"What's up?" Ian said as he sat down on the backrest of his favourite bench in the university premises.
"Same as usual, I suppose. Where did you go? You missed half of the day." Lloyd answered in a bored monotone voice.
"Did I miss anything important?"
"I don't know. Didn't listen."
"Don't neglect your studies, mate. We have a lot to catch up to."
"Would be easier if you contributed something every now and then." Lloyd commented without changing his tone.
Ian was a bit surprised by the passive aggressive comment.
"Umm... yeah. I should contribute something too. Where were we in the project again?" Ian asked.
"The last time you added anything, you used anonymous blog posts as sources. I spent a lot of time verifying the nonsense you added and had to erase a lot of it. So thanks for that."
"Well, sorry for contributing too much. Have you caught up on anything the past two days?"
"No. You?"
"Nah. Maybe we should finish this project tonight together with no distractions of any kind so we can actually finish this thing some day."
"Suppose we should."
"You don't sound very enthusiastic. I won't force you, mate."
"No. We really should. But where?" Lloyd asked.
"How about this bench here. Right after the day ends, we come here and we won't go home until we're finished." Ian suggested.
"I left my computer at home." Lloyd pointed out.
"Me too." Ian added now that he remembered.
Lloyd chuckled a bit, which Ian noticed.
"Let's just meet at my house and not let Evie in so she can't distract us." Lloyd suggested.
"Alright but you better keep her out because finding out how the angels will take advantage of the divine blow is more interesting to me than how the formation of the United Nation Project has impacted international trade." Ian said back.
"Ha. Me too, honestly. But we don't have time to waste on that."
"Right then. It's agreed. You got any gigs coming with the band?" Ian asked.
Lloyd immediately got bitter again.
"Don't know. Don't care."
"Oh come on, don't quit your dream like that, mate."
"Dealing with those cunts isn't a dream of mine."
"They were sort of rude to you but they were angry. I'm rude when I'm angry too so I get them."
"Hmph. I guess."
"You think you can make up with them? I want you to pursue your dream too and cutting out everyone the second you argue is going to leave you lonely." Ian advised.
Lloyd remained quiet.
"Get me?" Ian asked.
"Sort of." Lloyd answered in an unconvincing way just as the bell rang to signal the end of the break.
"When are you fighting next, by the way? Until the nose is good?" Lloyd asked as they were walking towards the university building.
"Nah, mate. No breaks. This flesh wound won't stop the Ox. Nothing will." Ian replied proudly.
"I can't tell you what to do." Lloyd commented and left it at that.
22Please respect copyright.PENANAEb7cUtvbov
After the last class was over, Ian and Lloyd left the classroom and the building together. As they were both going further and further away from the premises of the university, their attention was grabbed by a cough from behind them.
"Where are you two lovers going? Will I see little Maltman at the factory tonight? I feel like betting tonight." William completely alone asked from behind and shoved himself between the two.
"Nah, mate. Not tonight. Got other things." Ian respectfully answered and kept his cool.
"Aww. Your little sore nose is stopping you? You're clearly not someone who's worth betting on. Such a fragile little thing." William smugly taunted.
"How about I fight at the factory tomorrow evening and remind you why you shouldn't fuck with me." Ian warned.
"I'm trembling. And why is the little boy so quiet here? Is he also scared of you? Are you keeping him near you against his will because he's the only way you'll find any kind of academic success? What a horrible person you are." William kept taunting.
"He doesn't want to waste words for your ears and I can't breathe the same air you're sharing so how about you sod off already?" Ian replied.
"I could get you a ride to the factory if you wanted. Free of charge. How does that sound?" William suggested once they had walked past William's car that was waiting for him.
"I'd rather crawl through glass." Ian said and William stayed at his car.
"My bike is over here. I'll go get it and then let's go to my home." Lloyd said once William was out of earshot.
Lloyd retrieved his bike and dragged it along with him and they both walked along the quiet road towards the street where Lloyd lives. They were in no hurry so they didn't get on the bike. They had both said what needs to be said during the day so their walk was quiet. William's taunting had also gotten Lloyd in such a bad mood that he didn't want to talk. Lloyd's home was not terribly far away and the quiet walk in the dimming evening didn't take too long. Once at the right house, they left the bike outside and stepped in. Lloyd didn't announce his arrival and the first words that were heard after they arrived were:
"Why do I hear two steps of footsteps?" In a rough masculine voice from the direction of the living room.
"Don't care about him." Lloyd quietly said to Ian and led him to his own room.
