Augustine's Sanity

c h a p t e r. 5

"I didn't know what kind of creature I was supposed to be until I woke on a hospital cot and was informed I had died. Nobody ever told me what I was. I figured I was broken. But it turns out that my scars were divine signs that I was granted a chance to begin again."
― Hannah Ashworth

chapter 5

Waiting for their best friend to get to their usual lunch table, Law and Augustine distracted themselves by playing chess. Despite how good the loser could play chess— which the broken boy would admit that he played a really fucking good game— he was simply better.

Augustine was smart enough that by the time Law moved one of his pieces, he had already determined each move his best friend could make and already established a agame plan for each defense and strike.

He won the last game in ten moves and, all while smiling goofily at Law's annoyed scowl, won the one they were currently playing in two this time.

Law was usually neutral to basically everything but he was a nerd— a sarcastic, always picking fights, nerd. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and would look like that classic boy-next-door if it wasn't for his nasty glare and bad boy reputation. He was about two inches shorter than Augustine at 6'2" and was able to produce a puppy dog look that got him out of so many things that even the broken boy lost count.

He was the shortest— and the weakest— out of the three best friends but Augustine knew that Law never felt less-than because of that. Just like he never felt bad because Bar was two inches taller than him.

The best friends knew how to avoid judging each other and they knew how not to compare their bodies, either.

Augustine just wished he could learn how to forget to judge his personality, too.

"Ha," Augustine stuck his tongue out. "Shouldn't have left your king open, idiot."

"Okay, dipshit, I gotta question for you," Law jabbed the broken boy in the cheek— making him believe it's going to be a question about how he won so quickly or why he was being smug. "Why don't you talk shit about your mom? We all know how horrible she is. It's okay to vent sometimes."

"Because," Augustine rubbed his cheek with a pout, not prepared to give the answer but says it anyway. "It's bad to speak ill of the dead and she's a walking zombie to me. Utterly lifeless and willing to destroy someone's mind."

Law blinked over at him for a moment, Augustine suspected he didn't quite know what to say, before looking back at the quickly won chess game.

"Don't worry," He said. "You'd survive the apocalypse."

Despite himself and the sadness that likes to dance with anxiety in his heart, Augustine laughed and helped his best friend clean up the board, bickering as they went. Only stopping the verbal fight as they saw Creed, a bully in their grade, run out of the doors with a pale face.

They didn't care enough about him to question what got him so scared, so they just shrugged and moved on.

The broken boy stretched in his seat, eyes flickering down to his backpack as he heard buzzing coming from it. His hazel eyes snapped back to Law.

"Dude," Augustine slapped the table. "There's a bee in my backpack. A big one. A big one the size of a grapefruit."

"Uh," The loser paused and squinted over at his best friend, a 'what the fuck' look all over his face. "Okay, and why do I care?"

"Obviously you don't," He mumbled out, sounding sad— he was sad, just not because of Law. "If I get stung it's your fault."

Then he proceeded to pull out his buzzing phone and unlocked it to see a message in their group chat from Bar, wanting him and Law to ditch their table and come join him at some chicks. Augustine frowned, wondering if he was being serious or not and then remembered the girl he saw talking to the protector in the office and determined that he was.