The brown-haired boy flipped the pages of his book, a book he usually enjoyed but one that couldn't amuse him at a quarter past one in the morning. Hearing a pause in the background noise of words and intermittent laughter, he rose from his chair and walked over to his friend, who was much taller and blond. "Can I have my computer back now?" the boy asked, holding out his hand.
"What?" the taller one said, his forehead wrinkling. "No, I'm not done reading quotes yet."
The boy raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, but I want my computer back. Just use yours."
"What? I'm not going all the way up to my room," the taller boy said, as if the idea were preposterous.
"It's one floor up. Can I have my computer back now?" The brown-haired boy took hold of his computer, but his friend would not relinquish it, tugging back forcefully.
"I told you, I'm not done reading quotes. If you want a computer, you can go get mine." He held up his room key.
The boy released his computer and stepped back, an expression of surprise on his face. It wasn't at all calculated, not like the manipulative guilt trips he occasionally imagined himself orchestrating in other situations. He was, quite honestly, stunned.
"Seriously?" he muttered, retreating back to his corner of the room. Behind him, he could hear his other friends also questioning the blond, but still he would not relinquish the computer.
The boy decided to plug in to his iPod, hoping the music would help. And it did, a little. It dulled the words that the blond was reading off in the background, the words that he'd heard before and that meant nothing to him. He also played Solitaire on the iPod, sometimes placing his hand on his throat in an attempt to suppress his coughs. However, when he had played so much Solitaire that he actually won a game, he knew that this had been going on for too long.
Eventually, the blond told the boy he could have his computer back. The boy was usually civil, even amiable regarding such disagreements, but his friend's conduct had surprised him so much that he couldn't let go of it.
So the two of them fought, for a minute or two, and with no raised voices. The friend's argument was so alien to the boy, so robotic, nonsensical in his world, that he was forced to leave without making progress, so unfathomable were his friend's actions (and rationale). Walking out of the room and into the hall, he received hugs from two of his other friends, then turned and went downstairs. On his way, he couldn't help but wonder, 'Is my friend really that self-important? Or is this just another part of accepting that I'm never going to find someone else like me?' The boy pulled his hood up as he stepped outside, but by that point the rain had finally stopped falling.
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