Chapter Text
Aubrey's doing just fine, thanks.
Nope, no teenage angst multiplied by ever-present self-image issues multiplied by a crush on someone he hasn't talked to since middle school to speak of. He's having a Great Time.
To avoid Mom's whining about how he never wears makeup anymore, Aubrey has taken to waking up well before her and doing his morning routine silently in the dark. On: binder, punk T-shirt, and one of the two actual pairs of shorts he owns that isn't a skirt or some dumb shit. Face: splashed with water (and nothing else—having acne makes him feel more like a dude, in some strange way). Backpack: packed and ready to go. And can't forget the beanie.
He has to go to sleep at, like, ten to get up this early, so he does the homework he didn't have time for while waiting at the bus stop. Pulling his shit together school-wise has been fucking miserable to say the least, but it's worth it so he can go to college and get an actual job and get the fuck away from Mom and this dead-end apartment. That's the dream, at least.
Around 6:45, about when the normal human beings are just starting to wake up, he finishes up the last of his work and packs it back up. The bus stop, with its sticker-plastered interior, faint smell of cigarettes, and- most importantly- nice wide awnings in case of rain, is like a second home to him. He smears a finger through the coating of grime on the back wall and brushes it under his eyes like baseball grease. Wait what the fuck why did he do that. He paws it off in his phone camera.
Aubrey's finger wavers over the icon before he checks his texts. Nothing from Omori since that unexpected "gn" yesterday. It warms his heart in this cold-ass morning. He scrolls up and immediately cringes at himself. He's so pathetic for asking him out to lunch the same day he (re-)met him. He just has to get up to date with what he's been doing in the last five years! The name change really piqued his interest! And maybe, yeah, sure, maybe he just has a tiny little massive crush on him. Ghhhhh.
Kim swings around the corner and plops down on the bench next to him. "Heyo."
"Hi Kim."
"Brought you breakfast." She tosses him a little Tupperware with two toaster waffles.
"You don'f haff to do fhis efery day, ya know," he says around a mouthful of waffles.
Kim rolls her eyes. "And just let you go hungry? My parents would kill me."
"I'm not, like, deprived." Urghhhhhhhhh his voice is so high even deliberately doing a low drawl. "We actually had dinner as a family yesterday."
"Heartwarming." Kim roots around in her backpack for candy.
"Gimme one."
"So now you want-"
"Shut up."
They split a packet of M&Ms in silence.
Should he tell her he saw Omori? The relationship between Aubrey and Kim is already pretty strained. They kinda-sorta-dated after their families moved here this fall, but Kim was only into him in a girl-who-is-into-other-girls way, and Aubrey isn't a girl, so it sort of fell apart. Now they're friends, ostensibly, even if she still ogles him in all the wrong places when she thinks he's not looking. He doesn't need to be in a fuckin' love triangle on top of everything else he has to deal with, as hilarious as it would be. Well, it wouldn't be a triangle exactly, but Kim would get jealous, and he can't afford to lose her support. She idly scratches her chin as he throws out the empty packet.
No, wait. She's gonna find out anyway when Omori comes by their lunch spot. And she's gonna ask why he didn't tell her about it and say, like, "You never tell me things anymore" or some shit. Can't have Omori getting the impression that Aubrey is a bad friend, even though he, uh, is.
The bus comes. Kim and Aubrey get on. Aubrey takes a window seat, as always.
"I met Omori yesterday."
"Who?"
"You might know him as Sunny. He goes by Omori now."
"The kid who…" Kim winces. "You know?"
"Do not bring that up when we meet him at lunch."
"Whatever you say, b-boss."
You were gonna call me babe weren't you. That was not a stutter. You were gonna call me babe. Fuck you. Aubrey tries his best to sear the thought into her mind without saying it. She's trying her best with him, of course, as she's said a million billion fucking times, but her best is, well, this.
It wasn't always like this! They had a real bond- he could've told her any thought that crossed his mind, even that one! Then he had to go and fuck it up all by himself. He hasn't talked about his feelings in months, and at a time when he's gotta deal with all this gender shit, too. Just bottlin' it all up. Like a real man would do. That , perversely, cheers him up a little.
He stares at his reflection in the cold window. His blue dye is growing out pretty badly. There's as much un-dyed roots showing as dyed hair. He'll have to redo it soon. Be a bit awkward to have Kim all intimate on his scalp now though. And she'll probably ask if she can do his fucking makeup. Ugh! Aubrey lets out tension in his chest he didn't realize he was holding.
He grabs his phone and fires off a gm, angling the screen towards the window, away from Kim.
"Who's that?" she asks. Oh shit, the reflection.
"Omori, actually." He feels the urge to make an excuse for it. "He's, uh," he awkwardly trails off, "...I got his number."
"Cool," Kim says.
Omori sends back his own gm. Aubrey's heart fills with a contentment he hasn't felt since at least a couple months ago, if not five years. The bus rumbles on.