And the Stars up Above - Chapter 19

March 22nd, 1987
Mike

Jason had got his shoes and jacket on before Mike and he walked out the door. Mike tied his left shoe slowly; he did not want to go outside. He hadn’t really thought that much before he rushed off to Jason’s, so he hadn’t taken a jacket with him. He had been running almost the entire way to Jason’s house, so he hadn’t been cold, but going out now would be freezing.

He was finally done tying his shoe and he couldn’t let Jason wait much longer. Mike took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped outside. He immediately regretted it. He wrapped his arms around himself and walked up to Jason, who was looking up at the sky. He stopped behind Jason and stamped his feet impatiently.
“What was it that you wanted to show me?” Mike said, and sounded a lot more annoyed than he had intended to. Jason turned around to answer him but didn’t say anything when he saw what Mike was wearing.
“Don’t you have a jacket?” Jason asked, eying Mike’s t-shirt.
“Yes I do, but it’s at home, so can you please hurry up and show me that thing?” Jason shook his head.
“It’ll take some time. You can borrow one of my old jackets, come on.” He said and walked back inside. Mike sighed; he didn’t want to borrow a jacket, he wanted to go back inside. He followed Jason and watched him looking for something in the closet in the hall, muttering things Mike couldn’t make out what they were. After a minute or two Jason pulled out one of the ugliest jackets Mike had ever seen. Jason held it out towards him, looking very proud of himself for finding it. Mike frowned and eyed the jacket. It was bright orange with a cap in a darker shade of orange, almost red, that did not go along with the rest of the jacket’s colour at all. Mike did not take the jacket from Jason.
“I’m not wearing that.” Mike said, this time Jason frowned.
“Why not?” he asked genuinely surprised. Mike rolled his eyes; wasn’t it obvious?
“Because it’s ugly.” Jason frowned even more and didn’t look all too happy; Mike hoped he hadn’t hurt his feelings. But then Jason studied the jacket himself, turned and twisted it and a smile appeared on his face.
“Yeah it is, isn’t it?” he said as he looked up at Mike. Mike laughed.
“Yup, very.”
“You can take my jacket then, and I’ll take this one.” Jason said and shrugged. “Unless you think this jacket is ugly too?” Jason asked and nodded towards his grey jacket he had thrown to the floor while he was looking for the orange one.
“No, yours is fine!” Mike said and picked it up.
“Good.” Jason said and put on the orange one. Mike tried to stop himself from laughing; Jason looked hilarious. Jason rolled his eyes.
“Come on. And don’t you dare laugh!” That was it, Mike burst out laughing and Jason soon did the same.