#bojan

The sun was slowly setting and the two men were sitting on Bojan’s roof when the older’s parents were away at their weekend house in Pula.

They were passing a joint back and forth as they both sat quietly with their notebooks in their laps, an acoustic guitar in Kris’ lap as well. He quietly picked the melody to she had the world and hummed the melody softly, putting all of his attention onto his hands. Bojan looked up as he recognised the melody, quietly looking at the guitarist and smiling softly.

He missed evenings like this; they’d sit in s grass field, or a roof or wherever they could plop themselves down and just…exist together.

He let himself get sidetracked with his songwriting and continued with his observation until the blond guitarists’ eyes finally snapped up, his cheeks blushing as he realised he’d been stared at.

“What?” he asked with a sheepish smile, letting himself indulge a bit and look over Bojan’s face.

“Nothing, nothing,” the singer shook his head as he looked back down at his notebook, picking up his pen and going back to songwriting, writing out one simple chorus;

Bojan never imagined that his life would turn out the way it did. He was a full-time musician and his job was to make music, play and hang out at interviews and to a point, drink and laugh with friends (even if it was for public appearances).

They’d just finished their biggest show yet; Karneval. There’d been 17 thousand people present at the show, and despite it nearly going to shit they still managed to get the go ahead and absolutely kill it. After the show he got off stage with Jere and hugged him tightly, tears of relieved joy pouring down his cheeks as he kept expressing how happy he was to be able to play the show by his best friends’ sides and experience it all before he even turned thirty.

Still, he felt eyes on him. He thought it’d be normal, considering people were seeking the band out to congratulate them for their show—and more so usually him, considering he was the singer, not to brag—when Jere pointed it out to him.

“Kris is staring, eh…jealous?” he muttered to him, as if he was trying to find the perfect word to describe it. Bojan turned his head slightly and there he was; his jaw was clenched and his arms were crossed as he glared at the two with disdain. Bojan wanted to laugh.

He’d known Kris long enough to know what his feelings looked like, and that was jealousy for sure. It was usually most prominent when some stranger was taking his friends’ attention away from him and Kris could admit it was one of his worst traits, (which was something Bojan knew from their late night conversations) but it didn’t mean he was too keen on changing it.

Eventually Jan dragged the other guitarist away to try to cool him off while Bojan and Jere continued laughing and chatting blissfully.

Soon enough a hand was placed on Bojan’s shoulder and tugged him back a bit, his other hand splaying over Bojan’s chest as Kris forced a friendly smile on his face in front of Jere.

“Came over to say hi and congrats to you too,” Kris smiled and leaned closer to the singer, looking at Jere as well “and you too, Jere. I’m genuinely so happy you still got to play for a while, even if it wasn’t, well…ideal,” Kris smiled sheepishly at the finnish man who patted Kris’ shoulder before sensing that Kris wanted to spend some time alone with Bojan and went to find his parents after a final hug to both of them.

“So…jealous much?” Bojan teased and leaned his hand up to ruffle Kris’ hair. The blond groaned and the two stepped to a corner, picking up waters on the way and sitting down together.

“i’m…it’s not-“ Kris tried explaining, huffing out a breath. “You didn’t even look at me after the gig. I wanted our moment and i wanted us to y’know…hang out a little?” he shrugged and leaned closer to the singer. “I really want a moment with you alone.” Kris confessed and placed his head onto Bojan’s shoulder who hummed softly and petted his hair.

“Well i’m all yours now,” Bojan tired reassuring. Kris scoffed and rolled his eyes, pulling him back into his body:

“You’re always mine.” Kris muttered and leaned in for a soft peck, and hummed quietly, resting his face back into the crook of Bojan’s neck, sighing contently when Bojan confirmed with a hum, and let his hand wander into Kris’ hair to push it out of his face.

Bojan had been stuck with thinking about what he was going to do for months now. He was telling his friends and family that he’d made the right choice, that he was happy, to study economics, but the hole in his chest got bigger and bigger and with that worse off.

He dreaded going to lectures to the point of skipping them, pretended to do something regarding his course but instead practiced writing in spanish to keep in touch with a friend of his from primary school that was visiting Spain for a bit or tried writing some more lyrics while looking out of the window.

