FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I'm sure you couldn't really care less about how my first few classes today went, so... I guess I just won't bother with going too deep into detail on those. First period Mondays was my teacher's aid thing, and for some reason today my brain had forgotten about half of the German I needed to do my job, so I hardly got anything done - I just kept on going back, as had been usual since yesterday, to Tony. This time, though, it was all about that look on his face when he'd overheard Tyler.

"Does she like you back? If you get a new girlfriend, I wanna be the first to hear about it, alright?"

Yeah. Uh-huh. Sure. Can't really be the first if it doesn't happen, though. And in the meantime - being the twenty or so minutes that had passed since I'd walked Tony to his calculus class - I'd checked my phone probably forty times, just to see if I'd gotten a text from him. Of course I hadn't, though. Even on days when there's nothing wrong, he usually just waits until lunch to talk to me.

Creative writing afterwards went as it usually did, once more another "critique your classmates' assignments from over the weekend". I'd known that I definitely would not feel like working on that over the weekend, so I'd just rushed and gotten it done Thursday or something, and had since forgotten what I wrote... and now that a few days had passed, I kind of cringed to look at it, so just passed it on to someone else in attempts to get it out of my sight as soon as possible. At least that lifted my worries from my mind for a while.

Until my phone vibrated in my pocket, that was. This teacher isn't quite as strict as some others on the policy for phones in class, though I still figured I'd play it safe and sneak a look under my desk. Something from Lexi - probably shouldn't be surprised that Ty had already given her the 'news' - but I didn't really wanna bother with that right now, so I just swiped the notification away.

Of course, I'd forget about it for the rest of the day. That hadn't been my original plan, but that's just how it went. By the time second period ended, it had leaked out of the back of my head and given way to more usual thoughts and concerns; next was my calculus class, and for the life of me I couldn't remember whether I'd actually put my finished homework back into my bag. When it wasn't on the correct side of my homework folder, my heart dropped a little bit further... but then I saw it, shoved over onto the other side behind some other things. God. That's what happens when I get unfocused.

Calculus was just calculus. We had a quiz over the things we learned last class, and then we just... learned more, and had more homework assigned. Endless cycle of that, kind of draining, but whatever. I usually try to get all my homework done before the weekend, so that I can have all of that time to relax to myself and do whatever I want.

I don't need to be the one to tell you that that hadn't really happened this time. I had other stuff on my mind, more important things to take care of.

As things usually went in third period, time seemed to stretch out as the clock ticked closer and closer to the lunch hour... today, though, I wasn't really sure that was because I was excited to be back at school and see Tony again, or whether I was dreading it. Then - the bell rang, and even though I hadn't found the time or patience to put something together at home today, I just shuffled out into the hall to our spot and stayed there. Wasn't really hungry enough to merit waiting in the cafeteria lines.

Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen... Tyler showed up after a while and of course got right back into teasing me about my new girlfriend, most of which I ignored or played along with; whichever was easier. Like usual, Lexi came with him, too, but she seemed preoccupied with homework or studying or something, and kind of flicked her eyes away when I looked at her. At least she smiled at me in greeting first, though.

"Have a good weekend?" she asked, flipping through the pages of a textbook. I hadn't been paying attention, so at first I hadn't realized she'd said anything, until she looked up at me again. "Matt?"

My ears perked before my mind had had time to process her question. I continued to look down the hall for a moment longer, then returned to her. "Huh? Oh. Yeah. It was nice."

"Yeah?" Sly little grin, flick of the chocolate-tipped ears, glitter in her hazel-green eyes. Put a vixen and a jackal together, and you've got one big pile of no good. "I bet it was. Tyler told me that you might be getting a... girlfriend soon."

"Of course he did. Hey, um..." As I spoke, I gathered my things and rose to my feet, trying to go through the list of places Tony might be. There was here, Mr. Thompson's, the library... the orchestra hall, where I'd waited for him that first day we met. "I just remembered I have to go help out a teacher work on something."

Tyler looked up from his phone in that moment, pointy ears splayed and mouth half-open. "Huh? Again?" Then, his ears flicked back and he squinted at me. "You're ditching us to go hang out with her, aren't you?"

"What?" Well, I mean... "Look, I'll see you guys later, okay?

From behind as I made my way down the hall: "Hey, text me and keep me updated, okay? If you get pics, forward them t-" and then I turned the corner. It's not that Tyler's a bad guy. It's just that... well, that he can be a bad guy about certain things.

With all the smells of different food wafting and swirling around in the halls, of course my stomach started to rumble and growl at me. Today wouldn't be the first time I'd go without eating lunch; finals season last semester was pretty darn bad, when I thought I'd fail calculus and have to drop at the break. Luckily, things didn't go that direction, and I managed to pull through with a low-ish B.

