this summer I'm gonna get us a motorbike {Tulio}

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Why did Miguel keep saying that? Why did he keep insisting that Tulio had lo... had lov... had had really strong feelings that were more than like and the opposite of hate for Chel? Where did he ever get that idea?

“I did not lo... la, la, la, I am not hearing this,” Tulio maturely replied. He didn’t go so far as to cover his ears, at least. Thankfully Miguel had decided to accept the closest thing to an apology as he was going to get. Now, Tulio could have argued that his acceptance didn’t really accept any blame, but it was the closest thing he was going to get to a promise at this point as well, so he let Miguel pull him back to his feet.

For a moment he just stood there awkwardly in front of him. Now that all the anger and weirdness was out of the way, he had to admit, if only to himself, that it was good to see his best friend again. He had definitely missed Miguel and had been bored and lost without him. Maybe he should offer a hug so that everything was perfectly cool again?

“Now go get my shoe,” he said instead, pointing in the general direction he assumed it had flown in.

[miguel]

"Don't get in a tizzy over it, I only know what I saw, and what I saw looked like love. Of course, what I saw also looked like a note I left you, so at this point, I really believe we should agree to disagree, don't you?"

Miguel said all of this while he turned in the other direction to peer after the shoe Tulio understandably wanted returned to him.

"I...I'm not sure where it's gone. Please don't be angry," he said, a bit timidly. Now that he'd worked his way out of the first awkward situation, he was rather reluctant to get himself into another one right away without having time to recover his wits and....whatever else it took to be in an argument with Tulio.

"Perhaps we should find it together!" he suggested brightly, without thinking about the fact that this plan would require Tulio to hobble around on one shoeless foot. "An adventure! Miguel and Tulio and the Lost Shoe!"

[Deleted]

“Fine. You believe whatever you want to believe and I’ll stick to what I know,” Tulio replied. These were his feelings, so surely if anyone knew what they were it was him, right? Not that he was really sure what the hell he was feeling or thinking about anything anymore, but Miguel didn’t know that because he hadn’t been here, so for all he knew everything was just hunky dory.

Either way, dropping the subject would probably be best for both of them right now. Besides, they had the more important task of locating his shoe to attend to.

“That is the lamest sounding adventure I’ve ever heard,” Tulio said, but he clapped his hand on Miguel’s shoulder anyway. Okay, so it was more so he could balance himself while keeping his sock foot off the ground, never mind the fact that he had just been lying face down in the dirt moments ago, rather than out of any friendly gesture, but it was a start. And he wasn’t scowling so much anymore.

Overall, it was a satisfactory reconciliation.