What Makes a Friend?

The change of song roused Coil from his thoughts, “This another one of yours?"

Boombox blinked, “Oh? Yeah, I finished it recently!” he leaned forward on his gear, fixing his sights right on his face, “Do ya like it?”

Weirdly, yes. Weirdly, because if he was going to be honest, all of his other songs were outside his kind of style. So why did this one stick? It was almost annoying him how uncharacteristic this was. It wasn’t helping that Boombox was clearly trying to get a read on him. That couldn’t do. Coil crossed his arms and put a hand to his chin, all contemplative.

“Not bad.” He compromised.

Boombox squinted as he laughed, “Not bad? Seriously?” Sitting up straight again, he looked back into the basin.

“What would you want to hear then?” He toyed with the buttons on his gear, shuffling through a few other tunes. Coil bounced his leg on the side of the bowl. Did he admit it? That he liked the song? This was such a small, inconsequential moment but something deeper ticked him off. Coil had the sense to know that getting pissed at this was stupid, so before he blew some dumb gasket, he might as well have bitten the bullet and admitted it.

“Actually-“

“Guys, watch this!” Skateboard called out. His voice ricocheted off the walls of the skatepark, sounding all around them. Coil had just missed it, and Boombox had already changed the song. Waited too long again. He tried to pay attention while Skateboard pulled off the trick, but it was utterly useless to try. Now, he just had to sit with the weight in his chest.

Pumping his arms above his head, Boombox cheered, “Holy crap that was awesome! How long have you been practicing that move?”

“Guess.” Skateboard teased, “Bet you won’t.”

“Um… a week.” He pointed at him once he made his guess. Coil eyed the both of them back and forth as they kept going. Wasn’t a week, wasn’t two weeks, wasn’t a month… How long had these two known each other again? Since their spawnhoods, from what he recalled, but they clammed up about a lot of stuff beyond a certain number of years back. He wasn’t one to push, though. That had their business, he had his, and it was how things worked when you grew up in Playground. Even so, looking at them like this, Coil wondered he what was missing.

Skateboard always had people in and out and all around his place, some even stayed. Every time he came over he seemed to have made five new friends. Boombox, well, he was Boombox. Coil wasn’t overly jealous of him, he was too nice, and it had gotten him into bad shit before. He didn’t know. The more he tried to figure out about either of them, the more he hit a wall. Frustrating, it was so frustrating. He couldn’t smarts his way into it, and he couldn’t fight his way into it either. This final barrier to knowing someone, it was so elusive, so far away.

Gripping at his pants, he stared ahead at the orange tiered sky until it was the only thing left. By all means, it was a picturesque day; one meant to be remembered fondly. Coil could only think of himself. He should be talking with his friends, laughing with them, exchanging jokes and whatnot. Until he figured it out though, there was always going to be a veil between them. He could just make out the shape of what “friends” looked like, what they did, how they acted around each other. But he could never see all of it. He would tear the veil to shreds until it lay tattered at his knees.

“Coil, you good?” Skateboard asked, he and Boombox both stood, packed and ready to go.

He brushed his pants off, and got to his feet, steady as ever. “Yep, let’s get going.”

The two walked ahead while Coil followed. He made sure to stay a few feet behind. This distance. He was making it himself, wasn’t he?