That's all digressing from the main subject, though. I kept my paws shoved in my pockets and my eyes forward, every now and then glancing out to the edges of the halls just to look at everyone else, sitting in their little friend groups or standing around and making more noise than seemed possible. That was just another part of high school, I'd noticed. Everyone usually left you alone if you were outside their group, though, unless you just had something marking you off as different and inviting a bit of teasing.

Probably like having another boy on your arm...

I adjusted my backpack over my shoulders and folded my ears further back against all the noise, until I pushed through the double-doors that led down to the orchestra hall... and all of that clamor fell down to a muted rumble, dying away as I made my way further down the hall. From one of the side-hallways floated the quiet but characteristic sound of a pair of cellos, probably a student and private teacher. I won't pretend like I knew anything more than that, like what piece they were playing or whatever. What more concerned me was the gentle tinkling of the piano, further back in the main room.

Usually, non-orch students aren't allowed in the orchestra hall. So I had to sneak around a bit, stick close to the wall, peer in through the door window to make sure there weren't any teachers in there... and then my heart kind of - jumped, or stopped for a second, or something to see that sleek speckled form sitting upright behind the piano on the far side of the room, little round ears perked and muzzle showing no kind of discontent or worry.

There were a few others around, too, which... honestly kind of surprised me. I guess I gotta give Tony a break, though: he does have orchestra every day of the week, so he's bound to make new friends. For a while I just... stood there by the door, thumbs looped around the straps of my backpack, ears perked forward to pick up whatever I might be able to hear.

One of the others, a rainy-day wolf with stormcloud- and fog-grey fur, rested one arm across the closed back of the piano while the other held his instrument atop his leg; I'd seen him before, back during a concert last semester that Sasha'd had me come to. Since at least this time last year he'd been the principal violinist in the school's first orchestra, and during that concert he'd played a stunning solo-

Wait. I don't think I ever checked in on Tony to see how the results of his audition with the orch directors went. When he got here he'd been in the fourth orchestra, but here he was being friendly with the lead violin of the first - so don't tell me...

This wolf tapped his foot in rhythm with Tony's playing, eyes closed at first - until, suddenly, he perked up and leaned over the piano to say something, words drowned beneath the music and the distance. Tony's eyes lit up as well, and a moment later, the two of them were laughing. Then off by his side, another cellist, this one a slim maned wolf, sat with his gaze on the two of them while his paws moved on their own. He also played with the ease and fluidity of a first-orchestra member, especially in the way his left slid on down the fingerboard and back.

I guess I'd get nothing done by watching. I straightened up, cleared my throat, swallowed, put a paw on the door handle... and then stepped into the room, without first thinking about just what the heck it was that I wanted to say to Tony. Oops. Doors must've been soundproof: all of a sudden the smooth sound of the maned wolf's cello and Tony's own playing came over stronger, richer, prettier. One melody, one harmony.

And, then, the piano part slowed to a stop. Amber-orange eyes flicked over my way, the ghost of his laughter from whatever it was he was talking with the wolf about still on his face... and then that lingering grin faded for a moment, before he put a half-forced smile up in its place. And he waited while I made my way over, with the wolf soon turning to see, and the maned wolf doing the same as well. All of a sudden I had three pairs of eyes on me, from orange to blue to green.

"Ah," Tony began, and slouched down on his bench. "This is my friend Matt. I think I have mentioned him to you before..."

The wolf nodded, and briefly flicked his pink tongue out over his lips. He had a splash of ochre-orange fur across his chin and under his eyes, giving that blue just a little more depth. "Yeah. I remember."

"Hi Matt." The maned wolf's tail wagged through the back of his chair. "I'm Ari. I play cello." He rolled the claws of one paw over the body of his instrument.

Tony's eyes returned to me, right before he kind of half-nodded towards the wolf. "That is Ky. We all met after I switched orchestras..."

Once again, I swallowed, and had to clear my throat again. "Oh - funny thing, I was actually just thinking... just wondering about that-"

Ari played a quick little turn of a few notes, then grinned up at me. "Ya boy over there blew the directors' minds with his audition. Don't think I've ever seen Lieber so shocked like that..."

"Oh yeah." Ky leaned back in his own chair, chewing on one of his claws as he spoke. "It was insane. I mean, we had a pianist in first orchestra before Tony showed up. Now we've got him instead."

For a moment, this kind of... warmth, this pride bubbled up in my chest and spread itself across my muzzle in a big smile, irresistible even with all my nervousness tingling through the rest of me. And in that moment, it looked like Tony forgot about whatever had been bothering him, too. "What, really? That's great! Congratulations!"

The cheetah folded his paws in his lap and sat back again, looking down at the keys in front of him for a few seconds as if he didn't know what to say. Soon Ky stood up, though, and held his violin carefully under one arm-

"Hey, Tony, it was fun hanging out, but I've gotta go work on my solo for Tchaikovsky."

