Archie loved it when it rained.
Not the kind that made pat-pat-pat sounds on the sidewalks and allowed small children in rainhats to bounce about in puddles, but the heavy, warm spring rain that came down in sheets and enveloped everything around it.
Everyone always seemed to be in a sort of haze that he'd never found himself affected by. That was perhaps why he liked it so much. The feeling of seeing everyone else in a state of drudgery that he didn't feel was satisfying, to say the least.
He'd never agreed on a place to meet Obie, and had decided that the best way to go was to make his way to the school office and have a look through the directory.
The office was inhabited by a short, blonde woman by the name of Mrs. Finch. She had very little personality, and as Archie judged from the book she was holding up to her face, a love of novels with overly muscular men on the covers.
"Hello, Mrs. Finch." She looked up, not giving him any sort of response. "I was wondering if I could look through the directory?"
"Why?" She seemed irritated at being interrupted from her probably very badly written and very erotic novel.
Archie flashed her his best charming smile. "Oh, I need a ride home, my father can't get here in the rain." As if to emphasize, he glanced out the window at the water pouring from the sky. "I had a friend in mind."
"Oh, alright then." Mrs. Finch put down her book momentarily. "The directory's right there, along with the phone." She seemed very eager to get back to reading, and Archie wasn't about to bother her. People like her were of no interest to him.
He flipped through the pages of the directory until he got to last names beginning with H. There were quite a few Harrisons in the school it seemed. There was a Farley Harrison, an Eden Harrison, and finally he came to Harrison, Obie.
Archie smiled down at the phone number and pressed the appropriate numbers on the office phone. He'd seen Obie walking home before, he probably didn't live too far away and was probably home by now.
There were a few minutes of the phone ringing obscenely in his ears before someone picked up. He hoped it was Obie himself and not some family member. "Who the hell is this?"
Yes, it was most definitely Obie. "Archie Costello."
"I can feel you smirking through the phone. Creepy little shit." The last part had clearly not been meant to be heard, but the static of the phone picked it up nonetheless.
"That really isn't nice," Archie said, although there was no sign that he was offended in his voice.
"Listen, I'll come to your stupid tutoring or whatever tonight. The fact that you got my phone number is weird enough."
"Meet me outside school at five, Obie. Then we'll walk back to my house." He made sure to let the name slip out of his mouth in a way that would make Obie's skin crawl. Archie knew he didn't need to worry about Mrs. Finch overhearing their conversation, she was far too wrapped up in whatever Sandra Hill had written about large shirtless men.
"Are you serious?! I'll get soaked!"
"So?" Archie said the monosyllable teasingly, as though it was some sort of threat. "Umbrellas really are marvelous things, Obie."
"Fine. Now leave me alone." Obie hung up immediately, before Archie had the chance to make another snide comment.
"Thank you, Mrs. Finch," he said, ever the picture of politeness. She didn't look up, as he'd expected, and Archie stalked out of the office, closing the door with a sharp clang. His father's slick, expensive car was waiting outside for him. It was expensive, but Archie thought that the leather stunk and it probably would barely fetch a price outside of auctions between rich company owners.
The house was as large as empty and always when he got home, and he spent the remaining hours between three and five pacing the marble floors and trying to find some sort of mathematical pattern in the tiling.
Boring. That was what it was. It was all boring. Life was dull when you knew what everyone was going to do next. And that was the thing. If he tried, he could predict exactly how Obie would react to everything he planned. And it was boring.
And then the doorbell rang.
The stupid thing would scream if pressed too hard, and that was exactly what it was doing. Archie made his way over to the large door, hopefully before one of the butlers, and opened it.
Obie Harrison was standing on his doorstep, a large, yellow, Winnie the Pooh-esque rainhat over his dark hair and a garish-looking blue windbreaker covering him. Archie stared.
"I told you to meet me outside school, not at my house," was the best response he could come up with.
"Well, I disobeyed you," Obie said flatly.
Archie bit down on his lower lip, still in a mild state of shock. "Fine," he said, but his tone of voice implied that it was most certainly not fine.
"What? Not used to it?" Obie laughed. "You really think you're hot shit, don't you?"
Archie felt his face redden and dug his fingernails into the skin of his palm. "That, Obie, is because I am hot shit, so to speak. Now stop dripping on my father's floor."
"You're four feet tall," Obie responded, a bit of that laugh still in his voice. Archie didn't even respond to that, merely giving an exasperated snort. He wasn't four feet tall, after all. Add four inches onto that.
"Put your wet things in here." Archie pulled opened the sliding door of a room that could also probably be considered a closet. Obie shrugged off his windbreaker and took of his rainhat. "That's a particularly ugly hat you've got there." Archie was most certainly not going to let Obie get away with all the petty insults.
"What's it to you?" Obie seemed to have either ignored the school uniform or put clothes on over it, since he was wearing a hoodie that was a shade of green somewhat reminiscent of vomit. "How're you going to tutor me or whatever it is you actually want to do anyways?"
"Simple. I'll teach you how to appreciate good English and not fail out of our dear school."
Obie shook some droplets of water out of his hair and folded his arms. "Who says I'm failing?"
Archie grinned wolfishly. "I do. Oh, Obie, this year's report card really isn't looking good, is it?" It was a guess, but given the look on Obie's face, it was true.
"H-how do you know about that..."
"I know a lot of things, Obie." Archie smiled again, the biggest, flashiest one he could muster.
"You...barely speak to anybody. Like, ever. How do you..."
"I listen, Obie. It's common sense. I'm not sure if that sort of thing goes through that precious little head of yours, but really, all it comes down to is common sense." Obie continued to stare at him with a somewhat horrified expression on his face. "Stop staring at me like that. It's unattractive."
Obie muttered something profane under his breath. "Now come on, you and I have lots of things to discuss." Archie started out of the mudroom and up the long, wide stairs of the gigantic expanse he called his house, and for a moment he considered looking back to see if Obie was really following.
Needless to say, he didn't look back.
i think this is becoming my new favorite thing to write hello