Boys Like You (BxB)

Prologue

Tokyo, Japan

Steven was starting to think he was getting frostbites. The unnerving cold weather didn't help ease the tight feeling he had in his chest, the hollow feeling in his stomach, and the stiff fingers he had. He could feel his cold sweat sliding down his nape. He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.

He looked at the paper he was holding—the outline for his presentation—and he tried to steady his breathing. He tried to think of anything else, but the looming presentation he had. But his luck had run out, and in the distance, the audience had already made their applause at the speaker before him.

"Thank you for that wonderful paper. Now if you could just pass the clicker..." the voice of the usher faded to white noise. Steven adjusted his suit and tie, slicked his hair back, and fixed his lapel before heading inside the holding room, where all the other presenters waited.

A woman, dressed in all black, who held a clipboard and a handheld transceiver, approached Steven, and said, "You're up, Mr. Keis."

She seemed to cross off something on her clipboard and handed Steven a clicker. She flashed him a smile, and lead him to the platform. Steven took another deep breath. This meant everything to him. A shot for scholarships abroad; not that studying in the US wasn't enough. He couldn't waste this opportunity to get a scholarship and represent his school. He just couldn't.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Keis, from New Jersey. He is currently the youngest delegate, at seventeen years, and tonight he will be presenting his research paper..."

Steven's eye twitched slightly and faked a smile at the audience before him. The host stepped off the lectern and left the floor to Steven.

He cleared his throat and began his presentation. "In this new, digital age, it isn't surprising that children would lose interest in the print media, such as books, newspapers, and other writings, and develop a great dependence upon their devices. I, personally, have a bad habit for such, which is why..."

He talked. And talked. Until he couldn't hear himself. The next thing he knew, the audience clapped. The panel seemed quite impressed, and wrote down notes on the sheets of paper. Steven took a sip from the bottle of water that was under the lectern and wiped his cold sweat.

"Thank you for that, Mr. Keis. You may take your seat next to Mr. Slade. Our next presenter is a college student from Malaysia, and she is..." everything else the host said faded, as Steven thanked her and he was guided by an usher towards the front row of the audience, and he sat next to a guy whose name he just forgot.

The moment Steven sat down, he took another sip from his bottle, and took out from his coat's pocket his phone. He immediately opened his inbox, mostly filled with subscriptions to science and astronomy magazines and websites, and amongst those, he found one from his professor.

Steven, meet me at the reception area once you're done. I'd like you to meet someone very important.

He quickly typed up a reply, Okay Mrs. Colvin.

"Kind of nerve-wracking, huh?"

Steven looked up to see who was speaking. The man seated next to him was staring at him, with a raised brow up. The man had blonde hair slicked back, piercing steel gray eyes, and an awful lot of freckles that scattered around his cheeks and across his nose. He looked as if he were around Steven's age, or older by a year or two.

"You could say that," Steven replied, running his fingers through his hair.

"Sometimes I never understood why I took a liking to these kinds of things, ya know? I could be shooting some hoops or on a date with some girl, but frankly, I'm stuck here in this science convention with old people. I just want to savor my youth, know what I mean?" the man said, looking at the woman who presented on something about metal straws.