seasons. : a fireafy fic

chapter three

Firey was upset.

No, upset wasn't exactly the right word. He furrowed his brows in thought, searching the vastness of his vocabulary for an accurate description of his feeling.

He reached his conclusion. He was confused.

Since he was a child, he was raised to match accurate words to scenarios. But lately, words haven't seemed to have been finding him. Words haven't seemed to reach him for a while now. Maybe because of his habits. Maybe he's just getting older.

Maybe because he was also being stalked by that weird green haired girl.

Maybe he was stalking her? He didn't know. They kept seeing each other, though. She seemed more uncomfortable about it than he did, if he was honest.

This girl was the source of his confusion.

"Boy, snap out of it," Eraser mumbled. "Work on the car."

Firey slowly looked up and stared at his coworker, remembering only then he was at work.

"What car?" The orange haired boy tilted his head towards Eraser.

Eraser deadpanned, raising his oil-covered gloved hands in the air and holding them in place. "You and I are supposed to do a simple oil change. You were about to hand me the oil, and then you froze."

Firey looked down. "Oh," he realized he was holding oil. "So it appears I have oil."

"You're an idiot," Eraser sighed, rolling his eyes. His hands returned into the hood of the car. "I want to finish this up fast. It's date night with my boyfriend."

"You have date night every day," Firey huffed.

"No, just every Friday," the pink haired boy retorted. "Fridays are the best days to have a date."

"Cool." The orange haired boy did not want to hear about Pen at the moment. He had heard about Eraser's rich kid boyfriend every day since he started working here. Firey hated rich kids.

Eraser looked at him for a while. Firey could tell he was contemplating something.

"I can get you a date," his coworker finally said, a bit awkwardly.

Firey heard the sentence before he processed it.

"No," he said back, lamely.

Eraser rolled his eyes again and groaned in annoyance. "Why not? You barely do anything with your social life. Go outside, dude. Do you just not like people?"

Firey thought for a second before answering. He didn't really know. He didn't want to just go out with some random girl. Familiarity is comforting. He liked his familiar little friend circle of only five genuine friends. He didn't think he needed anymore.

And dating was a hassle he didn't want to get involved in just yet.

 "I'm pretty busy today."

The taller boy stared at Firey for a solid three seconds. Eraser seemed to stare at him a lot. "Busy what? Spray painting public property?"

"Precisely" replied the orange haired boy, his voice tinged with smugness. "It's art."

"Just give me the fucking oil."

Firey handed over the oil he was holding, and continued working on the client's car. He only got a few heartbeats of precious silence before-

"You know." Firey heard his coworker start saying some bullshit, yet again. "Maybe you should go to class today."

"Why." Firey had no interest in wasting his time. He wasn't the biggest fan of school anymore. It was boring to him.

"You're paying the college to have an education, and you aren't even doing the education part." Eraser pointed out. The pink haired boy did seem to have a point.

Firey responded without thinking. The point meant almost nothing to him. "I turn in my homework. I'm passing the course. I show up for the tests. I have no reason to show up. If I went to all my classes, I wouldn't be able to have this job."

"You went yesterday." Eraser pointed out.

"Yeah, and I saw the girl again," Firey explained. "I had no idea this world was so damn small."

"Goiky isn't that big anyways," his coworker added. "You're bound to run into each other again. Get used to it. Why are you even so obsessed bro?"

"I'm not," Firey quickly bit back. "It's just a curious observation."

"Why don't you go on a date with her? Since you're all about knowing people and everything. Maybe it'll improve your dry ass social life."

"I don't know her, though." Firey was not in the mood to bicker with his coworker about his dating life, or lack thereof.

Eraser sighed heavily and slammed the car hood shut. The sound of the thud echoed throughout the empty shop.

"We're done," he said, leaning over the closed hood of the vehicle. "Or, at least, you're done for the day. Go to class."

Firey turned around, shrugged off his gloves, and then wiped his hands off on a rag. 

Fine, then. The fuck. Why did the world want him to go to school so badly? If the world wanted him to go to class, there's no use arguing with it. He'll just go to class. He didn't really have anything else to do today. He had planned to be working on cars all day, but Eraser dismissed him. Quite rudely, he may add.

He strutted out of the shop, throwing his gloves in the trash can as he walked out. He may as well show up to school in his work coveralls. His professor wouldn't care.

And if he sees the girl again, he will confront her.

He's going to ask her why the hell she keeps staring at him. It's weird as hell.

He's going to ask her name. There's no harm in that. They go to the same college.

Maybe they'll become friends. She looks like a good person, to be honest. He got caught up with the wrong crowd a bit ago, and has been scraping his life back together. Maybe she'll become another one of his five friends.

Maybe she can show him the way.

Life doesn't work the way you want it to, though.

He went to school.

He looked around campus.

He went to class. He sat through the hour and fifteen minutes of class, barely paying attention and looking out the window.

He waited in the building lobby for about an hour afterwards. Many people walked by, some of them his classmates, but he didn't really care. They looked at him. He didn't look at them. He rarely saw them anyways.

Fortunately, he didn't see the girl today.

No, fortunately was not the right word. He thought about it for a bit, carefully picking his words.

Unfortunately, he didn't see her today.