Brofriend

Lately, Kellin’s been facing a pretty serious problem: he can’t stop staring at Vic Fuentes.

This is problematic for a few reasons. Firstly, Vic Fuentes is not a girl, which means that Kellin might not be as 100% Not Gay as he’s convinced himself that he is, and feeling attraction toward a person of the same gender is not something he’s willing to deal with right now. Secondly, they’re on the same high school football team, which means that practices are less “practice” and more “sneaking glances at Vic every five seconds,” which then results in the coach yelling at him all the time for not paying attention and everyone laughing at him. Thirdly, they’re best friends. That one’s pretty self-explanatory.

It’s not necessarily that Kellin didn’t notice Vic’s attractiveness before, because, well, let’s face it—he certainly has. Everyone has. Vic is the fucking heartthrob of the school. It’s just that Kellin used to never mind this attractiveness; he used to look past it. Every time someone gushes about how hot Vic is, Kellin always thinks back to that one time in second grade when tiny eight-year-old Vic laughed so hard that chocolate milk squirted out of his nose. Meanwhile, Vic always likes to bring back old memories of the time when Kellin started loudly asking the teacher weird sex questions in seventh grade health class. It’s the way their friendship works. Their friendship never includes Kellin staring longingly at Vic and wondering what it would be like to kiss him. That’s reserved for things like crushes, and Kellin does not have time for crushes.

He doesn’t even know how this happened. He thought he was above romance. He’s never felt anything like this before, platonic feelings turning into something else, and to be honest, it’s kind of freaking him out. It’s so different and new, and he tries his best to just act normal, but he thinks that a few people are already catching on. Which is bad. He hasn’t even figured out his own feelings for himself yet; there’s no way he’s going to let anyone else in on this.

Unfortunately for him, some of his other friends can be a bit…invasive. One of these friends is Jack Fowler.

Don’t get him wrong—Jack is a great guy and a great friend, but there are some things about Kellin’s life that he’d like to keep private. And Jack doesn’t seem to know how to deal with that.

“You’re acting really weird lately, dude,” he says one day while they’re heading back to the locker rooms after football practice. “You used to be so good, but you seem really distracted all the time.”

Ironically, Kellin is only half-listening, mostly because he’s busy staring at Vic, who is walking a few feet in front of them.

“Even right now,” Jack adds. “You’re distracted right now. Is it a girl or something? How many classes are you failing? Are you—”

“It’s not a girl,” Kellin interrupts (he’s not even lying, either). “And I’m not failing any classes. Just—chill. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

With that, he speeds up his pace a little bit, casually tapping Vic on the shoulder (or, well, shoulder pad, actually). “Hey, bro,” he says, acting casual, the way he normally would. “We should go get Dairy Queen.”

Vic snorts. “Football and ice cream. A winning combination. I’m in.”

“Rad,” Kellin says. “I’ll meet you at your car.”

“Rad,” Vic repeats, making fun of the way Kellin says it with a strangely adorable, teasing smirk on his face.

Kellin smacks him lightly as they enter the locker room. “Fuck off, dude,” he says as he stops at his locker. Vic just makes a face at him and heads over to his own locker, which is in the row across from Kellin’s.

Kellin should totally be looking away from Vic while he’s changing, but he’s got such a nice body, and Kellin can’t help himself. Vic has stated before that he doesn’t care if guys look at him (“It’s not like I’m hiding anything; why should I care?”), but Kellin still feels weird for not closing his eyes or focusing on something else. He’s not supposed to admire someone’s looks like that, especially not when it’s his fucking best friend. Looking at Vic half-naked has never been a problem before, but now that it’s no longer completely platonic, it’s different. His feelings have gone from “Oh, look, it’s Vic, my best friend” to “Oh, look, it’s the really attractive dude that I want to take out on romantic dinner dates and also possibly make out with, and he also happens to be my best friend.”

To put it simply, he’s fucked.

—

Kellin doesn’t really try it, but somewhere along the line, he starts ignoring Vic. They talk less, hang out less, and every time Vic tries to start a conversation, Kellin ends up leaving or not responding after only five minutes. His mind is all over the place. He’s afraid to even look at Vic during football practice out of fear that he might get distracted or be too obvious. He focuses on practice harder than ever before so that he doesn’t have time to think about anything else, lest his thoughts wander into Vic territory. He tires himself out so that he crashes as soon as his head hits the pillow and he doesn’t have the energy to stay up late and think about these stupid fucking feelings that came out of nowhere.

The thing is, they didn’t really come out of nowhere; it’s just that he’s been suppressing them, but now they’ve grown so much that they simply can’t be ignored anymore. He’s been falling for his best friend, whether he realized it or not.

It’s been a couple weeks since then, and one day after football practice, Vic confronts Kellin right outside the locker rooms. They’ve both changed into their normal clothes and are about to head over to their cars (Vic drove by himself while Kellin hitched a ride with Jack), but Vic insists that it’s important and that they need to talk immediately.

“Okay,” Kellin says, once again trying to act casual as they’re standing at the side of the building, where they’re at least semi-alone. “What’s up, man?”

“What’s going on with you?” Vic demands, suddenly sounding oddly angry and even hurt. “I’m not trying to be, like, possessive or say that you can’t have other friends, but you’re acting really fucking weird around me. You either stare at me a lot or refuse to look at me at all, and you’re always awkward whenever we talk, and it’s just—if you want to stop talking to me or whatever, just say it, okay?”

Kellin just stares at him in mild shock, unsure of how to respond. He knows that if he goes with the “it’s not you, it’s me” explanation, he’s definitely going to get slapped. What is he supposed to do? Tell the truth?

“Vic, no,” he says after a short pause. “I don’t want to stop—dude, you’re literally, like, my favorite person. Out of all people. Seven billion people in the world, bro, and you’re my favorite.”

Vic looks like he’s trying to hold back a smile, but it isn’t working.

“And, uh, I’ve been thinking lately,” Kellin continues, because a part of him has realized that telling the truth might be better than hiding his feelings from a person who knows him as well as he knows himself. “About you. And if you don’t feel the same way that’s perfectly fine, I don’t care, I just have to get it out—I’m, like, feeling shit for you. Like, you know that feeling that people always talk about in movies? The one that I’ve always said I never understood? I understand it now, I think. That’s…that’s what this is.” God, he can’t even say it.

Vic knows what he means, though, because Vic always knows what he means. “Are you serious right now?” he says in joyous disbelief. “Is this real? Because I’ve been dreaming about this for months now, dude.”

Kellin almost can’t believe what he’s hearing, but he covers it up with his usual humor. “Do you wanna be my, um, my BF?” he says, giggling nervously before adding, “It stands for ‘brofriend.’ You’re, like, my best bro. My favorite bro. I mean, you were already my favorite bro, but now we can be bros who kiss and go on dates and stuff, too.”

Vic just laughs and nods. “God, come here, you fucking meme,” he says, lightly pulling Kellin closer to him, and then they let their lips connect.