Angry | NatePat

one

"Not even kidding, Jason. He looks like an angel," Nate was laying on his bed, tossing a ball into the air and catching it right before it hit his nose.

"Are you sure it's a he? By the sound of it, your boy crush is a girl crush," the blonde spoke from the other side of the room, doodling on the whiteboard in his lap.

"My gaydar was a-ringin' and that boy sure as hell isn't interested in girls," he seemed pretty set on what he believed to be the true. Or, what he really hoped was the truth. Mat was stunning and he would be lying if he said he didn't want him for himself.

"Whatever you say, Nateru. Anyways, what did Mr. Fredrick say about you failing in his class? You could always just cheat off of me. I'm like, top of the curb always."

"Oh, of course! Mr. Top of the Curb himself," Nate rolled his eyes with a huff, "he's giving me some stupid tutor today. I think he was gonna tell me yesterday but that little angel came in before he could say anything."

Jason was positive that Nate did need this tutor if he was too dumb to put two and two together. It wasn't just a coincidence that the brunette walked in as they were talking about tutoring.

Mat was the tutor.

---

Staying after school was never fun. The longer Nate had to sit in a room that smelled like sweat and broken dreams, the more his sanity left him.

However, staying after school in Mr. Frederick's class wasn't that bad.

He got to write music, play with his guitar that he insisted on bringing while they waited for the tutor, throw a ball around, whatever he was able to do.

When the clock hit 3, the door opened to reveal a sweaty Mat.

His hair was messy and he had a beanie on, as well as pretty visible concealer on his eyes. Maybe it wasn't visible to most people, but Nate had a sense of what was real and what was fake.

The brunette was wearing a hoodie and jeans, completely different from the day before. It hurt Nate to see him like this, even if he didn't even know who he was.

"Sorry I'm late," his confident voice was replaced with a broken tone that didn't even sound like the boy Nate met before.

"It's alright, Matthew. Are you okay?" Mr. Fredrick walked up to him, whispering something inaudible to everyone but Mat.

"I'm okay. Where's- oh. Hi, handsome! What he doing here, Mr. Fredrick?"

Nate was a bit surprised at how quickly Mat was changing the topic he was talking about. His emotions were also rushed from being sad to happy to confused. It set off a few red flags into Nate's mind but he didn't have time to think into anything too deeply before Mr. Fredrick replied.

"Matthew, this is your new student. Nathan, this is your new tutor," Mr. Fredrick scratched the back of his neck, a smile on his face when he saw how excited the two boys looked. Though he did see a faint amount of confusion in Nathan's expression, he didn't let it get to him. Matthew soon took the seat next to Nathan and a textbook was in front of them. They were instructed to get to work, starting on page one and just going over simple math terms. Matthew had returned to his happy self, but it wasn't until Mr. Fredrick wasn't paying attention that Nathan brought up his appearance.

"You look different," he chose his words carefully, not sure how the smaller boy would react. He didn't get much of a reaction physically, more so a conflicted battle within his eyes. Matthew looked like he wanted to respond, but another part of him was telling him not to. Nathan took the opportunity to open his mouth so he could speak again, to say what he said didn't mean he looked bad. However, Matthew beat him to it and spoke as hesitantly and carefully as Nathan had.

"It wasn't a day that I deserved to wear nice things," the way he said those words sounded so rehearsed. His eyes were dull and his voice was flat, much unlike the previous day. He sounded just like another tired teenager, but it was deeper than that. Matthew wasn't tired from lack of sleep, he was tired from life in general. Someone hurt him, that was clear enough.

"But they're your clothes, why wouldn't you deserve to wear them?" once again, it looked like Matthew had forgotten his lines in a play. His eyes were scared, flicking back and forth across the room as he fumbled with his hoodie strings.

"Simplify the like terms in question two, and then solve question three if 'm' was equal to negative thirty," that wasn't rehearsed, Matthew purposefully changed the subject because he didn't have the right words to say. There was something wrong, and Nathan was much too stubborn to just give up on the once happy boy.

Two hours of non-stop asking questions about how to answer problems and getting very monotone answers each time lead Nathan to just stop trying. He let his hand and eyes go into autopilot, glancing at the problem a few times before going off how he knew to solve it. He took the time he now had to study Matthew's face. The concealer he used was a bit too light for his skin that got a bit tanner turning the summer season. Or, maybe it was perfect and it had just begun to wear away due to hours of use. It was beginning to reveal prominent blue undertones that weren't dark circles.

Nathan's pencil dropped and rolled off his desk, he used his now free arms to wrap Matthew tightly into his grasp and he pulled him against his chest. He set his head onto the boy's shoulder, whispering ever so quietly:

"Who hit you?"

And Matthew pulled away, grabbing his backpack before leaving Nathan and Mr. Fredrick alone together again.