awkwardness. When he was finished I put my plate into the dishwasher and walked into Ben's room he asked,
"Do you want to do something else now?"
"Um sure like what?"
"Wanna watch a movie? I have all sorts!"
"Ok sure, what do you want to watch?"
" Princess and the frog," Ben said with great seriousness. I laugh and reply with
"Princess and the frog it is!" We sat and turned on the movie sitting next to each other and laughing at the funny scenes, and then his hand brushed against mine. We locked pinkies and then we ended up holding hands. My face was about as red as Aoi's hair. About halfway through the movie I slowly leaned over and fell asleep on his shoulder. When I woke up I was yet again repositioned and Ben was on the floor. I sat up and walked to the bathroom. It was surprisingly clean even though so many people lived in the house. Mine and Hayden's bathroom is a complete mess and struggles to clean it when it gets bad. At least we can work on it together. I finish my business and slowly and quietly search through the cabinets and drawers, because let's are honest, who doesn't? I finish snooping around his bathroom, then I go back to lie down and scroll through my phone.
He's STILL asleep after 3 hours it's now 12:36 and he's had TWO of his siblings come in and throw things at him. I reluctantly rolled off the side of the bed and attempted to wake him up. I hate waking people up. It seems so rude but I believe it's time for it to happen.
"Ben, it's time to wake up!" I whisper into his ear. Then I begin to violently shake him awake as if he would've just died in my arms. I may have lied about waking people up. It's honestly kind of enjoyable. It's just rude when it's done to me. He gally whispers and yells,
"What!? Who's there just 10 more minutes..." he staggers out the last bit so it's barely understandable. Then I grab his hand and drag him up so he's sitting straight on the floor. He then opens his eyes for the first time in about 10 hours. Then he looks at me and slowly stands up, grabs me by the wrist, and drags me into the kitchen mumbling something about how he is "so insanely hungry" I just try not to laugh. He lets go of my wrist and pulls two bowls out of the kitchen cabinets. Then he waddles over to the fridge grabs out the milk and sets it on the counter after that he walks over to the pantry and pulls out about 15 different boxes of different kinds of cereal and asks what kind I want I grab my favorite surprised that they have it
"This one please," I said
"No need to be so formal about it! I mean it's good manners but you don't always have to say please, thank you, and stuff."
I get red and murmur out quick apologies.
"That's just how I was raised, you know?" I'm still a bit embarrassed. My mind immediately goes to my dad and then to that one day when he died from his 'heart disease' I don't know if it's ok for me to bring this up but here we go. When I was younger my dad abused my brother and me, always bringing up gender roles and how important it was to live up to them. Hayden has always been a boy inside so it was hard for him. Dad would always have him in flowy dresses that he hated and forced my mom to teach him how to be a "proper housewife" well I was out doing so much work it was human torture. But there is one thing I haven't ever told anyone about my dad: I was the one that killed him. Everyone believes he died from heart disease even mom and Hayden but no I had put deadly poisons, like Mercury in his water, food everything hoping it would kill him and he only got deadly cancer from it we had a lot of money back then so we could get treatments for him so eventually, the doctors told us he was going to live which was a tragedy and I wasn't going to let that happen. So I stabbed him in the chest. I was only 8 I murdered my father, my flesh and blood. As he would put it. I still remember how terrible the smell of his blood was. It was a foul odor and I would never want to smell it again. That's a weird thing, isn't it? I snap back to reality after what feels like a year and Ben is looking at me weirdly a sort of 'what the hell just happened' look I smile at him and sit back down at the table he still looks weirded out but just slowly sits across from me and then the stampede of people come running into the kitchen I try my best to keep cool and not freak out. I stare intensely at my bowl of cereal when Ben asks
"Are you ok? That was a lot of good work on not passing out and giving everyone a heart attack" He says first concerned then he starts laughing and before I realize I'm laughing too. I don't know why I am. It isn't funny at all, maybe it's from the noise. Aoi and Hayden look like they have just woken up from the dead. They probably are considering what time they went to bed last night. I washed my bowl and was about to put it in the dishwasher when Ben snatched it from me and put it in the dishwasher. I looked at him and said,
"I can do it myself thank you." He responded with
"Well this is my house and you're a guest so it's kinda my job."
He had this look on his face that I couldn't quite read it was pretty strange because I'm normally good at that kind of thing I just smirked back at him and replied
"Ok, then I'll just go sit and watch then,"
As I sit and wait for Ben to finish Hayden and Aoi walk in and Hayden says
"Mom is on her way to get us to grab your things and let's go!" He then left the kitchen and I scrambled up to grab my things. I get my things in my overnight bag and wait with Ben and when mom finally gets here I say goodbye to Ben and Aoi and their siblings. As    I got into the car mom asked,
"So how did your sleepover go, boys?" I replied before Hayden could and said.
"It went well. We played Animal Crossing most of the time."
"That sounds pretty fun, did you do anything else?"
"We made lots of chicken nuggets Ben has lots of siblings so we had to make a lot" After I said that it was Hayden's turn to talk and by that I mean he would not shut up till we got home. While I was listening to Hayden rant I zoned out thinking about Ben and how kind he was and whether or not he was trustworthy he was so nice and handsome and beautiful and- pull yourself together Noah this is a matter of you making a friend that isn't related or is Hayden's friend you can't afford to mess this up. I sat there thinking about Ben and how I could make a friend without Hayden's help for once. Before I knew it we were already home and I immediately climbed into my bed and fell asleep.
A/N Thank you for reading this part!!! If you would like updates on the story and some spoilers go follow my insta!! @dive.rsity56