“...I’m not saying he's not attractive or anything, he's just overrated. Michael B. Jordan on the other hand? Hot mothafucking damn.”

The argument was about whether Ryan Reynolds was the gold standard for men, and Jazaiah was right. Lucas didn't really see the appeal of Ryan Reynolds, but he knew that for some reason he was every straight guy’s free pass, so he had to pretend like he didn't ardently agree with Jazaiah.

If he was honest, this straight man thing kinda sucked.

He was losing his voice a little from speaking loudly all the time, and constantly sitting in a manspread was annoying and exposing at best. He still caught himself reflexively tucking his foot under his thigh when he sat down, or crossing his legs, and it was beginning to get tough to police all his behavior.

Lucas couldn't help but be proud of himself, though.

Girls asked for his Snap, giggling nervously as their friends backed them up, and guys asked him if he was gonna ask out Mackenna Mackayla Mackenzie, to which he could just shrug and they'd be impressed at his monk-like restraint.

The best part was being close with his friends.

Nobody was weird about hugging or touching him, even kissing him on the forehead in celebration wasn't off limits. Talks about sex weren't uncomfortable questions directed at him, and he didn't have to worry about people being uncomfortable around him anymore.

Vinnie was a hugger, and Lucas didn't even realize how much he'd missed casual, platonic affection until Vinnie slung an arm around his neck and he'd had to almost physically restrain himself from melting into it.

He could go to people's houses without their dads looking at him like he was a fucking talking snake, and he could play MarioKart leaning on somebody without being being questioned.

It genuinely surprised him how much he'd been missing by being overtly queer, and even if he missed his whale earrings and his Pinterest had accidentally returned to what it used to be — what had actually been the point of deleting all those boards? straight boys didn't even have Pinterest — he wasn't really regretting this plan.

It genuinely had its perks.

It was just. Exhausting.

He tuned back into the conversation, to Kyle talking loudly about how nothing’s gay if you're wearing socks. 

Which was easily one of the dumbest things he’d ever heard, and Vinnie apparently thought the same way.

“Are you not still doing it with a man? You're telling me wearing socks during sex makes one of them a woman.”

Kyle scoffed. “Not what I’m saying at all! Don't put words in my mouth, man. C’mon, Lucas, back me up!”

Cold creeped up Lucas’ spine. It wasn't like he couldn't just nod or something, but the words “what the fuck” were crawling up his throat dangerously fast.

Swallowing his opinions down was like chugging bleach, but he forced a smile on his face anyway. “Nah, man. The socks make it less gay. It’s just science.”

Vinnie let his mouth drop open in a mask of exaggerated disgust and surprise, before kissing his teeth loudly, “What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”

The conversation was getting more heated, Vinnie resorting to loud “eeeeeh?!” noises and skeptical-sounding “mmhmm.”s when Kyle tried to explain the ‘science’ behind what he'd begun calling ‘the sock theory’.

Lucas let his head fall onto his hand, only pretending to pay attention as Kyle got more irate, and instead surveying the lunch hall.

It was bigger than his last school’s, he'd noticed, and had more windows too, light shining onto the other kids as they ate and talked. Most of the kids were lively as fuck, with not many tables talking excessively quietly.

There didn't seem to be a real cliques thing going on in this place, unlike at his old school, and the faces he saw were far more diverse than at his last school. A table a little to the right of him was clearly arguing almost as heatedly in sign language, their faces expressive.

It was nice actually.

Jazaiah didn't usually sit with them at lunch, he usually sat with Apollo Carter and two other guys, who Lucas couldn't place.

One of the guys, the dark skinned one with the short, curly afro and taper fade, always had his back to Lucas’ table, with Apollo, Jazaiah, and the other guy sitting on one side like they'd been called onto the principal's office or something.

It was kinda weird.

“Yo! ‘Mari!” Jazaiah yelled excitedly, interrupting the flow of conversation.

The sound shocked Lucas out of his reverie, and he looked up to see his lanky friend dapping up the prettiest guy he’d ever laid eyes on. 

It was like a scene from an anime, Lucas feeling as if flowers and sparkles had appeared around Jazaiah’s friend, his perfect brown skin illuminated by the sun.

He was probably in the top three prettiest people Lucas had ever seen, with big, round, eyes that sparkled a little, like the type of shit they talk about in romances. His face was soft, but masculinely so, with a button nose and pillowy lips that Lucas decidedly was not going to think about.

Looking at him now, he was bigger than Lucas thought he would be, about 6’2 with long legs and broad shoulders, even though he slouched a little into the big bomber jacket he wore over a football jersey.

(It was a Raven’s jersey, and that was about as far as Lucas knew about football — and he only knew that because he'd gone through his mental list of team colors to match black and purple.)

‘Mari’ smiled in a way that tipped his mouth up, pushing his cheek into a deep — adorable — dimple, and, god, he was clearly somebody's love interest.

“Jazz, your man’s looking for you. Y’all are heading home before practice, right?” 

Fuck, his voice was perfect too. It was somewhere between baritone and tenor, smooth and slow, with his vowels running into each other a little. 

Lucas hoped, desperately, that he wasn't blushing.

He looked away quickly. 

There was no way he was ending up in another Roman Rodriguez situation with a guy who was definitely just as straight, no matter how pretty his long eyelashes were, or how squishable his cheeks looked.

He needed to consult with Lupita.

He was not failing now.

Dae and Dylan were the only people he could talk to about this.

Lupita had given him options, like the beautifully well-formed plan she was, but decision paralysis was hitting him hard.

His brothers, on the other hand, had never had any problems with choosing.

And luckily, their conversation was getting to a point where he could bring it up.

