Field - ★ - Brance

- Part Six -

The first class of the day was PE. The school away had to do PE on a field that was around a three minute walk from the school. The opening to the class was at the field and all students where expected to be there. Vance made his way over to the field, he walked behind the rest of his PE class. The class was quite large, it was around the size of two classes. 

The entire group had gathered to sit at the side of the field, against the gate. The teacher trotted in front of them while explaining the game. "Today we'll play a non official basketball match. We'll use the regular school rules, regular teams." He exclaimed. The group of kids stood up and divided themselves amongst the two sides of the field.
 Both sides had a basketball net and the ground was made from concrete. Not any fancy smooth concrete, just the usual kind you'd usually find yourself driving over on the road. You can imagine how amazing it is to fall on while doing sports.

"Regular teams. I'm always on Bruce's team." Vance glanced around the rather large group of kids till his eyes landed on Bruce. They looked at each other for a second before the teacher blew on his whistle. The kids scattered over the field. Vance being the strong and athletic boy that he was always a try-hard when it came to PE. The same counted for Bruce.

As the basketball was quickly thrown around between players it rather quickly landed in Vance's hands. He ran around the groups of people with the ball, right as he was about to try to make a goal he found himself facing two taller boys. He glanced around for a teammate and to his relief he saw Yamada standing on the other side. He had a clear view of the net, his position was near perfect. Vance  threw the ball to the side Bruce was standing and he swiftly caught it and made the throw before anyone could block his path.

The ball bounced on the rim of the net, it swirled around it before finally tipping in it. Their teammates cheered as the teacher blew his whistle. A bunch of kids surrounded Bruce,
high-fiving him and celebrating the point. They kept playing for a while and they ended up ending the game while the score was 5-1. The boys cheered. The other team, containing Finney and Robin quietly took their loss in. Luckily the most passionate team of sporting students was Vance's team, so the other team didn't mind their loss too much.

The class was over and the kids crowded out of the field. They closed together as they left to walk back to the school. The small friend groups from the winning team are celebrating their win. The two kids walking at the back of the group where Vance and Bruce.
 "Hey, good job on that goal back there." Vance said to him. Bruce looked his way, noticing Vance's half smile towards him. He looked away again, watching the sidewalk. "Mhm. Thanks." He muttered out. Vance didn't know what else to say so he decided to just look in front of him until they reached the school.

The entire group split up to enjoy their break and Yamada headed off to sit on his bench. Vance wandered off to have a smoke break behind the school with Michael and Craig.
"Hey, anything new happen with Bruce?" Michael chuckled. Vance took a deep inhale from his cigarette. "No." He replied. "So you've decided to just let him go?" Craig murmured. "Why do you care so much? If you want to him to hurt so badly do it yourself, pussy." He snarled back. He exhaled the smoke and threw the remains on the ground before swiftly stomping on it. He turned away and paced off, a swirl from the cloud following him.

 The bell rang and he entered the class. It was history class, the class where he sat next to Bruce. He got the usual glances as he walked to the back of the class and sat down next to him. 
Vance had entered the class around five minutes too late but the teacher had let it slide. Bruce was already busy copying down what was being said in his notebook. Vance pulled out his notebook that he had grabbed from his locker. Instead of having a separate notebook for every single class he had opted to just use one fat one for each class. Not the most practical but it wasn't like he would read through his old notes anyway.

The class had been going on for around ten minutes before Bruce noticed Vance sliding a note to him. "Great, last time he passed me a note in history it ended greatly."  Vance was eagerly glancing at Yamada, waiting for him to open the note. Instead of doing so he crumpled it up in his pocket. Vance frowned and spent the rest of the class doodling in his notebook. 

The rest of the day the two shared no classes. The time ticked by slowly as there was nothing interesting for the whole day. 

After school Bruce hopped on his bike and quickly pedalled home. The ride back was cold, it had only become colder and colder the past few days. Bruce had dreaded going back to school, he was afraid of Vance. But this day had gone fairly well. For the first school day in a while he hadn't felt any fear. He put his bike down in front of his house and entered. He headed straight to his room and sat down at his desk.

All of a sudden he remembered the crumpled up note in his pocket. He grasped it out of his pocket and slowly unfolded it. 

"CaN I c Ome OveR aFteR scHoOl? tAlK." 

He stared at the note, again being puzzled by Vance fitting handwriting. He didn't know what to think of it. He remembered Vance turning away slightly after he put the note in his pocket. He wondered why Vance wanted to come, why he was suddenly not bothering him anymore. It bothered him. After thinking for a bit he stumbled onto a certain thought. "So he's coming over?" Bruce sat out his desk, it was placed in front of his bedroom window. For half an hour he just sat there, watching his porch.

That's when he saw a familiar boy walking up to his house from the distance. Normally Bruce wouldn't be able to recognise people from that far away but with the long blonde hair and denim jacket it was hard to confuse him for anybody else. It was Vance. Bruce quickly got up and started spurting towards his front door.

The only person at the Yamada residence besides for Bruce was his little sister Amy, but she was busy drawing in her room. Amy had always been the more free and creative sibling while Bruce had always pushed himself to make his parents proud. Bruce had always had a sense of jealousy towards his sister. Even though she was younger, she had always set an example for what he wanted to be when he grew up.

He opened the front door. For whatever reason he was kind of happy that Vance was here. Not because of him, but just the curiosity for whatever he had to tell him. He spent the last half hour just wandering in his thoughts, trying to think about what it possibly could've been. Vance hadn't even walked into their driveway yet and he swiftly looked up after he heard the door open. They made eye contact and Vance hurried his way to the front door.

"Can I come inside." Bruce watched as Vance stood in front of him. Even though he wasn't much taller than Bruce, he had forgotten how intimidating he can be. Instead of Vance's usual gnarly voice it was instead a softer tone. Not soft in the sweet way, just soft in the way that Bruce had never heard him spoke this softly before. 
Bruce tilted his head to the hallway, signalling for Vance to get it. He continued to do so and he watched as he tried to make his way over to the stairs. "Wait," Vance turned around, wondering why he had been stopped. "Take your boots off." He waved his finger to Vance's muddy boots. Vance quietly hunched down and struggled a bit before weaving the laces off and putting his shoes next to Yamada's clean sneakers.

Bruce walked up the stairs first, Vance quietly pacing behind him. Amy popped her head out of her room, trying to see if her parents had gotten home, before letting out a small gasp.
"Bruce, why is Vance Hopper in our house?" She asked in a nervous tone.
He shrugged. Technically he had no clue himself. 
"He's helping me with math." Vance snarled at her. Amy's eyes flicked between the two before she nodded and quickly vanished in her room again.

Bruce opened his room and Vance looked around. It was quite exactly what he had expected. A clean, tidy room. Not many decorations, besides some baseball posters and photos on the walls. Bruce turned to Vance. "Why are you here?" 

(1541 words)