PART ONE
"Coffee?"
Benji's deep voice was warm and comforting, and it washed over Jorge's troubled mind like fresh honey and the first moments of morning sunshine. He allowed himself to bask in it for a few moments before he answered.
"No thanks," Jorge sighed, shifting his position on the couch to face in the direction of Benji. "I'm more of a hot chocolate kind of person, y'know?"
Benji nodded his head, sipping a bit of coffee to hide his smirk.
Hot chocolate. Cute.
"We can go to a cafe near the school," Benji suggested, warming his palms on the near-empty coffee mug. "It opens super early - and, it's owned by my friend, Gracie. You two seem a lot alike - I'm sure you'd love her."
Jorge's eyes widened at the mention of Gracie. "You know Gracie? How is she? Is she ok?"
Perplexed by Jorge's sudden interest in the blonde girl, Benji answered, "she's been fine, I guess. I saw her yesterday morning. She seemed kind of... off, though. Might've just been me being paranoid."
"Can we go?" Jorge asked hopefully, quickly standing up from his spot on the couch. Black spots danced in his vision as he did so, causing him to grab the side of the couch in a last-minute attempt to steady himself.
"Are you sure you're up to it?" Benji worriedly asked, dumping the remainder of his coffee in the sink and moving towards the smaller spanish boy. "And... Kaden's not up. Shouldn't we invite your boyfriend to come along with..."
"No!" Jorge interrupted. He cleared his throat when he saw Benji looked at him weirdly. "I mean... I haven't seen her in super long, and it'd be cool if we show up together... since we both know her, and all." Benji, as unconvinced as he seemed, went along with Jorge's answer. He nodded his head and grabbed his keys from the coffee table, patiently waiting for Jorge to walk with him down towards the parking lot.
...
The drive was awkward. The atmosphere was awkward. Before, when they had driven in a mad dash to Jorge and Kaden's apartment, they had both been preoccupied with separate problems and racing minds. Now, it was quiet and uncomfortable. The absence of conversation was enough to fluster them both.
"So..." they both spoke in unison, blushing as they turned their heads in the opposite direction.
"Sorry. Go ahead," Benji muttered, his eyes glued on the road in front of him as he tried to distract himself from the chocolate brown eyes that were now staring at him shyly from the corner of his view.
Jorge cleared his throat. "Uhm... did you get any sleep last night?"
Benji's mind went back to when the last exchange of words between the pair had occurred that night, and what had happened after. Benji found that he couldn't will himself leave the terrified boy, so he ended up sleeping on the floor next to him for an hour or so, waking up every so often to check on his condition.
He remembered a moment that had occurred in the early morning hours, right before Jorge had woken up from his deep sleep. Benji remembered the soft skin that he had found himself softly tracing, along the bruise that lined Jorge's neck. He found himself inspecting how far it actually went and making an assumption of how old the bruise seemed to be.
Upon first glance, it was entirely possible to say that Jorge had gotten the bruises from bullies beating him up - but, the fact that Jorge had gone through so much to cover up the bruises from the bullies that had jumped him in the bathroom, told Benji different.
Something had happened to Jorge, and it wasn't the result of high school bullies. Benji just had to figure out what had happened.
"Yeah, I slept a little bit," Benji breathed, pushing the thought of Jorge's bruises out of his mind.
"I'm sorry for keeping you up..." Jorge mumbled, clasping his hands together tightly as he felt them becoming sweaty. Benji's deep chuckle surprised him.
"You're worried that you kept me up?" he chuckled, his body tensing as he gripped the steering wheel. "You were barely conscious for most of that night, and your... your... boyfriend didn't do shit about it. I wasn't about to just leave you there, alone, y'know?"
"Oh... sorry."
"You don't have to apologize for someone else's wrongdoings, Jorge."
It was quiet for a beat of time as Benji tried to piece together all the things that he had learned about Jorge, but nothing seemed to add up. Jorge was too preoccupied thinking about Kaden's behavior to notice.
Did Kaden really not care? Did he even react when he saw him? Why didn't he care?
Benji noticed Jorge's paling face and immediately jumped into a conversation to calm him.
"Hey, so... what's your favorite thing to get from Gracie's cafe?" he mused, his tone relaxing in a way that made the conversation feel a bit more normal.
"Her banana bread," Jorge responded after thinking about it for a minute. "And, she makes my hot chocolate in a special way, with peppermint in it and a banana to the side."
Benji nodded, smiling. "You like really bananas, don't you?" Jorge's eyes went wide as he blushed profusely, lowering his head a little bit so his brown locks would cover the flaming skin. Benji laughed, which made Jorge blush even more. "Aw, don't be embarrassed. Everyone has a certain obsession with food - like, I'm obsessed with strawberries. Strawberry smoothies, strawberry cupcakes, strawberry tea, strawberries in general." Jorge's lips tugged into a grin, looking over at the older boy.
"Gracie makes really good strawberry smoothies," Jorge stated matter-of-factly, liking how Benji's smile grew. "You should get one this morning."
"Sounds like a plan, Jeyjey," Benji laughed, immediately catching himself using the nickname and opening his mouth to apologize for it.
