14) 'You Did What?' And Other Questions That Will Be Yelled At You Very Soon
Once upon a time, a group of five teenagers met. It was no coincidence, for it was the first day of school, and they all went to the same school, to the same class, and were brutally rejected by the rest of their semi-normal classmates in the same way.
Rejection does marvel in people. It can bring you together when nothing else will. To Martin, Messiah and Heston, this just seemed to be the case.
The thing is, aside from the aforementioned attributes, they all had something else in common: when it came to the old law of Survival Of The Fittest, they were the first to go. They had failed to make friends in time, and thus, were leftovers.
Or were they?
Either way, at fourteen, they were young and innocent, and thus they pulled one of those cliché bets where they'd pay fifty bucks to whoever had their first kiss before the rest or something. Pi came around halfway through their sophomore year, and even though he was the least loser-ish one of the group and had already had a girlfriend before and he befriended them only because the squad trapped him before he could have contact with anyone else, the bet stayed intact. He didn't count, after al. He hadn't been around when the bet had been done.
Needless to say, up until ten seconds ago, none of them had achieved the feat.
And really, it's not like any of them had a chance. Messiah had his insufferable social justice warrior tendencies and Martin his obsession with being cool and Heston a mildly tolerable appearance but nasty hygiene. Benjamin had a bit of pudge, but aside from that, there was nothing to it, really. Maybe he'd been the Chosen One from the start.
Whatever the case was, all he knew was that he was experiencing his first kiss right this very moment.
With a guy.
And he hadn't even initiated it himself. It was the Dutch delinquent living in his house, who had invaded his life and now his personal space to force it upon him. Thijmen was kissing him.
He didn't know what to think or what to do. Thijmen's hold on his head made him feel like he couldn't even do anything. Thijmen's lips on his prevented him from saying anything. Thijmen's lips...
Benjamin melted. Slumped down like jello. Slipped from Thijmen's grasp and fell to the floor.
Thijmen lifted his hands, like a criminal caught by the police after committing a crime, and stared down at Benjamin. "What the hell did you just do?"
Benjamin swallowed. "My legs were... tired," he said, and Thijmen let his arms fall to his side. "What did youjust do?"
Slowly, as if he was trying not to make Benjamin run and hide (which was probably smart), Thijmen leaned down. His lips cracked into a smile. Benjamin squinted and tried to see if there was any trace of himself on them. His DNA was definitely there. Could Thijmen take the DNA off of his lips and clone Benjamin and use the clone for evil business? Probably.
"Do you know what a kiss is?"
Benjamin squinted even more and scoffed, "of course I do. Why did you do it?"
"Because I felt like it."
He didn't know what to say. Thijmen felt like it? What did that even mean? Did that mean he wanted to kiss him? That he liked Benjamin?
No, that was impossible.
"Why?"
"Pfft, why do people feel like kissing other people? I don't know, Ben. Maybe because they want to? Do I have to explain natural human urges to you?"
"B-but..."
"But what?"
"I don't—" He cut himself off and rolled past Thijmen's legs, scrambling up from the kitchen floor and dashing to the hallway. Thijmen immediately yelled after him. "What the fuck? Why are you running?"
He was not just running. He was running away.
Thijmen was absolutely crazy.
After the fastest run Benjamin had ever performed in his entire life, he slammed his bedroom door closed and leaned against it, his chest rapidly rising and falling. He tried to calm down as quickly as possible, so he could hear through the door if Thijmen followed him.
Soon, light footsteps sounded, coming closer to his room in a calm pace, and a set of knuckles rapped on the door. "Benjamin."
He didn't reply. He was 'sleeping'.
"Benjamin, why do you always run? Just come out and talk."
No.
"Please."
He said please? Wha—
Still no.
"Fine, play your little game of hide and seek. I'm not gonna look for you. I'm that person that calls 'come out, come out, wherever you are', so have fun hiding till your momma's coming to get you."
Oh, boy. Thijmen sounded pissed. All the more reason not to come out. He'd probably stab him with his knife if he opened the door. Stab him, sell his organs and buy more cigarettes with the money. Or even worse: steal his pillows.
Needless to say, Benjamin built a barricade behind the door. It'd work until he had to eat, go to school or take a piss, or maybe all three, all at once, but either way, it'd do for now.
It appeared he didn't even need it, because Thijmen simply sighed (a rather irritated sigh) and walked away. It should have calmed Benjamin, but it didn't. At all.
Thijmen was angry at him and he was going to have to face him again in the morning, except for if Ben walked to school instead of riding with him in the car. And there was... the kiss. This little bit of touching their lips did had him majorly messed up.
He stared at the ceiling the whole night.
His eyes were burning, when the alarm clock screamed at his side. He moved his arm like a robot and slammed his hand on it to shut the stupid blaring machine off. For the first time in hours, he moved his eyes and glanced at the window.
This day was going to be horrible.
Thijmen didn't stab him. He didn't yell at him. He didn't put poison in his breakfast, cut him into a dozen piece and bury the remains of his corpse in the backyard.
He ignored him. He simply ignored him.
Well, back to the beginning.
Benjamin, following the theme, went back to pretending the floor was of utmost interest just the way he had the first time they'd met. It was so similar to how things were before, Benjamin wondered if they'd actually gone back in time. But no, Thijmen's hair was less nonexistent than when he first entered the Emsworth mansion.
