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JAKE ──────────── ' i just can't win, can i? '
—JAKE WAS ONE OF, if not the most, well-known face in all of Brisbane Arts. To cut it short and sweet, the guy was popular and friends with everybody.
Despite the surplus of people he greeted every morning and his extensive "Close Friends" list, there were a mere four people in the world he'd truly consider a best friend— a ride or die, someone he'd take and shoot a bullet for: Saya Han, Jaiden West (Jake's childhood best friend from Cairns), Mateo Silva, and lastly, his Internet best friend, Jay Park.
Jay wasn't like Jake, not necessarily. They both had wealthy backgrounds and fruitful upbringings, but Jay was a closed off, tough guy with a soft spot for only a handful of people and things. He was the hardest worker Jake knew, though his ambition and resilience sometimes ended up being his downfall. Jay swore that one day he'd get into a fashion school, once he found a way to express that wish to his parents, at least.
Jay was born in Seattle, Washington, but had moved to South Korea in elementary school. It was that year that he and Jake had met online.
Being in different countries made it easier, contrary to popular belief, for the two boys to connect. There was no pressure, no worries that the secrets they spilled late at night on Xbox Live would be held against them or posted on a school forum.
So, it was to this friend that Jake sought guidance in. He'd told Jay about Saya numerous times (though, he never used her real name), and from the exasperated sigh from the other line, it was clear that the recipient of Jake's call had already put the pieces of the boy's feelings together long before Jake had.
It wasn't until his second phone call with Jay that day (the first one being in the janitor's closet where he unapologetically dropped a grenade on Jay who, nonplussed and unprepared, kicked it away and told him to drop it again after school) that Jake had fully come to terms with just how greatly Saya had annexed his heart and mind alike.
Jake had called him up around five o'clock, and even though Jay was in the middle of making (what he described as) Michelin Star chocolate chip cookies, he was far from reluctant to listen (this time around) to Jake's rant as he turned off the stove and ran to his room to indulge in everything his friend had to say; Finding out that Jake had come to terms with his feelings for Saya was much more important than an undercooked dessert.
