Gates to Orange

8:00am. Monday morning.

The room was still dark when Aeron woke up, not proper dark. The grey kind that sits under the curtains before sunrise, thin and tired and already ugly with dust. His room looked like it had been assembled by someone who hated children and colour equally. A bed he kept sinking into wrong, a narrow wardrobe with one door that didn’t shut properly, a desk that was really just a flat surface pretending to have a purpose, a suitcase in the corner, still half-packed because he never fully unpacked anymore. It felt pointless.

He lay curled on his side, knees drawn up tight, one arm tucked under his pillow. His back ached from the mattress and his neck hurt from the way he’d twisted himself trying to get comfortable. He had barely slept. He had spent a long time staring at the ceiling instead.

I’m having insomnia again. When I close my eyes, my brain starts replaying old scenes, like a broken VHS tape. Mom in the kitchen. My sister back in Russia at the door. Minh. Blood on the sleeve of my school uniform. Someone else’s hands. Someone else’s screams.

He kept his eyes open now, because there was no point pretending sleep had helped.

Another new school. I should be feeling something stronger, I guess. Fear. Nervousness. Something normal. But inside, there’s only this cottony silence, like someone wrapped my brain in a wet towel. Dad told me not to act like a freak this time.

He sat up slowly, joints stiff, and reached for the school uniform draped over the back of the chair. The shirt was too clean in a way that made it look cruel, the blazer was stiff at the shoulders, the trousers a little too short, the whole thing hanging off him like it had been designed for someone less awkward and less tired.

He dressed without bothering to hurry.

In the mirror above the little sink, he looked at himself once and immediately regretted it.

Ugh. What a trash uniform. I look like a rusty statue somebody dragged out of a river.

His hair was a mess of ivory curls and waves, flattened on one side from sleep and sticking up on the other. The uniform sat wrong on his frame, the collar sharp against his neck, the sleeves just a little too long. He tugged at the hem, then at the tie, then at the blazer again, as if forcing it into place might make him less visible.

Orange still seemed like the most boring place he and his dad had lived. Even Darwin had been more alive. The air there had been heavy and sticky, and people talked too fast, but at least it felt like the world was breathing. Here, everything seemed faded in the sun. Dry roads. Old houses. People with identical faces in the supermarket.

He went to the sink, splashed cold water over his face, and did not look at himself properly while he did it.

I wonder where we’ll move next. Maybe Perth next. Or some other dump with dusty streets.

His suitcase sat by the door, still half-open. He stared at it for a second too long.

Everything is temporary. Even me.

He took his school bag, almost empty except for a notebook, a pencil case and his timetable, and walked out before he could think too hard about breakfast. He checked the kitchen on the way out.

Empty.

Thank god.

He made his way to the bus stop: a 15-minute bloody walk.

That was when he noticed the boy waiting a few metres away.

Aeron stood a little apart, hands in his pockets, eyes down. He watched shoes, not faces.

Dusty green hair. Glasses. A loose posture that still somehow looked deliberate, like he took up space without trying to dominate it. He was listening to music.

Aeron looked once and then immediately looked away again. Then, despite himself, he looked back.

He’s pretty.

The thought arrived uninvited and unpleasantly warm. Aeron’s mouth tightened.

Stupid.

He looked away and fixed his attention on a crack in the pavement until the bus finally came.

The ride was loud. Not as loud as the stop, somehow worse because everyone was trapped inside the moving metal tube with their own voices and music and elbows. Aeron sat near the window and watched the dry town slide past, all pale fences and tired trees.

By the time homeroom started, he was already five minutes late.

He opened the classroom door and stepped inside with the strange sensation that the whole room had already decided it knew what kind of person he was. The desks were mostly full. He scanned the room, wanting somewhere empty, somewhere invisible, somewhere not too close to anyone.

There was one space at a table near the middle. It was beside the green-haired boy from the bus.

Of course it was.

Aeron walked over, dropped into the chair, and kept his face blank. The boy looked up immediately and smiled, like he had been expecting this exact sequence of events.

“Hey,” he said, and lifted a hand in a small wave.

Aeron gave him a quick, automatic half-smile before looking away.

Ray, his mind supplied, from the shape of the name floating up in his memory later.

The boy leaned slightly toward him. “You okay?”

Aeron glanced at him briefly. “Mhm.”

“I haven’t seen you before. Are you new?”

Aeron nodded.

“Right.” The boy’s grin was easy, almost annoyingly so. “I’m Raymond. Or Ray.”

“Aeron.”

“Nice to meet you, Aeron.” A beat. “So, where are you from?”

Aeron exhaled through his nose and looked down at the desk. Oh my gosh can this dude just leave me alone.

“Originally or...” Aeron prompted.

“Sure,” Ray muttered. “Originally.”

“Russia.”

Ray’s eyebrows lifted. “Ah, so that’s what your accent is.”

Aeron gave the tiniest nod.

“Can you speak any?”

“A little.”

Ray’s face lit up in a way that made Aeron immediately suspicious. “Say something in Russian.”

Aeron glanced at him, already annoyed.

“Awh, come onnn. Don’t be shy.”

Aeron hesitated, then sighed. “Zdravstvuyte, kak pozhivayete?”

Ray stared at him in delighted awe. “You’re so fluent. What does that mean?”

“Hello, how are you?”

Ray leaned back in his chair like he had just won something. “I’m great. How about you?” He gave an exaggerated nod. “Over here, we say ‘G’day mate!’” He grinned at himself like he knew he was being ridiculous.

Aeron surprised himself by letting out a short laugh. Barely a sound, but real.

Ray caught it instantly and looked far too pleased with himself.

