Chad and the Incel

6th Post: [Experiment] (POLL) What do you think of gay men?

At school, Noah saw Chad and immediately looked away. Chad did the same.

As he sat in class, Chad absentmindedly doodled a heart. When he noticed this, a jolt of fear ran through his spine and he scribbled over the drawing. When lunch arrived, Tyrone's chatter became a blur in Chad's ears as peridot eyes consumed his thoughts. Despite this, he refused to look at Noah.

On his way to his car after school, he saw a girl with thick-framed glasses who giggled and waved at him. He stared at her with lust in his eyes, but that quickly ended when the memory of Noah putting his glasses back on projected onto his mind.

At home, Chad curled his arm with a dumbbell, a manga in his other hand. When the image of Noah staring at him as he stared back popped up in his head, he dropped the dumbbell and swore as one end fell onto his foot.

The memory was replaced with another, but not of Noah. An image of Chad's old middle school building flashed in his mind.

The sun woke Chad from his slumber. Well, that and the pencil regularly poking his cheek. He looked up and swore. Almost everyone had left the classroom. Everyone except for the teacher, who was packing her things, and the boy with the pencil in his hand.

Chad gazed at the boy's face, which was bathed in the sunlight. The boy had a big grin that showed his missing tooth. He wore a pair of round glasses whose size made his face almost disappear. He wasn't quite bald but had a thin bed of hair on his head. His nose bent a little to the side but he had never complained about it. He smelled strongly of supermarket cologne and his breath, as he laughed his loud, hearty laugh, was minty. When he pinched Chad's cheek, Chad noticed how warm and sweaty his hands were. This boy was Gerry LeGume. He had been made fun of for his name but took it in stride.

'What were you dreaming about, Sudan?'

Ah, yes. The nicknames he gave people. Usually, they were based on some sort of pun or similar word to their name. He even called himself either Gus or Matt depending on how highly he thought of himself that day (Gus for his arrogant moods, Matt for his 'humbler' moods). He derived these names from a film with his name as the title, a film he hadn't even seen and yet already decided was genius.

Chad looked away. 'You don't dream if you only sleep for a little bit.' He was kind of lying. He had been dreaming, though that dream swirled around his brain long before he fell asleep.

Gerry's eyes were wide as if he was staring at a doorway to another world. 'Is that true?'

Chad shrugged before yawning and stretching his arms. He made sure to continue looking away from Gerry, who reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope.

'A girl gave me this to give to you,' he explained. 'Honestly, I wouldn't bother reading it. I mean, she's a coward if she doesn't give it directly to you. And why write a letter when she could have just asked for your number?'

Chad grabbed the envelope and stared at it, rubbing his thumb against the heart sticker sealing it. He looked back up at Gerry, who was holding his glasses as he stared at him.

'So watcha gonna do?'

Chad rested his chin on his hand and waved the envelope around with his other hand. 'I mean, even if she did ask me for my number, I would've said no. I'm not looking to go out with anyone.' Also a lie.

Gerry scoffed a laugh and turned around until he was facing the whiteboard. 'Gay,' he said sarcastically, though that sarcasm was lost on Chad, whose eyes travelled everywhere as if looking for an escape.

Gerry stood up and wrapped his arm around Chad's neck, rubbing the knuckles of his free hand against Chad's head.

'You look like a cat that just discovered he got his own tongue,' he said. Would it be important to mention he had high scores in English, and that he bragged about this constantly?