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It wasn’t fair that on top of being cursed with what would generally be agreed to be a miserable childhood, Keith was also cursed with exceptionally bad taste. It was not a flaw he had ever noticed about himself before, but brooding in front of his computer over several hundred pictures of one James Griffin, it was astoundingly hard to deny.
Of course, he didn’t take those pictures out of his own volition. He had boundaries and also, more importantly, self-respect. It just so happened that middlingly trendy fashion advertisements were the best-paying jobs for photographers in town. Had been, for three years.
Once, Keith had picked up his camera with a sparkle in his eyes and hope in his heart. The words of famous astronaut Takashi Shirogane had been resonating in his mind, telling him loud and clear: you can do anything you dream of if you only put in the time and effort.
He’d put in so much time and effort. His portfolio displayed the local wildlife in such flattering colors that it seemed like the area around Platt City was some kind of vacation resort for desert critters. Beautiful snakes, shiny scorpions, luxuriously fluffy fennec foxes… Keith had let them all crawl over him, risked death by poisoning, and created a folder of photography that felt worthy of National Geographic . For those weeks out in the desert, he’d lived on cloud nine, with sand in his shoes and in his mouth and in his hair and everywhere else you could possibly get sand.
And for what? To get a job in photographing men’s fashion for MFE Textiles .
To get a job in making his childhood enemy look as good as humanly possible.
To get a job that would lead to spending 5 hours straight at his computer sifting through photography takes until he found the ones that made James Griffin’s gratuitously tanned skin look as sun-kissed as could possibly be. To airbrush his abs in photoshop - which felt like a crime because they were fine the way they were, more than that and---
Keith had exceptionally bad taste. This was a truth he had to face now.
James Griffin had always been the heartthrob of their middle school, but Keith had never looked. Had never expected him to walk into his hated day job office smiling like the sun.
Fuck.
____
“He’s a good guy, you know.”
Keith froze in his tracks. He’d just been about to leave the agency’s office after a lengthy photoshoot of dress shirts hanging off clothes hangers. It had tired him out. And maybe the lack of intellectual stimulation was finally taking a toll on him now. Maybe he was already daydreaming. Because Ryan Kinkade did not talk unless completely necessary. This, whatever ‘this’ was meant to be, did not seem to fit the bill.
Kinkade was one of Keith’s regular coworkers, a cameraman of considerable talent. The two of them had never exchanged more than two words, which was just fine by Keith. He still hadn’t warmed up to the idea of small talk, even though his social life was now buzzing and vibrant compared to the barren state of affairs during high school times.
But now, Kinkade, who had always spared him unnecessary conversation, was following after him. Traitor.
“He’s a good guy,” Kinkade repeated.
Keith gave him a helpless look. “Who?”
“James Griffin.” Kinkade looked puzzled. To him, this had evidently been obvious.
Oh.
James and Kinkade were friends. Keith had been vaguely aware of this fact. In all his attempts to not stare at his childhood enemy, it had been hard to miss out on that observation. But it was a little bizarre. Why would a chatty and superficial guy like James befriend someone so stoic and isolated? The image of James that existed in Keith’s head simply wasn’t flexible enough to fit the current situation. This, too, was worrisome. Keith felt himself growing irrationally irritated already.
“What, are you his publicity agent now?”
Though he replied flippantly, Keith’s mind was racing. Why was this coming up now? What had James told Kinkade about them? In all the recent months, James and Keith had gracefully pretended to not really know one another. It helped avoid awkwardness on the job. So why now ? Why this?
Kinkade’s calm eyes studied Keith’s expression. He felt like a deer in the headlights.
“You’re scowling at him a lot. I’m his friend. That’s all it is.”
Keith’s first emotion was relief. If scowling was what his observation of James looked like, his dirty secrets were safe. His shamefully, downright masochistic, attraction to a boy who he knew was objectively kind of an asshole to whom he was as good as dirt.
What Kinkade had interpreted as resentment for James was primarily a resentment directed inwards instead, at Keith’s own traitorous heart.
“What’s it to you or him if I can’t stand to see him around? Not like he can’t just ignore me like he always does.” Emboldened by his protected privacy, Keith found his panic substituting itself for further annoyance.
Kinkade gave a shrug. “Hm.”
A very eloquent answer that made Keith roll his eyes. “Well, whatever, I’m going home. My dog needs a walk.”
Without waiting for a reply, he moved to the door. His trust, if years old, motorbike was waiting outdoors and the long desert drive home was just what Keith needed now to clear his head.
_____
Even by the time he and Kosmo returned to their small desert house, Keith’s head was not cleared.
