Chapter Text
Containers lay on the coffee table, mostly empty except for the streaky pasta sauce left over clinging to the surface. Both Oryn and Zef were physically tired, starting to lose focus on the rom-com that was playing on the TV. Oryn remained laid on the couch, except his hand had given up keeping him steady, so his head just rested on the armrest. Zef, however, had his whole head practically pushed up against Oryn’s knee up on the couch, while he himself still sat on the floor, looking rather comfortable.
“Yo, you sure you don’t wanna come up onto the couch? The floor must be hard,” Oryn suggests, but Zef, completely tired, simply shakes his head, and Oryn SWEARS he nuzzles further into his knees.
Little people flash across the television screen as the main couple come into view, sappy music cues, and it's pretty obvious what’s about to happen. It seems the boys realise this too, as they subconsciously tense up. The man and the woman look into each other's eyes. Their gazes shift slowly from the other’s eyes to their lips. They close the distance so slowly and climactically that it’s almost painful to watch. The music starts fading away, leaving both the boys in almost-silence.
Eventually, Oryn diverts his eyes to the wall beside him, when the couple on screen are finally kissing. Zef’s face stays glued to the screen, but his eyes are looking at the floor, impulsively going back to catch glimpses of it happening when he thinks it’s over.
“Wow, they’re really going at it, huh?” Oryn awkwardly laughs, still looking away.
“Yeah…” Zef murmurs, moving his head to look back at Oryn instead. “I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable, I chose the movie. We can turn it off ..?”
“No, no, it’s all good don’t worry. I was just caught off guard,” Oryn huffs out in one breath, finally averting his head to look down at Zef, whose head was fully on Oryn’s knee. Ba-dump. “You don’t need to turn it off, it's good if you chose it.” FUCK WHY DID I SAY THAT??? Just… Turn back and watch the movie and calm the fuck down.
Zef just looked back.
With an inquisitive expression, he studied Oryn’s face.
“Why are you flustered?” Oryn says slowly, eyebrows automatically coming to a furrow and lips turning up in a smirk. “It’s not like you haven’t done something like that before,” he says while turning back to look at the TV. But Oryn doesn’t say anything. And that tells Zef everything.
Zef looks back again, this time quicker and with a bizarre look on his face.
“You’ve never kissed anyone?” no response. “In your whole life?” no response. Zef's shocked smile grows with every question, but eventually sinks into an apologetic frown. “Sorry, Oryn. I just thought you got more game with your… you know, protagonist thing going on, sorry,” Zef says, looking back again.
But Oryn doesn’t say anything. He’s not embarrassed about what just happened anymore. His mind has completely shifted focus to… “Oryn”... He said my name… Ba-dump-... Ba-dump-...
A faint clicking sound is heard in Oryn’s peripheral hearing.
“Oryn??? Hello??? What the hell are you on?” Zef says while snapping his fingers in Oryn’s face, and Oryn quickly notices that he has switched places from just below his knees to just below his lap, still leaning against the couch. “I’ve been calling you for the past minute, man. You good??”
Still out of it, Oryn thinks back to the last thing they were talking about to try and seem like he was listening this whole time. “...K-kiss.”
“What?”
what??
“Oh- Uh! I said, have you kissed anyone before?”
Zef, not all that convinced, thinks for a bit. “Yeah.”
Silence. Oryn consciously closes the mouth he was unaware dropped open in shock. “Oh okay then, mr. player,” Oryn teased Zef. He felt a twinge of jealousy internally, although he was not ready to acknowledge this feeling and instead labelled it shock.
“Hey! I was just joking.. I mean I did kiss someone, but it was when I was like 7 and didn’t know what I was doing, don’t worry,” Zef giggled at the absurdity of Oryn looking almost… Jealous at first??
“Oh. Damn, I guess.”
Silence. They both turn back.
“Do you wanna try it?”
Silence.
“...Kissing, I mean-” and Zef turns to look back at Oryn, who is looking back at him. With an incredulous expression, a hand loosely covering his mouth. And his eyes are wide, looking straight back at Zef. And the funniest thing is, he doesn’t even seem opposed to the idea, almost expectant.
And it isn’t helping how Zef’s head is still resting on Oryn’s thigh, looking at Oryn upside down.
Zef audibly laughs, the tiniest tone of confusedness in his voice. “I didn’t mean that, you need to stop taking me so seriously-” Zef starts, trailing off once he notices Oryn’s face dejectedly drop by a degree, and let out the smallest sigh of disappointment, both things that could’ve gone unnoticed if Zef wasn’t focused solely on Oryn. And now he was also starting to gain awareness of the lingering hand subconsciously playing with the edges of his own hair on Oryn’s lap.
And Oryn is slowly, slowly getting redder by the second.
Zef’s smile flickers on and off, while simultaneously growing more amused at the situation.
He laughed. He kept laughing, but Oryn remained wide-eyed and flushed.
Zef, after laughing for a good minute, nudged Oryn firmly with his reached out elbow. he looks so cute when laughing …
“Are you okay?” he said laughing, between almost-tears, although now slowing to a stop. “I wasn’t being serious, Oryn.”
Oryn.
Oryn.
With his last burst of motivation, derived from the effortless way Zef says his name… he jerked his head up towards Zef, startling him.
“Why not?”
“hm?”
“I said, why not?”
fuck. what???? why did i say that. I can't even look him in the eyes now – what if he hates me now and is crying in disgust?
And he looks up. Zef is looking away, eyebrows furrowed and cheeks threatening to turn a dangerous shade of pink. and Oryn knows he fucked it up.
“Uhh- i mean- i just meant, I was curious,” Oryn pauses, looking away and looking back to find Zef getting up and looking straight at him, as if plotting something, like lighting me on fire and running away…
“Look, man, I'm sorry- it's completely fine if- mmffh-..” Oryn starts, before he is interrupted by a gentle grip on his jawline, and another pair of lips on his, but only for a brief second before Zef withdraws.
The softness that graced Oryn’s lips left as quickly as they were placed, causing him to subconsciously touch the pads of his fingers to his lips, and look up at Zef, with a shocked yet needy expression resemblant of a dog.
Zef, briefly unsettled by Oryn's immediate compliance, leans back in.
“If you make this weird, I'll end you.” Zef spoke in a mockingly-mad and amused tone, eliciting a very quiet “yes..” from Oryn, who was incredibly fixated on Zef’s pursed lips.
Once again, Zef pressed his lips to Oryn's. Oryn's hands subconsciously clung to his cheeks, as if smushing them together, and travelled down his neck to his shoulders, applying pressure so Zef would finally sit down, on his lap. Their lips brushed against each other’s, Zef shuffling his face inwards for better access. He extended his arms, resting his elbows on Oryn's shoulders and deeply nesting his fingers in his coral sea of hair. Oryn's hands awkwardly shifted to the darker-haired one’s waist, drawing out a soft hitch in Zef’s breath.