Anonymous || Malum ✓

fifteen

Calum felt like setting himself on fire. Actually, he might set Michael on fire. Michael was sitting in front of him and he looked so good but the pale boy would not shut up.

Normally Calum liked hearing Michael talk because his voice had such a soft rasp and it reminded him of home, the Australian accent helping that, but right now he felt like drop kicking the boy off of a cliff.

"Calum! He covered Blink! Oh my god!" Michael said excitedly, shoving his phone in Calum's face.

The only thing Calum hated more than performing on stage was hearing his own voice being played back at him. He was probably three seconds away from pouncing. If they weren't sitting in In-N-Out then he would. He was on his hour break and Michael had shown up to accompany him. He found it sweet but if he knew that he'd be listening to his own covers for an hour he would've said no a long time ago.

"Can we stop listening to him?" Calum pleaded, hearing his seventh cover in half an hour.

"But Calum! He's so talented and so good! And he could literally be anywhere and we wouldn't know it. He's so passionate and he cares about what he does and that's so hard to find in the music industry today," Michael said, his eyes lighting up as he spoke about the anonymous boy.

Calum found it endearing about how much Michael cared and about how much he was willing to talk about it. But then he was also jealous. He wished that Michael talked about him the same way that he talked about Anonymous. He was jealous of himself.

"Fine. Fine," Michael grumbled, turning his phone away and putting it in his pocket. Calum smiled and grabbed Michael's hand as compensation.

"He's just so cool and he won't let me meet him. I want to meet him and get him in the studio one day," Michael explained.

"How are you sure that you haven't met him yet? Like how weird would that be if you had and didn't know it?" Calum asked.

Michael shrugged his shoulders. That made him start to think. He could've met the boy anywhere and the boy would know but he wouldn't. That really started to mess with his mind and Calum just grinned as he watched the boy go through some sort of epiphany.

"I feel like he would've told me if he had," Michael said softly, unsure of how the boy could just ignore him if they had. He considered them good friends and didn't understand why he wouldn't come up to him.

"Yeah, and I'm not gay," Calum said. The tan boy stood up from the booth and patted Michael's head softly before leaning down and kissing his cheek quickly.

"Wait, but you are!" Michael said and suddenly it hit him.

It all made sense.

The anonymous boy was hidden because he didn't like to play in front of others. He had stage fright and was terrified. That's what Calum was implying! He didn't know who the person was because he didn't want to become a huge artist. Calum was so smart some times.

Michael smiled as he saw Calum go back behind the counter and the boy waved at him. Michael waved back slowly before deciding to leave the restaurant since the tan boy's break was over.

"Bye Calum!" Michael yelled as he left the restaurant.

The only response he got was a scowl from Len.

***

I'm so so so sorry that this took so long. I got really busy and just got back to updating somewhat regularly. It won't be the same until next Tuesday. And this was kind of bad but I just wanted to update!

-Lee