After watching all three High School Musical movies and promising we'd always be Wildcats, we decided to call it a night. Olivia offered to drive Alex and me home but the boy used his trademark puppy eyes to convince us to sleep together. Not in the way it would sound to Christopher's dirty mind. Olivia's bed is bigger than a double one and so we slept there. That is, after Alex stopped twirling around and tickling our sides.

I woke up early the next morning, thanks to Alex. He was whining about Olivia's snoring, which I wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't yelled in my ear about it. I didn't mind much, however, because we ended up going to Caravel for breakfast, and took Charlie and Gregory with us much to Olivia's disappointment.

While we were laughing and stealing each other's food, a sudden thought hit me: Kal is alone. Sure, Alex is hurt and will need time to heal, especially after I tell him the truth, but at least he has people to help him through it. Kal lost his people. All he has is me, and I'm not exactly his best friend.

Still, I suppose I'm better than nothing, which is why I'm now knocking on his door, smiling at the thought the matcha pancakes I brought him will cheer him up. A smirking Christopher opens up. The boy doesn't move an inch. He just stands there, creepy and making Kal sound completely rational for saying he wants to kill him.

"May I come in, good sir?" I ask in a mocking voice but his smile doesn't drop.

"You brought breakfast," he replies and his smile grows wider.

I wince. "It's for Kal, actually."

He nods. "And you attacked me for shipping you two."

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. "You're being annoying. Can you please step aside?"

Christopher shakes his head and leaves. "Kal is in his room," he shouts.

A sigh escapes my lips. He was probably up until late, reading books with Kate and judging the villain's redemption arcs or the hotness of the main character. I knock on his door but I get no reply.

Yup, he's still fast asleep.

Do I leave? Do I walk in anyway? Are we in the waking-one-another-up stage yet? He showed up at my window when we weren't even friends. I mean, real friends. That has to give me the freedom to walk in without knocking, right? It's not like he's naked in there.

Shrugging, I push the door open and the sight I'm met with isn't something I would ever expect.Kal is sitting on the floor, hugging his legs and hiding his face on his knees. His thumb is running up and down that part he had injured. He doesn't seem to be aware I'm in here, not even when I close the door behind me.

I throw the food on his desk and crouch down next to him. "Kal? Are you okay?"

The boy doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. I can hear his quiet sniffles and I can see his shoulders shaking.

Reluctantly, I wrap an arm around him and, when he doesn't react, pull him a little closer to me. "Kal, whatever happened, it's going to be okay.

He shakes his head but still doesn't lift it from his knees. "I fucked up," he mumbles.

I trace circles on his shoulder with my thumb as we sit in silence. He will cry it out and then he'll tell me what he did and it's not going to be anything serious, just him overreacting to small things the way he always does.

That's not the case. Instead of gradually crying less, Kal cries more. His entire body is shaking against mine. He's letting out louder sobs.

I can't even assure him it's all going to be alright anymore. What if something did happen and Kal is right to be reacting this way? What use would it be to lie to him too?

"Hey..."

"I fucked up... big time," Kal says through sniffles as he looks up. His face is red and puffy, his green eyes glassy with tears streaming down his cheeks like miniature rivers.

I can feel my chest tightening. What on Earth did he do?

"Kal, please talk to me."

The boy sighs and hides his face again.

"Kal, I can't help you if I don't know what happened, so please tell me." When he doesn't budge, I add "What could you have done to cry so much?"

"It's irreversible," Kal mutters.

My eyes widen. "Don't tell me you killed someone!"

And that's when I hear it, a little laugh. Smirking, I continue.

"Or worse, don't tell me you ate anything from Signore. Their food equals food poisoning, end of story."

"I'm not going to eat carbs again."

His voice comes out hoarse, but at least it's at its normal volume.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "Kal, don't tell me you're crying because you're not on keto yet."

The boy huffs and looks up. "I applied for Veterinary."

My jaw drops for a few seconds, and then my lips form a wide grin. "Kal! That's amazing! Why didn't you tell me before?"

He gulps. "I didn't tell anyone."

My smile falls. "What do you mean? Not even..."

Kal nods. "Not even my parents."

I shut my eyes closed for a second. "Wait. You put Veterinary as your first choice. And you scored like... a lot more than 19. Which means you're definitely going to get in. And Veterinary is usually lower than Medicine, so you can't even lie about it."

