"Who, the brown-haired one?"

"No, Al, the blonde one." Mathieu Bonnefoy and Alfred Kirkland had been best friends since practically forever. Which is to say, in 1st grade, when Alfred had beaten up another child for making fun of how slow he was during soccer games. They had remained friends with little turbulence throughout the remainder of their elementary and middle school years, having discovered that they lived quite close together, all the way up through their first two years of high school. Though they had less time to piddle around this year, they still found the 10 minutes before and after school to catch up. Today, an early September morning, in which no one could possibly be expected to stand out, the two waited for the bell to ring letting them know that they could go inside and out of the rain. In Alfred's car, parked in the sorry excuse for a student parking lot, they talked about a girl in Mathieu's history class, and how he was working up the courage to say hello. She and a friend of hers had walked by the car, huddling under a shared umbrella and happily giggling.

"Oh…Matt?"

"I mean, I know I don't even know her name or anything, but she's in a couple of my classes, and she's really cute and-"

"Matt."

"-and I know you might not approve, but I like her Al, and-"

"Matt."

"Huh?"

"That's a dude. His name's Feliks."Oh.

"…But he's so… and he wears… and… How do you know?"

"He's in my gym class. He uses the boy's locker room and everything."Oh.

"But… that doesn't mean anything, right, Al?" So what if he was a boy? His Papa had always taught him that love was love, and love was beautiful. He'd never thought twice about whether liking another boy in that way was "okay" or not. Meanwhile, Alfred…

"Um, of course that means something. He's a dude."

"But… What if I still like… him? I mean, just because he's a boy, that doesn't mean I can't… like him that way, does it?"

"Matt, that would make you gay." It sometimes hurt Mathieu to think that he couldn't talk to his best friend about these sorts of things. Who was he supposed to talk to now? One of his friends from hockey, he guessed, maybe his friend from math. Any of his few friends, really, he could talk to about relationships.

That is if he could gather the courage to talk to the person he wanted a relationship with.

"Oh, right… Of course, Al." Al was definitely out of the question, though.

Matt was good at a lot of things, like remembering historical facts, making a puck go right past the other team's goalie in much the same fashion as a breeze would pass through a tree, and he wasn't exactly terrible at sketching, either. One thing that would probably never be listed among those things would be math. It was his own fault, he never much paid attention, but instead found his refuge in weaseling his way to the back of the room and either silently doodling or making friends with whoever else happened to be back there.

This time around, there was a rather shy-looking girl sitting in the rear of the room, who had looked more than a bit out of place on the first day. Mathieu had soon found out that she had recently moved to the States from Russia, along with her parents and two siblings. Katarina was still struggling slightly with English, but could handle everyday conversation just fine, albeit with a heavy accent, often times sounding as if she had a potato in her mouth. They had become fast friends in the month or so since the start of the school year, Katarina always doing her best to help, ranging from those pesky inverse tangents to figuring out what to get a friend for their birthday, and Matt providing her with a friend in a new country and a place to sit during lunch. Today wasn't much different from the average day in which they sat and scarcely paid attention to whatever lesson was being taught, save for Mathieu doodling a familiar face in his notebook. When the class had died down to the familiar lull between the end of the lesson and the next class, Katarina inquired as to how his day was going.

"Pretty decently, I guess." Another stroke of the pencil decided Feliks' rounded jaw line. "How about you?"

"I have been good… What are you drawing?" She enjoyed looking at her friend's math doodles.

"Oh, it's… It's a person I know."He put the pencil down, parallel to his notebook. "You would happen to know how to ask someone like… if they'd want to hang out or something, would you?"

"Are you thinking of asking this person out? Aw, are you getting a girlfriend?" She smiled, happy for her friend.

"I might, yeah. Only, he's a boy. His name's Feliks." He picked up the pencil again, twirling it in his hand, another nervous habit that Katarina found adorable. It reminded her of her brother, how he would finger the scarf she had made for him when they were younger whenever he was nervous.

"A boy? Ah, I see, you are… How do you say it? When you fancy the same gender as yourself?"

"Gay? Yeah… I guess I am." He hadn't thought about it much before, but he'd never had much of an interest in girls before.

"That is good for you, Matt. Ah… the only way I can really think of is to talk to them, you know? See if you can find out something about them." The bell rang. Time for lunch. As the two stood from their seats along with the rest of the class, Mathieu laughed in agreement.

"Yeah, that's probably the best way… Hey, you can eat lunch without me, right?"

"Oh, da. I think I can manage that. Where are you going off to?"

"I'm just gonna take a little walk. I'll see you later, then." He figured he might as well take his friend's advice. He'd find where Feliks ate his lunch. Maybe he would try to start a conversation. He walked opposite the direction of the lunchroom, thinking about what they would talk about, if Feliks liked hockey, if he was any good at drawing, what his interests could be. As he closed the door to his locker, putting his books away, he realized he had no idea if Feliks even had the same lunch as he did.