Other than that, and that freaky tingling feeling Benjamin had, everything was back to the way it was before. Most of the squad took the whole ordeal with indifference, which was expected except for Martin, who took the realization he'd never be a cool kid very badly (which was expected, too). Ben could almost see Messiah getting pissy at the whole situation, but fortunately he'd missed school to go attend some vegan meeting or something. Or maybe he'd gotten suspended for attacking a burger stand again. Or attacked by a burger stand. Again. Either way was fine with Benjamin, because he didn't want to hear Messiah's condescending (but probably smart) words.
At one point during the day, the squad jumped in unison when they heard a locker slam. They knew exactly who it was, obviously. And the locker-slammer walked by the squad, even. Walked right into Martin. Mumbled, "sorry, Marco," and walked away.
By the time the locker-slammer, Thijmen, was out of sight, Martin started jumping up and down with his cheeks heating up.
Pi sighed.
Benjamin kind of wanted Martin to either a) start ranting about Thijmen, or b) sprout wings and fly away. The way he was jumping, either was a possibility.
Martin, however, chose c) fail at sprouting wings and yell at Benjamin instead.
He yelled, "this is IT!"
Heston looked up from his Candy Crush level and said, "what is what?"
"Benjamin, Ben, Bennie the Third, you need to make up with Thijmen!" The entire squad was interested at this point. "Or, better yet, make out with him!"
Pi slapped the back of his head, and after that, Martin remained on the ground.
"What?" Benjamin asked gingerly.
"I thought he was going to be one of us!" Martin continued, "and just because you don't know how to talk— or properly interact— God, you can't do anything— doesn't mean that the rest of us should get shit for it."
Benjamin furrowed his brows. Looked at the floor. The floor, he could talk to. Interact with. Humans? Not so much.
When he looked up, Pi was ready to say stuff, too. He took such a huge breath it looked like he was going to blow a horn and burst out, "Benjamin, it's time you get your shit together! What the hell are you even doing anyway? Why is he mad? What— Just what?"
Even Heston seemed passionate about the subject. "Shit, together, now!" he said at one point, and then went back to Candy Crush.
Pi gestured violently at him. "See? Even Heston agrees!"
"He's just saying stuff that makes no sense again," Benjamin said meekly.
"Benjamin, shut up."
"Get some balls."
Actually, he felt like running away again. At this point it felt as though doing that would make his Skyrim character randomly start yelling at him, too. This was insane. Yes, of course, he ran away from everything and everyone. What was new? "Why," he rasped out, "Why are you all so angry anyway? What has this got to do with you?"
"Well I have to stand your crap all the time," said Pi, "come on, Benjamin, spill. What happened?"
"Spill," said Heston.
Was it still possible to run or was it too late for that now? He looked at all the guys staring at him, his head whipping around from face to face. Even Heston stopped looking at the phone of his screen.
Before Benjamin could flee, Martin planted his hands on his shoulders, stopping him from making a single move, and also said, "spill, Benjamin."
Flubbering fludge.
"N-nothing happened—"
Pi growled. "Cut. The. Crap."
He felt like screaming, or jumping up and down like Martin, or throwing pillows everywhere. Instead, he bit his lip. Softly. He didn't want it to bleed, now, did he?
"Eh," he grumbled, "wanna... wanna guess?"
They all went, "huh?"
"Do you want to guess what happened?"
"Did you kiss?" asked Heston, then began laughing like crazy.
Pi groaned. Martin rolled his eyes. But the thing was, Benjamin did a pretty shitty job at trying not to blush, and then he accidentally lifted his fingers to his lips in remembrance. Needless to say, even with the claim sounding ludicrous, the squad seemed to momentarily cool down the moment it sank in.
That, well, Heston had guessed right.
And so there was silence. A long, awkward silence. Was it better than the earlier chaos? Debatable. Benjamin realized, then, that he'd rather have words thrown his way than looks.
Out of all things, Pi snorted. He extended a hand out to Martin, then announced, "you owe me fifty bucks."
Martin snapped out of it and huffed. "Huh. Can't remember if I do."
"You owe me three dollars, too," added Heston, "from September 17, 2015."
"How the flying hell do you remember that?"
Benjamin blinked.
Well.
That was... a nice reaction, he guessed. No more yelling, no more staring. And apparently they'd even put a bet on it (which was futile, because everyone knew Martin was an extremely sucky loser).
Martin diverted attention away from all the money he owed everyone and asked, "but why is he mad at you? Isn't you guys kissing like... a good thing?"
Benjamin put his fingers together and almost started whistling.
"Yes, why is he mad at you?" asked Pi with a twitch in his eye.
When Benjamin remained silent, Pi groaned.
Meanwhile, Martin had a realization. And, like always, jumped up and down. "You," he sneered at Benjamin, "you freaked out, didn't you?"
Benjamin swallowed.
Pi gasped. "He so did! Of course, little Ben-Three can't react conventionally at all. Goddammit, Ben, why can't you talk like normal people?"
"I— I—"
"Case and point," said Pi. "Now, describe, in detail, exactly how you freaked out."
"I didn't! Fine." And then he frowned. "I ran away, into my room, and locked the door."
Pi looked at Benjamin. Martin looked at Benjamin. Hell, even Heston looked at Benjamin.
After a while, Pi started massaging his own neck, sighing. With no enthusiasm whatsoever, he said, "Ben. What. Why."
Benjamin didn't know what to say. Pi had already said the only two words Benjamin knew at times like these, which just made it harder.
Martin sighed, "you suck, Ben."
Pi sighed, "you're such an idiot, Ben."
Heston sighed, "I'll never get past level 35, Ben."