come over

{day 1} holding hands

_

It was 9pm and Kyungsoo had been on his laptop --English paper minimized— while he pressed the right keys that would allow his character to conjure the spells he needed to fend off the enemies his team had encountered. He had his headphones on which he used to dictated directions and encouragement; A few curses as well when the enemy seemed to gain in on them.

 Finals were around the corner and even though Kyungsoo should have been working on his project, gaming brought a much-needed distraction.

He was planning to join a new mission the minute he noticed his phone vibrating from a received text.  When he picked it up, he didn’t expect all the missed calls. Each one from the same number.

He quickly excused himself from the mission and unlocked his phone.

The text read:

From Tao (9:05pm)

 r u gaming? i called but got no answer.... they are at it again.

Tao had been trying to reach him for an hour now. He quickly typed out a message feeling guilty after having missed all of the other’s attempts to reach him.

               me (9:07pm)

 im sorry... wanna come over? we can watch a movie

Not even a min after a response came with a single-word answer.

Kyungsoo moved swiftly across the room to open his window.

The tree that stood between their houses had always doubled as a pathway between their rooms and not even a minute later he could see him climbing out of his room.

 He held his hand out and Tao laced their fingers with urgency as he tried to enter the room without being too loud. Kyungsoo knew just by looking into Tao’s eyes that he had been crying and most likely blaming himself for his parents fight. Which is why he didn’t let go of his hand and instead guided the other to sit on his bed. "I’m gonna get us some snacks. You can look through my movies and pick anything you want.”

When Kyungsoo returned with an armful of snacks and he dropped them in the middle of the bed as Tao pressed play on the movie.

The two were now leaning against the headboard, socked feet stretched before them with the laptop and snacks between them. Sometime around the second half of the movie, Tao lifted his hand and let it drop timidly on Kyungsoo’s upe, “thank you”.

Kyungsoo turned to face Tao almost missing the words, “hey no problem,” he reassured the other using the same tone the other had just use and brought their clasped hands up  in the air before dropping them back down, “really anytime okay?”

Just then Tao smiled for the first time that night.