"Exactly," Kal says. "I fucked up. I'll be dead in a month."

Rubbing his shoulder, I say "Kal, come on. You can't be serious. Your parents might be surprised but that's it. They'll support you, I'm sure."

Kal winces. "They won't. I didn't even live up to their standards, and now I'm failing them once again. I had one job, and I didn't do it right."

I can feel my heart racing. "Kal, what are you talking about?"

The boy shrugs and wipes away some tears. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

Sighing, Kal looks down at the floor. My arm is still around him and we're sitting against one another. It's getting warmer by the minute and I can feel small trickles of sweat at the back of my neck, but I don't mind it.

"It's just... Christopher has always been the better Evans. He's always been thinner than me, more sociable, more likeable. He took up chess and soccer and he read classic books, not cheesy YA. He listens to the same music as my parents and they watch the news together. He's studying Law, and he's working part-time. How could I compete with him?"

I want to tell him he's wrong. I want to laugh it off and say I know a million people who would rather spend time with him than Christopher, but I can't. I see myself in his words. I've always known, even heard, that Eliza is the best out of the two of us.

Still, it sounds so wrong when Kal says it. I don't hate Christopher, but I like Kal. He's fun to be around, and smart and interesting. He's not a stuck-up and he doesn't change his attitude depending on whom he talks to. He's caring and nice and never fails to make me smile.

"Kal, you're full of shit," I say with a forced chuckle. "That's not a competition."

"When you have siblings, everything is."

"I have an Eliza, and it's not." I shrug. "She'd always win anyway."

"Christopher wins all the time," Kal replies through sniffles. "He even got the good name."

I purse my lips. "I think Kalisthenis is a beautiful name. It's Greek, right? Doesn't it mean something?"

Kal hugs his knees tighter. "Chris doesn't even care about me."

My face softens. "Kal..."

"No, it's true," he says, nodding to himself. "He barely even talks to me. When I ask him which Hemmingway book to read first, he waves it off and tells me to just pick one from his library. I've told him to pass by Parfait countless times but he never has. He didn't even check on me this morning. I never sleep in."

I pat his shoulder. "It may seem like it, but I'm sure he cares about you. He's your family, it's in his DNA to love you."

Kal exhales through his nose. "That's the problem. He might... love me, but he doesn't want to be friends with me. Neither do my parents." I feel his shoulders shake again under my arm. "I wish I was more like him. I've made it impossible for them to want to be with me. All I talk about is books and music. Of course they wouldn't want to listen to me going on and on about new releases. Then it's this stupid piercing. They hate it. Dad freaked out when he saw it and he has told me to remove it a thousand times, especially when I complain about it hurting. It's the green hair all over again." He sniffles. "And they're right, I look stupid with it. A-And we fight a lot over nonsense. I don't know how it happens, one minute we're having dinner and the next I say something and..."

He brings his palm to his mouth, covering it. His eyes are once again pooling with tears. Seeing him like that makes my own sting.

"Kal, it's all normal. Teenagers fight with their parents, and don't say we're adults now. Everyone knows you become an adult after twenty-five. Our parents belong in another generation, there's no way we can agree on everything."

Kal shakes his head, his palm still against his mouth. His face is scrunched up and red, wet from the silent tears. He might as well have punched my heart down to my stomach.

I wrap both arms around his torso. "It's all going to be alright, okay? Your parents love you and they like being with you. Do you know how many times I've overheard them talking with my parents? A lot. And they talk about you half the time, all good things." My lips stretch a little. "It's one of the reasons why I despised you. Believe me, they would never hate you for becoming a veterinarian instead of a doctor."

"T-They might think I did it on purpose, just to make them mad," Kal mutters.

"They'll understand, I'm sure." My eyes trail to the white scars on his knee. "So, how did you really get these? It doesn't look like you scraped it."

The boy tenses. "I'm not proud of it."

"I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, it's okay."

Kal turns to look at me. It's the first time I realise how close we are. If I leaned in just a little ouur noses would bump. Suddenly, I want to let go of him and sit on the other side of the room, yet I don't move a muscle.

I must be looking at him wide-eyed, since he gives me a quick smile. "Don't be scared. I didn't do it on purpose." He rolls his eyes. "Not really at least."

