neil perry, todd anderson

if neil perry and todd anderson are in the same school, nothing about the way they move around each other is announced or explained, it just exists in a continuous quiet pull that neither of them names, neil sits near todd without acknowledging that it is a choice, he talks like he is speaking generally but his attention keeps returning to todd in small pauses between words and in the way his gaze lingers a second too long, todd notices everything but says very little, he starts to speak more easily when neil is there as if language itself settles into place more cleanly in his presence, neil looks at him like he is waiting for something to shift in him, like todd is on the edge of becoming something only neil can already see, and todd looks back like he is trying not to miss anything important even when he does not understand why it feels important, they end up beside each other without planning it in hallways and after class and in the gaps where conversations end, and it never looks like anything to anyone else but it feels like a kind of arrangement neither of them agreed to but also neither of them interrupts, neil starts sentences sometimes and does not finish them as if finishing would make something real that he is not ready for, todd never asks him to continue, he just stays there in the silence that follows, and over time the silence itself starts to feel like communication, like something being said without words, there is no confession and no clear line between them but there is a steady awareness that they keep choosing to be near each other as if distance is not even a real option that exists in the same way anymore