Austin Smith was straight out of a rom-com, he was totally the side character who’s girlfriend gave advice to the female lead. He had been dating his girlfriend since 8th grade, he got many underclasswomen who came up to him in order to confess their love for him and beg him to cheat on or leave Samantha. But this was junior year, he was going to Stanford University on a soccer scholarship, then leverage his degree to get a job as a car salesman. He’d grow old with Samantha and they’d have 3 kids who he’d teach to play soccer. He was fine with it. He didn’t have to worry about his future, he could have the picket fence and be alright.

So one day walking home shouldn’t have shifted everything. That day was like every other, it even seemed like every other at the end, but it wasn’t.

Austin really liked walking home at this time of year as assignments start piling up, and right before soccer season. He found it hard to work out with all the stuff going on so the walk was a nice way to train. It had really just become fall, his school didn’t start soccer until late December, but he had a bad habit of procrastinating even if it was working out for something he cared about like soccer.

It was just like every other day. Austin kicked around an acorn, dribbling it for almost a block before getting a goal into a storm drain. He gave himself a little half-hearted mental high five before continuing to drag his feet home.

He started kicking a buckeye around on the next block. He had always liked kicking around the random things he found when walking, he wasn’t sure if it was that he loved soccer so much he didn’t care what he kicked around as long as he could feel that control between his feet or if he just loved trying to see which non-spherical unbalanced things he could still predict and control. Either way he probably had a thing for control in terms of balls…

Oh oops sorry! 0///0 Did I hint at something? Sorry back to a good old third person narration.

He ended up kicking the buckeye too far, ‘Must be rotting on one side,’ he thought absently to himself reluctant to venture into the street to retrieve it. ‘Bruh, it’s not worth it like it’s a fucking buckeye. They literally grow on trees. Asshat.’

He continued walking ignoring his annoying thoughts that had already developed a sentimental attachment to a fucking buckeye.

He felt something hit the back of his knee. “Fucking fuckity ball suckers!” He yelled as he whipped around, he had barely felt it but he disliked the fact that something had dained to bother him.

“Wow is Samantha really not fulfilling your needs like that? Well I hate to tell you but I’m not into sucking balls that have yet to descend,” a voice said that was almost drooling but a bit too soft. Austin had turned to see Fin. He honestly didn’t know how he knew this kids name.

“Why’d you kick me?” Austin demanded, not giving a shit as to what Fin wanted.

“I was just kicking your buckeye back at you dickhead,” Fin said. Walking right up behind Austin, Fin lifted the base of his backpack making it practically weightless. Austin got bumps on the back of his neck from Fin’s breath on the back of his neck. “If I kicked you it would have hurt. Maybe you should not lash out at random as people fuckhead.”

Austin felt a pull on his back nearly falling backwards as his backpack was dropped. Fin was already halfway across the street when Austin realized maybe an apology was in order, but he was Austin he didn’t apologize to people, why would he, someone had hurt him. Well it hadn’t really hurt but it had annoyed the fuck out of him. Ignoring his instinct to apologize Austin just yelled “Fuck off!”