A Movie With The Akins

My phone buzzes and I see Knox's name pop up, 'Guess what!'

'What?' I quickly respond, making sure to keep my phone hidden under my desk. Though it's not like I'll get in trouble, my teacher is pretty chill when it comes to phones.

'We're going to the movies after school today,' He responds in a little over a minute.

Softly laughing to myself, I shake my head and respond to him. 'Congratulations! Lucky fuck.'

'You're coming too.'

'Oh fuck yeah!' I quickly text back. 'What's the occasion.'

'Well, 1. Our birthday is in three days. 2. My mom got a promotion and wanted me to invite you to the movies.'

'When should I be there?'

'I can get Keita to pick you up after school if you'd like.'

'Nah, I can walk.' I decline his offer. 'I haven't been able to get as much exercise lately since the winter is a cold ass bitch.'

'That makes sense,' He responds after about two minutes. I guess that he was talking to someone. 'See you in a bit' He adds a heart emoji at the end of his message, making my heart feel all warm and cozy.

'See ya.' I also add a heart emoji. Setting down my phone, I go back to my work with whatever the teacher was talking about. Judging by the fact that I don't understand anything she just wrote on the board, I missed a whole lot of important stuff. I'm fucked. Well, I could just look over the notes later but still in this moment, I'm fucked.

A few minutes later, I get a text from Keita, 'I'm picking you up after school.'

'I can walk, it's fine,' I visibly roll my eyes.

'You. Are. Not. Walking. In. This. Weather.'

'Watch. Me.'

'If I'm close enough to watch then I'm definitely going to pick you up.'

'No you're not.'

'Alright, let's have a little challenge then.'

I raise an eyebrow, 'What do you have in mind?'

'If we see each other, then I'm taking you with me.' He sends one message then continues to type another. 'However, if I don't see you, then you can walk.'

I glance out of the window, it looks like it fucking freezing. The snow is huge. If it were a few degrees lower than it might as well be hail. Going back to my phone, I message him, 'You're really going to make me walk home?' I add that adorable pleading eyes emoji at the end. 'In. This. Weather.'

'You just looked outside, didn't you?'

I send a grimacing face emoji, 'Maybe.'

'I'll see you after school.'

'Thank you!'

'Anytime.'

I set down my phone, partly expecting to also get a text from Afia. Though, it never comes. Which makes sense, what reason would she have for texting me anyway? In fact, I have a higher chance of getting a text from their mother than I do of getting one from Afia.

The bell signalling the end of the school days blares and I run out of the classroom. For the first time in a while, I'm the first one out. The halls, however, fill up in no time. Some students dodge and weave through others in an attempt to get out of the prison as fuck as possible. Others walk slowly or wait in the hallway for their friends to get out of class. Of course the majority is walking at a regular speed through the halls till they get out of the building. Some are dreading exiting the warm school and going out into the icy cold and others have nothing important going on, so they aren't in any hurry.

I exit the school and immediately catch sight of Keita waiting outside of the door, "Can't hide from me."

"Was this your plan if I decided that I was still going to walk?" I laugh and smack him on the back.

"Yep," He smiles wide and nods towards his car. "Let's go."

As I look over at it, I notice that Knox isn't in it. "Where's Knox?"

"Do you really think he would want to go outside in this weather?" He asks, gesturing to the falling bricks of snow. A breeze sends a chill down the bit of revealed skin on my neck, making me shake.

I laugh, trying to hide my growing discomfort. "Yeah that makes sense."

He smirks, "You're freezing."

"And you're an ass for making me still stand out here," I fire back as my entire body shivers and my teeth chatter.

He stands up higher with a challenging smirk, staring down at me. "How about we see who can last out here longer?"

Now he's messed up. I guess that he must've forgotten that if somebody challenges me to something then I will win. Plus, standing out in the cold is one of my specialties. I can easily just distract myself from the cold. Based on how cold it is right now, I'll last a good hour, tops.

He notices my growing confidence and shakes his head, "Nevermind. Let's go."

I give him a victorious grin and follow him to his car. My entire body goes numb once I feel the sudden rush of heat, he must've been blasting it on the way here. He gives me a few minutes to warm up before we actually leave. Every few seconds I notice him glancing at me and immediately looking back. Based on how he's acting, he's either uncomfortable, has something that I'd rather not think about, or cancer. If I searched his symptoms on Google it'd probably be cancer.

"How are you feeling?" He finally asks me as he starts getting ready to drive. This time he's looking me in the eye as he asks that, like he's perfectly fine with sitting and waiting a little bit longer while I warm up.

I give him a bright smile. Doing an amazing job at acting oblivious to his body language. "Good enough, let's go." He turns the radio to my favourite station as he pulls out of the parking lot. I sing at the top of my lungs to a few songs as he takes me home. He doesn't seem annoyed by it at all either, if anything he seems to be enjoying it. What's up with him today?

We arrive back in our area and I hopped out of the car and speed towards his place before he even got the chance to turn the car off. As I run, dodging the icy areas and leaping over banks of snow, I contemplate between going straight inside or knocking. I could also just slow down and wait for Keita, follow him inside.

But I don't need to do any of that because just as I get closer to their place, the door opens and Knox greets me with an excited smile. His arms are already open as I jump into the air and land square between them. We hold this for a few minutes, it seems as though the rest of the world has disappeared. Except for the cold, sadly.

"You seem excited," He finally speaks, gazing into my eyes.

"Well of course," We break the hug. "Who doesn't love going to the movies?"

"Wait," Knox freezes, looking between Keita- who just caught up with me- and me. "Did you drive her here?" He nods and swings his keys on his finger. Knox looks back to me with a questioning look. "I thought that you were going to walk?"

I slowly turn back to face Keita, "He didn't know?" Keita smiles cheekily and I roll my eyes. "He texted me shortly after we finished talking. I noticed that it would be way too cold, so he drove me."

"Not that any of that matters anyway," Their mom appears out of nowhere. She's still wearing her pantsuit outfit thing that she always wears for work. I don't think I've ever seen her wear anything else. Not that it's a problem, she looks really good in it. "Good afternoon, Alina."

"Good afternoon," I give her a kind smile. "Congrats on the promotion."

"Aww," She smiles wider from that. "Thank you so much." She steps out of the way and we all go inside. "Give me a few minutes to get ready and we'll head off to the movies."