Notes

Royce was beyond excited for his new routine to begin. This blond dude asked him if he could help him with exercises. He even thought of Royce as the right person to ask for help. He surely didn't expect it, but he was happy to have a new friend now. He felt better because of his progress. He wasn't over Hayes completely, but he realized how much better off he is without him. His grades don't have to drop over two hours of sleep and constant worry. He felt guilty for thinking these thoughts. He was very happy to help Hayes out. Hayes used to cry and go to him. Royce would gladly take him in his arms and stay silent until Hayes had fallen asleep. Royce wished he could heal Hayes by his touch. He was constantly proud of him, too.

Moments where Hayes told him his voices shut up when Royce was around, were the moments he truly cherished. The days where Hayes slowly broke out of his psychosis and credited Royce for making his life better. It confused him. Him? Royce had managed to do such thing for him. Royce had managed to almost heal a broken boy. Now he was broken, and nobody was going to take care of him. It wasn't about receiving the support. Royce was so mentally drained, but he still wanted to give someone all of the love he suppressed. He missed having someone to make happy, appreciative, smile, etc. At least he was more aware of the bad treatment he got from Hayes, at least when he didn't need the brunet anymore. Royce used to mentally wish Hayes a good night, every night for at least a week. Then, it felt as if he truly woke up from his puppy-like state. Royce wasn't going to fight for him anymore.

Before Royce had the chance to get depressed and confused as to how and why Hayes could be such an asshole, Brendon walked into the gym. Oh, Royce almost forgot why he was waiting forgot why he was here, as he was lost in his train of thoughts. Brendon seemed confused, staring at the equipment wearily.

''Okay, so first off. What do you want to strengthen?'' Royce asked rapidly, determined to be a good leader. It was as if his rainy cloud vanished the moment he had a new distraction.

''Uh, arm muscles.'' Brendon more or less questioned. Royce chuckled at how confused Brendon sounded. Looked like he didn't have a goal. It sounded like Brendon took Royce's question as a quiz. Which it wasn't.

''Biceps or triceps?'' Royce challenged, interested in knowing how much background knowledge Brendon had. Royce started planning out practices Brendon could master today. With the focus being on arm muscles.

''Both,'' Brendon answered shortly, but with a bit more confidence, his look still being confused. He looked a bit tense, too.

''Well, alright. Follow me. I have some practices for you to try out'' Royce snapped into his formal, professional role. He walked toward the hexagon shaped, multiple purpose exercise equipment. On one side, there was a punching bag. On the other side, there were these rings you could clutch onto and strengthen your chest area, etc. Royce began explaining before demonstrating the practices.

''Okay, so you're going to start off by holding onto these rings, take a few steps forward, and lean down slowly. When you're down, you're gonna have to pull yourself back up. You're not allowed to fall back down, though. You have to let yourself down slowly. That's number one'' Royce demonstrated the exercise thrice, before moving onto the punching bag.

Brendon already looked like he was about to panic until Royce calmed the poor guy.

''No, you're not going to hit it. You're going to stand right in front of it, right? You'll have to use your arms to push it away from you. Right leg forward, left leg behind to keep you stable. Don't let the punching bag push you back. Don't use your stomach, only your arms to push it away. That's number two.'' Royce demonstrated twice before moving onto the next side, which was this sideways pole attached to something on both sides. Royce adjusted the pole to lower it a tiny bit.

''Depending on what you feel like strengthening, you're just going to do pushups here. Wide distance between your hands means biceps. A narrow distance strengthens triceps. You can lower the pole for added difficulty, or vice versa if you feel like it's too tough.'' Royce finished explaining and clapped his hands once in excitement.

''Ready?'' Royce questioned, and realized Brendon's whole face and body said 'no'. Yet, he saw Brendon nod and awkwardly trying to repeat the exercises the same way Royce did. Brendon struggled quite a bit, grunting and panting already after two pushups. Royce had to adjust Brendon a few times, as he accidentally used the wrong muscles for the practices.

After two reps, a half hour later, Brendon was starting to give up and called it quits. Royce tried to encourage the poor guy but figured he did well for the first round.

''Let me get your pulse'' Royce asked, but kind of did it anyway. Royce checked for the carotid pulse. The tall brunet placed his two fingers on Brendon's neck, counting every throb-like movement he felt. Royce raised his eyebrows of how much of a quick pulse he was having so far. Brendon looked back at the shirtless guy with a curious looking expression.

''A hundred and fifteen isn't bad,'' Royce revealed, removing his fingers from his neck.

-
The next day, Brendon was sore and tired as hell. He was already planning on ditching Royce to go eat some ice cream or something. To be fair, Royce was truly pushing him. Brendon bought greek yogurt with granola for Royce's sake. He didn't really hate it and enjoyed how much protein there was in there. Meh, maybe he should have taken care of his health a long time ago. Brendon was only planning on doing this until they became friends, friends enough for Royce to speak the bullshit out of his mind. Only then, would he quit and be there as a friend.

Elvy had made fun of Brendon, apparently, he passed by and saw Brendon fail through the windows. Elvy was cruel enough to snapchat the moment Royce readjusted his body posture. Cunt.

Brendon let out a long yawn before just relaxing in bed. He was less frustrated about the Royce situation. He had always been taught to take action in school, how to take a stand and whatnot. It wasn't as if Brendon was doing anything wrong. Royce was a nice guy. He kind of felt bad for thinking of him as the typical fuckboy, unempathetic, jock who got depressed over tripping on a rock. He did a good job on backing Brendon up. How could Royce have looked so content, even when Brendon absolutely sucked at everything in the gymnasium?

Brendon had no plans as to what or how he was going to help Royce. Why did he want to help Royce in the first place? Why did he care? He wasn't supposed to, but something made him do shit for Royce that he hadn't done for himself. Then, you have the stressful part of the whole plan. He couldn't control Royce like a puppy. Their friendship started off with a lie, what the hell was he going to do about that? How was he supposed to bring up Hayes and maybe talk to him about it?

''What the fuck have I gotten myself into'' Brendon groaned to himself and turned to the side to fall asleep once again.