Reality And Us

Chapter Eleven

Nicklas closed the door behind him and went around the house. Putting his hands in his pockets he walked towards the street, and followed it for a little bit. He was going there again, to the gym, quite soon the time Zane and him agreed on would arrive and he didn't want to be late for their hang out, training session, or whatever it was.

When he stood in front of that familiar building again, he looked around, but the other boy wasn't in sight. So he'd have to wait.

Nicklas didn't wait for people often, both Jamie and Stella were always on time, he barely ever waited for his parents and the rest of the world always seemed to irrelevant to wait for them, too unimportant for him.

To have someone to wait for was therefore quite unknown to him, he never really made this kind of effort, but he wanted to spend time with Zane. Because Zane and his stupid thoughts had given him a mystery he had yet to solve, and he still hoped getting to know the boy more might help him find out.

Besides, Zane seemed like he was a decent person, and could make a good friend. Maybe.

So he stood there, as the minutes passed, he looked at his watch every two seconds, impatiently and a little bit bothered. Zane was late.

After that realization a frown formed on his face, he crossed his arms and let out a huff.

He wasn't the happiest about the other boy being late, since he definitely didn't have a lot of patience training, he never really appreciated people being late - it felt like a sign of disrespect, like you didn't care about the other person waiting, about the other person spending time on you.

To him, it was a way of saying 'Your time doesn't matter', 'I don't care about you' or 'I actually don't really want to meet up with you', if there wasn't a good reason.

The week before he was okay with Zane not being there, because they never agreed on a time or even a meet-up anyways, but now? This was serious.

Nicklas really hoped the other boy had a good reason for being late.

He himself was never late when it came to people he liked. Whenever he started to care for someone he made quite the effort to make sure things went well between them, and being on time was one of said efforts.

So, as a reaction to having to wait all this time, he couldn't help but wonder whether or not Zane felt the same platonic feelings as Nick. If actually wanted to spend time with him. He knew that those thoughts were useless and dumb, but he just couldn't help but think about it, letting those assumptions run through his minds, rising a light anxiety in his body.

It was fifteen minutes now and Zane still wasn't there. A whole fifteen minutes. One was acceptable. Five weren't nice, but still not that bad. Ten? Worth a lot of angry glares. But who was fifteen minutes late to a hang out they suggested? It wasn't logical.

Nicklas heavily disliked this situation, what the fuck was going on in Zane's mind when he left his home that late? Did he think of this as a joke?

He continued to wait.

About twenty minutes after the time they had originally agreed on Nick could spot the other boy on his bike, riding it like a maniac towards him.

After stopping and locking his bike near to the gym Zane went to the younger boy. He felt quite bad about being late - he didn't like being late, but for some reason it happened again and again - and therefore really wanted to apologize.

"I'm terribly sorry! I had a lot of stuff to do, I got here as fast as I could!", Zane said, his voice sounding breathless because he had tried his best not to be too late, which had ended up in him being a bit exhausted already.