The two boys sat in their room. It was only the first day of the whole semester, and they were both nervous about their freshman year.
"I feel like we should begin reading up on our subjects, or going to the library or something", Matt said.
Foggy rolled his eyes. "But it's our first day. Believe me, during the middle of the semester, you'll be up to your eyeballs in study."
"Well we have nothing to do today, besides getting to know other people, which I'm not keen on doing. So let's just stay here." Matt rubbed his eyes, pushing his dark glasses up to his forehead, where they slid back down again. Matt wasn't very comfortable with showing people his eyes. From what he knew, they were both light blue, one slightly lighter than the other. He could feel the scarring around his eyes with his fingertips, which was quite bad. What annoyed Matt the most was that he could never look anyone in the eye. Firstly because he didn't know where their eyes were, secondly because it was like staring into a dark void, and thirdly because his stupid eyes won't go where he told them to.
He was wondering whether to just not wear his dark glasses in the room until Foggy answered his question for him.
"Sorry to pry, but do you keep your sunglasses on all the time?"
There was a short silence, then Matt slowly took them off and laid them on the bedside table. He kept his face down and his eyes almost closed, turning his head a bit to hide his face.
"I don't really feel comfortable showing my eyes to other people. They look kinda..."
"Normal." Foggy finished. He could tell that Matt was really not up to this 'showing eyes' idea, so he decided that they should talk about it to get it out of the way, and hopefully make Matt feel okay with it in the process.
"They kinda freak people out sometimes. My glasses have come off before, and little kids have screamed."
"Well I think your eyes look fine."
Foggy did not think they looked fine, and was actually a little creeped out when Matt looked up for the first time. With his face out of the shadow, he could see the two light eyes, which were almost white. There was evident scarring around his eyes and around the lower middle of his forehead, where his eyebrows were. Also, his eyes seemed to be looking at something that was really close to his face, yet he was looking at nothing. Matt turned his head away again, and Foggy realised that he'd been quiet for too long. He mentally slapped himself in the face.
When he took his glasses off, Matt knew Foggy was creeped out. His heart rate spiked, and he stared for just over too long. Too late to turn back now. He would be showing his eyes in all their glory, and hopefully still have both of them in his head by the end of it. It was getting a little awkward when none of them said anything, so Matt offered some conversation.
"I was hit by radioactive liquid was I was nine, from this truck which was carrying loads of it. I was trying to save this guy who was crossing the street and almost got hit. Ironically, he was blind, and I guess I'm now blind too." He had a lot of practice explaining this.
"Are you, like, totally blind?"
"Well, nine out of ten blind people actually have some remaining vision left, like light perception or something, but I'm that really lucky ten percent, so yeah, I'm totally blind. It's lights out in here." He smiled a bit, though sensing a little pity from Foggy, which quickly evaporated.
"Man, that sucks. It doesn't really seem to affect you, though. You navigate like a demon."
"I'm used to it. Anyone would be, if they were blind for long enough."
"I wouldn't. I'm clumsy as I am now with sight, imagine without!"
"You wanna test it?"
Silence.
"What?"
"We have a few days to do nothing, so might as well."
"Are you going to blindfold me?"
"Yes, like right now."
"Fine, I guess it'll be some sort of bonding time."
Matt grinned. "Get over here, my soon-to-be blind friend."