Cloud was ready to finally tell him, after years of harboring these feelings, hiding them from his friend; he was ready to tell him how he felt. They were sitting on his front porch watching the sun set on the neighborhood. Cloud stared at him, watching how the light played off his features. No, he couldn't keep it a secret any longer, he took a deep breathe preparing himself,
"Leon?" The brunette ceased his endless chatter about what his mother had tried to ground him for yesterday. He gave Cloud a questioning look, as if to ask what he had to say that was so much more important then what he had to say.
"Leon, I need to tell you something." Leon made a gesture for him to continue. Cloud bit his lip nervously,
"I'm not really sure how I should say this, I…I like you Leon." Cloud glanced up at Leon who looked confused. He had a whole speech planned out, but now that he had to actually deliver it, it seemed stupid and ineffective. Cloud took a deep breathe, and threw caution to the wind has he grabbed Leon and just kissed him. Cloud quickly pulled away and stared at Leon looking to see how he would react. He looked shocked, which quickly changed to anger.
"What the hell was that Cloud!" Cloud shrunk back form him, as he got up stormed to the front door,
"Leon, wait!" Leon turned around and glared at Cloud as he stood up in front of him,
"Please, let me explain…" Cloud grabbed his hand pleading with him. Leon yanked his hand out of Cloud's grasp.
"I'm not fucking gay Cloud." Leon opened the door and looked back at him,
"Leon, please…" Leon just shook his head before slamming the door in Cloud's face. Cloud just stood there, Oh god, it hurt. The pain welled up inside him until the shameful tears streamed down his face. He had been rejected and had lost not only the boy he had secretly longed for, but also his best friend.
He had been 16, young and stupid. The experience had changed Cloud; he was now a little more cautious around people, more hesitant to let them in. He felt as if his world had ended that day, eventually he had gotten over it, but he would always remember the pain. He had vowed to never again let himself get into that position.
Cloud parked his motorcycle in the school parking lot, successfully cutting off someone from stealing his space. His little brother, Roxas, slid off the bike adjusting his bag,
"You know, one of these days you're going to get us killed." Cloud just shrugged, shouldering his own bag,
"If you don't like it you can always ride with Reno and Axel." Roxas made a horrified face and was about to take back what he has said about his brothers driving when he was cut off by a series of loud bangs and squealing tires. Roxas inched his way behind Cloud as the two watched Reno's car pulled into the parking space next to them.
Reno's car was one of a kind. It was the oldest, most patch worked piece of crap car you've ever seen. Every piece was a different rusted color, and Cloud wouldn't have been surprised if each piece had come from a different junkyard. The car was as temper mental as its owner; it made strange noises and made a habit of breaking down at the most inopportune moments. Needless to say Reno loved his car.
Two tall skinny redheads climbed out of the car arguing with each other. Axel and Reno were brothers, close brothers, which meant that they argued about everything.
"Reno, you were clearly about to hit the guy!"
"I don't know what you're talking about, if you don't like the way I drive you can ride the fucking bus to school for all I care." Reno slammed his door shut, causing his car let out a groan and a loud bang causing him to jump slightly. Cloud rolled his eyes; Reno really needed a new car. Cloud felt the redhead throw an arm around his shoulders.
"So Cloud, you ready for that poetry test?"
"…What poetry test?" Reno laughed,
"Without me you would fail school you know that? Don't you write anything down?" Cloud rolled his eyes, of course he didn't. He waved to Roxas telling him if he was late that afternoon he was leaving his ass at school. Roxas mumbled out a 'whatever' before walking off with Axel. It was kind of strange that the two sets of brothers were best friends with each other.
"Well, come on Cloud. Let's go cram for that poetry test." Cloud glared at Reno, purposely stepping on his foot as he went inside. Reno yelped and threw a rock at Cloud, missing and hitting a car instead causing its alarm to go off. Cloud laughed and ran inside, Reno trailing behind laughing at the outraged yell of whoever's car he had hit.
