PINK HEARTS [ JACK x ZACH ]

five

there's this boy who moved schools this year, to jack's school. his name is zach. they shared the same class, even sat across from each other in class.

zach liked wearing pink. he wore pink a lot. he had pink converse, pink hair bands, pink shirts and even pink jeans.

jack thought he looked nice. grade 7 had been dreadfully stressful, work upon work upon work. he also had come clean with his sexuality, which made his stress worsen.

the drawings on his arm had been limited, he'd get one heart a month if he was lucky.

zach reminded jack of himself, in the worst way possible. zach would be called princess because of the way he dressed, they would shove him and treat him as if he had no feelings whatsoever.

jack looked up to him in a way. he was too nervous to even mutter a word to zach, (other than the usual "sorry!" when they kick each others feet) but he watched how zach coped with how people treat him. he usually ignored them, but that's what jack used to do until he got home from school and overthought.

jack hadn't responded to the pink hearts on his wrist, but today he was feeling lucky and quite bored in math class. he took out a blue pen from his desk and wrote "hi" on his wrist.

suddenly, from across from him, zach gasped. jack looked up from his seat and looked at him with a side-eye. zach whispered, "sorry." and continued staring into his desk.

jack continued drawing on his hands, he drew random lines on his fingers and decorated the 'hi' he had wrote.

there was no response until the end of the lesson. jack was talking to his friend named daniel when a drawing popped up, 'hi'

daniel glanced at jack's hands, "he wrote back?"

"yep, hold on." jack marched to his desk and grabbed his blue marker and drew two exclamation marks. there was also pink drawings everywhere, which made jack laugh silently.

the end of first recess came quickly and it was now rotary, which meant they'd have to switch classes. jack grabbed his bag and quickly left to his science class.

science was just as boring. the only subject jack actually liked was learning about history and art. so, once again, he grabbed his blue marker and started doodling.

"jack avery," the teacher called on him with a glare, "would you like to come up here and show the class what you've been writing?"

jack stared at his science teacher blankly, "no, i would not."

"it wasn't a question, come up here now."

jack snorted, how had that not been a question? and what did the teacher expect? him to be totally cool with it?

he walked in front of the class and pulled down his sleeve. as he was showing the drawings, there was a choking noise coming from beside him.

the whole class turned over to seeing zach literally choking on air. the teacher furrowed her eyebrows, "are you okay?"

zach stared at jack, before turning to the teacher, "yes, definitely."