This Is Me

The Greatest Prank (Part One)

The Greatest Prank (Part One)

"Peter, are you doing the work?" The rasping voice rattled around in my ears as I looked up from the work I had in front of me.

I was sitting in my math class and had been assigned some random problems to solve, mainly to pass the time, as my class was ahead of the others in the grade. However, I hadn't started and instead had been doodling quite a deformed-looking rabbit while I let my mind wander.

It was now Thursday afternoon and it had been a few days since the game on Monday. Since I'd felt a weird surge for Leroy. Thankfully, I hadn't experienced anything like that since then. However, I still couldn't seem to get my mind off of him when I was alone. Not so much him, but the way that I felt when I saw him smile, and then the feeling I got when he avoided looking at me. I had no idea what any of it meant. I could only hope it meant nothing, but I couldn't help but wonder.

The thing was, I had never looked at Leroy in any way other than as a friend. From the moment that we'd met, we had hit it off, just as I did with Andy. Though, unlike with Andy, I didn't get a crush on Leroy. I didn't feel anything other than friendship for Leroy. But now, I couldn't seem to stop noticing the smallest details about my best friend.

Like how he always blushed when you looked at him, and he was already looking at you. The smile he got when you mentioned one of the things he loved. How every time he laughed, his whole face lit up. It was these little details that I was only now starting to notice. Every minuscule thing that he did seemed to be under a magnifying glass, and I was seeing everything, and I couldn't stop my stomach from fluttering in his presence.

Then, of course, there was the waiter from The Coffee House. After thinking about him over the previous days, I came to realise that I knew him. He had gone to my school the past year and was a year above me. He had obviously picked up some work at The Coffee House. I hated to say it, but thinking of him was a good distraction from Leroy, despite being left with a slight pit in my stomach, though I wasn't sure why.

"Yes, Ms Lane, I am," I lied smoothly, slightly covering up the drawing at the bottom of the page. "Almost done, actually." That may have been a bit too much.

"Oh, good. Then I'll get you and Leroy to come up and solve the problems on the board," Ms Lane said with an evil smile, gesturing toward me and Leroy who was sitting on the other side of the room, and I silently cursed at myself.

As we both stood up, Leroy glanced at me and gave me a smile, which I returned, happy that the feeling in my stomach wasn't getting too out of control. Thankfully, on Tuesday morning, things had been back to normal between Leroy and me, and he had jumped in my car with a broad smile and warm greeting. Of course, the giant smile and friendly welcome had caused me almost to have a heart attack, but I'd managed to keep myself held together, just as I had been doing for the last few days.

"You weren't doing the work, were you?" Leroy asked in a whisper as I arrived beside him at the front of the room.

We were now both standing in front of the large whiteboard that took up most of the front wall, looking up at the two math problems that Ms Lane had written on it. They weren't the hardest problems, but I was horrible at math, so I knew I would struggle slightly. I had no doubt in my mind that Ms Lane had planned for that.

"You got me," I whispered back, shooting him another smile, doing my best to act normal in front of him before training my eyes on the board before me. "I may, or may not, have drifted off slightly."

"You do that all the time." Leroy chuckled, already starting to work on the problem in front of him.

"I have a creative mind, shut up," I mumbled, doing my best to work out the answer to my problem, though not with much luck.

Leroy and I fell silent, both working on our math problems on the board, but I was finding it hard to concentrate. I could have easily blamed it on the fact that there were too many students whispering and mumbling, or that I hadn't been sleeping for the past few days, but I knew that wasn't it.

It was a particular smell that was lingering around me that was causing my mind to wander slightly and stopping me from concentrating. It was faint and smelt as though it had faded with the day, but it was still there. It smelt like coconut, but with more of a buttery scent. If I was honest, it was a fantastic smell, but it wasn't that alone that was making me not be able to focus. It was where it was coming from, and as Leroy shifted slightly beside me, reaching up to write something on the board, the smell hit me a little harder.

"Crap," I muttered under my breath as I looked toward the floor, deciding that I would stop breathing through my nose.

"What?" Leroy asked in a hushed tone, obviously hearing me.

"Oh, I, uh, I have no idea what I'm doing," I quickly muttered back.

It wasn't untrue, because as I lifted my head and brought my eyes back to the board, I could honestly say I didn't know how to work out the answer.

I looked over at Leroy, who was now studying the problem that was in front of me on the board. His eyes were squinted slightly and a look of concentration was on his face. It was cute.

What was wrong with me? I had no idea why I was suddenly thinking these things now when I had never felt anything for Leroy before. I knew that he was attractive, but I would never have looked at him in a romantic way. Now, however, ever since the game on Monday, in these little moments, I couldn't help but think about him.

Leroy took his eyes off the math problem and glanced at me before quickly scanning the room around us. My gaze followed his. Seeing that the teacher was helping a student on the other side of the room, both me and Leroy turned our attention back to each other.

"I can help, but we'll have to be quick."

"Are you sure?" I asked, turning my head again to see that Ms Lane was still preoccupied.

"Yeah, it's easy. Here."

Leroy quickly finished writing up a few numbers under the problem he was solving before grabbing me by the shoulders and shuffling me, swapping our positions. I stared at him, a little dumbfounded, and after he gave me a quick wink and scanned the room once more, he began working on the problem that I was meant to be solving while I watched him.

I had forgotten how good Leroy was at maths. When we'd had our first class together, we had sat beside each other, and I would copy all of the work he did, changing it slightly, of course. Ms Lane had no idea that I'd been copying his work, but she'd noticed that we spoke to each other non-stop throughout each lesson and eventually set up a seating plan, placing us on opposite sides of the classroom. It had been a long time since I had seen Leroy solve a math problem, and I couldn't help but be a little impressed.

It wasn't because I liked him. I didn't.

"All right, done," Leroy stated, nodding at the work he had done before quickly scanning the room once again. I also did a quick scan of the room and saw that Ms Lane was now kneeling next to the same student's desk she'd been helping before. He was a bigger lost cause than me.

"Swap back?" I asked in a whisper and turned back to face Leroy, who was already looking at me.

"Yeah," he answered with a nod and a smile, and we shuffled around each other, hoping that Ms Lane hadn't seen us swap.

"Thanks for that, Roy," I whispered, looking at the now-solved problem in front of me. "I'm shit at maths."

"No problem. What are friends for?"

"Forming cults?" I joked, looking over at him just in time to see him roll his eyes, all while a smile tugged at his lips.

Another one of those small things that he did that I was only starting to notice.

"I mean, you're not wrong, I guess."

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A/N: Follow me for tips on forming cults!

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Question:

Do... do you wanna start a cult?