Jeremiah sat in the same classroom—Ms. Chen's room, third row by the window—and tried very hard not to expect anything.
It wasn't working.
His knee bounced under the desk. His fingers tapped a nervous rhythm against the spine of his closed textbook. His eyes kept drifting to the door, quick and guilty, like he was waiting for someone to catch him in the act of hoping.
This is so stupid, he thought. He's not coming. Why would he come? You're nobody. You're boring. He said so himself.
But Dre had also said "you won't be for long." And Dre had called him Vanilla. And Dre had sat across from him in the library and asked about his free time and invited him to KFC or Burger King like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Jeremiah pressed his hands to his cheeks. They were hot. Of course they were hot. He'd been sitting here for fifteen minutes, alone in the classroom except for the four girls who'd claimed their usual spots—two whispering by the whiteboard, one with earbuds in, one braiding her hair by the door—and all he could think about was Dre. The red bandana. The tight red t-shirt. The way his cologne had lingered in the air long after he'd left.
Why was he so nice?
That was the question that kept circling back, gnawing at him like a loose tooth. Dre ran with a gang. Dre had a reputation. Dre was the kind of boy who made teachers nervous and other students cross the street. But he'd sat across from Jeremiah like they were equals, like Jeremiah was someone worth talking to, and he'd asked questions and waited for answers and hadn't laughed once.
Not even when Jeremiah stuttered.
Maybe he was just bored, Jeremiah told himself. Maybe everyone else was gone and I was the only one left and he didn't want to eat alone.
But that didn't explain the nickname. That didn't explain the way Dre had looked at him—not with pity, not with mockery, but with something Jeremiah couldn't name. Something that made his stomach flip and his heart stutter and his brain short-circuit like a blown fuse.
He pulled out his phone, opened Kingdom Builder: Castle Defense, and stared at the pixelated loading screen without seeing it. His knee kept bouncing. His thumb hovered over the "play" button but didn't press.
He's not coming, he told himself again. Stop waiting. Stop hoping. You're just going to embarrass yourself.
He was about to put his phone away—about to force himself to study, to focus, to be productive—when he heard it.
Footsteps in the hallway. Steady. Measured. Heading toward the open door.
Jeremiah didn't look up. He kept his eyes fixed on his phone screen, on the spinning loading icon, on anything but the doorway. His heart was already pounding, already betraying him, already hoping despite every logical part of his brain screaming at it to stop.
And then he smelled it.
Grease. Salt. Fried chicken. The unmistakable aroma of fast food, of paper bags soaked through with oil, of something hot and fresh and good. It reminded him of the KFC on Western, the one with the flickering sign and the drive-thru that always had a line wrapped around the building. He hadn't eaten there in years—not since before his father went away, back when money wasn't so tight and his mom would let him get a popcorn chicken combo on Fridays.
The smell grew stronger, closer, until it was right behind him.
A chair shrieked against the linoleum floor.
Then another chair—the one in front of Jeremiah's desk—was pulled out with a scrape, and someone sat down across from him.
Dre.
He placed a white paper bag on the table between them. KFC. The logo was unmistakable—the red stripes, the old colonel's face, the grease spots already blooming through the paper like tiny promises. The bag was full, bulging at the seams, and the smell that rose from it made Jeremiah's empty stomach clench with a hunger he'd been trying to ignore all day.
"Hello?" Jeremiah said, and his voice came out small and confused and hopeful all at once.
"Hey." Dre leaned back in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest, the other resting on the table. He was wearing the same red bandana, knotted the same way, but today his t-shirt was black—fitted, like yesterday's, with a small rip near the collar that showed a sliver of collarbone. His jeans were dark, his sneakers were white, and he looked like he'd just stepped out of a music video.
Then he leaned forward, just a little, and lowered his voice so only Jeremiah could hear.
"Vanilla."
The word was a whisper, soft and almost teasing, and it hit Jeremiah like a wave of heat. His face went red—not a blush, a configration—and he jerked his gaze away, staring at the window, at the parking lot, at anything that wasn't Dre's dark eyes and small smile.
He remembered, Jeremiah thought, his heart hammering. He remembered the nickname. He remembered me.
Dre didn't seem to notice Jeremiah's meltdown. Or maybe he did, and he just didn't care. He reached into the KFC bag with both hands and began pulling out food—a cardboard box of chicken pieces, a paper sleeve of fries still steaming, a small plastic container of coleslaw, two biscuits wrapped in foil. The smell intensified, filling the classroom with the scent of grease and salt and something that made Jeremiah's mouth water despite himself.
And then Dre slid half of it across the table.
A chicken leg. A handful of fries. A biscuit still warm to the touch. A tiny cup of what looked like honey.
Jeremiah stared at the food, then at Dre, then back at the food. His brain had stopped working. "W-what is this f-for?"
"For you, dummy." Dre picked up a chicken wing and bit into it, casual as anything.
"But—" Jeremiah's throat tightened. "I don't—why would you—"
Dre chewed, swallowed, and pointed the chicken bone at him. "Be quiet and just eat it."
"Why?"
Jeremiah didn't mean to sound so small. He didn't mean for the word to come out like a question and a plea and a protest all at once. But it did, and Dre heard it, and for a moment something flickered across the other boy's face—something soft, something almost vulnerable—before it disappeared.
"Do I need a reason?" Dre asked.
