All the Beautiful Things

XVI

"Mr. Tanner, you're late," the blonde's history teacher commented when he quietly entered the classroom in the morning, his blue eyes staring blankly ahead of him as he took the steps away from the door and towards his assigned seat. He glanced up at the sound of his teacher's voice, and ignored the stares of his peers.

"My sincerest apologies, Mr. Granger," he replied monotonously, setting his bag down on the floor with a dull thud. His eyes fixated on the bright orange button-up his teacher wore, and his lips curved upwards in a slight smile as he recalled the scavenger hunt with Calum earlier. 

Mr. Granger pursed his lips and exhaled a bit louder than is considered normal, but waved his hand passively and said "you're forgiven, just try to arrive on time in the future," to which Everest answered with a bland "will do."

For the entirety of the lesson, the boy looked at the colors of the teacher's shirt, and he couldn't help but view the different shades of orange around the room, like the Nike symbol on Ethan Elhajj's white t-shirt or the neon splashes of it on Isaac Pelcastre's socks. It was a lovely color, the boy decided, that did not look particularly special when combined with other colors he could see, but was nice enough to appreciate.

Of course, he appreciated colors as a whole, considering the fact that he had not seen many of them in his short lifetime. It was worth it, even if some shades were more repulsive to the eye than others. He could find the beauty in it, nonetheless. The new color distracted him from the day's history lesson, which was of little importance to him, for his mind, though previously empty and rather bland, was so filled with light and memories lately that for the time being, it was the only thing that mattered.

After class that day, Everest roamed the halls quietly, as usual, and spotted Calum scampering along down the opposite direction, brushing his fingertips against the wall gently as he walked, humming along to something inaudible that played in the smaller boy's earbuds. A warm aura surrounded the boy, and though he looked at ease, he was not entirely happy that day. He had arrived late, and was making a weak attempt at calming himself down from the day's events before the next class was due to begin. 

Distracted, the brunette's light eyes were dodging back and forth, only briefly scanning the faces of his peers as he hurried by them. They mattered little at the moment, for he wanted to focus on the lyrics being streamed into his ears at the moment. However, when his gaze fell upon Everest, he smiled lightly and offered a light wave to the blonde, who nodded slowly in recognition of his newfound friend as he passed. 

It was not overlooked by the taller boy, however, when Calum stopped their interactions with the wave, rather than redirecting himself so that he could talk to Everest. Typically, he would be more than excited to spin around in his ratty red vans and cling to the blonde's side like an overly-enthusiastic golden Retriever, talking to him about memories from the days before, or simply telling him about the cereal he ate for breakfast or the pink flower petals that stuck to his car's windshield after the rain from the night before had picked them off the tree in his backyard and swept them away. No, it was quite unusual for Calum to continue on without a word, and Everest found himself glancing back at Calum's retreating figure with furrowed eyebrows, wondering why he had not stopped to at least say hello.

It crossed his mind, briefly, to turn around himself, and catch up to his friend, but something inside of him told him not to, and being someone without much thought towards feeling, he continued on his way, and did not think more of the other boy's unusual behavior. This, unbeknownst to him, was a mistake, but he appeared to make a lot of those, in reference to Cal.