Maybe a little (a lot)

Branzy gets hugged

A/N: Did I just update two weeks in a row? Yes. Will it happen again? Hopefully, but probably not, because with speed comes lower quality and I have a low enough opinion of my writing already lol

"Ack," Rek said, quickly putting his shoe-box sized robot on their table as part of it fell off onto the floor.

"Rek!" Branzy exclaimed, putting down his own contraption just as quickly and dropping to the floor with him to pick up the pieces of the mechanical arm that had fallen off.

Cube looked over, uninterested, before seeing what happened and quickly becoming very interested. His own robot was left on the table besides the others as he quickly pulled screws, a screwdriver, and some super glue out from who knows where. "Rek! How do you always break your robot right before we compete?"

"Sorry! Sorry, I don't know, they just break!" He said, stress straining at the edges of his tone.

The three of them scrambled to pick up the pieces and attempted to reassemble them on their team's table. Good news: they didn't have to compete for another forty-five minutes; bad news: none of them remembered how to attach the arm.

"What is this piece for?" Branzy asked, waving a toothpick length piece of metal with several holes bored into it.

"Just put it somewhere!" Cube said, super gluing several pieces that had come loose from their original attachments back into place.

Branzy bit back the urge to sarcastically remark 'super helpful,' and floundered around with the piece until he saw an identical one on one side of the arm, which was supposed to be symmetric, and attached the metal bit quickly back in the right spot. There was a short period of silence as the three frantically reattached pieces, until Rek and Brazy were holding a completed robot arm. Cube had repaired the socket on the front of the miniature robot by that point, and they managed to stick the whole thing together.

Branzy rocked back into his heels with a sigh of relief, remarking, "every single time, Rek. Every. Single. Time."

"I don't know!"

"He just has really bad luck, apparently," Cube said, "because at this point this is a pattern."

Branzy laughed at Rek's expense, who looked dejected as he carefully moved the three robots into the middle of team four's table.

The silver-haired boy stepped away from the table as Cube continued to jokingly berate Rek, moving to the edge of the gymnasium. He pulled out his phone in its purple case, which was almost completely obscured by various stickers, and texted Clown. Branzy had said before that Clown didn't have to come, but he was really hoping he would. He just got unreasonably happy whenever the other teenager was around.

Branzy looked up from his phone, having crossed the campus, which felt strangely deserted because the competition was held on a Sunday. He saw Clown put his own phone away as Branzy approached the bike cage, and he looked up and their eyes met, causing them both to break into smiles.

"Hi," he said, and it felt insufficient, so he gave a little awkward, but happy, wave.

Clown laughed a little at his awkwardness, eyes crinkling, and pulled him into a quick hug, responding, "hi, silly."

Branzy's mouth formed a perfect "o," caught completely off guard by the unexpected form of affection. In the second he took to process the action, Clown was already letting go and strolling off in the direction of the gym, freeing his long black hair from the pony tail he had it in for biking. Branzy hurried to catch up, grinning even wider than before as they walked together.

"Are you on the same team again?" Clown asked him as they passed the circular shaped science building where they had first met in their only shared class.

"Yeah," Branzy answered, then laughed, "Do you remember Rek?"

"Vaguely," he said, "he's the one with the weird yellow sweatshirt, right?"

"Yup, his robot broke again!"

"Isn't that the fourth time?" The other teenager asked, remembering the stories Branzy had told him during their insufferably boring science class.

"Actually it's the fifth, but don't tell him I told you," Branzy said.

Clown laughed, holding one of his hands over his mouth to cover his grin as he looked at Branzy, "I won't, I won't, but you have to admit this is hilarious."

He nodded as they arrived at the open doors of the gym, which was packed full of sound and people. There wasn't much of an audience, but what there was sat in the bleachers or mingled with the contestants, causing further confusion. Upon stepping inside, the two suddenly entered a flurry of quick conversions, hastily eaten free cookies, and further rushed repairs, in which Branzy stole Clown's hair tie for his robot.

The vice principal, serving as the announcer, called for order over her megaphone, and the competition started as Clown barely managed to get to the bleachers in time.

It didn't go terribly. Well, to be fair, none of the groups were all that good, Clown observed. Branzy's grouped ended up placing third, which seemed to be their regular placement.

Afterwards, Branzy walked Clown over to the bike cage where they waved goodbye, and Branzy impulsively gave Clown another hug before he left.

A/N: Do you remember how I said that I was writing this based of two of my straight friends? Well... I let myself get pressured into sending the Ao3 link of the fic to the guy and the two are planning to read it together this week... Wish me luck, I'll need it—