"Why are the lights already on?" Ian asked right as Lloyd was opening the door to his own room.
"What took you so long?" Evelyn asked from Lloyd's computer chair while wearing her usual big t-shirt and gray joggers.
"Out." Lloyd coldly said back and tossed his rucksack on the bed and took his laptop from the top of his closet.
"What?" Evelyn just said back.
"I said Out. We can't have distractions because we need to finish this project." Lloyd said and handed the laptop to Ian.
"I'll tell mum and dad your secret." Evelyn threatened smugly.
"No you won't. You have more to lose than me." Lloyd said back and rolled the chair that Evelyn was sitting on out of the room while she was complaining about injustice and unfairness.
Lloyd closed the door.
"You log in with your account on that laptop and I'll use the desktop. We'll finish our parts of the project and then we'll review what each did and then we'll save all the files into our chat." Lloyd explained.
"Got it." Ian said and started doing as instructed.
Ten minutes passed.
"There's a post here saying that the United Nation Project is going to turn us all into surveillance slaves." Ian said.
"Are there any sources?" Lloyd asked.
"I couldn't check. It's already deleted."
"They were quick."
An hour passed.
"And there. It's done and sent to the professor." Lloyd said after pressing Send.
"Sorry that I didn't do anything useful again." Ian said.
"It's fine." Lloyd said and leaned back on his chair.
"Bit of a weight off my chest. How about you?" Ian asked.
"Hmph." Lloyd simply said back and immediately had a different demeanour.
"Doesn't sound like it. I liked spending time with my friend though. I hope it made up for how the last time went." Ian said.
Lloyd said nothing.
"Did I piss him off by bringing that day up?"
"We're pretty much finished here. You can go home now." Lloyd insisted and suddenly came off as hostile.
"Huh. I already said Sorry."
"I don't care about that. Just... I want to be alone for the rest of the night."
"And then stay in your room for the foreseeable future?"
"I will if I fucking want to. We got this thing done. Isn't that what you wanted in the first place?"
"What? Mate, I said that I want my friend back. This was just a nice side effect."
"You don't think of me as a friend. I just stuck around because I'm a weak bitch who can't defend myself and you keep me around because I'm useful."
"What? Nah, that's complete bullsh..."
"Just go away already and leave me alone." Lloyd demanded while almost ripping his hair.
"He's sort of right but I do care about him too. What should I even say? He won't believe it anyway." Ian thought.
"Do you consider me a friend?" Ian asked.
"Just... leave already." Lloyd quietly demanded and kept his face on his computer desk.
"Nothing that I say is going to change his mind. Maybe time will." Ian thought and stood up.
He opened the door and left the room quietly. As he was on his way to the front door of the house, he felt a knife on his throat. He stopped himself from taking another step.
"I heard arguing. What did you say to make him upset?" Nikki said from next to Ian while holding the knife close to his throat.
"Fuck if I know." Ian answered honestly.
"You're not coming back to this house, alright?" Nikki threatened.
"Most likely not." Ian replied and swallowed.
"Good. Because if you do, you'll leave in a body bag." Nikki said and took the knife off Ian's throat.
"Not like I'd even want to come here after all of this." Ian thought and exited the house without further ado.
"Fuck all of this. I need to clear my head of everything. Beating the fuck out of the punching bag should do that." Ian thought once he was on the streets again.
He headed to where he remembered Jacob Oxen's house being and started jogging there. Along the way there he jogged past a police vehicle. Usually it wouldn't make him nervous but this time he noticed the two officers inside taking an oddly long look at him as he jogged past. All Ian did was swallow and try to keep his face straight.
"If they were after me for what I did, they'd have gotten me already. I'm off the hook." Ian convinced himself in his mind.
He arrived at Jacob's house without trouble and saw that the lights in the living room were still on. He stepped up to the door and banged his fist on it.
"Old man! Open the bloody garage door!" He shouted while banging on the door.
Some rumbling and grunting could be heard from inside the house and soon afterwards the garage door opened.
"Thanks, Oxen!" Ian then shouted at the front door and headed inside the garage where he then closed the garage door for privacy reasons.
Inside the garage Ian turned his phone off and only focused on destroying the bag and lifting the weights. In the darkness where he considered his only enemy to be his own weakness, he didn't care about the matters of any of the people in his life. That is how his thoughts functioned. The only thing to worry about was improving his striking, and maintaining the strength in his arms. When Ian trained, the only person he worried about was his former weaker self, and that was someone who had to be eliminated and forgotten. Ian knew that his only shot was to be a good fighter since that was all he was good for, and with each strike to the punching bag, he struck it with the feeling of hatred towards his own weakness. After he had exhausted himself and made both his arms sore, he sat down in the darkness and caught his breath. After enough of that, he left the garage and dragged his sweaty carcass into the house of Jacob.