The rest of his friends genuinely enjoyed university, so he felt like something was wrong with him; Jan was talking about math stuff he was learning and some sort of theories he was finding out about while Martin studied maths and comp sci, so he was having a field day writing code in java and C or whatever else he did over there with his ‘discrete structures’.

Even Kris, who was in his last year of high school knew what he wanted. He signed up for chemical engineering because he liked chemistry and was good at it and in case the band wouldn’t work out (which was bullshit, because it obviously would) he’d have a reputable career as an option.

So everyone was normal, except for him.

He’d lay in bed at night and think about what it’d be like, studying something else. He thought about moving to media, or maybe communications or something, yet something always drew him back to sociology.

It was an interesting concept; he liked it in high school, had a good professor who knew how to present the topics well enough and the idea of learning about how society worked seemed…genuinely exciting.

But surely, that couldn’t be it, right?

But the longer he thought about it, the more he yearned to do something he liked, he could excel in. He was already doing poorly in university and people around him saw him as a guy who didn’t take school seriously—which wasn’t true, thank you very much, so it seemed like a viable option.

He was sat in a cafe near the math faculty, waiting for Jan to be done with classes. He’d usually go to Martin first, obviously, on one of their usual evening walks, but Martin was really busy with signing up for exchange programs and meetings for it, so his next option was Jan. He waited patiently for the dark haired man to show up after his lecture, having already ordered a coffee for himself.

The cold January air made him wrap himself up in a scarf and a thick jacket, his hands still shivering as he lit himself a cigarette from nervousness, his mothers voice disapproving of his unhealthy habit in his head. He took another drag. He’d apologised to his mother later when she eventually asked why he smelled like smoke.

Jan approached soon enough and sat down, apologising for the wait while hastily lighting his own cigarette and ordering a coffee for himself. They updated each other briefly, Jan noticing how Bojan became increasingly nervous, his brows furrowing with worry.

“Can I tell you something?” he suddenly spat out “and I need you to talk me out of it in case it’s stupid.” Bojan stuttered out, looking at his friend with a serious look.

Jan blinked confused before pursing his lips and nodding “o…kay. Tell me, Bojč.” he smiled encouragingly.

“I want to switch majors to sociology because i genuinely hate economics because it’s so useless and dreadful to me right now but maybe i’m just going through it because i’m like pissed off at the exam season and i’m kinda overwhelmed? maybe i shouldn’t do it. this is stupid, forget it,” he shook his head and ran his hand through his hair.

“I think you should do it,” Jan said instead. Upon his friend looking up at him confused he chose to elaborate: “I don’t mean it in a mean way, but…if i’d see anybody I know study sociology it’d be you. You’re communicative, you enjoy working with people, you seek this type of thing out. I don’t, neither does Martin or Matic. Kris, maybe, but he wants to do chemistry. You, however, and again, I’m not trying to be a dick, are the perfect guy for it. You should do it.” he offered Bojan a smile and a nod, watching the singer practically deflate relief.

“You’re right. I think I should do it,” he said more so to himself, to hype himself up.

Jan smiled and the two went on to talk about other things.

While Bojan was in the bathroom, Jan texted Martin:

Jan:

He’s gonna transfer to sociology :)

Martin:

The snow was starting to fall in late November as Joked Out prepared for their album release concert in cvetličarna. They’d been especially careful to not get sick or injured just to keep things running smooth, but somehow (unsurprisingly) Jan had gotten sick, taking Nace right down with him.

Now the two were curled up in bed, both sporting a fever as they had their quiet scrolling time for a while before they’d have to get up to shower, make some more tea and eat some more soup to keep them healthy.

Silently, Jan rolled over and curled up under Nace’s warm arm, turning away to cough violently before groaning and pushing his face into the older’s clothes back. He muttered something incoherently before stretching and standing up, walking out of their bedroom to where Nace assumed to be the kitchen. He was proved right moments later when he heard the kettle turn on and Jan came back to collect their mugs to wash and to make new tea in (Chamomile for Jan and Hibiscus for Nace), arriving around ten minutes later with two steaming mugs and placing them on their respectful night stands.

He immediately plopped back in bed onto the bassist, humming tiredly as he curled up under the sheets to fall asleep, ignoring the fact that his tea was getting cold.