"Oh! Yes, of course." A pure smile. "Good luck."

Then it was Ari's turn to move, shifting his paw down to the edge of his cello near the neck and holding it in front of him while he stood up. "Yeah, and I have my lesson coming up in like... three minutes, so I need to go wait for that." He turned his green eyes to me, and then extended his other paw out. "Good to meet you, Matt! Sorry I couldn't stick around longer. You seem like a pretty great guy from what the cat over there's said."

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah..." How do you shake someone's hand when they're holding a bow between their forefinger and thumb? Got rosin on the pads of my fingers. I wiped them off on my pants. "Yeah. Uh. See ya."

So then, suddenly, it was just the two of us again. Not as the only people in the room, of course; over on the other side of the room was a small group of other people sitting in a circle with their lunches between them, and then a violist doing her own thing in one of the far seats. But, all of this looking around was just me stalling for time, so that I wouldn't have to go ahead and... well, do what, exactly? When I next looked over to Tony, he swiftly turned his head away, and clamped his paws between his legs in front of him.

"Um." I reached up to start taking off my backpack. "Can I... sit next to you?"

Another flash of amber eyes, and for a moment I was actually worried he'd tell me no. Instead, though, he pursed his lips as if he were going to say something, then nodded and scooted to the side a bit. So I took my place beside him, not quite close enough to be able to feel the warmth of his body like when we were getting his room set up this past weekend.

So. I'd never actually been in front of a piano before, and now looking at this one... way more keys than I thought. I reached out, splayed my fingers across a few of them, heard no sound. It took a bit more force than I'd expected, too, and when a note did ring out, it actually made me jump a little. I turned a sheepish grin to Tony, paws already in my lap... but that grin quickly faded. I coughed.

"So. Uh. You heard Tyler..."

"I did." He didn't look at me when he spoke, instead scritching at a spot on his pants. There was nothing visibly there. "You like a girl."

Right into it. Wouldn't give me any time to waffle around and avoid the topic. I guess that was for the best. All of a sudden, I wished I'd opened the conversation with literally anything else, but... I'm not sure I'd be able to shoulder the burden of his - disappointment? Worry? Something else? - whatever it was that made him like this.

What could I do? My heart dropped into my stomach, my mind went blank, I shifted around a bit, I considered touching the piano keys again... and then I started talking, once more without fully thinking about it first. "I... didn't say that."

That got his attention. Perked ears, eyes unashamedly focused on me. Now it was confusion that flashed across that muzzle. "You...?"

I shook my head. "Did you ever hear me once say, 'yeah, I like a girl'?"

Tony paused in thought for a moment. Then, he shrugged. "Well, I... I guess not. No."

Felt weird talking about it like this, pushing so close to actually just coming out and stating it for what it was, without actually doing so just yet... like standing at the very edge of a curb, almost teetering out into the street while knowing full well I can take a few steps and backtrack at any moment.

And it's like... it's like there's a video game store across the street with a sale going on, but I'm not sure I want to spend my money there. I don't know. I'm just a high school senior. Gimme a break.

"I mean..." Of course, it was a lot easier to continue talking when I was looking at literally anything other than him. Still, though, I kept my voice down, conscious of the others in the room, and of the way my own words sounded when actually spoken. "Yeah. I do like someone. Spent all weekend trying to figure out just what... like, just what these feelings were, right? And I realized, yeah, that's me liking someone, I think."

Beside me, quietly- "I am very familiar with those feelings." Then, louder: "Who? Ah - you do not... have to tell me..."

Somehow, that made it even tougher to keep a level head about all of this. If I could just... could just...

Once more, Tony perked up, and we made eye contact for a second. "Wait," he said, and squinted. "It's... not a girl that you like?"

The violist across the room hit a sour note in her scales, and then started over from the bottom again. That would be the third time in a row she'd tried that specific scale, as well as the third time in a row she'd messed up on that specific note. I shrugged, I scratched at my wrist, I swallowed, I pulled in a slow breath...

"No." Then, I let that breath out. "It's not."

Another cloud of confusion crossed the cheetah's face, but only for a half-second. In that half-second, however, my heart jumped more than it ever had before: what if I'd been wrong about all of this, and Tony wasn't...? God. In that one moment, I felt like the way you do during a scary movie when you know something's about to happen, but you just don't know when.

Then, that confusion quickly melded to the faintest of smiles, tinted with... relief, it looked like. When he next spoke, he kept his voice lower, softer. "Matt, I didn't know you were-"

"I didn't either." For some reason, the thought of the word actually being spoken felt like it would... I don't know. Kind of seal it in stone. And for now I... wanted to avoid that? I don't know. Just... one step at a time. That's what I wanted. "And I still don't... still don't really know if-"

"You will figure it out." The cheetah straightened up, rested his fingers across a few of the piano keys, looked left and right... and then pressed down, causing a sweet chord to ring out. Then another, and another. He shrugged. "...I did."