In the living room he found Jacob taking shots of whiskey on the armchair and twitching. Nothing that he wouldn't expect Jacob to do. Ian sat down on the living room sofa and slapped the table to get Jacob's attention.
"Hm? Huh?" Jacob only let out and looked at Ian while his head was wavering.
"What time is it?" Ian asked with his exhausted voice.
"I don't bloody know, kid." Jacob said with a long L sound in the third word of the sentence and took another shot.
"You enjoy your life?" Ian asked.
"Fuck no." Jacob answered and twitched.
"Can I ask some life advice from you?" Ian asked.
"Why the fuck should you get advice from me of all people? I already told you the best advice I can give. Don't become like me."
"Right. That's not what I'm asking really."
"Then what the bloody hell are you asking then, kid?"
"If my friend suddenly gets mad at me for no reason, what should I do?" Ian asked with slight embarrassment but completely sincerely.
"Tell 'em to shove it. You've got no time for wankers like that. You want to hear another piece if advice?"
"Umm. Alright."
"When I was a little lad, this old man in the train gave me a piece of advice. He told me to always carry three knives with me."
"I'll keep that in mind too."
"He also told me that God tests, but never abandons. That advice was complete bollocks. That old tosser abandoned me a long bloody time ago." Jacob said and spat on his own carpet.
"I see."
"What the bloody hell happened to your bloody face, mate?" Jacob asked once he finally looked at Ian.
"I got it from my last fight." Ian answered honestly.
"Your first battle scars?"
"I guess."
"Won't be your last, if you continue chasing that dream."
"I guess if I call it a battle scar it won't be so embarrassing." Ian thought.
"I have another thing to ask." Ian said.
"What is it now?"
"In the fights I've been going by the name Ox. Is that alright?"
"You fucking what now?"
"It's an homage." Ian assured nervously.
Jacob only grunted.
"If you're going to pay homage to me, I want to know what sort of a place it's in. Wouldn't want my name to be used in just any place." Jacob said.
"You mean you want to see the place?" Ian asked.
"Not like I've got anything better to do."
"Well, okay then! I think I'll fight there tomorrow night. I'll give you the address." Ian said with genuine excitement and turned his phone on.
"The fuck're you doing now?" Jacob asked.
"I need your phone number so that I can send you the address."
"Right."
"Alright so... you awake, Ox?" Ian asked when he heard Jacob snoring.
No answer came.
"The junkie passed out. Great. How do I get his number now? After school should I just come here and drive him there on with his own car? Fuck it. I'll figure it out. I should get out of here." Ian thought and stood up.
He made sure that Jacob's face wasn't pointing to the ceiling so that he wouldn't choke on his own vomit, and then he left the house.
"Better get home before I look suspicious lurking here at night. How many messages do I have? Cindy misses me again. As usual. Sweet. Mother doesn't seem to give a fuck where I go. Looks like Lloyd has come to his senses. What's he got to say?" Ian thought while looking at this phone. He opened his contact with Lloyd and started reading the messages that were sent as short messages one at a time.
"Hi." Read the first message from Lloyd sent an hour ago.
"Sorry that I lashed out like that." Read the second message, sent twenty minutes after the previous one.
"I had a reason." Read the next message, sent ten minutes after the previous one.
"You probably don't care to hear it so I'll just leave it at that."
"What the hell is he trying to even get at? Something is not right with him." Ian thought and typed a message while walking towards the direction of his home.
"Hi." Was Ian's message in its entirety.
"I should probably write more than that." He then thought.
"You're good, mate. If you want to talk about it, you can. If you don't, we can leave it at that." Was all Ian could come up with, so that's what he replied with.
"I was going to say something but it will just sound stupid af probably. Or I'll just die of embarrassment. One of the two." Lloyd replied quickly
"You don't need to say anything that you don't want to say."
"I want to say it but I'm scared of being judged. Will you judge me?"
"I have things that I'm never telling anyone, mate. I'm in no place to judge anyone."
"The reason why I got so mad back at the club wasn't because you showed a middle finger or because the band got mad at me."
"Okay?"
"I've been distraught and pissed ever since I saw you with that girl."
"Why?" Ian asked.