"Jeyjey? Well, if we're using nicknames now, I'm gonna call you... Banjo!" Jorge joked, hiw smile widening as he saw how Benji's cheeks reddened.
"Banjo? Like, the miniature guitar that looks like a plate stapled onto a plank, banjo? Man, that's one weird looking miniature guitar..." Benji began to ramble, but Jorge's attention was suddenly adverted to his lap, where his phone lit up with a notification.
Baby💍
I woke up this morning to find a messed up living room, dirty
kitchen, and you or the random dude that showed up last
night gone. Where are you?? It's an hour before you're supposed to
leave for school, so don't give me the 'I left early for school'
bullshit. Are you with him?
Jorge's smile began to vanish as he read the text over and over again, the crushing sense of reality coming back down upon his shoulders to weigh him down, once again. Right when he finally began to feel free. Feel happy. Feel... appreciated.
Why did this have to happen to him?
"Hey... Jeyjey?" Benji called, waving his hand in front of the overthinking boy's face. "We're here. Do you wanna go in now?"
With a small smile that he managed to muster up, Jorge nodded his head and pushed open the car door, carefully walking towards the glass door that shone with golden lights from inside the cafe.
Gracie stood behind the counter, reading something on her computer as she waited for the familiar jingle of the bells to alert her of her customers. The cafe wasn't as busy as it would be, seeing as how she had just opened a half hour ago, and it was still very early in the morning. As per usual, she looked up after a few seconds, her eyes lighting up when she saw Jorge and Benji.
"Jorge! Thank fuck, you're ok!" she practically shouted, rushing out from behind the counter and enveloping the small boy in a ginormous hug. "And... Benji? What're you two doing here together?"
"Jorge said he wanted hot chocolate," Benji chuckled, hugging Gracie tightly as he spoke, "so I mentioned your name, and we realized we both know you."
Gracie stood back, inspecting the pair with suspicious eyes. "Well, what a coincidence, huh?" Jorge nodded shyly, sliding into a comfy booth as Benji followed close behind.
"We'll take a loaf of fresh banana bread, a dream bar, a hot chocolate, and a strawberry smoothie," Benji ordered with a hint of authority in his voice, amusing the blonde girl as she jotted down notes in her notebook with a raised eyebrow. Jorge's eyes went wide as he looked over at the older boy.
"Why so much food?" he whispered to Benji, who smiled.
"You're skinny," Benji said quite bluntly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm all for body positivity - but you're unhealthily skinny, and I'd like you to eat more."
With a pout, Jorge crossed his arms. "Well, what if I don't want too?"
Benji smiled, leaning back and draping his arms against the top of the booths. "How about this - I'll eat a little bit of banana bread, and the smoothie's mine, but... you've had a really rough week. You deserve this." Jorge's heartbeat quickened when he looked up to meet the eyes of Benji, who was staring intently down at him.
"Ok," he shyly whispered.
Gracie, who had overheard some of their conversation, piped up. "Will that be all, you two?" The pair agreed, and Gracie gave them an affirmative nod of her head and headed to her kitchen.
Benji chuckled. "She's always been so serious about her cafe."
"Well, it's pretty amazing," Jorge said, practically in awe. "Eighteen years old and already taking over her family's shop? I mean, she has to take her job seriously with the amount of customers she gets."
Benji smiled at Jorge's admiration for his friend. "How do you know her?" Jorge's happy demeanor died down a little as he looked over to the kitchen, where Gracie was peacefully cooking up their food.
"Together, we moved from Barcelona to Canada. She's fluent in English, so while I was still learning the language, she practically taught me so I could keep up with my schoolwork," Jorge explained. Noticing Benji's look, he continued on. "She's the only one - my parents didn't come with me."
"Why not?"
It was quiet for a second as the mood slowly went from upbeat to serious. "Well... they were the reason why I left Barcelona in the first place."
Jorge sighed. "Sorry. I just made everything awkward, didn't I?"
"No!" Benji shook his head, laying a reassuring hand on Jorge's shoulder. "No, not at all. Uhm... it just made me think about how lucky I am to have my mom, even though she's gone all the time... which is a dick move to bring up right now, and I'm sorry I-"
Jorge cut him off, resting his hand on top of Benji's that still gripped his shoulder. "It's ok, Banjo." The pair stayed like that for a moment, basking in the silence and beautiful old aesthetic of the cafe, enjoying the jazz music as they waited for their food.
"Here's your bread!" Gracie chirped, laying a fresh plate of banana bread between the boys. "And here's your hot chocolate, Jorge." Jorge smiled sweetly up at Gracie as he grabbed the cup, warming his hands on it as he began to sip out of it. As she left, she mumbled under her breath, "Jesús, necesito alejarme de esta tensión sexual." Jorge coughed, which left Benji confused as Gracie left with a smirk.
"What'd she say?"
"Uhm... nothing."
---
Part one, because I've been gone for so long and I wanna
give y'all a long update but it's almost 2000 words already and I
normally only update 1000ish words per chapter :/
FINALLY A PROPER BENJEY CHAPTER AMIRIGHT