In My Hour of Need

Chapter 4

When I woke up, the first thing I heard was someone arguing. I didn't even bother to open my eyes. I knew we were still on the plane, so I could at least pretend to sleep, so I didn't have to deal with someone else's problems. Chris Poland's laugh was heard from the other side of the aisle. I opened my eyes only so I could roll them. "No, I'm not!", I then heard Junior scream. What is it this time? I thought. And they never stopped arguing. I sighed heavily, and got up from my seat to shut them up. "Fucking shut up, guys, some people are trying to sleep", I barked at them. Poland was still laughing, and Gar was only glaring at him, trying to kill him with his eyes. Junior was standing a little behind Gar, looking even sadder than earlier. "He's fucking bullying Junior, man!", Gar yelled, "He's acting like a high school drama-queen!" This was something that hit me with surprise. Really? I mean, which grown man lets another guy bully him? I sighed. "Shut up, Poland", I told Chris, which hadn't stopped laughing yet. He tried to stop, but kept looking at Junior, which only seemed to make him laugh even more. Junior looked so fucking innocent where he stood, hiding behind Gar. "All right", I said, "What's the deal?" Gar looked behind him at Junior, as if he wanted to tell me himself. But Gar ended up explaining the whole thing for him. It wasn't even an explanation, just words, a sentence. "Chris keeps insisting that Junior is in love with you", Gar said. Junior blushed, which was understandable, considering that the whole group was probably thinking I was a homophobe or something. But I'm not, just so it's said. Poland almost fell to the floor laughing at this ridiculous theory that he had probably come up with himself. I just sighed, and hid my face behind my hand. This was too stupid, but actually not very unlikely. I rolled my eyes, and bumped my fist into Junior's arm. "This you can deal with yourself, dude", I said, walking back to my seat. But apparently he couldn't.

Two hours later, we landed in Germany. I had actually been sleeping, and stretched as I stood up from my seat. I looked beside me, only to find an empty seat. But I thought Junior sat next to me? Maybe he had already left the plane. Unlikely, since Chris and Gar were leaving right now, and Junior wasn't anywhere in sight. Oh well, I thought, he might just be right outside. On my way out, I slapped Chris in the head: he deserved it. "Ow!", he whimpered, but I just laughed. I walked down the stairs, and out to the fresh air. I inhaled as I looked around, and saw Junior running as fast as he could with all of his luggage. What the fuck? "Junior!", I yelled at him, and started running. As I ran, I yelled back to Gar: "You get my luggage!" I could practically hear him sigh; I had a lot of stuff with me. I catched up quickly, since I didn't have any stuff trailing behind me. "Junior, what the hell?", I asked him, still running. He stopped abruptly, so I ran a few steps in front of him before realizing he had stopped. I walked the small number of steps back, to get closer so he could hear me better. I could see him avoiding eye contact with me. "Wha- what the hell?", I panted. He wasn't worn-out at all, not in any way gasping for air as I was. "Uh", he stuttered, "I have family here, and I have to catch the-" "No, you don't!", I interrupted. For all I knew, he could have family in Germany, but we needed him here and now, it wasn't long until the show started. He still wasn't looking at me, which fucking bothered me; people like that are hard to talk to. "Come on!", I said impatiently, and placed my hand on his back, pushing him in the other direction. He looked so fucking insecure about everything these days, you had to force him to do stuff, even band-stuff. Junior hesitated for a little while before just starting to walk himself. I walked up next to him, and took some of his luggage. Hey: it was the least I could do, the guy obviously had problems. That by the way, fucking bothered me, and I couldn't put the pieces together.