Chereads / The friend only I see / Chapter 34 - What to do when someone insults your friend

Chapter 34 - What to do when someone insults your friend

Soon, the guy caught up to both Tom and Josh, he stretched out his arm and hastily took hold of Josh's sleeve. He clawed at it to get a good grip and slowed down, in turn, Josh turned slightly to face him.

"What's up? Need something?" Josh asked whilst looking at him out of the corners of his eyes, one of his eyebrows was slightly raised and a slight polite smile was on his face.

"Uhm, yeah, would you let me come with you? 'Cause, you know…" the guy said whilst still holding tightly onto the fabric of Josh's sleeve, he also had a slight smile on his own face.

"Oh, how come? Well either way, we weren't going to do much anyway." Josh replied as he turned more to properly face him.

The guy looked at Josh sceptically and opened his mouth to try to say something, but nothing came out. He closed his mouth and paused for a second before he opened his mouth once again to speak, "Well, that may not be strictly true. We could do fun shit together you know." He quickly tried to think of something to do and an idea suddenly struck him, "Hey. There's a good noodle joint just outside campus, their stuff is great and it's pretty cheap, want to check it out with me during lunch later?"

Josh looked at Tom who had been looking at them both intently throughout this ordeal, Tom, once noticing he was being looked at, smiled and nodded, "I think it'll be fun. Besides it's our first day here, it'll be nice to find some good places to eat around campus."

"Then it's a deal then." The guy said as he quickly slammed one of his fists into his opposing palm. "You can't back out later!" He continued with his smile turning joy a wide grin as his eye closed.

"Of course, was that all though?" Asked Josh, his face was somewhat contorted in confusion, it was evident, however, that he was trying to conceal his confusion and tried to seem less surprised.

"Hm, perhaps, I can't think of another reason why I'd talk to you ok the spot…" the guy replied as he grasped the back of his head with his free arm.

"I don't know, it kind of seemed like you wanted to say something else? I guess…?" Josh replied bashfully as he scratched the side of his neck with his free arm.

They stood in silence for a few moments, however, it felt to them like a small part of eternity. The awkwardness made the time speed up and they both felt unsure of what to do to break the tension, Josh turned back slightly to glance at Tom for his assistance but was only met with the sight of Tom facing away from them both whilst covering his mouth and trying to hold back his violent cackling.

Tom opened one of his eyes briefly, seeing this Josh noticed his eyes were beginning to tear up, however on the other hand, Tom who saw Josh looking at him turned slightly and let go of his mouth, and between giggles he mouthed what Josh clearly saw as "and I thought I was meant to be the awkward one." He then stuck out his tongue and continued to laugh quietly.

Josh stood frozen for a brief moment, his eyes could be compared to saucers and his mouth was hanging open slightly, he soon picked himself back up and mouthed back hastily, "you little traitor!" Before turning away from Tom in a huff and instead looking towards the guy.

The guy looked at him and suddenly he let go of his head and instead snapped his fingers. "Actually, there was something else, I remember now. I was going to say earlier that I thought you seemed interesting, man. Why don't you come out with us? We're planning to hang out after classes are over later today. Actually we meet up quite a lot so you should join us, what do you think?"

Josh looked at him and let go of his neck and his hand instead started playing around with the hem of his top. "Well, it sounds good I guess. Oh but, you said you wanted me to come?" He asked as he let go of the hem of his clothes and instead pointed his finger at himself, "But then what about Tom?" Josh asked as the finger he was using to point at himself just a few moments ago was now pointing behind him, over his shoulder at Tom.

The guy seemed to be sizing Tom up as he replied slowly, "Mm, yeah… sure..." He said finally, looking back at Josh with slightly furrowed eyebrows and a poorly disguised look filled with questioning.

The look on his face seemed to perfectly convey his unwillingness to invite Tom, the passiveness Josh had been having this whole time as he was firstly being dragged around, then when they'd been in class, and now whilst he had been listening to the guy talk to him all whilst he had been acting rather indifferent towards Josh's own friend, were starting to get to him and it was beginning to grate on Josh's nerves.

Josh grit his teeth as he smiled widely and his eyes were shut tight, he was tensing almost every muscle in his body as he replied, "Yeah? Is that right?"

The guy looked away and let go of Josh's clothing as he held one hand to his face and scratched his chin awkwardly.

His free hand was clenched tight, so tight in fact that it was shaking slightly. Josh didn't normally get angry over such trivial matters, but he hated situations such as this where people would look down on the people he hung around. It was especially triggering when others did so in front of said friend.

However, Tom didn't seem to mind as he placed his hand on Josh's shoulder, Josh turned around and faced him whilst