"Yes!" The word came out louder than Jeremiah intended. The four girls in the room looked up, curious, and Jeremiah sank lower in his seat, his cheeks burning. "Y-yes," he repeated, quieter this time. "You need a... a reason."
Dre didn't answer.
He just picked up another piece of chicken—a thigh, this time—and ate it in slow, deliberate bites, his eyes fixed on something outside the window. Jeremiah watched him, waiting, but Dre said nothing. The silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable, and Jeremiah's hunger was a living thing now, clawing at his insides, demanding to be fed.
He didn't reach for the food.
He couldn't. It didn't make sense. Dre didn't know him. Dre owed him nothing. Dre was a gang member who wore red and ran with killers and probably had better things to do than buy lunch for some feminine boy in an oversized hoodie. There had to be a catch. There was always a catch.
Dre finished his thigh, wiped his fingers on a napkin, and looked at Jeremiah's untouched food. His jaw tightened.
"Eat it," he said.
Jeremiah shook his head.
Dre's eyes narrowed. "Jeremiah."
The sound of his own name—full, not shortened, not mocked—made Jeremiah's breath catch. Dre had never said his name before. Not like that. Not soft and low and almost... gentle.
"Eat the food," Dre said again.
"I'm not—"
Dre moved fast.
Before Jeremiah could react, Dre's hand shot across the table, grabbed a few fries, and pushed them toward Jeremiah's mouth. Jeremiah's lips parted in surprise—more surprise than anything else—and the fries went in, salty and warm and sudden. He made a sound, something between a choke and a gasp, his eyes going wide as he chewed automatically, his face flooding with so much heat he was surprised smoke wasn't coming out of his ears.
Dre sat back, watching him with an expression that was almost satisfied. "There. Now eat the rest, or it's just a waste of my money."
Jeremiah swallowed the fries—they were good, really good, the kind of good that made his eyes sting a little because he couldn't remember the last time he'd had fast food that wasn't stolen from someone else's tray—and stared at Dre with a mixture of embarrassment and disbelief.
His hand was shaking. He could see it, the slight tremor in his fingers as he reached for the chicken leg. He picked it up, the skin crisp and golden, and took a small bite.
It was perfect.
Hot and juicy and salty and everything his peanut-butter-less existence had been missing. He took another bite, then another, and somewhere between the second and the third, he forgot to be embarrassed. He just ate, quickly and hungrily, like he was afraid someone would take it away.
Dre watched him for a moment, then went back to his own food. They ate in silence—not an uncomfortable silence, not exactly, but a strange one. The kind of silence that existed between two people who didn't know each other well but were learning.
When Jeremiah had finished the chicken leg, the fries, and most of the biscuit (he saved a piece of the biscuit for later, wrapping it in a napkin and tucking it into his hoodie pocket), he finally looked up at Dre.
"Th-thank you," he said. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper, but he meant it. He meant it more than he'd meant anything in a long time.
"No trouble." Dre crumpled his own napkin into a ball and tossed it into the KFC bag.
"But... why?" Jeremiah asked again, softer this time. Not demanding. Just... confused. "Why d-did you do this?"
Dre was quiet for a long moment. He picked at a loose thread on his jeans, his jaw working like he was chewing on the answer. Then he looked up, and his eyes met Jeremiah's, and for a second—just a second—the mask slipped.
" 'Cause I wanted to," he said. "Accept it and shut it."
There was no heat in the words. No edge. Just a tired sort of finality, like Dre had already explained himself and didn't feel the need to do it again.
Jeremiah nodded slowly. He didn't understand. He probably wouldn't ever understand. But the food was warm in his stomach and the biscuit was safe in his pocket and Dre was sitting across from him like this was normal, like this was something they did every day.
Maybe, Jeremiah thought, maybe this is something we do every day now.
He didn't let himself finish the thought.
They sat there for a few more minutes, the silence settling around them like a blanket. Jeremiah could feel the eyes of the four girls from across the room—their stares, their curiosity, their whispered speculation. He'd been so focused on Dre that he'd almost forgotten they were there.
But Dre hadn't forgotten.
He stood up slowly, crumpling the empty KFC bag in his fist, and turned to face them. His posture changed—shoulders back, chin up, the easy confidence of someone who'd never had to learn how to take up space because he'd always been allowed to.
"What the fuck y'all staring at?" Dre's voice was cold, flat, dangerous. Not loud. It didn't need to be loud.
Three of the girls looked away immediately, suddenly fascinated by their phones, their fingernails, the ceiling tiles. But the fourth one—the one who'd been braiding her hair by the door—she giggled. A small, nervous sound that escaped before she could stop it. She clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide, and then she looked away too, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
Dre stared at her for a long, hard moment. Then he turned back to Jeremiah, and his expression softened—just barely, just enough for Jeremiah to notice.
"Same time tomorrow," Dre said. Not a question. Not really.
Jeremiah's heart stuttered. "O-okay."
Dre nodded once, short and sharp, and walked out of the classroom without looking back. The door swung shut behind him, and the room felt colder somehow, emptier.
Jeremiah sat there, his hand still wrapped around the biscuit in his pocket, and tried to remember how to breathe.
Same time tomorrow.
He pulled out his phone, opened Kingdom Builder: Castle Defense, and stared at the pixelated villagers without seeing them. His lips still tasted like salt and honey. His stomach was full for the first time in days. And somewhere in his chest, that small, stupid spark had grown into something he couldn't ignore anymore.
He wasn't expecting Dre to come back.
He was hoping. And that was so much worse.