“Dyl. Dae.” He addressed them separately, even though only Dylan was the one holding the phone, ”I have a dilemma.”

Dylan’s eyes lit up. He'd been growing out his hair, and it bounced when he grinned (Lucas tried not to be jealous), cracking his knuckles excitedly.

Dae just raised an eyebrow from where he sat off to the side. “What’s up, Gukkie?”

Lucas breathed, and told them about Lupita’s options, about Jazaiah’s pretty friend and how he was worried he would lose all his friendships again if he didn't hide this well enough.

“It's a spanner in the works and I don't know what to do.”

Dylan was quiet. 

Dae answered instead, “I’m still pretty sure that this is really unhealthy, but since you're doing this…”

“You should probably just try and avoid him, honestly.” Dylan finished the sentence, shrugging. “That’s def the easiest way out. It's not like you guys are in the same classes or play the same sport or some shit. Like, he's just your friend’s friend, you know?”

Dyl was right, Lucas had to admit. The easiest option was to just avoid him, right? It's not like he was gonna be around him much at all. 

“Nah, you can't avoid him!” Dae glared at the back of Dylan's head, the harshness in his voice aimed at his twin rather than Lucas. Dae let his voice go back to its usual softness. “He’s your friend’s friend. If he shows up and starts making conversation or something, you, like, getting up and leaving is suspicious. You'd have to start actively lying to people, y’know?”

He nodded to himself like he was satisfied, and turned back to his phone.

Lucas had to agree with him.

At the moment, he wasn't lying to anyone. He just let people make assumptions based on his meticulously crafted persona and then played up to them. He didn't actually say anything specifically untrue.

But if he started avoiding this guy, he'd have to start making excuses, and that meant lying. And for everything Lucas was attempting to do, he really, really, didn't like to lie to people. Especially people like Vinnie and Kyle and Jazaiah, who he was already feeling guilty about.

Daehyun was right. He just had to grin and bear it.

It wouldn't be that hard, since it wasn't like he knew the guy apart from seeing him a couple times in the halls or talking to Jazaiah.

Lucas smiled. It was exhausting, sure, but at this point, it was looking sustainable, at least for this semester.

It was not looking sustainable, actually.

Because for the rest of the semester, he'd be tutoring a football player named Jamari LaBeau. And when he told his friends that at lunch, Kyle had pointed right at Jazaiah’s pretty friend.

Fuck.

This was not looking good, but the solution to every problem that could've possibly have been predicted, was to search Lupita’s well-stocked depths.

The clock on his wall changed from 2:59 to 3:00 with the subtlety of an ant's footsteps, but with the amount of fruit-flavored energy drinks that Lucas had consumed, he jumped at the change.

God, he could probably hear light if he focused.

His eyes hurt behind his glasses, but he ignored it in favor of scrolling carefully through the Excel spreadsheet that he'd made — in a very similar state actually — specifically for a time like this one.

He stopped when he reached the unrealistic column, moving his cursor under the phrase “tutoring a non-girl that you are attracted to,” and poring through the instructions. 

Holy shit, this could actually–

“Daegukkie, honey? Why’re you up? You need to sleep.”

It was his auntie, speaking in tiredly slurring Korean. She'd opened his door, her hair tucked under the bonnet with African patterns on it and her robe pulled across her body, and was standing bleary eyed in the doorway, blinking at him.

Lucas was sure he looked insane to her, his hair spiked up in every direction from pulling and running his hands through it, a pen hanging out of his teeth, illuminated only by the light of his laptop from Excel on light mode, completely frozen. 

She heaved a sigh when he didn't answer, shaking her head. “Gukkie. Please go to sleep.”

He bristled at the nickname, struck with the image of his mom's face — more weathered than he’d remembered — when they last hugged, her smile sad and wistful, the bitter twist of her mouth as she wished him well.

But before he could get out the words “Please don't call me that,” his bedroom door slammed shut, leaving him alone again.

He rubbed his eyes under his glasses.

Maybe she was right.

And that night, when he finally, finally, curled up in his bed, he let himself shed a tear for the Lucas he used to be, the one that didn't use the night to search through extensive Excel spreadsheets for how to do something inanely specific. The one who would've used this time to add more facts to his whale spreadsheets — something he hadn't allowed himself to touch since he got here.

He missed Hanry the Humpback Whale, he missed Light Yagami, he missed Signor Snuggles — all the plushies he'd packed up in a box and shoved in the corner of his room between his wardrobe and his vision board. 

He cried for himself.

Man, maybe this would be harder than he thought.

He’d prepared all night for this, reading and re-reading the notes Ms. Elliot had emailed him to get a plan made.

Mildred wasn't as expansive as Lupita, and she was incomplete too, but she was beautiful to Lucas. He’d bought her her own notebook, with a completely new set of whale themed stationary that he couldn't stop himself from buying, and she sat pretty in the very last pages as a checklist that would keep him on track.

He missed Deku’s Korean calligraphy (he wondered if they’d perfected Russian yet) but he'd figured out something amateurish by comparison, but passable, writing ‘Mildred’ transliterated into Korean on the front cover.

So, everything was in place except for Jamari LaBeau’s opinions on what he wasn't good at, which required talking to him about it.

And talking to him about it required Lucas to look at him and—

He’d had this crisis yesterday, and he had no intentions of having it again.

Lucas took a breath.

Focussed his eyes.

Imagined Jazaiah’s weirdly perceptive hand on his shoulder again, and his eyes conveying something Lucas chose to interpret as ‘good luck’ and nothing else.

Squeezed his eyes shut and opened them slowly.

He balled up a fist, let his fingers relax, and placed his hand on the door of the English room.

Lucas had prepared for this — planned for this. The thump of his heart was nothing. 

He pushed the door open.