Hate Me Closer (Phan)

Chapter Forty-Six

Everything from the car ride to the silence of the pathway as the two teenagers dragged their suitcases down the stones of their school, was quiet. They weren't sure if they barely spoke because they didn't want to set out the rules that would have to be implemented when they got to school, or if they were avoiding admitting things would be harder for them back on campus. It was probably both, and it kept their jaws screwed shut until they wondered if their bones and been ground down to dust.

"Welcome back, you two. Have a good Easter?" Mr Brown asked, straightening the slug on his lip that he seemed to be growing across.

"Yes thank you." they both mumbled, before they both suppressed a smile, "Well, uh. We'll go up and unpack." Dan spoke for them, leading them towards the stairs.

"Right. Uh, Dan?" Mr Brown called out.

"Yes, Sir?" he stood at the bottom of the steps with a suitcase in each hand.

"Mind coming down to see me straight after?" he asked, rubbing his eyebrows and thinking to himself.

"Sure." the boy suspiciously nodded, dragging his bags up the carpeted staircase. He was back down within half an hour, barely unpacking his items as he'd learnt to just live out the suitcase and take the items into his cupboard as he went. Neither PJ nor Chris had arrived yet, so he left Phil with a book in the dorm next door to his own.

Dan smiled as he wandered back down the steps, holding onto the railing as his House Master greeted him again, "Ah, good. Daniel. We won't go into my office as there are not many other boys around and it's only quick. I'd just like to ask if you want to take your SATs again? I'd recommend it because you've been revising for GCSEs, so everything is fresh."

"Sure." Dan nodded, knowing he'd done them already before.

"Good. That's all, I think you have a week or two."

"Oh." Dan didn't expect them to be so soon, "Okay, cool, thank you." he was walking up the stairs again with his mind racing, taking him to how he'd lived so long unsure of what was going to happen in his future, but everything seemed to be working out. Although, he'd aged quicker than he thought he possibly could. It was as though his GCSEs were a landmine he'd been waiting to cross and had been trained to do so for years, but now he was here and he felt as though a bridge was already built over them.

"What did Mr Brown want?" Phil asked as his best friend sat on the foot of his bed.

Dan shrugged, "Just about GCSEs."

"Okay." Phil nodded, "Drama isn't IGCSE is it?" he asked.

"No...no, it's national. How come?"

He looked up for a moment, "I'm not sure. I was thinking about it this morning..." his eyes lit up, "Right. Mum asked. Why do we do IGCSEs?"

"I guess because they're international it means the foreign students have a better-recognised qualification?" Dan suggested, shuffling closer to the older boy.

"But we have barely any foreign students." Phil pointed out, "I call it: they just want to sound posh." they chuckled together, the black-haired boy closing his book and looking up at his friend, "I still can't believe you straightened your hair again."

"Why?!" Dan squealed, furrowing his eyebrows and pouting.

"I like your curls."

"Hobbit curls." Dan corrected, "I look like I should be living underground."

"As long as I can live there with you." Phil cheekily grinned, watching Dan's eyes as they rolled.

The younger boy's cheeks blushed until they were pulled against his eyes in a grin, "Okay." he mumbled, biting on the end of a fingernail and standing up, "I'm going to unpack."

"You never unpack."

"I'm never flirted with."

***

They had their first lesson of the summer term the next day, so they were awake again at eight in the morning, dressed in their uniform and standing outside English with their bags on their backs. Their exams started in three weeks, but luckily fifty percent of this grade was coursework.

"Remember when you threw me against that wall waiting for Mr Beverley's class in First Form?" Phil hummed to himself in amusement.

Dan looked down, "Is it bad that I don't?"

"No. I don't expect you to. I was just thinking it was ironic." he smiled to himself.

"Because I'm the one you want to be throwing against that wall, now?" Dan raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his body.

"Because I will." he hummed to himself again, picking his bag up off the floor, "Only fitting as it was the first place I thought about kissing you."

"You what-?!" Dan whispered a scream. He paced after his friend who was entering the classroom.

Phil took a seat, putting his bag by his foot and taking out his books. He looked innocently up at the teacher as his mind began to race. He turned to the slightly smaller boy beside him, muttering with a smile to his cheeks, "I bet he doesn't know I'm gay."

"Probably not...?" Dan furrowed his eyebrows, "Planning on hitting on him?"

"No. I just find it funny that they don't suspect their students to be fucking behind closed doors. It's two-thousand-and-six: they think we're all straight and that we jerk off to celebrities with their tits out in the showers. Really, they should be checking the Great Hall cupboard where they left little fourteen-year-old Dan with a key." he smirked to himself, barely listening to the teacher at the front of the class.

"Stop thinking with your dick. Oh my god, Phil." the brown-haired teenager lifted his feet to the chair and swung back and forth, "Wait until after school, at least."

"Or I'll see you in the cupboard at lunch." he deviously muttered.

Dan stared wide-eyed at him, his lips slightly parted as he whispered, "First day back?" anyone around him would've been able to see the adoration he had for the sixteen-year-old boy.

"Might as well start a record." he stuck his eyes into his notes and began copying what was on the board as the teacher scribbled nonsense on it.

Dan wasn't quite sure what to say, so he waited a moment before uttering in complete shock, "I don't miss the nerd."