Chapter 4: "After School Snack"

Tino waved his students off for the weekend. They were just as thrilled as he was, but he had to stay after to grade their papers. He would have taken them home, but he had to enter them in the computer this time. He had gotten up and grabbed a container of ice-cream from the freezer in the teachers lounge before he began so he could at least be doing something enjoyable while he was reading through bad spelling and blocky cursive.

He always looked at the doodles they drew on their papers while he was grading. It was really funny sometimes. He scanned over one of the papers and smiled at a drawing of a caterpillar eating a leaf. It was pretty good, actually. He graded that paper first, then started on the rest of them, stopping midway to turn some music on.

He wasn't very good at singing, but he sang along quietly anyways while he pulled out the next stack of papers, which was short essays. These were probably his least favorite because he couldn't even read some of them. He just had to assume they did good enough for a passing grade. As he was scribbling out misspelled words on one, he heard a knock on the door and looked up. "Come in!"

To his surprise, it was Berwald. Well, actually, it wasn't that surprising. He stayed after and cleaned, right?

"Hi, Berwald! How are you?"

The other man looked over at him questioningly. Was Tino being specifically friendly towards him? He didn't seem as afraid so he figured maybe he was doing something right. He glanced away and thought, I'm not smiling, am I? No, he wasn't smiling. He didn't know why Tino was suddenly less afraid. "Good. You?"

"I'm great! Grading papers is a bit boring though," he said, prodding at the ice-cream in the container as he spoke. "But it's nice seeing you! I mean, you work here, so it wasn't a surprise or anything. Are you here to... clean?"

Well, yes he was there to clean. That was his job. But he also wanted to see the teacher again. He didn't say that, though. He just nodded and started cleaning up the room. He occasionally glanced over at Tino when he started singing quietly to himself or took another bite of ice-cream. He was the type to hold the spoon ice-cream side down and keep it in his mouth for long enough to get all of it off. He was a quiet eater besides when he pulled the spoon out.

He looked away when the teacher looked up at him. It was embarrassing when you were caught looking at someone like that and he tried not to look again. But he failed, of course. He glanced at him as often as he could. When he was cleaning the windows, it was easy because he could just watch him in the reflection and he didn't have to look away at all.

"Berwald, do you have a wife?"

He stopped what he was doing and pursed his lips, then repied, "No." He heard Tino laugh a little before saying, "What? Any special girl, then?" Berwald was frightening, but not so frightening that he should have been alone. He was tall, lean, and young. He was surprised when the answer was, "No," again.

Berwald was silent for a moment before saying, "You?"

Tino actually laughed out loud at that. He'd never had a girlfriend. Girls never liked him and he never liked girls, so it was a win win. "No, no," he said, a grin still plastered on his face. He would have elaborated, but he didn't want to scare him away. He'd noticed a lot of men didn't feel comfortable around gay men because they thought they were going to be hit on and he didn't want Berwald to feel that way.

Somehow, Berwald wasn't surprised when Tino said he didn't have a girl in his life. He just didn't look like the type to have one. He meant that in the best of ways, too. He just seemed too content already for anyone. Besides, he wasn't really the poster boy for what girls were looking for. He had a soft face, pink cheeks, and he was a little chubby. Besides that, he was short. Not that he couldn't have found a girl, but really, he just didn't fit the type.

There was silence between the two before Tino finally spoke up again. "Do you mind if I ask how old you are?" The other man finished the windows and stuffed the rag into his back pocket, then said, "Twenty-five." Tino grinned and said, "I would have guessed twenty-six. I was pretty close, though!"

Berwald just nodded as he took the small bag out of the trashbin and threw it out. He turned to Tino, looked him up and down, then said, "Twenty-two." Tino was confused for a second, then realized Berwald was talking about him and he nodded with a smile. "Spot on." Did he really look twenty-two still? He had seriously been trying to look older but it apparently wasn't working.

"Um, you seem really nice, Berwald!" He said awkwardly, wishing he would have phrased it differently after he said it. "Not that you didn't seem nice before!"

"You should be grading your papers," the other replied quietly. Tino pursed his lips and turned to his computer to enter in the grades sheepishly. He didn't make him mad, right? He nervously typed on his keyboard, wanting to say something else, but not wanting to upset him anymore. After a few minutes, Berwald was putting his things away and watching Tino work.

He could see Tino's reflection in the window again. He seemed to be concentrating for a second, then his face relaxed and he looked towards the window for a moment, catching Berwald watching him. His eyebrows furrowed and he turned, but the man was looking down putting a bottle of all-purpose cleaner away. He knew he hadn't imagined that, though. There was no way.

"Um, Berwald?"

"Hm?"

Tino smiled nervously. "I was wondering what you did on the weekends. You know, for fun?" For fun. Berwald almost smirked. He didn't really do anything for fun. He occasionally went to see films, but that was about it. Did working out count? He worked out on the weekends. He just shook his head a little, not knowing how to respond. "I don't come here," he said honestly. Not that he hated his job or anything, it just wasn't the most glamorous job someone could have and he didn't make much.

The answer was enough for Tino, who just sort of laughed. "I understand," he replied, but he didn't because they had different jobs. Tino paid money to work like this, while he, on the other hand, took any job he could get. But he nodded either way and said, "You?"

Tino was hoping he didn't ask that. He didn't really do anything on the weekends anymore. "Well, I used to really like going out with my friends. We did normal things. Got food, went to football games, sometimes we took roadtrips. I don't know anybody here, though, so it's really just been me going out to eat and things like that. Sometimes I sight see." He shrugged, not wanting to sound too pathetic. The last time he'd hung out with a friend was in June. It was almost October now and it was really starting to get him down.

