The First Break

It was break and after Phil's first two periods, math and english, he finally had some time to catch up with his friends. Dan had been called to check in with guidance counselor, so after Phil walked Dan to her office, he rushed to meet up with his friends outside. With about five minutes left, he spotted them under their usual tree and jogged over to them, hoping he had enough time to eat some snack.

"Hey guys!" Phil greeted his assembled group of friends, which included PJ, Chris, Louise, Cat, Caspar and Tyler.

They all acknowledged him with some variation of "Hi" or "Hello" or "what's up?" Before turning back to their conversation, leaving Phil to take his seat in between Caspar and PJ.

"So Phil, what took you so long?" Asked Cat as she devoured her food.

"Hm? Oh, I was just dropping off this new kid, Dan, at the guidance counselors office." He replied as he opened his bad of goldfish, shoveling a few into his mouth.

"You mean the kid you met at the pool?" Chimed in Tyler, "that you wouldn't stop talking about?" He laughed.

Phil immediately started blushing, "heh heh, yeah, him." He laughed nervously, praying for his friends to not make any more jokes about his so called 'crush' "turns out he goes to our school."

"So..." PJ piped up, winking at Louise "what's he like? Is he nice? Do you like him? When are you going to ask him out?" He bombarded Phil with questions, and couldn't help but crack up at the end.

Phil turned bright red. "W-what was that? I didn't quite c-catch it." He stuttered, completely embarrassed and hoping with all his might to change the topic of the conversation to something other than what boys he found cute.

"So how was your morning?" He asked to no one in particular, just wanting to talk about anything other than this. He hated talking about who he liked, most of the time his friends acted like teenage girls about it, probably because a couple of them were.

"No no no, not so fast!" Tyler wagged his finger at Phil, laughing. "You are not getting off the hook that easily! First we talk about boys, then school maybe"

Phil groaned, excepting defeat. "Fine! What do you want to know?" He asked, exasperated at the whole ridiculousness of the situation.

"Let's see..." Started Chris, grinning. "Let's start with the basics, do you think he's cute?" He could barely finish the sentence before bursting out laughing. "Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you do! So let's get right to the good stuff! Hmm..." He looked around at his friends with a smirk, "do you think he likes you back? Do you even know if he's gay?!" He burst out laughing along with the rest of the group.

Phil scowled at his friends, trying to be menacing, needless to say it didn't work. "Cut it out guys! So what if he's gay or not..." He started blushing, "Why would he even like me anyway?"

"Oh god!" Cat rolled her eyes, "why wouldn't he like you? You're adorable! And besides, Louise told me how he looked at you! Even if you didn't notice it, we did." She gave a knowing glance at Louise, before they both burst out laughing.

Phil rolled his eyes. He was this close to being done with these so-called 'friends' of his, even if he did know that he would be completely lonely and miserable without them. "Any more humiliating questions for me?" He asked, "Even though I'm sure you all have completely interesting lives too and only butt into mine to make it a living hell?" He snapped. He didn't have time for such nonsense! He didn't actually hate his friends of course, he just didn't like them intruding on his personal life, that was all. 

"Woah dude, take a chill pill!" Tyler told him, laughing, if not only to cover up how worried he was about about Phil. He never yelled at his friends. Probably just having a bad day or something. He assured himself, or a bad mood, whatever.. I'm sure it's fine. He shrugged it off. Yeah, that was it. He was just having a bad day or something.

Phil just rolled his eyes. He honestly had no idea why he was suddenly getting so defensive about this, he had dealt with crushes before. But something about this one, about Dan, something had clicked, and for some reason, it made him super defensive. Now he had to deal with the consequences, and he knew his friends could tell how much he liked him. They were like that, sometimes he even wondered if they all had secret telepathy powers that no one had told him about.

"Um, what time is it? How long till break ends?" Phil asked, he was tired of all this nonsense. They weren't in third grade anymore.

"Relax dude, we still have a few minutes." Caspar told him, annoyed at him for blowing off their questions.

"Oh shoot! I have to go!" Phil said, suddenly standing up and hurriedly packed up his things.

"Go? Where?" Asked PJ, pretty much convinced that Phil was only doing this so they would leave him alone. 

Phil grimaced as he started to walk back towards the school, stopping in his tracks to answer the question. "I, uh, have to go pick up Dan, make sure he doesn't get lost, et cetera, et cetera." He explained, bracing himself for the teasing from his friends.

Sure enough, that all burst out laughing. "Okay then." Cat managed to choke out in between fits of giggles.

Phil rolled his eyes as he made his way back into the building, praying that his cheeks weren't as beetroot red as he assumed they were by the time he reached the guidance counselors office to pick up Dan. 

//Hi! Sorry this chapter's pretty cringey, but oh well! Deal with it! XD sorry I'm currently procrastinating homework. And I think I went off on a little tangent there in the middle. Oops. And hey, I did promise a longer chapter! Thanks anyways, enjoy!//