“No, but I got to tell you, Hiroku, I don’t think I’d make a very good boyfriend.”
I gave him points for being honest. Still, there was something that was eating at me. It wasn’t about being his only lover or having him make any kind of commitment to me—not then, at least. I needed some assurances, but I was never good at asking for what I wanted.
“Just say it, Hiroku,” Seth said impatiently.
If I was going to be played by him, I wanted to know how.
“Is this a thing where you’ve never been with an Asian guy before, and you’re using me to try and test the waters?”
Seth’s eyebrows lifted like he wasn’t expecting that. And then he frowned with his whole face settling into it. “I’ve been with an Asian guy before. I don’t think he was Japanese, but it was close enough.”
That wasn’t exactly the response I was looking for, though I learned pretty early on with Seth, not to ask questions if you didn’t want to know their answers.
“Is that it?” he asked when I didn’t respond right away. “Or is there something else you want to know?”
Of course, I wanted to know more, but I didn’t feel it was my place to interrogate him. He was allowed to have secrets.
“Yeah, that’s it,” I said.
He eyed me a moment longer as if debating with himself whether or not to say more. Then he leaned in close enough to kiss me, so close I could feel his breath on my face and smell the sunshine on his skin, but at the last moment, he turned his head. “We’d better get back before all the food is gone.”
I looked away so he wouldn’t see the wounded expression on my face at what felt like a rejection.
“Yeah,” I said hollowly, biting back my disappointment. “We better.”
I followed him back to the campsite, neither of us saying much at all, but I knew somehow that by asking those questions, I’d done something wrong.
All they’d brought to eat were hotdogs and I was a vegetarian, so I ate a couple of buns with ketchup while they all took turns asking me why I didn’t eat meat. I was a little sensitive about it already—my parents had never been very supportive of my dietary decision, which I’d made when I was thirteen after watching a documentary on industrial chicken farms. I tried to be patient about it because people always had questions, but when Sasha asked if it was because of the cute widdle bunny wabbits, I kind of exploded.
“Look, I don’t like the thought of an animal having to die just so I can eat a burger or a chicken wing or a hotdog—if that’s even meat. It’s just not worth it to me when there are other alternatives.”
They all turned to Seth, perhaps thinking I’d gotten too mouthy, but he didn’t comment on it either way, just eyed me with a curious expression. It seemed he was letting his friends interrogate me so that he didn’t have to. Later on, when we were collecting wood for a fire, he told me he had some meat I could eat. My whole body burned, from my toes to my ears, and I couldn’t come up with anything clever to say. I couldn’t even meet his eyes. Seth laughed.
They smoked and drank and talked shit into the night. I assumed we were sleeping on the rough blankets they’d spread around the fire because no one had brought a tent or sleeping bags. My dad bought the excuse that I was staying the night at Sabrina’s, which I’d done on occasion since elementary school, and Sabrina agreed to cover for me if I told her tomorrow what the hell was going on. I was zoned out watching the fire when Seth poked me in the ribs. He’d stopped strumming his guitar. They hadn’t packed any camping equipment, but they’d somehow managed to fit two guitars in Mitchell’s trunk.
“We need more wood,” Seth said. I glanced over at the stack where there was still plenty.
“Come on, Seth,” Sasha said. “He’s not a baby.”
I glanced up at their faces, orange hued from the firelight and just a little bit demonic looking.
“Did I miss something?” I asked.
Seth set down the guitar and handed me a flashlight. “Go get some wood. I don’t care what you come back with, just stay out there for twenty minutes or so.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Sasha huffed.
“Sasha,” Caleb warned in a low rumble. She rolled her eyes.
“He’s already skipped school for the first time today,” Seth said. “He doesn’t need to witness all of our bad habits.”
I glanced over to where Caleb was holding a baggie in his hand, kind of hiding it behind his palm but not very well. I wanted to prove I was one of them, that I could be trusted to at least sit around the fire while they did…whatever they were planning on doing, but the look in Seth’s eye was determined.
I took the flashlight and stalked off into the woods, far enough to where they couldn’t see me, but I could still hear their laughter and the muted sounds of their voices. Even though I knew Seth was trying to protect me, I was mad that I’d been dismissed.
Like a little kid.
I gave them forty minutes instead of twenty, partly because I wanted Seth to come looking for me, but he didn’t. When I got back, their eyes were all glazed over, and they had doofy expressions. Caleb’s eyelids kept fluttering like he couldn’t stay awake. Seth just had a wide shit-eating grin on his face.
