Xellos was about two steps away from banging his head repeatedly against the desk when the bell rang and Professor Saillune let them out of class. "This is going to kill me." He complained to Zelgadiss after they were in the hallway. "How do you make 'A Rose for Emily' happy? The lady offs her fiancé, keeps his body in a room for decades, dies, the whole town discovers that she did this, and that's a symbol of the unconquerable spirit of mankind? What is his problem?"
"Born with rosy glasses for eyes." Zelgadiss replied with a laugh. "Hey, do you have anywhere to go right now?"
"No," Xellos replied with a sigh, "other than beating my head against a brick wall until that last lecture makes sense I have absolutely no plans."
"Good, my class has been cancelled and I want to talk to you. Can we go get some coffee?"
Xellos nodded before following the lavender-haired boy to the coffee shop, and from the counter to a secluded booth near the back. He had a fairly good idea of what was coming; he'd been expecting Zelgadiss to say something about it for a few days now.
"Look, Xellos, I..." he broke off in frustration and took a large swallow of his coffee, which he then choked on because it was too hot.
"Are you okay?" Xellos asked, trying to stifle his laughter.
"No." Zelgadiss muttered, setting the cup away from him. "Gah, that hurt."
"Well, that was just a silly thing to do."
"Yeah, well. Okay, look, what are we doing here?"
"Drinking coffee?"
"Don't be annoying. I mean, what do you think is going on between us?"
Xellos sighed, then took a careful sip of his own drink. He really, really, did not want to answer relationship questions. Unfortunately, it looked like that was going to be unavoidable. "I... What do you want to be happening?"
Zelgadiss rolled his eyes, and leaned forward to take Xellos' hand. "I thought I'd made that pretty obvious."
"Yeah, well, I told you I wasn't good at this stuff."
"You're avoiding the question."
"I'd kinda like, well, what you want to be going on between us." Did he really sound like that big of a moron? Yup, he did. Damn.
Zelgadiss smiled. "Well, that's good to hear. Does that mean that at some point in the very near future you're going to stop avoiding me?"
"I'm not avoiding you! I told you, the project I'm working on is not going well. The programs were completely corrupted by the time they got back to our office. I can't help it if that takes up most of my time."
"I don't mind if it takes up most of your time; I'd just like to know when there's some time left over. We wouldn't even be here now if I hadn't asked, would we?"
"No, probably not."
"So, tell me what's wrong."
Xellos really, really, wanted to crawl under the table and hide right about now. "I just, I haven't, I mean, I'm only..."
"Any time you want to add an ending to any of those sentences is fine by me."
Xellos groaned. "I'm not exactly a university student." He said finally, then looked up to find Zelgadiss watching him with a confused expression. "I'm still in high school."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"I'm in the advanced class."
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"Oh."
"And I'm still a virgin, and I've never gone out with anyone ever."
"That'd explain the hesitation."
"Yeah."
There were a few moments of silence as Zelgadiss worked up the courage to try his coffee again and Xellos finished his.
"You could've just told me you wanted to wait." The lavender-haired boy finally said and Xellos blushed.
"No, I couldn't."
"Why not?"
"I don't really want to."
"You're confusing me."
"I just don't know how to approach things like this out here, that's all."
"Well, actually spending time with the person you're interested in would be a good start. Then you could try being alone with him. Once we get in that position we seem to do pretty well."
Xellos laughed, "Yeah, I can see how that would help."
"So, when's your next night off?"
"What?"
"I'm just asking."
"It's this Friday."
"You want to go out, and hopefully spend some time alone together?"
"Yes." He answered without really thinking about it, which was probably a good plan. Sometimes, thinking too much just cause more problems than it solved.