Leon, Leon (BoyxNB romance)

Chapter 3

English literature was the only battle left for the day, and I was glad of it. My wotsits had lasted slightly too long, leaving me with both cheesy fingers walking to class and too much time to contemplate the current turn of events. How would I handle tomorrow? Like nothing happened? Would I ask how engineering went? Would I care?

Would I stop obsessing so much and just get to class quicker? That was the question I was asking now. And sure enough, the door came.

And I realised I wouldn’t even have to really bother.

I walked over to the middle of the classroom, slowly, hoping to make just enough noise to get his head to raise from where he was writing his and the teacher’s name at the top of his workbook. I could see the edge of the first line, the words large and... oddly beautiful. Precise as fuck, with each letter being exactly as tall as the other, and connected perfectly in large loops. Fuck being feminine or whatever, the guy was more robotic.

Weird... but I couldn’t stop watching it. I felt like I should record it and put it in one of those ‘Totally satisfying gifs’ compilations that always popped up on my Instagram.

“Hello?” I had zoned out a bit watching him. Oops, not great for your street cred there, Cally boy.
“Yeah? Um, sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh... I was just going to find a chair.”
“Okay,” he smiled, pulling out the one next to him. “Here is no person. You will sit here?”
How can I refuse this now? “Sure, sounds great.”

Please don’t be awkward. Please don’t be awkward. Please don’t be awkward. For once in your life, do not be a dick, Cal.

I placed my bag under the desk and shuffled in next to him, feeling my palms go sweaty as I wasn’t sure where to put them. I carefully unzipped my bag and put my pencil case and book on the case, but knocked elbows with him on the way back up.
“Oops-“
“No, I am sorry,” he said. “I am too wide, yes? I will put my arms close.” He smiled. “I try to make my writing become beautiful. I am sad it looks too... not clean.”
“No, I think it looks cool! It’s better than I could ever do. How did you learn how to do that?”
“I do not know, they teached us to write like this. For some of the people, it is beautiful, but I cannot read it completely!” He smiled so widely, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Well, mine looks like shit and it’s unreadable, so I’ve got double the points,” he kept smiling, but looked a little lost. “Anyway, how has your day been? Do you like the school?”
“Yes, I like the school lots. It is very small, but I think that the teachers are nice. They help me for understand.”
“Yeah, I think they’re alright too. You might not like Mr. White – the teacher for this lesson – since most people don’t, to be honest. He’s pretty strict, and doesn’t let you have a drink or chew chewing gum like most of the teachers do.”
“You do not like him also?”
“Eh, I don’t mind. I do the work, and he marks it and says what I need to improve.” I tried to start enunciating my words more, knowing that half of my problem with French listenings in class was that the words always seemed to blend together. “I don’t hate teachers because they are grumpy or strict, really. He is good at teaching. Once he turns up.”

He looked a little confused towards the end. “What? Did I say something wrong?”
“Sorry, no, I...” He grabbed his sleeve, and rolled it up, and down again. “I do not understand your words. This is ‘turn up’, yes? I remember the words from the past.”
“Oh, yeah, um, that’s right, you can turn up your sleeve, but it also means like... arrive, appear. That sort of thing, you know?”

He nodded. “I see. It is all very confusing, for me. There are too many words for meaning the same things, and there are too many meanings for one word.”
“Yeah, I guess it is like that. A lot of things are confusing. But I think you’ll figure it out, no problem.”
"Yes, I hope that I will find the answers, with you."