Lloyd appeared offline.
"Oh come on, you coward. Say what you were about to say." Ian thought.
"I kind of sort of really like you a lot."
"Like a lot. Like really fucking much. And I hated seeing you with someone else."
"And that's been for a bit now. Now I'll go die of embarrassment. Good night." Lloyd admitted in his messages.
"Oh. Right then." Ian simply thought.
22Please respect copyright.PENANARH5UpivdLX
By the time Ian reached home and entered through the front door, it was night already. During his run home his mind was full of typhoons over what he had read before he came home. Once he was home, he wanted nothing more than to crash down to his own bed and time travel to the next morning. He was not so fortunate, as he heard someone getting up in the living room as soon as he had entered the house and closed the front door.
"Where were you now?" Cindy asked Ian as Ian was taking off his shoes.
"Studying with a friend and then working out." Ian answered honestly.
"Really?" Cindy asked and tapped her foot on the ground.
"I promise that's what I was doing." Ian assured
"She better not ask where I was last night though."
"You do smell sweaty. So I believe you."
"Told you. Why are you awake?"
"I was lonely and missed you. I even sent you a text but you didn't reply."
"So you stayed up and waited?"
"Something wrong with that? We didn't talk at all yesterday. Are you distancing yourself from me?" Cindy asked with a hint of worry in her voice.
"Yesterday I was tired and went straight to bed."
"This morning you didn't say a word to me either." Cindy brought up.
"Because I thought that you'd be angry at me and I rushed out." Ian came up with.
"She doesn't see the tape on my nose here in the dark. Good." Ian thought.
"I wouldn't be mad at you for being tired, silly." Cindy said and got closer.
She sniffed and got a displeased look on her face.
"But I will get mad if you don't go wash yourself because you stink." She added and chuckled a little.
"I thought you were lonely."
"I am but I have enough patience to wait just a little more." Cindy said and then added:
"And after that we can meet in your room." by whispering in Ian's ear.
Ian was not thrilled but didn't want Cindy to know that.
"Just have patience for ten minutes." He said with a tired voice and forced his way out of the situation.
Ian's lonely time in the shower was filled with similar thoughts as his workout and his run home, but this time he had the added worry of what Cindy seemed to suggest. He did not feel like entertaining her like that tonight but also wanted to stay on her good graces. Simply seeing Cindy also made him debate in his head whether he should keep fighting in the factory or not. He concluded that he will make that decision later and ripped all the makeshift bandaging from his face. The bite marks on his nose still looked bad, but he figured that they couldn't be seen in the dark. He dried himself and banged his forehead on the door in frustration before going into his own room. When he entered, the room was dark and completely quiet, exactly as he had hoped.
"Thank God she changed her mind." Ian thought and sat down in his bed in nothing but his boxers.
His relief disappeared when he felt a hand touch his back as he was sitting at the edge of his bed.
"That took longer than ten minutes. You know you'll have to make up for that by lasting longer this time?" Cindy said from the bed.
Five minutes passed.
"You really don't like me anymore, do you?" Cindy asked disappointed while laying on her back and keeping her arms crossed.
"That's not it. I just have so much in my mind tonight." Ian argued while laying on his back and keeping his wrist on his forehead.
"Before you were able to at least get it up even if you had lots in your mind."
"Well tonight I have even more in my mind. Sorry." Ian explained.
Cindy didn't seem to believe it. She rolled on her side, facing away from Ian.
"You were avoiding me after all. Even though you said you weren't. Weren't you?" Cindy asked.
"I was." Ian answered after a bit of silence.
"Why?" Cindy asked immediately and firmly.
"I'm embarrassed of myself."
"Why would you be embarrassed of yourself?" Cindy asked.
Ian didn't say anything.
"Or are you just embarrassed to be with me?" Cindy presented another question.
"Well..." Ian mumbled.
"Be honest." Cindy insisted, still facing the other way.
"I... always sort of was." Ian answered.
"Why?"
"You know why."
"Are you seriously still bothered by that? I got over it ages ago. It doesn't bother me. I don't even think about it. Why is it such a big deal to you?"
"I can't help but to think about it all the time and I can't get over it. And you should remember how our thing ended the first time and what a disaster that was."
"But that wasn't either of our fault."
"I know it wasn't but that made me realise..."
"Realise what?"
"Realise that our whole thing is weird." Ian said.
Both went quiet.
"It always was. If that bothers you then it can't be helped. Good night." Cindy said and pulled a blanket over herself.
ns 15.158.61.55da2