I Should Hate You

Chapter Eight

AN: ...This is why when I say "oh, the next chapter will be out soon!!" you shouldn't believe me.

Thomas showed up at track and field with a grin on his face. He was in that victorious mood he always was when he beat Newt at something—it was, in Thomas's opinion, the best feeling in the world. It made him feel like he was flying, like he could flatten a city with the bottom of his track shoe, like he could do absolutely anything no matter the obstacles.

The course had six lanes, the rubber dusty pink and flawlessly maintained. The grass surrounding it was—miraculously—still green, but it was all smashed down and flattened where they did their stretches. The track course was, without a doubt, Thomas's favorite place in the school. Maybe even his favorite place in the whole world. It was familiar when everything else wasn't. When he was stumbling along a crooked path of self-discovery, he could always straighten it out with a run in one of the narrow lanes. It was where he could relax and focus—he didn't really have any other places like that.

In the most trampled patches of grass, the team had spread out to do push-ups while Minho stood over them like a baby eagle playing at being a menacing predator. The coach, Mr. Hayes, was napping against a tree. Every practice, that's where he always was. He rarely actually participated and tended to let Minho handle everything.

Thomas jogged over to them, grin still slapped across his face. He probably looked like a crazed clown on a sugar high, but he could care less.

Minho gave Thomas a dubious look. "Is this seriously about the whole mess during Social Studies?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Thomas's expression stayed firmly in place.

Minho rolled his eyes and scoffed. "And you have the audacity to say you're not completely in love with blondie."

Thomas's smile dropped, replaced by a cold sneer of disgust. "The day I date him will be the day I strip my clothes and sew them into a flag."

Minho darted immediately for his phone hiding over behind a tree a few feet away. Turning it on, pressing the record button, and aiming the camera at Thomas, he shouted, "Repeat that for me! I want to have proof of this moment."

Thomas rolled his eyes but still said in a monotone voice, "The day I date him will be the day I strip my clothes and sew them into a flag."

Minho zoomed in the camera and Thomas had to choke back a laugh. "And who's this 'he'?"

Thomas rolled his eyes, but a snicker still escaped from this throat. "Newt."

"Aw, Tommy, I knew you had a bit of an obsession with me, but going as far as talking about me during practice?" Thomas tucked away his surprise, turning around as nonchalantly as he could manage to see the blond waltzing toward them from the school building. "A bit overboard, don't you think?"

Thomas glared at Newt as he slid next to him, a triumphant smirk on his face. As if he had anything to be triumphant about. "Minho was the one who brought you up, not me." Both their eyes darted towards the boy to see he was still filming.

"What?" he said, noticing their glares. "You two are practically copied and pasted right from a sitcom. Your arguments are comedy gold!"

" 'Comedy gold'?" Newt raised a brow, a little smirk catching at the edges of his lips. "The only thing funny about our little spats is my magnificent ability to insult little Tommy here, and his magnificent inability at making comebacks."

"Who says 'magnificent' in a regular conversation? You sound like your interviewing for an office job. And I am great at comebacks!"

"And that right there is the perfect example."