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There are certain things that Sapnap had picked up in the four months that he’s had Karl as his roommate.
Sure, they have been friends for a little longer than that, if Sapnap’s memory serves him right. It’s around a quarter of a year now, when he met the elder in a house party that Dream had set up.
It was a blurry night of quick introductions and having drunk too many shots, a whirlwind of purple sweaters and pretty eyes and friendly touches that Sapnap remembers as being too warm.
He learns Karl’s name the next day. Sapnap also gets to learn that Karl is a fleeting moment that stays.
Being in a friend group as messy as theirs, no one is a stranger to anyone.
Quackity is loud. He’s smart and witty and you can hear that in every point he can hilariously deliver. George is loud. He’s chaotic and careful and careless and caring, on rare moments that he allows himself to be. Dream is loud. He’s quick and confident and you can see that in the way that he carries himself. Karl is loud. Sapnap is loud. But somehow, Karl and Sapnap are on opposite sides of that spectrum.
Karl can be loud and he is soft. Sapnap can be quiet and he is sharp.
They are polarities in a way, yet so similar, that it doesn’t come as a shock to anyone when five months into their friendship and the coincidence that Karl’s roommate is moving out, that Sapnap, who had previously roomed with Dream—who had now moved in with George, accepts the offer to be the elder’s new one.
There are certain things that Sapnap had picked up in the brief time that he’s had Karl as his roommate, but today something seems amiss.
Usually, it’s like this.
In the mornings, on the rare happenstance that Sapnap is up before the boy (which only happens when he either had early morning football practice or he had stayed up all night to finish the essay he had been procrastinating of doing), Karl does this:
Flinch— the first thing Karl would do upon waking up is flinch. From its past asleep state, his whole body would hiccup, like a glitch in the simulation, and then like nothing ever happened, the brunet would not move for the next few moments.
Stretch— after six seconds, because Sapnap would always count, Karl will then stretch. Like a cat awoken from its nap, a quiet groan falling from his lips, with the clock running after no one, slow and with no haste, Karl would stretch starting from his fingertips going above his head, down to his tucked knees uncurling as it chases after his curving toes.
Melt— and then he melts. Back into his bed. Nose buried in his pillow. Brown locks the only thing left for Sapnap to stare at. No, he doesn’t stare. He just notices.
After a few minutes of this, of Sapnap mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, of Sapnap typing in another half-assed paragraph or two to his near-due essay, Karl would not have moved yet. Sapnap would always whisper a hesitant “Karl?”
See, Karl in the day is energetic. He’s bright and a little too jolly and a little too loud. He’s a hurricane Sapnap always had the guilty pleasure of being carried away by. Karl in the morning is serene. He is calm and still and stagnant. He is the ocean and Sapnap is afraid of even throwing a pebble.
Karl though, no matter how quiet Sapnap says his name, would move. He would slowly sit up in his bed, frog-patterned blanket falling from his shoulders, a yawn scrunching up his face as his hands tuck between his thighs. As his shoulders fall back down, he’d blink his eyes open slowly.
And even before the sun, the first thing he would see is Sapnap. Karl will stare at him, and Sapnap who will always be in the daze of the dizzy haze Karl would exude, will stare right back every time. He would give Karl a soft smile, and to that, Karl would nod. Stand. Without a word, he would walk groggily towards their bathroom, leave the door open and situates himself in front of the sink, wash his face and brush his teeth and take off his clothes before nudging the door closed to take a quick shower.
Sapnap’s eyes would remain on the scuffed bathroom door.
Karl is very quiet in the mornings.
After half an hour of a progressively loudening singing, Karl would come out with a thousand-watt grin plastered on his face as he greets Sapnap a cheery “Good morning!”
As he gathers his stuff that he needs for class that day, Karl would ask about how Sapnap’s day went even though Sapnap’s day barely even started because it’s only eight in the morning and the only thing of importance that happens before that is something he doesn’t have the courage to bring up to the other because he doesn’t even know how to name that type of quiet.
Usually, it’s like that.
Today it’s a bit different. A new type of quiet, Sapnap will soon discover.
The front door creaks quietly, old and rusty at its hinges, as two sloshy shoes get taken off and hung upside down by the foyer, an umbrella dripping as it is put in the corner. Sapnap lets out an incomprehensible grumble as he shakes the water out of his hair, the hat he wore for the day proving to be as useless as the umbrella in the unforgiving storm that’s raging outside. His morning classes, and the rest of his classes that day, in fact, were cancelled. But in his barely-awake fear of not being late to class earlier that morning, he had forgone checking his inbox in which an email from their professor announcing the cancellation sits. He only saw it when he's halfway to campus and downright soaked to the bone. Really, it’s his fault.
