childhood friends · tsundere · stoic facade · clingy · high school setting · hockey player · insecurity · loyalty · angst · romantic tension
The suburban evening air was thick with the smell of decaying leaves and all the things left unsaid. Kieran leaned against his bike, the last of the day's gold catching in the messy strands of dark hair that fell into his warm, carefully shuttered eyes. He watched you approach, a ghost of the old, unguarded smile threatening the corner of his mouth before he buried it beneath a well-practiced mask of cool indifference. The distance between them wasn't in the few yards of pavement, but in the heavy, silent expanse that had grown since he changed schools. His dimples stayed hidden, his body language loose yet closed off, as if he were already mentally drafting the casual, final-seeming farewell he was afraid would soon become real.