How to be Pia | editing 2023

how to be open minded

"Pikke, are we playing against Paul Roos this year?" A boy, not particularly important to Pia, asks. He can't really recall the boy's name—Nick? Marco? All he knows, is that the kid is in his grade and he is in the first team rugby's back line. Pia's usually the one grunting orders in the kid's direction during games, not actually communicating with him outside a game.

"During Interschools," he answers.

"When even is interschools?"

"In less than two weeks." Pia places the apple down on the open space next to him, but the open space isn't the part that makes him shiver in discomfort. The discomfort is the way in which his carrot-top best friend stares at him—with utter disdain. As if Pia betrayed him.

"Stop looking at me as if I cut off your testicle," Pia snaps at Cornel, avoiding eye contact as if Cornel were Medusa.

Cornel's been glaring a hole through Pia's skull the entire day morning. Something's off with Cornel—he's not his usual prat self. He hasn't spoken a single word to Pia when he got back to rejoin the hostel last night, Cornel spent the first night of his life in crystal silence.

Pia felt eroded, as if Cornel was belittling him, scathing him to be a smaller person, but he knew it was about the fact that he mauled his ass in ten-pin bowling. Cornel was ready to be the fucking man, to slay the dragon, but he never saw that Pia was already coming back.

Cornel looks down at his hands, his face contorted in an obvious pout. Pia rolls his eyes and stands up from his seat on the bleachers.

"You weren't supposed to be there," Cornel carps with a heavy lip.

"My fuck, Cornel, get over it," Pia berates, "so what? You lost, big deal."

"You didn't even tell me and Adriaan you were coming. What happened to being the three stooges, huh?" Cornel snaps. "It was always you and me and Adriaan."

"The three stooges died when it started becoming the two stooges...and Pia," he chides. "You were there too and neither of you even mentioned you're going. Hell, Adriaan didn't even ask me if I wanted to go, you both ignored me an assumed I wouldn't figure out you're excluding me all the time."

"Are you really going to be a girl about it?"

"Yet you're the one brooding about losing to said girl."

Cornel scoffs, mussing the flames atop his head. His face turns into the same hue as his copper head, his sprinkle of freckles darkening like shadows in the middle of the day. "You used to be fun," he mutters, as if he's too afraid to say it to Pia's face, like it's an insult that belongs behind his back. He pushes his hands down his fleece jersey. "You used to be really fun to hang out with, but you got weird. You got...quiet."

Pia swallows and stares blankly at Cornel. He doesn't need to justify himself to Cornel, especially not if he's the one being mistreated. He can choose to bite him back and tell him that usually, he'd actually be a good friend, but that would be a lie. Cornel was never a great friend. He used to be a loyal friend up until the point he slept with Pia's ex girlfriend, but never a great friend.

He chooses not to acknowledge Cornel's statement and turns around to leave.

"See!" Cornel cries to Pia's back, "you can't even tell me what the fuck is fout. You're not lekker, Pia."