After the War

Ben, tray in hands, slowly made his way through the cafetaria, looking for an unoccupied table. Mostly, what he got were petrified women or glares thrown his way everytime he tried to sit down and eat. Frustrated, he was about to sit alone at a table when he localised four men sitting at a table, away from the others. Ben calmly walked towards them, stopping in front of the table.

"Hey" he said. "Can I sit here?"

There was a sound of clattering and a gasp. The boy who sat at the opposite of Ben had dropped his fork in surprise - he probably hadn't seen Ben arriving.
Said boy was thin, his hair was dark, longish, falling onto his eyes in floppy strands. His eyes were wide, dark chocolate orbs, and his face was covered in freckles, his chin displaying a few reddish hairs. He picked up his fork hurriedly.

"S-Sorry, I didn't see you coming." He stuttered in a strangely low voice.

The three other men looked Ben up and down and the one that had blond hair shrugged.

"Yeah, whatever, go on."

"Thank you" Ben sighed, sitting down.

"You're new?" The guy in front of him asked.

He had shoulder-lenght straight black hair, hazel eyes, a lip ring, and a goatie, as well as a metal band shirt. He had a white scar on his jaw, too.

"Yes" I said. "I'm Ben."

"I'm Jamie."

The blond guy who sat next to Ben turned towards him. His hair was short, yet longish, bleached in some parts, his eyes were grey, and him too wore a goatie.

"I'm Lee" he introduced himself.

The guy who had dropped his fork turned out to be called Mike. The last guy had thin, short brown hair, calm brown eyes, glasses, some stubble, and a superb tattoo sleeve.

"I'm Fraser" he smiled.

They all started eating in a relative silence.

"For how long have you been there?" Ben asked, picking at his pasta.

"One month" Mike said softly.

Jamie did a little head movement towards Lee.

"He and I have been there for two months, and Fraser... I think a month and a half?"

Fraser assented.

"Oh, okay. Is it good here?" Ben attempted, rising his gaze from his plate.

There was a small while of silent thinking.

"I guess... I guess it helps." Lee began, quietly. "In a way... It does."

The others assented mutedly.

"Yeah I mean... Sometimes it's stressful, because, you know, it's mostly women here and... When I looked for a job and I said I lived here, there was always the same reaction... That wasn't... Really... Pleasant if you see what I mean." Jamie continued. "They pretend they want to help us going back into society and forgetting about what happened but... It's harder than they make it look like."

Fraser nodded, swallowing his pasta.

"And there's all these girls who look at you like you're a potential aggressor just because you're a guy... That's not cool at all. We're all in the same boat, right? But some of them seem to think we should deal with that quicker just cause we're men. And that's unfair."

Fraser shut his mouth, looking like he knew he had let out too much. He breathed out heavily, closing his eyes, and went back to eating.

"They're not all like that you know" Jamie tentatively said. "It's just that small group. There's always dicks, wherever you go, in whatever sphere of society you get in. There's always idiots."

He looked down at his empty plate, and shook his head, attacking his yoghurt.

Ben cast a look at Lee and Mike before focusing his eyes on Jamie again.

"Where were you... I mean what were you doing... Before...?"

Jamie smirked.

"Art major at Bristol art college."

"You aren't doing it anymore?"

"Oh, I am, I'm doing coursework, I guess... Art is really helping me to overcome this however hard it is."

Ben couldn't help but smile. How cheesy.
Yeah, maybe it wouldn't be that bad after all.