Heroic music boomed from Alfred's room. He sat there, dressed head-to-toe in workout attire and sweatbands, as he attached a large poster board entitled "Al's Super Studly Training Regime" to his wall.
AL'S SUPER STUDLY TRAINING REGIME
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
Hamlet
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Twelfth Night
Brave New World
Sherlock Holmes
Paradise Lost
Lord of the Flies
To Kill a Mockingbird
Edgar Allen Poe's Popular Works
Alice in Wonderland
Dracula
Frankenstein
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Moby Dick
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Of Mice and Men
Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
Pride and Prejudice
Beowulf
The Count of Monte Cristo
Oliver Twist
1984
Don Quixote
The Hobbit
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
The Hunger Games
Game of Thrones
Interview with the Vampire
Life of Pi
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Old Man and the Sea
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Stand
It
The Shining
The Green Mile
The Odyssey
Catch-22
Lolita
Around the World in Eighty Days
The Diary of a Young Girl
Robinson Crusoe
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Peter Pan
Alice in Wonderland
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Phantom of the Opera
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Brothers Grimm
The Portrait of a Lady
Uncle Tom's Cabin
A Clockwork Orange
All Quiet on the Western Front
Journey to the Center of the Earth
The Outsiders
A Streetcar Named Desire
Anne of Green Gables
Black Beauty
Arabian Nights
The Invisible Man
...more to be added.
Though he should've been used to his roommate's crazy antics by now, Toris frowned. "I see you've taken an interest in literature."
"What?!" Alfred yelled over the loud volume of "The Final Countdown", nearly shaking the walls.
"I said I see you've taken an interest in literature!"
"Oh." Alfred turned off his music. "Yeah, kinda. I guess."
"That's quite a list," Toris replied. "You're going to do all of that while in school?"
"Yup! When I decide to do something, I put my all into it!" Alfred declared proudly.
"But when will you have time to study?"
"Pfft, who needs studying? I never studied in high school and I did just fine."
Toris frowned and opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. "Well, let him make his own mistakes, I guess. If he's not serious, then he's not. Maybe if he doesn't do well it'll motivate him to do better next semester." He cleared his throat. "So… when's your goal to finish them? By the end of the year?"
Al laughed. "No way! I don't have that kind of time. I was thinking, like, a week or so."
Toris gave him a dumbfounded look. "A week? Um... have you, ah... looked at these books yet?"
"Naw. But I can get 'em from the library. And lots of them are so old you can just read them online or get them on apps for free and stuff."
Toris frowned again. "Alfred, when was the last time you read a book?"
Alfred paused thoughtfully. "Hm. You know, I don't think I've ever actually finished a book. Like, in school I kinda tried to skim through one but I got totally bored. I finished some comics, though. And I'm a fast reader. Reading is no biggie for someone as epic and smart as me."
"Erm, I think it might take longer than you think. I mean, some of these are really, really long, and some are in Old English. And if you read them too fast there'd be no point, right? Some of these books are really deep. You gotta really study them to understand, you get it?"
Alfred threw his head back and laughed. "Don't worry, Tori! This will be a piece of cake for someone like me! I'll be fine!"
He patted Toris on the back as Toris shook his head, holding it in his hands in worry. "Let him make his own mistakes, let him make his own mistakes..."
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Matthew sighed at his desk. Gil peered over his shoulder. "Whatcha sighin' over, Birdy?" Matt blushed lightly at the affectionate nickname Gilbert had given him.
"Well, I can't get this piece to work quite right." He looked over his sketch and sighed. He had been quite excited to be an art major, and he did feel as though he had talent, but university level art programs were quite difficult. They had very high expectations and Matthew wanted his work to be as perfect as possible.
"Hm." Gil paused thoughtfully. "It looks fine to me. Then again, I don't know much about art. The arm seems a little off, though..."
Matthew sighed. "I know... It's so frustrating to know what's wrong but not know exactly how to fix it." He erased the arm for the fourteenth time. Matt finally dropped his pencil and sighed, scrunching up the paper and throwing it into the trash as Gilbert gaped. He ran over to the trash can and pulled it out.
"Birdy, you can't treat your art that way! Besides, it's only one mistake! You can fix it if you keep trying! And you'll never get better if you don't—"
"That's not it," replied Matthew, sighing again. "The thing is, even if the arm looked right, I'm really not happy with that piece."
Gilbert frowned. "Why?"
"I don't really know how to explain it, but it's just not turning out the way I pictured it in my head. Besides, there's no point in going to all that effort to fix it if I won't be happy with it by the end. I'll just start over."
He pulled out a new piece of paper, and Gil cleared his throat. "Would it be easier if you had a model?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, I could model for you. If you want." Gilbert blushed slightly, nervously running his fingers through his hair. "It might help. And, well, I really love your art, so it'd be really cool if you could draw me sometime." Matthew blushed at the compliment as Gilbert began to laugh off his awkwardness. "Plus, I mean, I'd make an awesome model, right?" He flexed his muscles. "Y'know, my bein' so sexy and all."
Matthew blushed still, but laughed. "That sounds like something Al would say."
Gilbert laughed too. "Well, what can I say? We're totally awesome." Matthew rolled his eyes.
"Alright. Do you want me to draw you or not?"
"Sure!" Gil exclaimed, grinning. He struck a pose.
"Um, you'll probably want to assume a more casual pose. Probably a comfortable one. You'll have to sit still for a while."
Gilbert laughed. "Yeah, I guess." He pulled a chair over to his desk and leaned on his elbow casually.
"Alrighty then. Don't move until I'm done." Matthew began to sketch. Staring intently at Gilbert's masculine figure, he blushed as he drew his muscular arms in detail.
"Damn," he thought to himself. "How in the world did I end up crushing on a guy who's as narcissistic as Al?" Matthew smiled to himself, blushing a bit, as he continued to sketch.
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Ivan turned and looked at the clock. It was 6 pm. "Odd," he thought to himself. "I guess he isn't coming today."
Not that he would complain, of course. He had just been prepared for it.
It wasn't that he minded company. In fact, sometimes the job could be a little slow and it was nice to have a friend at work. "But I'd rather be alone than in the company of an idiot," he thought. He smiled blissfully as he continued to wheel his cart down the aisle, not at all expecting that the "idiot" he so despised was plotting a large-scale scheme to squirm his way into Ivan's life.
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave me a review on your thoughts from this chapter!
Thanks again to my editor Anon990!