Just Like Old Times

Alina is back to school today. I'm thinking about going to see her afterwards, maybe we could walk home together or even hangout at my place. Still, it's one more week till my brother and I are allowed to go back to school. My parents seemed to have calmed down a bit since the start of the suspension, last night after dinner they asked if I'd like a bowl of ice cream. I said yes, obviously, but I was also suspecting them to turn around and be like 'We told you that you can't have any junk! Go to bed!' Although they surprisingly didn't. They gave me the bowl with some caramel drizzle and I even tested to see if they'd yell at me if I added some marshmallows and they didn't! Life is good.

My phone buzzes and I notice that it's a text from Alina. 'Guess what?'

'Chicken butt?' I text back, assuming that was going to be her response.

'Knock knock.'

'Who's there?' I let out a little laugh.

'Chicken butt.' Fuck she got me.

'Chicken butt who?'

'Chicken butt you, fatass,' She even threw in a little laughing emoji, damn that's brutal.

I send back a broken heart emoji, then set my phone back down, assuming that was the end of the conversation.

But it buzzes again, still from Alina. 'Also.' She's typing for a good half a minute. 'You're English teacher gave me some of your assignments and asked me to bring them to you. It was pretty funny too, she just stopped in front of me the second I got to school and handed me the papers.'

'Burn it.' I answer in a joking manner.

'Don't worry, I've already delivered it to the little demon to bring it to the deepest pits of hell. It can't hurt you now.' She throws a little heart emoji on the end and I feel a burst of joy as I laugh it off.

'I'll be at your place after school,' she finishes. 'Oh and, there's a lot of it too.'

'Fuck.' I conclude the conversation and set my phone back down. After waiting a few minutes if she'll continue the conversation my phone doesn't make a noise. So I decide to hop on my computer and stream for a bit.

After a few hours of streaming, I turn around to see that Alina is already in my room. She looks like she's been here for a while now, she's just laying on my bed and scrolling through her phone. I quickly glance back at the time on my computer and notice that school ended nearly two hours ago.

Slowly, I turn my chair back to face her, "How long have you been here?"

"I got let out early, so almost two hours," She flashes me a smile just over her phone. "How was the stream?"

"Not as good today," I scratch my head. "I only got around twenty viewers out of the entire thing."

"It's probably just because it was an unusual time for you to stream," She sits up and I take up a spot next to her. She looks amazing today, I wonder if she tried harder to look good for some reason. As we continue to silently stare at each other, she smacks me in the face with my medium sized stack of assignments and hollers as I rub my cheek. "Good luck."

"You could've just handed them to me you know!" I shout after her as she sprints out of my room and upstairs. I bet she's getting snacks or something like that. Alina never does any work unless there's some sort of food or drink with her. It's a good thing that she works out or else she would end up having lots of health problems. Actually, now that I think about it, she has lost a lot of weight lately. I should probably take her out to eat at some point, just so I can make sure that she hasn't been starving herself for some reason.

I slam the stack of papers on my desk and slump into my chair, I really don't want to do all of this work. Maybe I can… No, I shouldn't. Well, I mean it's not like she'll say no. It's at least worth a shot.

After a few minutes of me blankly staring at my work, Alina finally comes back to my room holding a bowl of frozen fruit. It's a good enough snack for me. She sets it down next to me and after taking one look at my face, she already knows what I'm going to ask her.

"You want me to do your work for you?" I give her a coyish smile and a nod. She laughs quietly while she rolls her eyes. "Fine." She practically throws me off my chair and onto my bed as she takes my seat and gets to work. She already finished this section of English, so she can easily complete these assignments for me.

As I lay in my bed, scrolling through my phone and watching her do my work and occasionally grab some fruit from the bowl, I quickly remember something important. Something so vital to our friendship that it's insane that I've forgotten.

"Our birthdays are coming up!" I suddenly shout and Alina nearly throws a pencil into my ceiling.

She grunts and glares at me for being stupid then smiles, "Have you seriously forgotten our birthday?"

