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What had gone on during the time Alex didn’t attend school? A whole heckin’ lot.
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Disappearing without a warning as he had, of course their classmates had soon realized and began coming up with their own reasons as to why he was gone. Whispers had been exchanged in class when his name came up with every roll call, and sometimes, it would even be mentioned when they were all hanging out during lunch. “Maybe something happened to him.” “Maybe there was an accident.” “Maybe he got expelled.” “Maybe he went back to whatever weird place he came from, ha!” “Maybe he died...”
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”Do you know what happened to him, Vic?” They would ask, because of course they would, being that he was the only person who spoke to Alex in their entire class. And, the few times the question came up, the boy could do no more than shake his head and shrug, because he didn’t know, even if he really hoped his friend was alright...
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Had he told them to stop with the rumours? Of course! They hadn’t listened though. They had just gone on about it until bored of the topic; Alex’s disappearance soon becoming an event that was no longer new or interesting in their eyes. There were always other things going on to talk about, as such were the ways of highschoolers. That is, at least, until Alex returned as suddenly as he had disappeared, and he once again became an interesting topic.
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Everyone had their speculations. Vic though… Vic didn’t care about all that stuff.
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”Is it good to be back?” was actually the first thing that he asked when running into the other boy, a bright smile illuminating his expression. He had thought of approaching him while still in the classroom, but he had a feeling Alex himself would have preferred against that. Give him time to get settled in and all that, no? ”Everyone was wondering about what happened to you!”
[break][break]
He had so much he wanted to ask! So much he wanted to tell him!



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+ Alexei Ivanov

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”Ah, yeah. Kind of silly, right? I doubt anyone actually believed that though,” the pink-haired boy laughed, completely unaware that some of those rumours were much, much closer to reality than what either of them would have liked.
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How could he have known? It was the kind of thing that people didn’t expect would ever happen until it did, and Vic himself was far from being fatalistic enough to even consider for a second that something really bad had happened to Alex. He had believed his friend would come back to school and be just fine, and he had, so that was that!
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Smiling, he sat next to the other boy, reaching into his own backpack in order to retrieve the lunchbox that seemed to be covered by more and more stickers with every passing week. ”What did you do while you were gone? Were you home all that time? That must have been sooooo boring!” Vic went on, chatty as usual, almost as if they hadn’t just spent over a month without seeing each other. Right back to business as usual.
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And just like he would have done any other day, he opened his lunchbox and began eating, unbothered.


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+ Alexei Ivanov

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At the question, Vic could do no more than laugh, almost glad that out of all of the things the other boy could have asked, he chose to question the amount of stickers on the lid of his lunchbox. ”Ha! Yeah… My mum gave my little sister some new ones the other day, and she was putting them everywhere. Cute, right?”
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Just like every time he mentioned his family, there was a smile; Vic then turning his attention to his actual lunch and taking a bite out of a sandwich from which someone had carefully trimmed off the crust. That someone being his mum, obviously.
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”Ooooh! Damn, you got cookies. Lucky!” A grin. Optimist as always, since honestly, someone else would have probably thought Alex’s lunch still looked kind of a bit depressing and extremely unappetizing. He was going to add another comment about how it was great that his classmate's meals had improved, but then Alex began talking about his time away, and this caused Vic to pause…
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Alex had been at the hospital?! Why?!
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”Whaaaat! Are you okay?!” He asked, his reaction far different from the other boy’s almost nonchalant way of bringing it up. But, that was to be expected, right? After all, other than a sprain that came as a result of falling from a tree as a kid, Vic’s visits to the hospital had only ever been the standard and expected ones. To him, it was a huge deal.