Berwald nodded and said, "I can relate." He remembered when he had first come here and knew absolutely no one. He still didn't know many people, but he had aquaintances he could call up if he ever, for some reason, felt like he wanted to do anything with them. Tino didn't have that and he genuinely felt bad for him, especially considering how social he clearly was. Feeling braver, he said, "If it ever gets to you, call." He looked up to gage Tino's reaction.

He was absolutely eccstatic. He smiled and nodded quickly. "Yeah! Yeah, um, what's your number?" He watched Berwald pick up a marker from the board and write his number at the very top of it. Tino quickly jotted it down onto a piece of scratch paper and stuffed it into his pocket with a big smile. "Thanks! I really, really appreciate it." Berwald nodded knowingly and started to leave. "Have a good night, okay, Berwald?" The taller man stopped in the doorway for a second.

"You, too, Tino."

Berwald sighed as he stepped into the shower. He was pretty proud of himself for giving out his number. He hadn't done that in a while and it was nice seeing Tino look hopeful. He pushed his hair out of his face and wondered if he'd actually call. It sure seemed like it. He hoped he would, too. He liked Tino and was glad he wasn't so afraid anymore.

He definitely pitied him for being new to Copenhagen with no friends. That was just about the worst part when he first arrived and he almost went back home after a couple years, but he had a job here and that was reason enough to stay in the end. He was glad he did now because things were getting a bit more interesting nowadays with Tino here.

He definitely wouldn't go back home, though, regardless. That was a thought that was long gone. He wasn't a fan of Sweden, but that was mostly just his life. There were definitely worse situations out there, but his was bad enough. He lived on the bad side of town, his father was long gone, and his mother was honestly just... awful. He didn't think about that often, but he was thinking about it now and he wished he wasn't.

He wasn't like Tino. School had probably come easy to him, but for Berwald, there were some days of school that were essentially hell on Earth. From the time he started until the time he quit, it was absolute and utter shit. His mother wasn't ever home, but she wasn't bringing home money, either, so he didn't know where she ever even went. He stayed a lot of his time with his grandfather, who was a craftsman. He built furniture and Berwald always helped.

That was a highlight of home. He loved building furniture and he loved carving. He did it occasionally, but not nearly as often as he'd liked to. It brought back good memories when he did it, but the bad ones as well, so he had to be in a particularly good mood to do it. He stopped doing it as much when he had to go to high school.

High school was shitty, but on a whole different level. He wasn't the same person he had been. He couldn't be. He'd decided to put up a facade so the people who messed with him before wouldn't want to do it anymore. That was a bad time. He never smiled, he never laughed or tried to make new friends, he just put up this wall. Nobody wanted to mess with him, but on the other hand, nobody wanted to mess with him. Not even to be friendly. So in the end, he figured it would have been worth it to get shit from people and have friends to cope with than to not get shit and have no friends.

He wasn't good at the school part, though, either. He hated math with a burning passion that radiated within him even to this day. He was pretty good at geometry, though, considering it was necessary for building. But that was it. He was good at English, too. Science was shit. History was shit. Art was shit. It was all shit. Even lunch turned shitty around age sixteen. Besides that, he had a lot of personal problems. For one, he was pretty sure he was gay and didn't know who he could trust or tell. For two, he was pretty depressed.

At the end of the worst days, he'd go to his grandfathers and help him build furniture again. He was always grateful for the help, too. He was getting old, after all. Eventually it wasn't just old, it was old and sick, and he skipped class to take care of his grandfather. He knew he was going to die the whole time. There was no way he was surviving this, but he took care of him for weeks on end anyways. He missed about a month. His teachers were trying to found out where he was. The principal was talking to his mother and none knew what to do.

Finally, a few days before Christmas, his grandfather passed away, and that was just it. There was no recovering from missing that much school and even if there was, he was too lazy to do the work. He dropped out without a second thought at age seventeen. That was the shittiest time of his life. The pinnacle of self-hatred and depression. He didn't even want to stay around anymore. As soon as he could sell off his grandfathers furniture, he took a plane to Copenhagen and never looked back.

From then until he was twenty, life was hell. Actual hell. He fucked around, did things he wasn't proud of, slept around quite a bit, had an HIV scare and stopped. Overdosed and stopped. He wished he would have known then what he knew now, because he never would have done the things he did. He would have stayed in school, or if not, he would have taken up his grandfathers business. It was too late now. There was no going back, and when he dried himself off, there was still a scar in his arm from a needle, and that was his fault.

Overall, he was glad he took the job as a janitor at age twenty. It wasn't glamorous, but he got good benefits and summers free. Besides that, he was around children every single day, and who could feel like shit when they got to see children every day? He was surprised he was hired, though. It was a fucking miracle, that's what it was.

He continued to get dressed, looking at himself in the mirror. He wasn't exactly happy with what he saw, but he wasn't disappointed, either. He felt neutral, which was actually good. Things could have ended up a whole lot worse for him. There was just one problem.

What was the point? Not of living, exactly, but why was he still alive? It sounded tacky and stupid, but he should have been dead by age twenty. Yet here he was. He wasn't doing anything special with his life and he didn't understand what he was supposed to do to fix it. It just felt really empty and wasteful, but how was he supposed to change that? He shook his head and slid his glasses back on. Maybe it would take years to figure it out, maybe it would take days. Just as long as he figured it out someday.

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