In Hushed Whispers

"Hey." Dae casually waves off his group of friends, who were trying to call him over, before hurrying to meet up with Evan and Ro. He doesn't notice the look of annoyance that they shared while he headed in Evan's direction.

Ever since their talk at Evan's house, Dae has felt more and more comfortable to be around the redhead--while trying his best to gauge whether or not Ro would ever even tolerate him. He figured that Ro's opinion was important to Evan, so he was trying his best to win them both over.

And, for their part, Ro hadn't bothered shying away from telling him exactly what they thought of him; even at this moment, they let out a tired sigh. "Ah. I see we're honored by Dae's presence yet again."

He could feel the embarrassment on his face, wondering if maybe he was trying to force something to happen in hopes of getting closer to Evan, but the redhead's chuckle captured his attention away from Ro. Evan lightly smacked Ro's arm and shook his head, "Okay, okay. Retract the claws, and drink more coffee. You're being catty for no reason."

"You're accusing me of acting without reason?" Ro arched a thick eyebrow over their glasses.

Dae put up his hands defensively and spoke to Ro in particular, "I didn't mean to suffocate you. I just-"

But Evan interrupted him, pretty much ignoring Dae to defend him. "No. I'm accusing you of acting like an asshole."

The small silence that settles between the two is interrupted by a voice that hadn't been there before. A voice, whose inclusion, made Dae sweat. "Wow. Do all conversations end up being this fun over here?"

Leilani asked the question in a joking manner, but Ro answered by slamming their locker shut. "Great. Another joins the ranks."

Before anyone can counter, Ro walked away. Evan turned back to face Dae and Leilani, with a small apologetic smile on his face. "Sorry. They probably need like nine and a half more cups of coffee before they function like a human." He slowly nodded between the two of them before taking a couple of backward steps down the hall. "I should go make sure they don't suplex a poor unsuspecting freshman. See ya."

Dae starts to take a step to follow the redhead but is stopped by Leilani's gentle hand on his arm. "No, you don't."

Despite her touch, her tone was less than friendly, and her eyes were the harshest of them all. They held a bit of pain within them, and Dae had to force himself to look away from her. "What's going on, Dae?"

"What do you mean?" He could feel his cheeks burning, uncomfortable with the thought of being held back from Evan and having made Leilani worry about him. "Nothings going on."

Leilani lets out a dry laugh, "Right...Nothing."

Dae stared at her, unsure how to take her tone. She seemed incredibly upset and he wasn't sure why--which made him feel even worse. "Why did you say it like that? You asked and I--"

"Lied to my face, Dae. That's what you did." She looked like she was on the edge of tears, "You say nothing is going on but...'nothing' doesn't make you miss weekly scheduled meetups with your friends. 'Nothing' doesn't make you screen your phone calls--answering every fifth or sixth time, only to barely talk for ten minutes before having to hang up again without reason. 'Nothing' doesn't make you ditch your old life for a fresh shiny one. 'Nothing' doesn't--"

"Leilani!" Dae had to raise his voice to break through her rant, but it leaves her looking terrified. He felt a sting of pain all throughout his body--he'd never seen her look at him like this; like he was some kind of monster. "I promise you-"

"You're not using an empty promise to get out of things again, Dae!" Leilani's words dug up a painful memory in both of their minds, "You tried to promise me that you weren't using and-"

Leilani's accusation is cut off by her specific ringtone chiming from Dae's pocket. He pulls it out and glances at her, "Had to text your point too?"

A moment of silence sat between them when Dae noticed the wary look on her face. "My phone is with Ant...but why would he text you from it?"

Dae shrugged, opened the message, and was met with a video link. Warily he glance at Leilani who looked just as confused. Dae clicked the link and was subjected to familiar red curls bobbing up and down the cameraman's cock.

A tightness filled his chest, and no matter how hard he wanted to, he couldn't look away. Dae felt like if he could analyze the video long enough he could prove himself wrong. It wasn't him. It couldn't be who he thought it was...There was no way...

Until the redhead on film looked up from his position and Dae was looking back at Evan, naked and on his knees, pleasing another man.

Then everything went red.