Kith and Kin ✔️

5. Abrupt Changes

It was getting colder day by day and the fog was making it hard for Jason to drive. Michael, who still hadn't got his divers license, was getting angrier as the time passed because he knew that Jason's slow driving will make him late for his class, again.

As soon as they entered the school grounds Michael ran to his class while Jason parked his Grandpa's old car.

Mrs. Richard glared at him when he interrupted the class. His seat was taken by someone else and he didn't even roll his eyes after seeing that. The only vacant seat in class was next to someone he didn't want to see, but he had no other choice. He had to sit with Elise for the next 40 minutes.

Mrs. Richard began her lecture and gave the students a worksheet to solve in five minutes. A collective groan was heard from the class but Michael didn't mind. Calculus was the only subject he was good at.  
Michael started solving the questions and like always was very confident with what he was doing. When he raised his head after completing his worksheet he was baffled to see that Elise was also done.
For a moment he admired her skills but slowly this admiration turned into jealousy. He had always taken pride in knowing that he was the best in this class but now Elise was his rival. He saw her as a competitor and was willing to do anything to beat her.

As the bell rang, Michael asked Elise to wait for him. She, startled by the calmness in his voice, reluctantly obeyed.
"So how have you been?" Michael asked as they walked out of the classroom.
"Ah, I'm good. What about you?" She felt weird that Michael was talking to her in this friendly tone but she still answered him politely ,"Yeah, I'm good too, what about you?" He immediately realised his mistake but was too slow to amend it.
"Come to point Mike and tell me what you're here for." Elise demanded with narrowed eyes.
"Damn it's weird to talk to you." Michael muttered, "Look I know that you're hanging out with Alex and you both are going good, I  guess. He's my best friend and I don't want to see him with someone I dislike." He stood with his back straight and she couldn't stop feeling a little intimidated by him.
"So you want me to stay away? Know what? I won't—" She moved closer to him but he pushed her away saying, "No I don't want you to stop seeing him. I want to fix the thing between us... If you can stop acting weird around me, maybe Alex will be comfortable with you even when I am around. Let's just fix it, it's only for Alex."
"Ok, sounds weird, but ok." She shook hands with him and he again told her that it's all just for Alex. Elise doubted him but she also made herself believe that they were doing this for her friend, Alex.
She saw Michael ran in the other direction but suddenly he stopped. Turing around he shouted, "And for the record my name is Michael not Mike."
To this Elise just gave a small smile.

When Elise saw Alex in her next class, she told him that everything was fine between her and Michael now.
"Did Michael apologise?" Alex asked, still not believing her.
"No he didn't but we kind of agreed on not holding any grudge. You know, it's not healthy, right?" She stuttered as she tried to make up a story about her and Michael behaving normally.
"Yeah right. I told you already that Mike isn't the type of guy who would hold a grudge and I wish you could but you don't know how cool he is if you manage to get past his stay-away-from-me layer. I'm happy that you both are fine now." Alex seemed relaxed.
"Yeah and you won't have to hide the fact that you're friends with me too." Elise grinned at Alex.
"Wait how come you are allowed to call him Mike when I'm not."
Alex smacked his head on the table, looking up, he muttered, "Please don't tell me he gave you that my name is Michael speech."
"He actually did. Any reason for that?"
"There's no good reason. He just doesn't want to be called Mike. He loves his full name a bit too much."
"So why do you call him Mike?" Elise asked still not understanding.
"That's because we are best friends and I can do and say things which others are not allowed to." Alex said in a duh tone.
Nodding her head, she finally started to pay attention to the teacher who was busy teaching Biology.