Cutie ⇔ Muke ✓

[2] Hello

LUKE

There are two different types of people. There are people who love the crisp smell of the outdoors and enjoy the sun on their skin, who love to go running and exercising all day, and then there are people who enjoy the safety of their own rooms and hiss when they see sunlight. I am the latter. So when my mother woke me up this morning and told me to go hiking up a fucking mountain at seven o'clock in the morning, I did not react very pleasant.

"Come on, Luke." My mum says once she has dragged me downstairs and seated me at the kitchen table. My hair is disheveled and I blink slowly at the woman staring at me, trying to get my head to clear and my eyes to quite acting like I'm blind. "Luke, you haven't left the house in two weeks. When I told you that you could drop out of school, I didn't mean to do this."

"Your point?" I mumble, curling my stiff fingers into fists and rubbing at my eyes. Personally, I believe that it is physically insalubrious to force your brain to function at any time before ten in the morning, so right now it feels like my head is melting.

"You need to get out, make friends, enjoy some fresh air!" Liz says, gesturing to the huge ass windows letting in colossal amounts of sunlight, as though the sun has made it its personal goal to annihilate my sense of sight. I make a sort of grunting noise in response.

"Whether you like it or not, Luke, I'm making you go hiking up that hill." Liz stands up and moves to the refrigerator, where she takes out two water bottles. "It's actually a very nice mountain. I've gone hiking there a few times."

I pick at the hole in the black jeans Liz made me put on and watch the edges begin to fray. My mother bustles around the kitchen, filling a backpack full of essentials I apparently need to walk up a hill. When she turns around and gives it to me, I give her the fakest smile I can manage.

"Cheer up, blondie." Liz says.

"How come you never made Ben go hiking?" I ask, pulling the straps of the backpack over my shoulders.

"He has friends." She says bluntly.

"I have friends."

"Who? That kid on your video game? The one with all the tattoos? I don't even know if you should be talking to be people like that, Luke. You know I don't approve of tattoos." My mother frowns, continuing to bustle around the kitchen. I groan, dragging my hands over my face in frustration.

"Calum." I correct tiredly. "Tattoos aren't bad, Mum. And he's not on my video game. We play it together and talk over headphones."

Liz pushes me toward the door. "Either way, Luke, you need new friends. Go make some." She shoves me outside on the front porch, my converse squeaking on the surface.

"I don't--" the door slams shut, providing a gust of hot air to blow across my face. I sigh in reluctance, coercing myself to walk down the brick steps of my house and begin my travel down to the hill my mother wants me to hike.

It's apparently right by the city center, and there is a little trail you can follow, which I am immensely grateful for, considering its one of my voluminous of habits to get lost. The further I walk down the sidewalk leading into the city center, the more crowded my surroundings become. Mothers hauling baby strollers occupied by squealing children stride past me, and runners that could probably compete in the Olympics track around me. I try not to be much of a bother to anyone and observe the city center, which has not changed much since I was here two weeks ago.

On my treacherous journey through the city center, a six year old boy drops ice cream on my foot, a teenager a bit older than me knocked me into the wall and, quite rudely, told me to "stay out of his way", and I stepped in a pile of dog shit. So when I finally managed to get to the start of the trail on that goddamn hill, I euphorically began my expedition of hiking with a smile.