anonymous ✧ multi

9: loyalty before royalty

|december 2 2019
northwestern high school
12:07 pm|

"happy birthday jarad!" michael beamed, holding a slice of chocolate cake with red and white frosting as he walked over towards his boyfriend, who was sitting at their usual lunch table.

he plopped down into jarad's lap, continuing the birthday praises, "happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear jarad, happy birthday to you...big 14 you know what the fuck going on, yeaaaaaaaaaayaeeeeeeee!" michael finished with a giggle, handing the plate of cake over to a smiling jarad.

jarad sat the plate on the table, wrapping his arms around michael's waist and kissing his cheek, a rose tint then washing over the redhead's face. "i love you mikey. you make me so happy."

"oh? jarad's actually happy for once?" stokeley piped up, sitting next to the jovial couple and joining his group of friends at their lunch table.

"stokeley doesn't smell like a landfill for once?" jarad clapped back, to which stokeley responded with a huff, not even bothering to assert that he smells good this time.

he decided to just let it go, turning his attention to mikey. "so you good? anybody been fucking with you about what happened?" 

michael shook his head, not even wanting to dwell on his outing for any longer than he had to. he was an absolute wreck on the preceding wednesday when all of his business was leaked to the entire school, even swearing that he'd never darken the doorway of northwestern high school ever again. however, kodie was right. as embarrassed and afraid as he was to show his face again, hiding away in his room sobbing wouldn't have solved anything. it would have just made him look like even more of a pussy.

and besides, no one dared to heckle him or harass him to his face, especially after what happened to omar - who didn't even have anything to do with the situation but was just a casualty of jahseh's wrath.

in short, the most that happened was people whispering when michael walked by. most people were too afraid of what jahseh would do to them if they actively attacked him.

the conversation shifted. "ooh,i like your necklace sy. where'd you get it?" brittany approached the table with a tray in hand, sitting between symere and kodie.

"yeah, that shit's nice," stokeley agreed, picking at the food on his tray.

an involuntary smile crept up upon symere's face, taking the trinket in his hands and thumbing over the glass part of it. "um, jordan gave it to me," he turned towards his boyfriend, his eyes sparkling with a glint of gratitude as he continued to explain, "for our anniversary."

the table broke out into a chorus of "aww" and "must be nice", the couple sharing a chaste kiss with one another amidst the uproar.

"see, it has a picture of us in the front," symere showed his locket off while his friends continued to look at it in awe. he felt so blessed to have such an amazing boyfriend like jordan.

after the talk of symere's necklace died down, the topic changed to the teens' plans for the rest of the day.

"so, jarad and i are skipping after lunch is over," michael announced, "we're going back to his place and i'm going to give him the second part of his birthday gift." he finished his sentence by turning around and looking at his boyfriend with a flirtatious smirk, who returned the energy.

"ew. don't nobody wanna hear all that," stokeley grunted, "now i got the image of a reptile and a sumo wrestler fucking burned in my memory forever." jarad responded by flipping stokeley off and ignoring him.

"me and jordy are skipping too," symere interjected, "anybody else wanna come?"

"i'd come but i already got suspended not too long ago from that fuck ass fight with rubi," brittany mentioned. "i'm trying to stay out of trouble right now, so i can't come."