It had been a while since Jake had first begun attending the rather esteemed Alternia Academy. Not much less time since he had first met his friend Aradia. While talking to the average person hadn't gotten much better since, he could speak to her with a slight bit more ease. At least his conversations stopped denoting himself to to trash all the time by this point. Heck, they even shared books with each other now.
Sitting down in his seat just beside where he awaited her to take her own seat, Jake placed a book that had been hand down on his desk. Thumbing over the pages a few times, he looked over the book with a certain fondness. It wasn't that bad. Indina Josh, a parody of Indiana Jones where every character's gender was switched around and it was written by another author. Admittedly, he had a bunch of sticky notes of his thoughts and ideas on the story for Aradia to read, but now they all just lay at the bottom of his bag.
Fingers drumming on the cover, making quiet sounds, he admired how their relationship grew. No, not romantic as those around him began showing more and more public displays of affection with Valentine's day just around the corner. However, their relationship had grown from him on the floor calling himself trash to them exchanging, and even reading books together. They would make personal notes throughout their books for the other to read. Normally Jake's little green pumpkins could be found filling the book to the extent it would let him with annotations. This time was different however.
This time, instead of countless sticky-notes, there was only one right in the dead center of the book. So what if he didn't have a date in mind in the romantic sense, he could still ask her on a friend date. So that was what the note was for. In his nicest handwriting, Jake was inviting Aradia to the school's dance. Just to see what it was like, that was all, hopefully she wouldn't get the wrong idea.
"Aradia, would you do me the swell pleasure of accompanying me to the celebration this Valentine's day? Perhaps marathon Indiana Jones movies on a rented laptop in the back of the room? -Jake"
Nothing too extravagant or out of the reasonable ballpark. He could definitely see the two of them doing just that, laughing while others danced and making their own fun. She wasn't his girlfriend, no, Aradia is moreover Jake's best friend. If there was anyone out of the typical public that was easier to talk to then it would be her.