“So,” Aeron said, before he could stop himself, “where are you from? No offence, but you don’t look Australian.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Ray said it lightly. “I’m Japanese, but I was born here and adopted by Australians.”

“Oh.” Aeron looked at him properly for the first time. “I see.”

Then the class started in earnest, and the teacher began roll call and announcements. Aeron tried to disappear into the desk. Ray did not assist in this effort at all.

“That teacher has the worst tie I’ve ever seen,” Ray muttered once, under his breath.

Aeron kept his eyes forward.

Ray nudged him slightly with his elbow. “That was a joke. You can laugh.”

“I know.” He didn't laugh.

When the teacher asked for introductions, Aeron gave the bare minimum. Name. New here. Finished. Ray, of course, said too much. He talked with his hands, filled the room with his voice, made the whole thing look easy in a way Aeron didn’t trust yet.

After class, while people stood and gathered things and chairs screeched back across the floor, Ray turned to him again.

“Do you need help finding your class?”

Aeron shook his head. “I think I’m okay.”

Ray reached out and took the timetable from his hand anyway. “Can I see what you’ve got?”

Aeron stared at him, too tired to properly object.

Ray scanned the paper. “Ooo, Russian and then Biology. Ms. Patel? We’ve got biology together.”

Aeron’s eyes narrowed. “We’re going to be late.”

Ray blinked, then looked up with a grin. “Oh, right. Okay, yes, see you.”

And with that, he was gone, already waving over his shoulder at somebody else, already talking again before he had even reached the door.

Aeron let out a heavy sigh.

He’s annoying. Not because he’s mean or stupid. Quite the opposite. He’s too warm. People like that always remind me of someone I’ve already lost.

The rest of the day he stayed in the edges of everything.

In the corridor, he kept to the wall. In class, he wrote only when asked. At lunch, he stood near a noticeboard and pretended to read a poster about upcoming sports trials, despite not caring about sports at all. His stomach had started to ache by then, but he ignored it. Eating in front of people still felt exposing.

Ray’s friend group was already gathered outside near the tables, loud and easy and messy in the way groups of teenagers always were. Aeron didn’t look at them for long. He didn’t need to. He could hear them. Laughter. Back-and-forth teasing. Someone telling someone else to shut up in a tone that meant the opposite. All of them sounded like they belonged to the place more than he did.

Ray kept glancing over.

Aeron tried not to notice. He tried very hard. He pretended to study the noticeboard like it contained the secrets of the universe and not a flyer for a lost-and-found fundraiser.

Eventually Ray stood up.

One of his friends noticed immediately.

“Go get your man,” Yasmin said, sipping from a can like she was commenting on the weather.

Ray nearly choked. “He’s not my man.”

Lydia, sitting beside her, elbowed her sharply. “Leave him alone.”

“I’m encouraging friendship.”

“You’re being annoying.”

“Same thing,” Yasmin said, grinning.

Deaton, who had been watching for a while in the way people do when they are pretending not to watch, asked, “Who even is that guy?”

Ray glanced back at Aeron, then at his friends, then made a decision that seemed to happen entirely against his will.

“I’ll be back in a sec.”

Aeron was still standing there alone when Ray came up beside him.

“Hey,” he said again, gentle but not subtle. “You good?”

Aeron blinked, like he had been dragged up from somewhere much farther away. “What? Oh. Yeah. I’m good.”

Ray looked at him sideways. “Being lonely at school sucks.”

Aeron made a noncommittal sound.

Ray nodded toward his group. “Wanna come hang out? I promise they’re not scary.”

Aeron looked at him, then past him, then down at the floor.

“I think I’ll pass.”

Ray did not seem to hear the refusal in the way it was intended. He just sat down beside him on the bench.

Aeron stared at him.

Ray started talking immediately about something absurd involving his rabbit and a vet and an attempt at being helpful that had apparently gone very wrong. His voice was bright, his hands moving in quick little gestures, his expression alive with the story of it.

Aeron listened despite himself.

Then, against his better judgment, almost laughed.

He hated that.

It was so easy to be pulled in by him. Ray had sat down like he belonged there. And, for the first time all day, Aeron wasn’t entirely thinking about how much he wanted to vanish. He was mostly thinking about the fact that this boy would not stop talking, would not take the hint, and was somehow already making the air around him feel less sharp. And that, more than anything else, irritated him.

Deaton starts talking about some game update Lydia only half responds to. Yasmin lingers by the wall. Iluka drops down beside her on the concrete ledge.

IluKa: “You look bored.”

Yasmin: Not looking up,“I am.”

Iluka: “Lydia not entertaining enough for you today?”

Yasmin: Snorts,“They’re in one of their weird quiet moods.”

Iluka: Hums like he already knew that.“They’re always in one of those.”

Yasmin: shrugs, but it hits harder than she wants it to.“It’s whatever.”

Iluka: Glances sideways at her.“Sure.”

When Ray goes back to his friends, one of them asks

Lydia: “Who is that?”

Ray: “Aeron.”

Lydia: “And?”

Ray: “And he’s new.”

That’s all he says, but his face says more.

Deaton:“It’s weird... why would he transfer here in year 11?”

Iluka:“Because he just moved here, dummy. Use context clues”

Deaton:“Yeah, whatever... Aeron better not be stealing Ray.”

Yasmin:Amused,“You say that like Ray’s your wife.”

Deaton:“Shut up.”

Yasmin reaches for Deaton’s chips without asking.

Iluka wordlessly slides his own packet toward her instead.

Yasmin:“You’re an angel.”

Iluka:“I know.”

Lydia notices the exchange, but only in the vague way you notice things that don’t seem important yet.