"I'm so bored."

Without looking up from his History notes, Fletcher said to Junko, "So read your book."

It was Friday afternoon and Fletcher, along with the others, were at the library studying. At first, it seemed like a good idea - Fletcher needed to do some extra reading on the murder of JFK, while everyone else either did their homework or revised on past lessons - but, now that an hour has passed, not so much.

"I did," Junko said, waving her Chemistry textbook at him. "Read Chapters 27 to 31."

"Already?" Asked another voice. Roman. "I'm still stuck on Chapter 29."

"Could you two quiet down," Noor, who sat on Fletcher's left, snapped. "Some of us are trying to study here."

"Actually..." From the corner of his eye, Fletcher caught the sheepish grin on Sam's face as he held up his notebook, with its corners now filled with doodles. "I've been drawing for the past half hour."

"For Christ sake," Fletcher swore aloud, rubbing his temples as he looked up at the four of them. "Now I've lost my concentration."

"Good. Since we're on the same topic -" Junko began as she took out her phone. "What do you guys think about pizza?"

Fletcher shrugged while Roman and Sam both nodded. She continued, "Cool. There's this pizza place downtown -"

"No, that place is too expensive," Sam interrupted. "Is there anywhere else?"

Junko shook her head. "That's the nearest one. Unless..." Then her eyes grew wide and she leaned forward, her chair creaking as she moved excitedly. "Wanna have pizza at my house instead?"

"Like we order in?" Fletcher asked.

"No," she replied. "Like we make it ourselves."

Puzzled, Roman squinted his eyes at her. "You know how to make pizza?"

"Not necessarily," Junko said, her voice going an octave higher. "But I've watched my brother make them. Close enough. I mean, it can't be that hard. It's just pizza."

Roman nodded. "Okay. I'm in."

"Me too," said Sam.

Then the three of them turned to him and, with their puppy dog eyes, Fletcher couldn't help but give in. "Sure." He shrugged, trying to play it cool. "Why not."

That left them with only Noor. Junko slowly outstretched her hand and pocked Noor's elbow. The other girl still refused to acknowledge them.

"C'mon, Noor," Junko begged. "It'll be fun. I mean, do you really want to spend your Friday night at the library? Just when you're finished being grounded?"

Noor remained quiet until, a few seconds later, she closed her book, sighed, and eventually said, "Fine."

-

Turns out, making a pizza was, in fact, hard. Especially almost none of them knew how to cook.

"You forgot to add yeast?" Junko asked, eyes wide and horrified. Fletcher couldn't exactly blame her - two minutes had just passed and yet, when she returned, the kitchen had already succumbed to another level of mayhem entirely. Utensils were scattered around the counter, there was flour almost everywhere, and, oh god, the smoke.

"You didn't have any!" Fletcher said, waving to the open cupboards, now stained with floured handprints. "I thought it won't make a difference since we already added flour."

"It would make one hell of a difference!"

"At least he didn't put a shitload of oil," Noor intervened, her arms crossed and her lips in a straight line as she cast a snide glance to Roman.

Roman raised both his hands up in defence. "It was an accident. The bottle was slippery."

"Oh my god," Junko exclaimed as she rubbed the corners of her eyes.

"Okay, let's not argue," Sam persuaded, trying to calm down the situation. He attempted to pull off a warm smile but, in Fletcher's point of view, his smile was less warm and a little more panicked. Sam grabbed the bag of flour off the shelf and took a few steps forward. "Let's just start from scra-"

He bit his tongue because, soon, Sam himself slipping and pouring the bag's remaining contents all over Junko.

Sam's eyes grew so big it could have fallen off from its sockets and, for a while, they all stood in uncomfortable silence until Roman suddenly burst into laughter.

Junko clenched her fists and scowled at him. "Roman Alonso, I'm going to kill you!"

But it was so hard to take her seriously - not when she was five and a half feet tall and covered in flour from almost head to toe. Soon, the others couldn't help but start laughing as well.

"She looks like an angry snowman," Noor said in between giggles, tears forming in her eyes.

"Oh yeah?" Junko asked innocently, before reaching up to one of the shelves, opening another bag of flour, and dunking its contents on top of Noor's head. She smiled at the other girl with satisfaction. "Looks like I'm not the only one."

Noor's lip twitched. "You are so on."

And, in an instant, havoc ensued. Even until now, Fletcher couldn't exactly pinpoint what happened - one moment, they were throwing flour at each other, then they were laughing too hard that they couldn't breathe or see; until, finally, they were on the ground, in the aftermath of a snowstorm, just trying to catch their breath.

A fragment of their lives they could easily forget as fast as it was over.

But Fletcher will always remember this - the high and the adrenaline and the sensation that he was on top of the world instead of being crushed by it. The way he didn't felt sad, or alone, or in despair. How, for once, he was a normal seventeen-year-old boy who never tasted the bitterness reality - never even knew it's scent - because he just a seventeen-year-old boy who wanted to have fun.

And he will also never forget, lying on that kitchen floor, foolishly thinking to himself: Gosh, I'd hate to clean this mess up.

-

By the time Fletcher arrived home, it was already past midnight.

He had snuck in through the window, though more casually than stealth - it wasn't as if his footsteps were loud enough to outweigh his parents' yelling anyway - and had immediately climbed into bed, slowly falling to sleep with his headphones on.

So he hadn't heard, nor even begun to realise, how bad the thunderstorm was last night until he walked into the kitchen the next morning.

Because there, seated in front of him, was his mother, with her hands in her hair and her dirty waitress uniform still on.

She lifted her head up, her features momentarily soft and lonely, turned dark and cloudy the second she saw her son.

"Where the hell have you been last night?" She asked, her toned sharp enough to cut through Fletcher's skin.

He took a step back. "I was at a friend's house," Fletcher answered warily. He eyed his mother quizzically. Something wan't right. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

Instead of answering his mum chuckled to herself. She waved her hand to the fridge. "Hand me a beer, will you, Fletcher?"

The curiousness in Fletcher's gaze intensified as he bent down to get his mum a drink. He cast a quick glance to the door at the other side of their small home, which was broken and shut. "Careful," he said, handing her the can of beer. "It's dad's last pack."

His mum chucked again, her lips against the cold tin can, and muttered, "It's not like he'll come back to pick it up."

"What do you mean?"

She looked at Fletcher then - really looked at him this time - with eyes so wild and terrified they could have screamed. "You - you don't know?"

"Don't know what?" Fletcher asked.

And when his mum spoke again, the blood in Fletcher's veins froze and he went stiff. Because, in less than five words, she uttered the final outcome to all their sleepless nights, all their false promises, and all their shortcomings.

In less than five words, she said the inevitable.

"Fletcher," she whispered. "He left."