It wasn’t as different as one may have perceived it as being: The two of them, two guys, sharing a small heart shaped beanbag chair in a dimly lithe room. Yes, they were close. In all honesty they were draped over one another, but that was strictly due to lack of space and nothing else. Their heads, which rested comfortably on one another’s shoulder, were close for just comfort and nothing more.
And really, what was wrong with drinking from the same cup and using the same straw? It was far better for the environment, because it cut down on waste, it was cheaper to buy one large one instead of two smaller ones, and having one straw in a cup was far less confusing than having two in it. Besides Bleu never drank never drank a whole cup of lemonade himself.
It was friendship, and nothing else, that allowed the two of them, Bleu and Grey, to be so close without it being different. It wasn’t sexual, it wasn’t intimate, and they weren’t gay. Grey wasn’t gay. He and Bleu were just friends, best friends. That was it, end of discussion.
Beside him Bleu stretched just as the scene on the large television transitions from a gymnasium to an arcade for whatever reason. Grey is not going to lie. He’d lose interests in the movie long ago. Though, no one could blame him, Lavender’s loud commentary did that to a person.
“Tired?” Grey asked the small boy who was in the process of snuggling deeper into his right side. Grey convinced himself that the way his heart pounded deep within his chest had nothing to do with Bleu being pressed flush against him.
“N-O,” Bleu answered, though his argument was unconvincing due to the yawn that separated the two letters.
Grey chuckled in amusement at the pout that appeared on Bleu’s round face. “Not tired, huh? Well that’s a little weird, because people who yawn are usually tired.”
“I didn’t yawn,” Bleu insisted so loudly that the other occupants of the entertainment room glared at the two silently telling them to shut-up. Both Bleu and Grey ignored them in favor of giggling like school girls.
“Oh yeah?” Grey challenged, “Then what was it?”
“A deep breath!” Bleu declared with another one of his childish giggles that was the perfect mixture of light, innocence, and all things that made Bleu, Bleu. They were also the things that made Grey’s insides feel as if they had been sent through a food processor and turned to mush.
There wasn’t anything wrong with that was there? There was nothing wrong with getting a heart pounding, spine tingling, butterflies in your stomach feeling whenever your best friend laughed, smiled, or gazed at you for too long. That was a normal way to feel that way about your best friend, wasn’t it?
There is nothing wrong with it, nothing at all, Grey told himself.
“Bleu, I don’t think that that was a deep breath. I think that that was a yawn I heard from you.”
Bleu shook his head, blond hair streaked with his name sake whipped back and forth across his face and Grey’s. “Nu-uh, you just don’t know the difference between the two of them.”
“You’ll have to show me then,” Grey laughed.
Bleu threw his head back and gave another spine tingling laugh that sent Grey’s heart and mind racing 200 miles per hour. Preoccupied with his own thoughts, Grey did not notice how close Bleu’s face came to his own until their noses were only a hair’s length away from each others. It was unnerving for the elder boy and his already irregularly beating heart.
“B-B-B-Bleu?” Grey stuttered.
Bleu gave Grey a large smile then slowly and carefully he pressed his lips against Grey’s right temple with another one of his playful giggles. “You’re silly Grey,” Bleu told him.
Grey didn’t question the boy and he didn’t question himself. He didn’t wonder if it there was anything wrong with what Bleu had just done or if it was normal for him to have liked it. Grey just laid there in silence, solitude, and comfort not moving a centimeter as Bleu wound his small hands around Grey’s shoulder fitting against him perfectly, like a puzzle piece.
Then somewhere deep within Grey’s mind something ‘clicked’ and the 17 year old realized that maybe, just maybe, being “normal” was overrated and if being “different” meant that he could be close to Bleu like this, then maybe being “different” wasn’t so bad.