running down to the riptide [open]

He shivered through his thin denim jacket as a gust of wind blew past him in the night. "Shit," the word came out low and short. His eyes were on the screen of his phone, the ominous '10:13 PM' looking back at him and lighting up his face with an ironic sort of brightness his near future lacked. He'd been carried away. An unexpected afternoon call from his mother had threw him into a turmoil, and his afternoon run had turned into a race with time.

The dorms were closed, and Henry was not ready to camp outside and have a teacher lecture him for it the next morning. He tucked his phone away in a pocket and cautiously made his way to the back of the building. He walked as quietly as he could, hiding himself behind trees and bushes until he was far away from the main entrance. Looking up, he spotted several windows lined up symmetrically along the brick wall. Some were dark, others still bright with light. Choosing one of the later, he picked up a nearby rock, small enough not to break the glass but large enough to make a sound, and tossed it up to the closed window.

Three rocks later and he was slowly losing hope. Henry jumped when he heard the other boy emerging from the shadows. A thousand excuses run through his mind in the few seconds it took him to realize it was in fact not a teacher, and he would not have to talk his way out of an unwarranted lecture. "Jesus, man, you scared me!" He kept his voice near to a whisper, but the intensity was still evident.

Henry, completely ignoring the other's comment, sized him down with a quick glance. He was still tense from all the running, the voice of his mother ringing ominously at the back of his head, but nevertheless, he was still capable of seizing the situation. He'd seen Daisuke before. It was difficult to miss such distinctive hair color -spoken from personal experience-. The name didn't ring a bell,
however, and so he assumed the boy never got his invitation to the annual end-of-summer-party-in-the-back-of-the-school situation. "Henry," he suddenly flashed a grin, one of the charming ones.

"So," Henry started, as he turned his eyes back up to the lit windows, "you say we're locked outside for the rest of the night?" He turned to Daisuke again. His voice didn't betray any worry of sort, it was merely curiously intrigued. "And you've slept outside before. Here? With no teachers sniffing you out?"

Apparently Daisuke was invisible to teachers. Or he was just very lucky. Either way, he was for sure not human, though Henry could not come up with an explanation for that. "Alien?" he whispered to himself as he looked at the boy dumbfounded and with a slightly gaping mouth. Whatever he was, he was also immensely considerate.

Sleeping on trees, though he'd done it before once, was not a fun experience for Henry. He didn't mind looking like a pampered little kid if it meant he'd have a proper place to sleep. "What the hell, alright," was the only thing he said before he jumped off after Daisuke into the shadows. He was trusting too easily, but the invitation was coming from someone who didn't seem as shady as he might want to seem.

When they were a step away from each other and going, Henry tapped Daisuke cleared his throat and took out his phone. "You're being awfully generous, by the way. Is there some sort of price for that? Because if I'm being completely honest with you, I'm broke 24/7 all year round." He smiled childishly. "Just saying. Unless you want something other than money, which is an easier arrangement." He shrugged.