Damn it.
All his carefully cultivated suppression was going down the drain now.
He liked James Griffin.
Keith had never liked anybody before, not really. He’d maybe felt a passing attraction to some guys, enough to be able to identify the feeling, but he’d never had any of those crushes last for more than a week. James, meanwhile…. James had been in his head for two months now.
Even though Keith reminded himself during every waking second that James was an arrogant prick, he still couldn’t fend off the feeling that something about the other boy had changed since they last saw each other. That was already three years ago; shortly before Keith had dropped out of high school.
Back then, James’ every move had seemed calculated. Everything about him was a display of precise calculations on how to be liked best, by the greatest amount of people. If that meant throwing one lonely outsider under the bus, he’d gladly do it. That was the kind of despicable person Keith had always known James to be.
Now, something about James’ smile seemed less restrained. His movements were move open, his muscles more defined, his eyes brighter. Finally, years too late, Keith was able to see the perfect dreamy heartthrob that all his classmates had always claimed to be looking at.
James had always been Keith’s opposite and it used to be a good thing. ‘Thank God I’m not like him.’ Keith imagined that’s how James had to feel about him and he took quiet pleasure in turning the stick around in his mind. Shallow, try-hard, mean, a liar. Keith may have been despised by all, but those were attributes he didn’t feel he shared. A saving grace.
Now that James seemed actually radiant and oddly sincere, where did that leave Keith? What did that make him but a pining utter fool?
Keith had been sitting on the couch without movement, paralyzed by his own idiotic thoughts, for about half an hour now. Kosmo had finished his post-walk nap and was now gently tugging at Keith’s pant leg to beg for food. Keith papped his snout away with a laugh. The giant husky was definitely the best part of his life right now. A god-sent friend to distract him from the world's most miserable first love.
Kosmo ensured that it took Keith until 7:24pm to understand what Ryan truly had been getting at.
“No,” he cursed, accidentally letting go of the dog toy they’d been playing tug of war with and sending Kosmo flying backwards, “no fucking way, that absolute ass.”
“Noff?,” asked Kosmo, tilting his head and drooping his ears.
“Not you! That… that insufferable fop James Griffin! Sending his friend to fight his battles for him!” Keith stood up rapidly. Fury, now that was an emotion he could handle.
____
James hadn’t thought he’d ever run into Keith again. Whatever weird mutual hatred they’d shared had been abruptly cut short by Keith’s mid-year departure from high school. James remembered feeling struck by lightning when one random November morning their teacher had casually informed them that the class would be cut down by one. Keith’s absence was merely the removal of a nuisance for everyone, surely. Yet James had found it weirdly hard to adjust to the empty spot in his life.
That was years ago now. The fresh world of college had driven these thoughts from his mind. With them went a whole lot of preconceptions. If you’d told his middle school self about the group of oddballs that were his current best friends, he’d have felt quietly disturbed at just how uncool he’d become in the future. Imagining it made James cringe. Without his parents always breathing down his neck at home, he’d found himself becoming a lot more open and, if he dared being honest, happier. All those little measurements for being ‘good’ that he’d structured his childhood around now felt restrictive. Nadia, his enthusiastic new friend, still made fun of him for being an overachiever and a stick-in-the-mud, but James had become able to laugh it off.
Nadia had also been the one to suggest this whole modeling gig to him. ‘Suggest’ being a euphemistic understatement. In reality, he’d been bodily dragged to the audition and when he’d turned to try and escape, he’d found their other friend Ina guarding the exit.
“Ryan works in this studio and though he’s been too humble to suggest it, his facial language clearly suggests that he thinks it would be amusing if you were to become his coworker of sorts. You can terminate the contract on the off-chance that you get accepted and wind up disliking it,” she’d said. Hard to argue with that.
He hadn’t ended up hating it either. Nobody had been more surprised by this than James himself. Modeling was a whole new sparkling world and while he couldn’t imagine doing it for a living, it was a lucrative and enjoyable part time job to get him through college.
Who would have thought it’d lead him back to Keith, whom he’d just started categorizing as an awkward shameful memory? And more precisely, who would have thought he’d ever again experience the sight of Keith barrelling towards him with his hands in his pant pockets, looking fully ready to throw hands?
It was late afternoon. Today’s shooting had taken a while and then James had taken an even longer while in the changing room, so the agency had already pretty much emptied out. It was high time to get out before the doors were locked. Reasonably, James expected nobody else to be in the building anymore, and he busied himself searching through his pockets for his headphones instead of really watching where he was going.
And that was when he suddenly hit the Keith-shaped roadblock.
