Chereads / The friend only I see / Chapter 4 - Getting to know each other

Chapter 4 - Getting to know each other

As Joshua was dragged by the boy into the room, they began talking about Thomus the Bankengine. After a long and heated debate on which character was the best, they turned away from each other and huffed in annoyance before Josh burst out laughing, his laugh caused the other boy to smile slightly and giggle a little bit.

Joshua took this opportunity to finally introduce himself, after all, they say the third time's the charm.

"Hi, I'm Joshua Wilson. Uhm, I'm five. My birthday's March 5th…" He was counting the number of facts on his fingers, "My favourite colour is blue, light blue actually, I like to eat frozen oranges and watermelon." He moved onto his second hand, "Oh, and I like Thomus the Bankengine, also I beat my dad and teacher in chess which makes me a pro-"

The boy interrupted him with shining eyes, "Wow! You're a pro?" His voice was still somewhat quiet but the difference in mood was evident and Josh felt proud of himself. Whereas the boy froze up slightly and seemed somewhat embarrassed or uncomfortable with his outburst, however, he seemingly pushed those feelings to the side and opted to voice his questions instead with his built-up courage.

"I've… …ever won before…" He mumbled once again, clutching his little arm, opening and closing his free fist.

"Sorry, what?" Josh replied, yet again unable to hear this boy's statements or questions.

The boy once again looked displeased, "I've never ever won before, so uhm, maybe you could help… or something." His voice started to get quieter at the end, but Josh caught every word and smiled.

"Of close! It'll be fun." He pulled double peace signs for no reason at all, his grin was blinding, and his pose looked silly but anyone that saw it wouldn't be able to stop themselves from smiling, this was the same for the boy, he broke into a rare smile too.

"Why're you scissoring the air…?" He asked whilst still having a slight smile on his delicate face. He also pulled scissors with his hand and made cutting motions whilst asking.

Josh couldn't tell if he was joking, his face and voice sounded innocent, as though he honestly had no idea what Josh was doing in the slightest. However, his words seemed to drop with sarcasm, but that face was so young and innocent looking. Josh couldn't help but explain to him what peace signs were, although he didn't fully understand what the peace sign was exactly.

"Also, I like to play football with my dad, sometimes I score some goals, plus I'm secretly a pro ninja, wait no. I didn't say that, I'm not a ninja, psh, what's a ninja…" He looked around frantically and coughed loudly whilst trying to move the conversation forward, he didn't want to dwell on that moment to bring more attention to it, but it was already too late. Nonetheless, he continued listing off fun facts about himself.

"And lastly, I… well I like cars… that go fast, like vrrm." He nodded to himself slightly, to congratulate himself whilst not tipping off the boy to what he had done and to not make the boy think he was weird. It all failed, not only did the nod most definitely show that he was lying or trying to divert attention, his sudden change in speech and. His smug look that suddenly appeared on his face after he'd finished speaking told the boy more than any of his words yet had.

The boy gently placed a hand over his mouth and giggled slightly, however he didn't bring it up, at least not right away that is. Instead, he decided to introduce himself, it had been about an hour or an hour and a half since his mother had told him to introduce himself, and he was finally doing just that.

"Well, I'm Tom Evan's. I'm four, but my birthday's 17th August, I like-" He also tried to talk about some facts about himself that no one else knew. However, Josh interrupted him.

"You're so young." He smirked and patted the boy's head gently, as to not hurt the boy's head, he looked small and delicate, as though if you petted him too hard he would shatter into a million little pieces and become unfixable. "And short…"

A vein popped on the boy's head, he smiled menacingly, his eyes squeezed shut, his eyebrows were furrowed and one appeared to be twitching. His smile was finally wide enough that you could see his teeth, but it was a malicious smile, not the type you'd want to see.

"Excuse me…?" He replied haughtily to Josh, "You're like… what 2 centimetres taller than me?"

Josh smiled and removed his hand, instead he moved his hand to the boy's shoulder and patted it. He decided to change the subject to something more important, to him anyways. After all, the boy's height was important to the boy, but not to Josh himself. He pushed away all unneeded thoughts and tried to figure a way out to combat this situation believably.

"I'm just kidding. Anyway, about me being a ninja, well it's-" Josh started, looking somewhat nervous, this time he was the one that looked as though sweat would start pouring down his forehead

"Ninja… what about a ninja? I didn't hear anything at all, what're you talking about?" The boy replied, he grasped his chin with his right hand, his index and thumb made a gun-like sign and he framed his face with his hand, he was also turning his head from side to side as if trying to recall something important.

Josh could only smile at the sight of this new friend, he felt grateful for him for acting as though he had no idea about whatever Josh was going on about. He didn't know Josh well, and they'd only talked for about an hour, yet he even decided to play along with Josh when he seemed as though he didn't want people to know he was a so-called ninja.