Cloud hated poetry, with a passion, the only thing worse than poetry was when you paired it with math. Cloud sat in his math class frantically cramming for the poetry test he was to have in his next class. Luckily he sat in the very back so the teacher had no idea that he was only half paying attention to whatever she was teaching.
'Gather ye rose-buds while ye may…The logarithmic function to the base a…Old time is still a-flying…denotes y log sub a X…And this same flower that smiles today…defined as y log sub a X if and only if a exponent y X … Tomorrow will be dying…'
Cloud was quickly finding that the logical and the abstract just don't mix. The teacher finally finished her lesson and Cloud quickly copied down the homework that he had no intention of doing. Now he could put his full attention to reading these godforsaken poems. He just started 'Lycidas' when the kid in front of turned to talk to the girl next to him about some evil history test,
"…You know that test is ridiculous, when he hands it out I'm just going to stand up and rip it up. I heard Sephiroth did that once…" Sephiroth was the like the god of their high school, everyone idolized him to the point where everyone was scared to even talk to him. Sometime Cloud felt a little bad for the guy, but oh well he had his own problems, like this annoying kid. Cloud seriously wanted to smack him, not only for being stupid and spreading a rumor Cloud knew wasn't true, but couldn't he see Cloud had poetry out the ass! Here was this kid lounging all over his desk talking to some girl wear for too much make up while he was trying to read something that made absolutely no sense. Cloud could clearly see they were going to get married and have ugly children together further populating the world with ugly, stupid people. Life had the tendency to just suck that way. When the bell rang to change classes, he stuffed the oversized poetry packet into his bag, Lycidas could kiss his ass.
Cloud stared at his poetry test. He'd gotten a 100? How was that possible? He looked over at Reno who he had the joy of sharing his English class with. He was holding his head in his hands, guess he didn't do so good. Reno looked at Cloud,
"What'd you get?" Cloud flashed Reno his paper,
"Aw, man! How is it that you never study for anything and always manage to get a good grade, you suck man." Cloud just shrugged and smirked at him,
"It's a gift." Reno tore up his test,
"Yea, whatever." Cloud laughed at him, Reno was never really good at English anyway. Never one to be put down, Reno quickly started rambling about some random topic. Cloud however was pleasantly distracted by a small blonde haired girl walking into the class, her student aid badge shining proudly on her shirt. It wasn't so much the girl that had caught his attention but who had followed her into the classroom. He must have been a new student for Cloud had never seen him before. He was tall and had an extremely friendly face. Not to mention his ridiculously unruly black hair, this was saying something considering Cloud's own hair. The boy saw Cloud staring at him and smiled brightly at him. Cloud narrowed his eyes slightly giving him a confused look.
"Class I want you to meet out new student, Zackary Donavan." Cloud eyed this 'Zackary' as he smiled at the class,
"I hope your up to date with you poetry, Zack." Zack just laughed and rubbed the back on his head,
"I get the feeling you wouldn't like the poetry I know." The teacher just rolled his eyes and told him to sit down somewhere, mumbling about how unrefined the world was today. Zack sat in the desk behind Cloud, still wearing that goofy smile. Reno turned around in his desk and looked at him,
"Hey, you're transferring schools in your senior year? That sucks man." Zack just shrugged,
"Yea, I guess."
"Well, I'm Reno and this here is Cloud, so if you need any thing you can just ask us." Cloud glared slightly at Reno for offering his help like that. He looked back at Zack and nodded,
"Hey," Zack smiled brightly at him again, and Cloud turned forward in his desk trying to ignore the thought forming in his brain. Zack had really pretty eyes.
A/N: Okay, I am fairly excited about this story, I really like it. I didn't come up with the name Donavan, but I REALLY like it. I don't know who came up with it, but whoever did is a genius. Those of you who don't know Lycidas is an evil, evil poem. It is so incredibly long. Anyway, I guess that's all for now. I hope you like it, please review. It makes me happy.