from august to december

chapter thirty seven

flashback, exactly ten years ago;

another day and another sunrise, another day and another way to school in the disgusting and old school bus that smelled like a cow farm.

but today, there was someone on the bus that yuri didn't recall remembering, and he rode that exact bus everyday.
it was a small boy, his hair was blond, his figure looked so fragile and tiny, the school bag was about to fall off from his shoulders.

he had his earphones plugged in and the whole bus could hear that he was listening to classical music, but it didn't look like he minded in the slightest.
his head was high, his posture was straight.

yuri leaned back in his seat and observed the other boy, there was something about him, but the overly cocky aura drew him off again.

somehow, they got off at the same stop and the blond boy walked into the same school building as yuri.
his steps were smooth, he looked like he was gliding on the air and not walking on the hard concrete.

dark haired yuri shook his head to make himself stop staring at the blond in front of him and rather focus on the literature book in front of him he hadn't read for english class yet.

when he got into his classroom, there was the boy sitting on his seat.
was he hallucinating and the boy wasn't actually there or was he new?

or had he just never noticed him? but he would've, his face definitely stood out from all the other ones.

so he gathered his very little self esteem and walked over to the blond with big steps, while walking he fidgeted with the silver ring on his left hand.

"excuse me, you're sitting in my seat," the dark haired boy explained in a calm voice and tried to smile without looking awkward.

the blond looked up at him with curious eyes.
his eyes were glowy and dark, they looked like two giant stars.

"i'm sorry, i'm new here," he replied and his voice was so beautiful it threw yuri off for a second.
the boy smiled back, but his smile was so perfect, not forced like yuri's.

"it's fine, uhm, i'm yuri," the dark haired introduced himself and held out a hand, which the other shook gratefully.

"i'm eden," he answered.

yuri blinked to snap back into reality and gestured eden that he could stay seated.

"i can just move over a seat," he whispered quickly and placed his bag down to hide his trembling hands.
eden didn't hate him yet and he could use every friend that he could get.

for a few seconds, it was calm and yuri could smell eden's mango shampoo, but it didn't last long before a male hand slapped the wooden desk.

"well, well, looks like you've found yourself the new kid as a friend," a voice appeared and yuri's breath was so fast his head started spinning as if he was on a rollercoaster.

he didn't even dare to look up into the face of the person the voice was coming from, that's how afraid he was of it.
eden suddenly got up and faced him instead.

he crossed his arms in front of his chest "what do you want?"

the other person took a step closer and stared eden into his eyes.
"just trying to warn you, his dad sells drugs."

the blond stopped blinking and stood frozen in his spot, the person walked away.

"ignore him, that's jake," yuri tried answering but his voice got stuck in his throat and so he wasn't sure if eden heard him.
but the boy stared to where jake just had just stood a second ago.

"does he bully you?" the blond asked calmly and tried to look his new friend in the eyes from below.
yuri quickly collected himself.

"it's fine, eden, don't worry too much about it."
and then, a ball of paper hit yuri's back and he flinched at the touch.

eden snapped his head into the direction of the thrower while narrowing his eyes at him in wrath.
that's when yuri realized that when something made eden mad, he could look so incredibly intimidating and scary that even the biggest bully would shut up.

and jake shut up in that second.

"fuck off, you're not funny," eden called out sharply before placing a hand on yuri's back in comfort and turning back around.

and for the rest of the lesson, nobody insulted the dark haired from the last row or threw anything against him and he could sit at lunch without his food being spilled over his clothes by jake or one of his friends.

he was thankful to eden.

"hey, do you wanna come to my place when school's finished?" he asked eden shyly and looked down.

eden giggled and agreed immediately.
"it looks like we have the same way home anyway," he replied in a playful voice and ran to their next lesson, yuri close behind him.