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“I heard the animation is pretty good, except some scenes are really silly because the animation drops incredibly low.” A particular picture of some dude name JJ had a head nearly the size of his body came to mind and made him snort.

Just like when they headed towards the bagel joint, Izzy took Toby’s hand again, after all the risk for the nerd to get lost was still really high.

And he kinda started liking the feel of a hand in his. Maybe it was because of the sad story he heard a few minutes ago. Either way, that hand was in his, and he wanted Toby to know he wasn’t going anywhere.

Except to the skating ring, but Toby was coming with him.

“Then that’s settled! We’ll go there right after! I can call my mom and let her know I want to spend the night again if you want.”

“It this! Excellent for memes.” He really didn’t want to become too invested in Anime. All his time would end up being used to binge shows between work and ignoring homework. And hey, he was trying to be better at school. Going back to Hillsworth wasn’t an option, especially now with the promise with Toby.

Without any more prompting, he quickly send mom a text (and got a response of “YES” and a bunch of heart emojis, which made no sense) then shoved the phone back into his pocket.

“Done and done. Do we gotta go buy a sleeping bag, or are you okay with me sleeping in your bed again?”

“I mean, clearly I wasn’t against it before. You know How I woke you up this morning. I’m very comfortable in bed with you.” This time, this time, he grinned and winked at at Toby, enjoying the teasing.

It was nice and refreshing to be with someone his age. Typically he was with all the little kids of the family, since he was the youngest, oldest kid, so it fell to him to watch all the others.

With Toby... He was on equal footing, and that was perfect for him.

“You sure you don’t want to invite your crush over with us? You could cling to him while you cling to the walls going in circles. Who could say no to you on your birthday?” The Skate rink was coming up fast, and it was just starting to get busy, the perfect time to learn. “It’s the perfect time to smooze up to him and make another ‘friend’. You know.”

"Why would there be two of me?" Weren't they just talking about his crush? It didn't make sense to suddenly make a clone joke. Maybe Toby thought his crush was alot like him. Smart, funny, adventurous, the absolute best at everything. Yeah, he could def see the image of the person forming in his mind, and they did seem pretty darned awesome.

"Don't you try changing the subject, Mr. Yates! You gotta admit though, two me's would be cool. I could pull the whole 'you go do math, and I'll go do english' switcharoo thing. And then DOUBLE the spoiling of you. Huh... Then again, I might get jealous of the other me if you gave him more attention. Best to keep it to only one Izzy."

“I bet. But you’d be happy, huh? More of me to love!” Izzy didn’t even stop when they arrived, pulling Toby right in behind him and heading right to the counter. The person behind it already seemed to know what was up, handing over a pair of skates just Izzy’s size.

“This is my main main Marco here! He’ll hook you up with the perfect size. And don’t you worry about being a fools, Tobes, You got me here with you, don’t you? No need to worry about it all that much, okay? My arms are way strong enough to keep you safe.”

Now that they had their skates, Izzy headed right on forward, tugging Toby along side him as if it was as natural as anything else around them. Which, when he thought about it, didn't make any sense because being in a man-made skating rink wasn't really natural at all.

Oh well.

He found a new bench and pretty much pushed Toby down to sit on it, and then knelt before him.

"So you lace them up nice and tight, okay? Loose laces means broken ankles." Why ask for permission when you could just do the thing you wanted to do, was always one of Izzy's biggest mottos, so he did just that! He popped off one shoe from Toby's foot and with a surprising amount of gentleness, pushed the foot into it, lacing it up nice and neat with a tidy bow at the top.

"See, just like that? Think you can do the other one, or will you need my help with that?"

“Only pretty sure? No, I think I’ll have to take care of you.” Izzy wasn’t sure if he’d ever not be entertained by tending to Toby Iike this.

He loved the blushes he got, and the way his voice changed when the nerves it. And the teasing and how close they were.

There was something strange about it too. Like, yeah, friends were close, but were they this close?

Probably.

And he liked it, so what ever.

The second skate was on, shoes placed to the side neatly, and in the next second he had his on real quick like an expert.

“I’m sure you have good balance, right? Can you stand up or do you need my hand?”

“Sure, sure.” No biggie, it was just natural. And luckily for them it was still pretty empty, being as early as it was. There were one or two people lazily going about the ring, but other than that, it was all their own.

Perfect!

“... The bad thing now is, I don’t know how to explain how to move. You kinda just do it. Find your balance and figure out how to move forward. Or you could just keep holding on and I’ll pull you around, Your choice.”