My arms tighten around him. I try to keep all the negative thoughts away, but he's making it hard. His eyes are on mine and he's opening and closing his mouth as if he doesn't know what to say.

"Please promise me you won't tell anyone."

All I can do is nod.

He sighs. "It was a stupid idea. Thomas, my cousin, thought I could get my parents to agree on anything with me if I injured myself."

My jaw drops.

"So, if I broke my leg they would be too busy being scared to care about what I study."

I shake my head. "Kal, you can't think I could ever believe this."

The boy sucks in his lips. "I was desperate. I wasn't ever going to break my leg, but I thought maybe a minor injury could actually help. Breaking anything was out of the question." He squints. "I might have considered fracturing my wrist but then I realised it could cause permanent damage." He shakes his head. "God, this is so stupid."

"I'm not going to disagree."

"As you should," Kal replies with a nod. "Anyway, I got these when I fell from my bike. It was dark and there were all these wire gauges at the farm, my uncle had taken off the old fence and dumped it in the middle of the street."

I frown. "What does that have to do with..."

Kal stays silent for a few moments. "Before I fell, I was thinking of what part of my body I should injure. After that, when all the cuts started stinging and when they took me to the doctor to clean it, I realised how crazy I was being. Why would I ever want to cause such pain to myself? I was so scared I was going to..."

"You didn't, that's what counts," I say, squeezing him a little. "Did you ever consider..."

"No, never."

I stare into his eyes. "For real?"

He nods. "Yes. I'm kind of glad that happened, though. Who knows if I would have done it these days?"

"Kal, would you rather hurt yourself than talk to your parents?"

He slaps his palm against his forehead. "I'm so stupid."

I chuckle. "I've been telling you for a while."

To my surprise, Kal laughs too. His arms envelop me in an embrace, and I hold him too.

"Thank you, Sum."

"For calling you stupid? Believe me, it wasn't just for your own good."

He laughs again. "Thank you so much."

"I can call you other things too if you like. How does foul loathsome evil little cockroach sound?"

"British."

A laugh escapes my lips as I pull away. "C'mon, I brought breakfast."

Kal smiles and pulls me in for another hug. "You're the best."

I freeze for a few seconds, realising how much hugging is going on. Deciding not to overthink about it, I wrap my arms around him, again, and rest my chin on his shoulder.

A second later I pull away and clear my throat. Kal raises an eyebrow, so I get up and grab the bag from the desk.

"It's matcha pancakes, I figured you'd like them since you consume anything matcha."

Kal purses his lips as he stands up. "I actually despise it, but it boosts the metabolism. Apparently not mine, since I haven't met my goal yet."

I roll my eyes. "Kal, stop. You look amazing. It doesn't matter if you're ten pounds heavier or lighter. In fact, it's normal to gain and lose a few pounds throughout the year."

Kal gives me a half-smile. "I could have a cheat day, I guess."

I clap my hands. "Then I'll keep these" -I lift the bag- "for Eliza and we can make some actually tasty pancakes."

He lets out a soft groan. "I'll even put Nutella on them."

I give him a thumbs-up. "You're edgy."

Kal groans again and takes my hand in his, guiding me to the kitchen. As I stand there and watch him search for the ingredients, checking a cookbook every now and then, I can't get over how happy I am to see him like that. And even though I was calling him stupid, I know I am too. If I wasn't jealous, we would have been like that sooner. I was seeing him as a weed I had to pluck out. Now I realise he's grown on me, and I only hope his roots are deep enough for him to never go away.

.............

So... this happened. Did you expect it? 

I'd like to thank curiousgeo for reading, and I just realised it says geo and not ego... And I'd like to congratulate happypappyme for ranking #1 on #cocky, there are thousands of stories under that tag! And don't be shy, go read Catch You, especially if you're in for some steamy content as well!

Do you plan on taking part in ONC? I'm going to be taking part this year too because I loved it last year. I chose prompt #15, aaaand I'll be writing a Draco Malfoy fanfiction. In all the years of reading and watching Harry Potter I never wrote anything but here we are haha. 

And last but not least, as of this week my puppy, Jean, is too big for me to lift. I mean she's 6 months old but still, she's a puppy.