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Sonny had woken up bright and early that day. He looked disheveled. With his hair going in almost every direction and face filled with red handprints he got from accidentally sleeping on his hands. He quickly got out of bed and started getting ready. He had plans he needed to get to.
Him and Pete had known each other for roughly 6 years and have been an inseparable (and chaotic) duo since day one. Almost everyone in the barrio knew they came as a package deal. If one was missing, people would automatically go to the other.
Pete would always paint little paintings for Sonny on his birthdays, and Sonny kept every single one of those paintings, whether it was digitally in his phone gallery or physically in his drawer. Sonny was determined to repay him with something grand for his 19th birthday.
He was going to paint a wall mural for Pete's birthday. He had been planning this for an entire month, looking up graffiti and mural painting tutorials on YouTube, using his allowance money he got from working at the bodega on supplies and sketching out the idea in his head on random pieces of paper during his breaks. The idea he had was simple, he was going to paint a portrait mural on top of a purple backdrop and write his birthday and name next to it. Pete was gonna be in awe for sure!
He packed his backpack with everything he needed, cans, paints, brushes, sketches, water, headphones, keys and other trinkets he would carry in his bag 24/7 and went out the door without waking Usnavi. (it was Usnavi's turn to open up the bodega today, so he had plenty of time to paint before he needed to get back. He had planned out his escape perfectly.)
The sun was just starting to peek through, coloring the sky in all sorts of colors. It looked like something he would see in those Bob Ross DVDs Abuela would make him watch. He had already picked the destination of his mural, the wall of what once was Rosario’s Car Service. The Rosario’s are cool, surely they won’t mind a portrait of Pete on the side of their old shop. (Atleast, that’s what he hoped.)
He got all his supplies ready, put on his trustworthy headphones and began spraying the wall. He could understand why Pete liked doing this so much, he felt badass! But also, in a way, it was therapeutic. Watching the paint spray out of the bottle knowing whatever it’ll create was purely up to the direction of his hands. And with his favorite songs blasting through his ears? He could do this for hours.
That was, until it started going downhill. He quickly realized painting on a wall with wet paint and brushes and cans was almost a hundred times harder than pencil and paper. The color he picked for Pete's skintone almost immediately merged in with the purple backdrop, making him look like those evil purple minions. Not to mention the paint dripping all over his shoes and hands. Oh shit. He's fucking it up. He's ruining the perfectly clean wall. But hey, he shouldn't ruin his mood. He can fix this for sure! He rummaged through his backpack and thankfully found some wet wipes and started trying to wipe the mural so he could start over. After wiping for around 20 minutes, he realized he was ruining it more and more. He took off his headphones and placed them back in his backpack, this time trying to clean up the wall with more focus than before, but it was no use. Maybe he can repaint the wall back to its original color? Yeah, that should certainly work–
“Sonny? What are you doing, man?” the vandal said while chuckling slightly.
Sonny jumped and turned around at the sound of his name being uttered. The person in front of him was no other than Pete. The older teen with the shaved head looked like he was trying to hold in a laughter, with his arms crossed and his lips parted in a sarcastic grin. His backpack, not even zipped closed, was hanging from his shoulders, with his Bluetooth speaker hanging from the side of the bag. The newly risen sun was hitting him right on his face, which Sonny thought made him look cute.
“Oh! Uh– nothing serious! Just, uhh–” he looked back at his completely ruined attempt at a mural, trying to think of an excuse to give him, and gave out a sigh of defeat.
Pete walked over to the wall, “Man, what were you even attempting? Like, modern art or something?” he said, chuckling once more.
“I– like–”, another sigh of defeat, “Y'know, since it's your 19th birthday I wanted to make you a mural, like how you give me those kickass drawings every year for mine? I researched everything! I don't know what went wrong. I'm sorry, dude. I fucked it up.”
Pete was taken aback by Sonny's confession. He wasn't used to grand gestures like this. His parents weren’t exactly gift givers, and usually the birthday gifts he would get from the barrio were new art supplies or a coupon for a new hairdo at the salon. (If he ever decides to grow it out, that is.) And he was completely okay with that. But he never thought anyone would ever even think of gifting him something like this.
“No, no, don't apologize. Just the thought of something like this is enough, really” the older teen said, trying to comfort the other. “Honestly, just sitting and hanging out with you would be an ideal birthday gift in my book.”
The curly haired boy smiled, “‘Navi might let me go this afternoon.”
“Nice, it’s settled then.”