“Urg, I’m dying,” Enrico whined as he laid his head on the pile of papers lying in front of him.

“That’s why we told you to stop fooling around,” Kayla commented, unfazed by his friend while continuing to write equations and typing on her calculator.

“But there are so many things to do. We also have exams coming in a week,” Enrico continued to lament with his head still resting on the table. “I can’t do it! What’s the point of knowing calculus or whatever we are learning…”

“I don’t know, so you can have a future and not end up on the streets?” Kayla retorted as her hands never stopped working.

“Don’t give up. It’s almost the end,” Malak tried to cheer his friend up.

“Maybe college isn’t for me. I should start my own company or something…”

“You’ll still need your high school diploma, and that includes you succeeding your calculus class.”

“I’ll just hire somebody to do it for me,” Enrico pouted as he started to fusion with the table as if he wanted to disappear.

“With what money?” Kayla continued to answer negatively to her friend, not really realizing how bad he was taking it. She was too absorbed in her work to notice.

“Kayla, please stop,” Malak whispered to his friend as Enrico looked more and more depressed.

Finally, looking up from her papers, Kayla finally put down her pen. Seeing how she destroyed his friend's hope, she felt bad about it. “Hey, I’m sorry,” she started in a softer tone as if talking to a cat. “It’s a harsh world outside. I can’t just let my friend be homeless and buried into debts…”

“Kayla,” Malak whispered before putting a finger on his lips to signal her to stop talking. “So, what are you guys up to after school? Want to hang out?”

With one look from her friend, she immediately understood. “I’m free too! Where do you want to go, Enrico?”

“I don’t care… Wherever you want. No… I should be studying. I will study until I drop dead,” their once depressed friend became full of energy. “Yeah! Class is starting, let’s not be late!” he quickly gathered his books and papers before walking away while talking to himself.

“What just happened?” both of the remaining friends stared at each other in bewilderment.

For the rest of the day, Enrico was a model example of a perfect student. He was paying attention in class without being distracted by anything, he took complete notes and even studied in between classes. Both his friends couldn’t recognize him. Usually, he would be the first one to fool around. Even Malak couldn’t match him, since he kept looking at his phone each time he received a notification.

He was distracted for most of the week and because of that his friends and twin sister thought that he was in love or at least had a crush. All three of them were whispering among themselves to discover who this girl was. Even Lesley was not aware of her brother’s crush, and she doubted it. Of course, Malak being so out of it, he noticed nothing at all as he kept sighing and eyeing at his phone while munching on his sandwich.

“What should we do? We can’t really confront him like that, can we?” Kayla hesitantly asked in a whisper in between two mouthfuls with a hand in front of her mouth.

“Why can’t we?” Enrico commented innocently as the two other girls glared at him. “Sorry, I shut up,” he laughed nervously before looking down at his food.

“My brother is so shy, he will definitely deviate from the question,” Lesley answered while thinking about an alternative. “Also, we don’t even know if it’s a girl from here.”

“You mean that he has a crush on an older woman?!” Enrico exclaimed loudly as both girls wanted to punch him.

“Shhh, don’t be so loud!” the red-haired girl scolded him harshly before they all carefully peeked at Malak, who seems to be dead to his surroundings. “If you speak so loud, you may as well go scream it out in front of him!”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered guiltily.

“As I was saying, it may be a girl from work or a customer he recently met?” Kayla added as the other two carefully listened to her.

As if Enrico had a revelation, he made an “O” with his mouth, while Lesley nodded in silence. They all thought about it for a moment. The more they simmered the idea, the more it made sense. Since Malak was never interested in love for the past years, it must be someone unrelated to school. Especially if none of his friends and sister knew about it.

“Let’s follow him to work after school,” Lesley proposed as the other two quickly agreed.

At the end of the school day, the trio secretly followed Malak while the latter stayed ignorant of what his friends were planning. They tried to stay as subtle as possible while following a few meters from behind. As they expected, Malak took public transportation to get to work and arrived at the coffee shop in half an hour. As he went to get ready, the group of friends quickly bought a drink each and went to sit down in a hidden corner of the shop. From the cash, Malak will not be able to see them, but they will be able.

“Do you think, we will see her today?” Lesley asked curiously after taking a sip of her drink.

“If we’re lucky. Kayla and I have been here multiple times, and we never saw him interact unprofessionally with a female customer or a coworker,” Enrico shrugged while scrolling down his feed on social media. “He has posted nothing out of the ordinary either…”

“What if we were wrong, and it isn’t about a girl?” Kayla asked guiltily, but Enrico didn’t seem to catch what she wanted to say.

“Y-you mean that Malak likes… That he likes… Men?” he stuttered.

Both girls stared at the only boy at the table in surprise before laughing it off. After a brief moment, he could not resist laughing himself.

“Yeah, that was stupid.”

“Unless…” Lesley added as the other two immediately stopped breathing. “No… It can’t be. Right?”

“Right!”

Hours later, they were bored out of their mind while observing Malak do his job perfectly. Unlike last time, he didn’t make any mistakes. He also didn’t talk or smile differently to any of the female customers. In other words, they wasted their day.

“Well, we are now sure that it’s not a girl from work,” Kayla sighed in disappointment.

“Then, she goes to our school? Because Malak is not the kind of guy to always go to parties and hook up with girls,” Enrico added as the others nodded.

“I’ll try to ask him at home. Maybe I’ll get a hint or something. Fingers crossed,” Lesley commented while crossing her fingers too.

As Malak went back to change at the end of his shift, his two friends and sister slipped out of the coffee shop. They didn’t even need to take so many precautions because even if they flaunted their faces in front of Malak, he wouldn’t have noticed them. His mind wasn’t entirely here during his shift. His routine allowed him to work without any issues, but he could only think about Kian. He was still strangely fixated on him after only meeting him once. He didn’t understand why.

In his bedroom after supper and studying, Malak stared at the phone in his hand. It had already been the nth time that he had the same debate. Malak expected Kian to be the first one to contact him first, but after almost a week, there was no news from him. After a long mental debate, he decided that he had waited long enough. He unlocked his phone, wrote a short sentence and sent it. He then hoped that it won’t go ignored. Kian answered only a few minutes later. Malak’s heart jumped, and a smile immediately appeared on his face. Once they started, they couldn’t stop. They texted all night and discovered new things about each other. They never seemed to run out of subjects, even after conversing for hours. Since Malak still had school tomorrow, they ended it by arranging another outing, which they were both thrilled about.

“Have sweet dreams,” Kian texted last before they both went to bed.