#mattjack

“Matthew, wait,” Jack says, furrowing his brow.

“Hm? What’s wrong?” Matthew asks, stopping.

“Turn around.”

“What? Do I have something on me?” Matthew turns, facing his back towards Jack.

Jack picks a little fuzzball off of Matthew’s jacket. “There,” he says, and then spots more. “Wait- hold on. There’s more.”

“More what?”

“Like- little fuzzies. On your jacket. You gotta look presentable, you know.”

“Oh. Thank you!”

Jack picks at them, running his hand over Matthew’s back just to find the ones blending in.

Nicholas and Okada start giggling, talking to each other quietly.

“What’s so funny?” Matthew asks. “He’s helping me.”

“It’s not you,” Nicholas says. “It’s Jack.”

“Huh?” Jack looks up for a moment. “What’s funny about what I’m doing?”

“You’re like a monkey picking bugs out of another monkey’s fur. It just looks funny.”

Jack stops altogether. He slowly pulls his hands away and shoves them in his pockets. “You look fine. Let’s go.” He keeps his head low to hide his pink face, walking past the three.

Matthew frowns at Nicholas and Okada. “Not funny, you guys. That was mean.”

“We didn’t mean any harm!” Nicholas protests. “Jeez, we didn’t think it’d hurt his feelings.”

Matthew rolls his eyes and jogs up to meet Jack. “Jack! Wait for me!”

Jack slows, but doesn’t stop.

“You can ignore them,” Matthew says when he catches up, linking his arm in Jack’s. “I thought it was very sweet of you. Thank you.”

Jack sighs. “I can’t help it. Some things just…have never went away, I guess. No matter how hard I try to ignore it. I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing until he said it.”

Matthew pats his arm sympathetically. “It’s okay. I don’t think it was a bad thing. It’s kinda cute, actually.”