I'm Scott Malkinson

10- Compliments

Tolkien and Clyde were discussing their plans for the weekend as they walked out of the school after practice. They were planning some sort of scary movie night/sleepover party: them, Jimmy, Craig, and whatever dates they all brought apparently. It sounded fun, but Scott tried to tune it out. He knew this wasn't an event he'd be invited to, and honestly it kind of hurt sometimes to constantly be listening to other people's plans, knowing he wouldn't asked to tag along. Clyde had barely even talked to him since they finished their project. There were no more random texts to show off his cherry tying skills, or messages asking to meet up. It was just nothing, back to the way it was before.

Scott tried not to be too upset about it. He'd known Clyde would forget about him as soon as he was no longer required to remember his existence, but it still stung.

"Hey Scott!" He heard someone calling his name from behind him and turned around to see Butters jogging up.

"Oh, hey Butters," he greeted the excited blond. "What's up?"

"I saw you taking lots of pictures. Are you into photography?" he asked.

Scott glanced down at his camera bag that hung off his shoulder. "Uh yeah, I guess. I'm on the yearbook team," he answered, trying not to dwell on the fact that Butters was supposedly one of his closest friends and didn't really know anything about him. Nobody did, really.

"That's really cool," replied Butters cheerfully. "I was a bit curious actually if I could see the pictures."

Scott nodded, removing the camera from the case and handing it to Butters. "Just be careful with it," he requested. The last thing he needed was a broken camera. He couldn't afford to replace it.

Butters flicked through the pictures happily as they walked. Occasionally the blonde boy would comment on one of them before flicking to the next. Something like "wow look how happy they look," or "the angling on this one is really great." Eventually he paused on one, looking at it for a really long time.

Scott glanced over to see which one he had stopped on. It was a photo of Stan and Butters attaching curtains around the windows of makeshift walls. He stared at it a bit longingly, and Scott was hit with the memory of what he'd inadvertently witnessed happen between the two of them. "Do you want me to send you that one?" he asked.

Butters' cheeks flushed at the question. "Um, uh, yeah sure. Thanks fella," he replied.

"It's no problem, once I get them off the SD card and onto my phone I'll send it to you," Scott replied. He made no reference to what he'd witnessed, as it really wasn't any of his business.

"Hey Scott? You have a lot of pictures of Clyde on here," Butters said, looking up from the camera.

"W-what? I do?" he spluttered, caught off guard by the statement. Why did it make him so nervous? He had lots of photos of everyone because he was in yearbook and that was his job. If there were a few extra of Clyde that was just because he was doing interesting stuff a little more often than everyone else.

"Yeah," Butters went on. "They're really good. I mean these look professional, and not in the artificial way that school picture day photos do. You really capture his energy." He flicked through the photos, smiling as he did so.

"Oh, uh thanks. I'm sure it's just that Clyde is naturally really photogenic," he said, dismissing the compliment. Scott was rarely ever complimented on his accomplishments and truthfully he didn't know how to handle them. They made him a bit nervous and uncomfortable, like if he allowed himself to be made happy by them he'd get his hopes up too high and disappoint himself.

Later that night Scott hooked up the camera to his laptop and started transferring photos over. Then he pulled up the photos, sorting through them to see which ones were usable and which were too blurry and needed to be deleted. He flipped to a picture of Clyde and Tolkien, smiling and holding onto each other's shoulders as they sang. Neither had known the picture was being taken. It was perfectly unposed and natural, showcasing each of them smiling in the way they did where no one was watching. Butters was right, this was a good photo.

Next was a picture of Kenny and Butters painting, which he almost would've considered a good photo as well if Kenny's vape wasn't falling out of their pocket and in plain sight. Scott sighed and deleted it. Then one of Stan and Pete leaned up against the wall talking: this one was fine. The next one was another of the two of them, in which they'd noticed Scott taking photos. Pete was flicking off the camera with a scowl: this one was no good. He flipped to another picture of Clyde, this time up on stage wearing a silly hat as he ran through his lines with Mike. The stage light hit Clyde's face in just the right way. H̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶c̶u̶t̶e̶. It was a good picture of him.

Scott dragged all the photos of Clyde into an empty folder on his laptop and labeled it with his name, then started to flip through only the pictures of Clyde for a while, smiling as he studied his face, his big brown eyes, round cheeks, naturally long eyelashes. For a few minutes he indulged in staring closely at Clyde's lips, wondering if they were as soft as they looked. Then he quickly felt the guilt of his actions setting in and he dragged all the photos back into the main folder. Was he seriously so lonely that he developed a weird obsession with the first person who even somewhat paid attention to him? God, Scott felt like such a creep for looking at Clyde that way. Knowing the thoughts that had snuck their way into his brain made his skin crawl.