idk....this takes place at the mall i guess (OPEN)

"I haven't really been outside today, to be honest," Keith replied in a relaxed voice, failing to notice Melissa patting her stomach.

"The weather is absolutely beautiful today, despite the goddamn pollen. I had finally gotten over the bad part of my spring allergies," she responded.

Still feeling somewhat awkward and out of place in the conversation, Keith decided to, as he often did, just walk around the mall until break was over.
Excusing himself from the conversation, Keith rushed away from the others, hoping they hadn't taken his sudden departure offensively.

She looked at Richard and shrugged wondering why the fuck Keith would fucking run away out of the blue.

Getting bored of looking around indoors, Keith decided to take a quick trip outside, despite knowing there wasn't anything to do out there that he couldn't do inside...except for perhaps catching a quick smoke (it was disallowed indoors).

"I'll be back in a bit," whispered Richard to Melissa as he went outside in hopes of finding Keith and stuff considering the situation. He got outside and got out a pack of cigarettes and grabbed one of the cancerous sticks and stuck it in his mouth to lit it up. Noticing Keith, he walked towards him blowing out a puff of smoke in the process after a long drag.

Noticing Richard's sudden approach, Keith couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as he watched the other man smoke. "I thought you had quit?" he questioned, smirking slightly.

Richard looked up and responded, "Well, I'm still working on quitting smoking, but I'm completely sober in terms of drugs like weed, coke, molly, acid, and all the other things excluding meth and heroin because I never did those."

"Oh," Keith took another drag from his cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly before offering Richard a friendly smile, "congratulations, dude. Must've been pretty hard."

"Yeah, it was but I nearly overdosed, so I realized I needed help. I also managed to get into community college, relapsed once, and got a teaching degree since I was quite good in French for someone who was constantly doing drugs in high school," he replied smiling back with a nod as he put his cigarette into the nearby ash tray.

"It's really cool that you were able to like," Keith paused for a moment, taking another drag from his cigarette, "that you were able to get clean and do well and shit, you know?"

"Yeah, it is. My brother is still convinced that I'm still my high school self considering how I dress very unusual in this day and age, but I just feel comfortable dressing a bit more on the feminine side," Richard said to Keith with a nod.

"You're brother's kind of a prick, then" Keith nodded, "you've obviously changed a lot. And I mean that in a good way, too."