Dedication to Ritzzreading for being a sweetheart :)

When Keaton Ocean had boarded that startling blue bus which never had more than four passengers each day, he didn't expect to spend an hour of his summer vacation with Bay Baxtor.

Bay Baxtor who was always around her parents' 24/7 diner. Bay Baxtor who had puked on Austen Micky's tenth birthday, a stunt so colourful that Austen stopped having birthday parties. Bay Baxtor who was always quiet, so quiet you'd mistake her for a shadow. Bay Baxtor who looked like she couldn't wait to get out of their town.

Bay Baxtor who let his pitiful self sit beside her.

Fiona Pillow was the girl of his dreams. Or that's what he thought. Keaton had only got two crushes in his entire lifetime of seventeen years. One was Miss Putt, a literature graduate who worked for a very short time in their school. She was their English teacher on grade 4 and let's say that Keaton never missed one English class during the entirety of her stay at Henderson's public school.

His second crush was Fiona Pillow. Fiona Pillow who had midnight silk for hair and spring flowers for skin, and maybe puberty was weird, but when they went for grade 9's summer hols and returned for grade 10, one look was all it took for him to decide she was it.

It was unbelievable when Fiona kind of reciprocated his feelings. More like, she initiated the whole thing. But again, puberty really was weird and when grade 10 rolled by, his freckles had taken a permanent vacation to Hawaii and his procrastinating alter ego which was too lazy to let him go and trim his hair turned out to be a boon in disguise. Suddenly, half the girls at school noticed him. And so did Fiona.

So he couldn't understand what exactly went wrong. They weren't the best couple out there. Most times it was Fiona wanting him to do boyfriend-y stuff which made him cringe yet he did them without objection and most times, he asked repayment for selfless acts like that with secret kisses behind the bleachers.

Fiona was an excellent kisser, or that's what he thought because he never got a chance to verify it. She was his first girlfriend. And now, she had dumped him.

"Look Keaton," Fiona had snapped on the very first day of summer vacation. She was chewing on a piece of gum. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. He hated gum. "I think we should take a break."

Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.

He had asked what was wrong but Fiona had only rolled those dark eyes, eyes he had always found attractive, eyes he still found attractive. "Why you ask? Gosh, I didn't know you were so clingy."

Really, Fiona and Keaton weren't the model couple of Henderson public school but then, that was the moment he had realised why half of the school population hated Fiona and why they called him blind behind his back.

He loved her though. She'd understand.

"Girls are weird like that, mate," Peter, his best friend had added dryly, patting his back gingerly. "She'd come around."

But everything shattered on the fifth day of their 'break.'

He and Peter had been friends for as long as he could remember. Peter lived next door, his big brother was friends with Keaton's cousin Hal so it was given that they were part of the 'squad.' Sammy came in later, some time around third grade because he lived near the junction between their town and the neighbouring one, and hence during his initial school days, he was a Birtwhistle pupil. By then, Peter and Keaton had their own handshake.

So he didn't know what was more heartbreaking. Seeing his best friend putting his hand over his girlfriend's shoulder or his girlfriend leaning back, eyes crinkling with that rare, genuine laugh. Eyes on his best friend. Not him.

Technically put, neither was cheating since Keaton and Fiona were supposedly taking a 'break' and breaks meant experimenting. He simply didn't expect the experiment would get strong within five days of their 'break.'

Keaton wasn't stupid. Or innocent. Maybe happy-go-lucky, but not naive. Definitely no. So, no amount of reasonable pep talk pushed the punch of betrayal away. His best mate and his girlfriend . . . and they weren't even sneaky about it in a town which could very well be the capital of gossiping. And that might very well be because of their stupid break.

God, he wanted to punch something.

That was how he had ended up in that eccentric blue bus. He had seen it around town a few times but that was it. It was almost empty whenever he saw it so it was the best spot for him to shed a tear or two. There was no one on it to judge him anyway.

Well, until he saw Bay Baxtor on it.

But it was funny how he had been riding that thing for five consecutive days. Though the icing on the cake would be, somehow, for the entirety of those five grey days, Bay Baxtor had become his bus-mate.

She rarely talked. Scratch that, she never talked. If Keaton was correct, he tried to initiate small talk for a total of five times during the five days but all time, he was shot down by her unresponsive responses. If it had been any other day, that would have annoyed the heck out of him, out of any sane person, but his days had been blue and right now, Bay Baxtor's warmth pressed against his thigh was the reality he wanted.

How could things go wrong?

If Bay hadn't given that surprising reply about her coloured vomit icing, he would have still wallowed in self pity but though the mental image was disgusting, he knew that God-awkward girl had uttered those words to cheer him up. So weird but still it made him chuckle.

Maybe losing Fiona was taking a toll on him.

The bus usually made a full run around their town, going as far as the junction of the two towns on either side of their town, Birtwistle and Leewe. It took exactly one hour to do that and though it was probably useless to have that thing running because most of them preferred to either walk or use personal transport, suddenly he was thankful for it. An hour of silence where he can be quiet and reflect. Or simply look out at their faded scenery. Keaton didn't want power or even popularity. But puberty was strange and it suddenly made him the attention of half of their school, and being the human that he was, he felt an odd compulsion to keep up that appearance. So no matter how useless running that bus for an hour could be, he needed that. He needed that to not act like he was always under the spotlight.

He needed that to rest.

But when their one hour was up and the bus was back to where it started its cycle, Keaton found himself ask something he wouldn't have expected himself to ask.

"So Bay, would I be seeing you here tomorrow?"

a/n., the only Keaton's pov I think xD

song attached: Breathe by Lauv