"It's less than a week away!" I shout again, this time Alina points the sharp pencil towards my eyes like she's threatening to stab them with it.

"That's true too you nincompoop," She grabs a strawberry from the frozen mix and tosses it towards my head. Not wanting it to touch my blanket, I allow it to smack me in the face. I would've tried to catch it with my mouth but it was way too high for me.

Alina giggles as I give her a stone cold stare. I have no doubt in my mind that there are strawberry remains still on my face. After wiping my face a bit and making a mental reminder to wash it later, I add, "We need to plan what we're going to do for our party."

Alina sits back in my chair and taps the eraser end of her pencil on her temple, but I know for a fact that she's not actively thinking. "I don't know, how about we throw another cake?"

"Cakes don't work for us, remember?" I mention, thinking back to the night that we celebrated my high score viewers on Twitch. That number is nothing for me now, we should do a celebration like that again soon. "Our tastes are way too different."

"True," She mumbles, playing a hand under her chin, she's still not actively thinking. It's not her fault though, if you ask her to think it will take her a few minutes to actually be able to. Although once she is able to think, she flows with amazing ideas. So really, you just need to be patient with her.

I lay back on the bed and she does the same right next to me. We stay in this position for a good five minutes, not even thinking, just chilling. I miss this. We really haven't been able to be ourselves for a while now with the whole making Zack suffer thing. I hope nothing ever comes between us and moments like this ever again. I don't know how much more time I would be able to spend without her.

"Ooooh what's going on in here?" I immediately sit up to see Keita perched on my door frame with a mischievous look on his face.

"The hell do you want?" I shoot him a glare.

He gives a little shrug and I notice that he recently got back from the gym, "Just curious as to why two best friends are laying in bed together."

"It's not like that and you know it," I roll my eyes and go back to my chair. I'm sure that Alina must be embarrassed right now, it's best for me to move. "What time is it anyway?"

"Like 6 or 7," He answers and I immediately freeze up, glancing between Alina, the time on my computer, and Keita.

"What happened to all that time?" I stare worriedly at Alina.

She giggles, "School ends at three and you finally noticed that I was here two hours later."

"Oh," I drop my head down in realization. "So we've only been talking for like 1 or 2 hours then."

"When do you have to be home for dinner?" Keita asks Alina, it almost seems as though he has completely shut my presence out of his mind as he asked her that.

"Literally any minute now," She responds, checking the time on her phone. Just then, her phone dings and I have no doubt in my mind that it's either her mother or father asking her to come home. "Right now."

"Well, see you later then," He gives her a smile that makes my blood turn cold then leave my room, shutting his door just a bit down the hall.

Alina jumps up from her bed, swinging her bag over her shoulder, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Without thinking, I grab her and pull her into a tight hug. I don't know what came over me but I know that she needed one as well because she hugged me even tighter. A swell of tears start to form in my eyes but I push them back down. It would be pretty lame if I broke into tears just because I finally got to hangout with my best friend again after a while of almost no communication.

"I've missed you," I whisper to her. Once again, I have no clue where that came from, but it's out there now and I hope that she doesn't think I'm weird because of it.

"I've missed you more," She returns the sentence, holding me even tighter.

After what feels like a few minutes of holding each other in almost complete silence- the noise being my brother playing video games and shouting and my sister watching streams upstairs- we finally break the hug. As I gaze at her grateful expression, I notice that she's been crying.

"Everything okay?" I ask her in a still hushed voice.

"Yeah," She mutters and wipes her eyes. "Yeah everything is fine." She clears her throat and takes a step away from me. Why did she do that? Did I do something wrong? "I- I'm- I have to go home, I'll see you tomorrow and good luck with all of the assignments."

Before I could say anything else, she was gone. She left almost like she was never here in the first place. It gives me a feeling of loneliness, I wish she was still here with me. Well, there's still tomorrow. Besides, I can just video chat her later too.

Laying down in my bed, I begin to smile to myself and mumble, "I'll see you tomorrow."