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"You're sick." Wilford says one day, plonking right down on the couch next to Bim while he's working on an essay and has a stick of pocky dangling from his mouth half-eaten.
"Eh?" Bim says distractedly, dragging his eyes from the academic article he's skimming to look at his roommate. Wilf must've just come back from his class downtown for broadcasting, dressier than normal in a pastel blue button-up and khakis.
"Seriously, green tea matcha. You couldn't even eat strawberry like a normal person." Wilford continues, picking up the offending box of pocky off the table and shaking it at Bim almost threateningly. "Plus, I saw you eat like three of those chocolate stout muffins. They're my biggest baking regret, and you eat 'em like Dark eats molasses cookies. What the fuck even are you?" Wilford says after tossing the pocky box on the table, throwing his hands up in the air out of disbelief.
"Fuck off, the aftertaste is good. I've seen y'eat everything outta th'bowl from that Pho place, its pure lemon broth. Hell, you eat fuckin' tiramisu, bite me." Bim challenges, setting down the article to bring the box of pocky closer to himself as he frowns at Wilford. It's a pain in the ass finding this kind, and he's not gonna let Wilford potentially bust them.
"Not my fault you don't like pure cocoa powder, nerd. And Bim, you miss so much just eating the noodles! Live a little, man." Wilford says, throwing an arm around Bim's shoulders. Bim elbows him in the side, but Wilford keeps the arm there and doesn't even flinch.
Dick.
"Y'keep making fun of my shit, no more 3 AM donut runs. I mean it," Bim threatens, but it falls a bit flat cause half the time he instigated the runs himself. The hazards of living only a twenty minute walk from a 24 hour donut place, and getting big cravings for cake donuts and lemonade.
(Plus there was something nice about walking together late at night, the light hum of traffic and the faint orange of overhead street lamps. A good way to de-stress, with the promise of warm donuts involved.)
"Then no late night coffee runs. No Italian sodas, or slushy things." Wilford counters, a cunning glint in his eye. The only problem with being friends with one Wilford Warfstache? He always remembered what someone liked and how to dig into them using it. He's gonna be a nightmare if he became an investigative journalist.
"We all eat weird stuff. Stop threatening our hangouts." Derek comments as he walks through the living room to the kitchen, flapping a hand at his roommates on the couch. He could defuse it right then and there, but better to let them work it out themselves when he’s on a mission.
"Fuck you, you ate a tomato like an apple!" Bim yells, tired of both of them being dicks when he really needs to get shit done. He’s already behind writing as it is, and he doesn’t want another near failure with English.
"One time! Y'fuckin bet me twenty bucks, and that was the easiest twenty I ever made!" Derek replies, flipping him off between gathering corn syrup, red food dye, a mixing bowl, and a spoon.
"...Bim, seriously? Twenty bucks for that?" Wilford asks, raising an eyebrow in disbelief as he turns away from watching Derek. It’s just so… underwhelming from what he’d expect them to bet on. Especially considering the bets Bim mentioned making in middle school, which Wilford thought he’d done some strange things but he took the cake.
"Look, it made sense at the time." Bim says, trying to wave it off as if it’s something normal. No big deal, eating a tomato like an apple. People totally did that, nothing weird at all.
"He thought it'd be funny." Derek clarifies as he starts mixing up a batch of fake blood, more so he has some on hand than anything else. It also keeps his hands busy, and he doesn’t have to keep staring at his math work.
"...the fuck did you two get up to when I wasn't around?" Wilford asks, because what the fuck. He's known Derek for the past four years, has best friend superiority with him, and somehow this has never come up. Sweet juicy details, and he knows none of it. Maybe he should’ve taken Derek up on his Friday movie offers sooner first semester, so he could’ve heard this sooner.
"Bonding. S'how we became bros." Derek replies with a straight face, the blandest possible tone he can muster. He always plays straight man to these chuckleheads, helps develop his skills of bullshitting other people.
"Group project. He bet I couldn't eat a bell pepper." Bim replies, because might as well come clean about that incident. Weird-ass shit sometimes goes down when you meet up in the cafeteria, what can he say.
"Fuckin' art student weirdos. You guys worry me sometimes." Wilford says after a moment of silence, struggling to find something to say with those mental images in his head. Eating bell peppers and tomatoes whole? Jesus, even Wilford knew there was a line in the sand somewhere and these two had crossed it merrily.
"Thanks Gummy Bear, we love you too." Bim replies rather flippantly, throwing an arm around Wilford's shoulder in an exaggerated gesture of camaraderie. If he squeezes a little bit to hear Wilford wheeze, that’s just his taste for revenge.
Derek walks up behind the couch to lean over, and wraps his arms around both of their shoulders as he says "Y'fuckers didn't tell me there'd be hugs involved. I demand hugs.”
Wilford manages to squeeze an arm free to get it around Derek’s neck, more or less put him in a headlock as he replies “Get over here then, y’idiot. Hard to hug with the couch involved.”
(They end up going on a donut run about ten minute later, after Bim and Wilford convince Derek to climb over the back of the couch. Lots of idiocy was involved, and there were a few complaints when Derek ends up sprawled across their laps cause “Jesus, Dark, you’re all elbows, son of a fuck.”
“Better to fight with, man.”)