Blatantly Obvious

Best Friends.

The first shrill of a car horn has Rome dashing about his bedroom, hurriedly stuffing binded notes and stationery into his satchel. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror; damp hair still uncombed, first two buttons of his white uniform shirt still unbuttoned and lip balm yet to be applied. Belongings packed, he all but rushes to the vanity mirror and haphazardly applies moisturizer on his face and squeezing a dollop of hand lotion onto the flat of his palm, lathering it all over his tender skin.

The second time the horn shrills is a sign for him to sloppily pull up his socks, choosing a random pair of silver standard earrings at random and he's barely fixed them on when the horn blares for a third time. It's a sign of impatience, but Rome still wastes at least seven seconds pondering over which scent of perfume that he wants to go with for today. Personally, he prefers the softer ones that holds a tinge of-

''Rome!''

Right, he's wasted enough time. Grabbing the black satchel, Rome slings it across his shoulders, rushes out of the bedroom and thunders down the stairs. His mother barely gets a word out about breakfast and he offers her an apologetic smile, staying still long enough for her to kiss him on both cheeks before she ushers him out of the door. 

The black Volvo outside the gates of the house is a common sight, and so is the semi-annoyed male leaning against the vehicle. Rome schools on his best sheepish expression, hoping that it'll lessen his best friend's half-assed tirade about him always being late.

''Morning, P'Pick!''

''No. You don't get to sound all cheerful after making me wait for you. Again.'' His best friend grouses, and after all these years, Pick's still not a morning person. ''Wait. Not just 'again'. For years.'' Pick stresses out as he walks over to the driver's side.

That was...accurate.

It wasn't as if much had changed over the years. Perhaps only the mode of transportation. Back in high school, Pick had owned a scooter instead of a car and that was how they'd get to school. With an age gap of three years between them, Pick had, of course, graduated first. Despite that, the male still made an effort to send Rome to school first before making his way to campus, and it was easier now that the younger male was enrolled in the same university. 

''P', you do know that you don't really have to pick me up, right? Por would be more than happy to drive me to school.''

Pick grumbles something unintelligible under his breath. It's a facade, but Rome's been close friends with him long enough to know that his best friend isn't really mad at him or anything. Just pretending, for appearance's sake. 

They've been friends ever since Rome had stood up to Pick's group of, in his opinion, asshole friends back in high school. Thinking back, it had been something trivial; them thinking that they could pick on a junior simply because they were older. Probably a more-than-stupid, but definitely necessary thing to do and Rome wouldn't have gotten out of that unscathed if it hadn't been for Pick's intervention. Truthfully, Pick telling his friends to ''fuck off and leave the kid alone'' was a braver thing to do. Not everyone was brave enough to stand up to their own friends.

Of course, bullies being bullies, it simply wasn't in their nature to leave Rome alone. He supposes that even back then, he was always being teased for not being as 'masculine' or 'rowdy' as most boys growing up were. Sure, Rome loved participating in the usual lunchtime football games when he felt like it, but most of the time, he was more than happy to hangout with with his friends under the shade instead of sweating it out. Unlike the rest of the boys who were experiencing the standard change of physical body changes, puberty decided that it was going to give Rome a miss. He stopped growing after hitting a certain height and was definitely bonier compared to his peers.