SOFT (egobang)

2: Lemon to a Knife Fight

Danny POV

A couple more periods of torturous class and it was finally my lunch period, which I didn't realise that I also shared with Arin. He was hard to miss wearing that hood, and I was glad he didn't seem to be embarrassed by it as much after our interaction. I was sitting at a table having already gotten my lunch, and was just waiting on a few friends who were on the line to get theirs. I found myself watching him as he walked to the back of the lunch room with his sandwich of some kind. He sat in the corner and it took everything in me not to get up to go sit with him.

It seemed Arin noticed me watching him as our eyes met and he immediately looked away, embarrassed. It didn't take long before somebody sat with him, which made me feel a little less awful about not going over there.

I was pulled out of my mind by a hand slapping a little too roughly on my back.

"Danny! What're ya staring at?" The voice came from my best friend in the whole world- Brian.

I looked up at him, a smile on my face. "Dude, did you see the kid with the cat ears?" I laughed softly.

"You mean Arin? Yeah I saw."

Ross's voice came out of seemingly nowhere saying "He's such a fuckin' weirdo."

I turn around to look at him with a pout on my face. "Idunno he seems like a nice guy to me."

"You have shit taste, Dan" Ross sat down, laughing. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to Brian. A few more people sat with us, they were more of Ross' friends than mine, but I still made an effort to talk to them all and be friendly. I was well liked for a good reason, after all.

We didn't really talk about anything out of the ordinary. Just average things like 'did you see what so-and-so was wearing' or 'I really hope we win the game tonight' or 'I'm so excited for pep rally!' And so on and so forth. Ross' friends were all pretty big on gossip, especially Holly who seemed to know everything about everyone all the time. She was telling us about some girl named Suzy- who she seemed to have beef with constantly- when Arin walked by our table to get to the vending machines.

Holly immediately stopped what she was saying and lowered her head so she could sneakily watch Arin.

"Um excuse me, is nobody going to comment on what Arin's wearing?" She giggled quietly.

I rolled my eyes and decided to ignore them, turning my attention to Brian. I wanted to tell him about a new Wombats song I had found the other day, since both of us really liked them. I didn't like to take part in their gossipy shit, but it wasn't like they were saying it to his face or anything. I took out my phone and headphones, handed one headphone to Brian and stuck one in my own ear so I could play the song for him- Lemon to a Knife Fight.

We got up to the chorus when out of the corner of my eye I saw Holly stand up, look at someone and then loudly meow at them. I paused the song and stared at her, trying to figure out what she was doing. She giggled and sat back down, I looked around a bit and noticed Arin was still on the line for the vending machine. Oh no.

I took a deep breath and clicked play on the song again, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. That was when Ross got up.

"Fucking faggot." I heard him say.

That was the last straw for me. I took my head phone out and tossed it at Brian, getting out of my seat as I did.

"Ross, what the fuck?"

"What you can't tell me he doesn't look like a fucking fairy?"

"Yeah, I can. He looks fine, fuck off."

"Guess you're a faggot too, then" he shrugged and turned back to Arin, grabbing the hat off his head. "What the fuck are you even wearing, Hanson?"

I felt myself getting angrier and angrier.

And so I punched him in the face.