[break][break]

+ Alexei Ivanov

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”Uhmm… Just some veggies, apple slices, and a couple of cake pops.” He tilted his lunch box slightly so the other boy could have a look. Carrot and cucumber had been cut into a small pile of orange and green stars, next to it resting some classic bunny-shaped apple slices. The pièce de résistance was the cake pops though; they had been carefully wrapped and arranged so they would stay in one piece by the time Vic had his lunch, and out of all things, they were decorated to look like two little Drifloon.
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”Here, want one?” He asked, picking one up and offering it to his friend, a smile on his face.
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Vic finished his sandwich then, but he could do no more than look at the other boy. What did he mean by that he was used to it? Did things like these happen often? Was that why Alex was so pale and why he didn’t even participate in P.E class? Because he was sick or something?
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Maybe, Vic was actually smarter than what most people thought. Or, maybe, it was just so obvious that, with enough clues, even someone like him could figure it out.
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Still, he just nodded, lavender gaze fixed on Alex. “Sure... What is it?”


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+ Alexei Ivanov (dem cake pops thooo)

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Vic hadn’t expected anything in return when he had given the cake pop to his friend, but when the cookies were offered and Alex insisted upon it, he couldn’t help but grin at him. ”Oh! Sure, that’d be great!” It was the obvious thing to do, right? He would often exchange food like that with the rest of his friends, since a lot of them (mainly girls, but also a few of the boys), would go on about how envious they were of how cute his lunch always was.
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”Hmm…” He took a moment to decide, finally plucking out of Alex’s hands a cookie that was covered in both M&Ms and chocolate chips, then immediately taking a bite. ”Shoooo good!”
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It was hard to fully enjoy it though, because as prone to positivity as Vic may have been, the things Alex was saying were really beginning to worry him. What was actually going on? What had this other person done to make him so wary of talking about his troubles?
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”Alex, we’re friends! If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t.” It was true, because while Vic wasn’t good at keeping his own secrets (likely to overshare as he had always been), when it came to his friends’ it was different.



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+ Alexei Ivanov

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It was kind of funny to him to see Alex hesitating so much to eat the cake pop, but that was probably because Vic himself was so used to his mum’s fondness for making everything look like cute pokémon. Their food, some of the patterns of their clothes, the decor in their house, the hedges in their garden, and heck, sometimes she even made their pokémon wear cute outfits that resembled other pokémon. His own Growlithe had ended up a victim of her antics more than once, and Vic always found it way too fun.
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”Yeah, it’s red velvet! Mum made those since it’s my favourite flavour,” he explained with a smile when the other boy said it reminded him of one of his cookies, Vic then bringing his own cake pop to his mouth and biting it without hesitation.
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And, as he enjoyed what was supposed to be his dessert, he listened to his friend, his brow furrowing ever-so-slightly as he attempted to understand exactly what Alex was saying here. He didn’t have enough blood? How was that possible? Did that really happen to people? Maybe it was just something really, really rare...
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”Ah…” Vic began, but he paused, unsure of exactly what he wanted to respond. ”...Has it always been like that? Does it hurt?” Those were the right questions to ask when someone was sick, right? Though, honestly, what he really wanted to ask was why they couldn’t just put more blood in him and fix all that...
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In his defense, it was a valid question to wonder about.



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+ Alexei Ivanov

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Truth be told, Vic hadn’t thought anything of what the other boy was telling him sounded easy, but he also had no frame of reference when it came to things like those. To him, at worst, being sick meant a couple of days in bed with a fever and feeling too nauseous to eat most things he usually loved, but even then that had only happened a handful of times in the short life of the teenager.
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Was there really something like being sick all your life? Did that mean Alex had never known what it was like to live without having to worry about all that? Thinking about that made Vic sad.
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”But… None of that is your fault, they still shouldn’t be treating you any differently…” He understood why Alex’s parents may have preferred girls if the boys always would get sick, but it still seemed silly to him that they treated Alex so differently because of it. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t asked for any of this. If there was one thing the boy had come to learn about his friend in the time they spent together, that was that he clearly envied the way his sisters lived, and that he wished he weren’t treated so very differently.
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”Mmm… Alex… Are you gonna be okay?”




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+ Alexei Ivanov

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