The photographer was scowling, a nostalgic sort of expression that James hadn’t seen on Keith in a long time. And here he’d thought they both matured. But even though he could make cynical comments in his mind, James still found himself paralyzed by the stare. He swallowed nervously and said nothing. For a moment, it looked like neither would Keith. For a moment it seemed like this was just the natural conclusion of them ignoring one another - the ultimate silent treatment. James thought he should probably just move out of the way, but then Keith’s words hit like an arrow and nailed him to the spot.
“You really still think I’m that low, huh?”
‘Huh? What? What was that…?’ James raised his eyebrows in genuine confusion. After he’d gone through such pains to make sure to not offend Keith any further, this was the last thing he thought he’d be hearing.
“Uh... we haven’t even talked in years?”
“Yeah. I’m aware. That’s why you send Kinkade to do your dirty work for you. Not an apology, just some… some random ‘good word’ on your behalf. What are you so scared of? Think I’ll ruin your career by fessing up about our middle school days? Do you really think I’ve got nothing better to do than hold a grudge against you for so long?”
James found himself stunned into silence. There was so much hurt just beyond the surface layer of Keith’s voice. He hadn’t known he was capable of inflicting this on him. Keith had always disregarded him, all their lives. No matter how hard James had tried to elicit any kind of reaction from his self-declared enemy, he’d always been brushed aside.
What was it in Keith’s eyes now? And what had brought it out, all of a sudden? Before James could recover from these questions and get a word in, Keith kept going.
“You don’t even know, do you? What it’s like to have been in your shadow all these years and then you walk back in and you’re just… fucking blinding. I can’t even hate you anymore, when you smile like that, like you’re suddenly a worthwhile person and--- and still you just think I’m dirt. Why do you have to mess everything up? Mess me up?”
With every beat, Keith was stepping closer and closer and before James could do anything, he found himself against the wall, Keith’s vibrant eyes right in front of him and swallowing him whole with a depth of emotion he never even suspected.
He’d been mistaken like he’d been about so many things during his high school days. He existed in far more than just the periphery of Keith’s life. This dawning realization must have been plain on James’ face, because Keith moved backwards as if he had been struck.
“Forget it!” he snapped, sounding tense. “Just… just fuck off, Griffin.”
And suddenly it was Keith who was off, down the hallway at high speed. It was more instinct than calculation that caused James to sprint after him. He didn’t have a clear plan, just an abstract sense that he could not possibly get closure to this strange conflict if he let Keith bail now.
______
Keith didn’t know what he’d been thinking. He’d come here to end everything once and for all. Let James have a piece of his mind and get him out of his head, because there was no chance in hell for them to ever get along. Kinkade’s veiled comments had made that much clear, hadn’t they? And yet here he was with his big mouth - and James Griffin with his irritatingly stubborn nature that just couldn’t leave things be was chasing after him. What for? What was the point? Keith found himself incessantly wondering, even though he had no desire to stay and find out.
He was almost at the door (two floors down, sprinting down the stairs and miraculously not breaking his legs in the process) when James finally caught him. Keith felt himself violently tugged back by the grip at the back of his jacket and though he could have easily fought his way to freedom physically, he felt too defeated to try.
Might as well have the rejection wash all over him now, end this for good.
James was taking two deep breaths behind his back, catching his breath from the unexpected sprinting exercise. They hadn’t been this physically close in forever. Despite the fact that Keith had stopped resisting, James’ grip on him remained firm.
“You…. you’re misunderstanding severely .”
Though Keith realized that they should probably be facing each other for this conversation, James was also making no effort to change their current position and thus neither did Keith. Maybe it was easier to not see each other’s face anyway.
“First off. I didn’t send Ryan. I have no idea what he even said to you, this is the first I am hearing of this.”
Keith opened his mouth to try and explain how irrelevant that is to the point and that James shouldn’t be so goddamn pedantic to chase him down over details, but James didn’t give him a break to get a word in.
“Second. He did it because I told him I regret how things ended up between us. I had… I had no idea you cared, to be honest. I would have tried to patch things up sooner if I knew.”
Huh?
“I wanted to talk to you again, on friendly terms.”
Huh? Huh?!
Keith felt like someone had poured cold water over his head. The whole narrative he’d constructed in his mind about what James thought of him and how today may go was being washed away and he was left shivering and vulnerable, but also… a little excited?
A sliver of hope was rising in his heart, quickly and against his permission. When James let go of his jacket, he found himself too nervous to turn around, still, but unknown to James, he was smiling.
“... that so?” Even trying to play it cool, his voice wasn’t as rough as he wanted it to be. “Then talk, Griffin. I’m listening.”