So then, if I was interpreting that right...

It seemed - odd, the ease with which he played. Fingers light, easy, dancing across the keys, something that'd take me solid concentration and effort, so smooth and simple for him. Hell - he even glanced up at me a few times throughout it, the outline of a melody starting to take shape above those chords.

"Can you tell me about him?"

Oh God. What was I supposed to say to that? My nervousness had already returned after that one small admission itself, and even that was skirting around the subject as much as possible while still putting it out there.

"Well... I think..." Hell. This was tough. My mind went blank yet again, and for a moment I just floundered there, not quite able to form another word. "H-he... um..."

"Species?"

No, that was too obvious... but maybe I could... "Uh - he's a... a cat..."

Tony nodded, face unreadable for a moment. Now it seemed like he avoided looking at me, instead focusing on the keys and swaying back and forth, back and forth with his fingers travelling up and down the board. The end of his tail flicked against my ankle at one point, and made me jump.

"That is good. Do you have any classes with him?"

"I do."

"You do... have you met him outside of class?"

Okay. Now I knew I was walking my way into a trap, but still... still I didn't feel like that that was necessarily a bad thing. "Yeah."

He launched into a key change after my words, though still maintained the same easy energy, the slow, steady pace, the relaxation. Things weren't so bad. Now the only concern hanging in my head was whether he'd figured it out, whether he knew that it was... that it was him. I mean, I'd be surprised if he hadn't, honestly. I'd pretty much said as much as I could without putting a name to this mysterious person. And as he played, he scooted steadily closer to me, fingers working their way towards the higher keys... 'til I got a faint whiff of his cinnamon-pepper scent, and all of a sudden I leaned back into the warmth emanating from his body, and rested against him just for a fraction of a second before he started back down the scale.

Then the moment was over, and I cleared my throat, sniffed, swallowed, looked around. "So. Uh. You made - you made first orchestra?"

Still playing, he nodded, and then glanced over at me. "Mhmm. I am sorry I did not tell you. I was excited, and told my mother, and then I had to go and practice..."

"You seem like you're doing pretty well. Did that - uh, did that mess up your schedule?"

This time, he shook his head. "Not a lot. I now have chemistry second period, and on Tuesday and Thursday... history first period, orchestra second..."

Moved history classes. That was one of the periods we had together. "Oh. Dang. When'dya find out?"

"Hm?"

"When did they tell you you got into first?"

"Oh! Sunday. Yesterday. So I am sorry if I was a little bit... absent." He shrugged, and then abruptly stopped playing. His last few notes floated in the air, icicles hanging from the edge of a roof, and then faded away. "You can probably imagine that Mamá wanted to celebrate."

"Oh, yeah, I bet. Oh, that reminds me - you wanna get together again this weekend to work on the project more?"

"Yes!" The cheetah straightened up, clasped his paws in his lap, and half-turned to me, bright smile on his face. "That would be nice. It is not due for a while, yes?"

"Yeah. I - went and checked, not for like, a month. I remember you asked me before, and I said, like, next week or something, and that... that wasn't right."

"Yes. Relaxing. I have a lot of music I need to prepare for orchestra now... every Wednesday and Friday there is an after-school rehearsal, and then apparently we will sometimes get called in on Saturday..."

"God. I don't think I could do that, between all the homework from my other classes."

He sighed softly and shrugged, dropping his paws back down into his lap. His face had softened considerably compared to the start of our conversation.

"It is not so bad. This year is going good so far, I think."

~ ~ ~

I stayed right there beside him on the piano bench until the end of lunch, after which we both walked to astronomy together and took our seats. Talking to him, admitting those - those things to him... I don't know. It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders, even if I had omitted the central important truth of it. Part of me felt like he knew, and that terrified that part; and then another part of said, well, so what? If he knows, then that's for the better.

Right?

About halfway through the class, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and we were having another period of watching videos and reading, so it wasn't hard to find the time to peer down at it. A second message from Lexi - yeah, I'd forgotten to check out the one she'd sent earlier today. So I tapped my screen, put in my code, flipped open the message...

So. You and Tony...

And that was it for the first one. Then, the second:

Hey Matt. How about you and I meet up for lunch tomorrow? Just the two of us. There's something I'd like to talk with you about.

Ominous. But okay. Tomorrow was Tuesday, which meant that I - and Tony as well - had the option to leave as soon as lunch started, because of our shared free period after... but, I mean, Lexi's a good friend of mine, and if she has something she needs to talk about, then I guess...

"Oh, yeah, I should be free. I'll let you know."

She got back to me within a few minutes, and this time only sent back

:)

Again. Ominous.