#lestappies

“He is annoying,” is all Charles responded with, hoping his curt answer would be enough for Alex to drop the topic of conversation.

It didn’t work, Alex took another bite of his strawberry and through a mouthful, he asked, “how?”

“He is…” Charles started, before letting out an exaggerated breath, waving one of his hands around before continuing, “arrogant, and is always teasing me, and he is…” He trailed off, not knowing how to carry on. When he looked over at Alex, he raised his eyebrows, the sun hitting his dark brown eyes in a way that made them turn almost golden.

“He is…?” Alex prompted, throwing the stem of the strawberry onto the ground.

“Unfair to me when we spar,” Charles finally said, running his hand through his hair “always using dirty tricks because he knows without them I will win and he cannot stand the idea of me being the one to beat him.”

It had happened the other day, when it was the first day of camp and they had both ended up in the training arena alone at night. They’d started doing their own drills, Charles with his knife and Max with his sword. Soon enough, it turned into a screaming match, with Max goading him into some hand to hand combat. Charles had the upper hand throughout the fight, one moment he had Max in a headlock and the next he was pinned to the ground, breathing heavily as he stared up at Max’s bright blue eyes. He’ll never forget the smile Max gave him in that moment, it had made him so angry his cheeks flushed red and he’d all but ran back to his cabin.

“I don’t think it's dirty tricks,” the sound of Alex’s voice pulled Charles back from the memory, and he looked over at him as he continued to speak. “I think he’s just being strategic, you know, like you have to be in war.”

Charles scoffed at that, and said, just to annoy Alex, “we are not in a war.”