The glass windows by the foyer shutter violently against its frame as the rain drums on it unrelentlessly, but besides that and its usual noise, their place is quiet. Upon placing his half-wet backpack by the entrance, he walks the hallway and opens the door to their shared bedroom, but alas, Karl isn’t on his bed. Karl isn’t by the sink either, the bathroom open, and barren.
Their living room floor isn’t.
As Sapnap walks further into their dorm, he sees that with the curtains open and clouded sunlight filtering through their balcony doors, in the hearth of their living room, Karl is on the floor, laying flat on his back, eyes open, directly staring into their ceiling fan. It turns gently, the soft whirring sounds not audible even through the muted pouring rain. Karl follows the movement with his eyes.
Sapnap stops by the entrance, confused. “Karl?”
“Hi.” says Karl, unmoving.
“You’re uhh, up early?”
“Uh huh.”
“Okay?” Sapnap tilts his head to the side, clueless as to why his roommate is acting like this. Monotone and one-worded replies. “Why are you on the floor?”
A bird knocks on their balcony door, until it flies away once it understands that it isn’t shelter, and Karl hasn’t said anything still.
Okay, zero- worded replies.
“Don’t you have class?” Sapnap tries again.
Karl hums, still perfectly still. “Cancelled.”
Sapnap nods. At least Karl knew better. “Did you eat breakfast?”
“Bagel.” Karl murmurs, and Sapnap nods again, seeing the half-eaten bagel on their dining table. With wet socks padding across their floorboards, Sapnap approaches the table and takes a bite without hesitation. The salty tinge of cream-cheese fills his mouth in tiny euphoria, and within a minute, the bagel is finished. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and the rain gets more muted as Sapnap goes to the bathroom to dry his hair and change his clothes.
Even after doing so, Karl is still on the floor.
Sapnap stares. Karl is just looking at the ceiling.
Quietly, Sapnap sits on the floor in front of their couch— a good distance away from Karl, a good distance near him. He’s scrolling through instagram again, but Sapnap’s eyes keep flicking every now and then to his roommate, more times than he ever liked a post. Karl is still looking at the ceiling.
After half an hour, when Sapnap is in the middle of texting George (and telling him how much of a bitch he’s being— for no reason in particular, really, they just love riling each other up), no matter how quiet, Sapnap hears Karl take a deep breath. And then an exhale; a sigh.
Sapnap places his phone down, regardless of the prior interesting conversation he was having. Hesitantly, he asks, “Karl?”
Karl stays quiet for a few more moments, until he asks in a soft voice, “Have you ever heard a whale laugh before?”
It’s the first thing Karl says that isn’t a one-worded answer to a question, so Sapnap nods, and then shakes his head.
“They laugh?” he asks.
Karl nods. “Yeah. Here, I’ll let you hear.” With him still on the floor, he lifts up the phone in his hand, clicks a few things, and after a few seconds, their bluetooth speaker is emanating the sound of a whale, well, laughing .
Sapnap listens to it. Karl is a marine biology major. He probably likes and appreciates and knows more about it than Sapnap will ever do, but still, he pays attention.
After twenty seconds or so, Karl stops the audio and says without prompt, “have you ever heard a whale cry before?”
Before Sapnap can even give a word of approval, Karl plays another audio. Or Sapnap assumes so. But in all honesty, he can’t really tell. It sounds the same.
He voices it out.
Karl nods. “It does, doesn’t it?”
Sapnap doesn’t say anything. He lets Karl ruminate, because he knows Karl is thinking, unclogging the cogs, unraveling the strings. Sapnap lets him.
After a while, Karl speaks, voice barely a whisper, “There’s something horrifying how a whale's laugh of joy and cry of distress are the same right? Like, how will we know?”
His voice lilts at the end, high enough to be posed as a question, but flat enough to know it’s not requiring an answer. Sapnap stares at the boy, unsure.
In the four months that he’s lived in this house, there are certain things that Sapnap had noticed.
Their window frames are old. It has worn purple paint, wood brittle but it still holds, and sometimes one of the locks won’t work and would unlatch so Sapnap will wake up cold in the middle of the night to close it again. Karl never wakes up when those happen. Maybe he’s a deep sleeper. Maybe he knows Sapnap will close it.
The floorboards creak. The first time Sapnap had moved in, there was one plank with a loose screw, located by the foyer. Four months in, Sapnap counts seven. Two by the living room, one to the balcony, two in their bedroom, and another one by the front door. The heater situated under their living room floor whirs into life sometimes, and the gentle hum it makes on rare days when it’s too cold to bear brings Sapnap gentle company.
There is this circle dent by the bathroom door, and up to this day, they don’t know what caused it. Karl wasn’t the first to ever board this house, it’s been through generations of alumni, one of the closest to campus, so it is never not lived in. The house holds history, and Karl, and Sapnap are only a few among countless others. On empty days, they would sit by their couch and would theorize what caused it. Is it a big coin? A bottle pressed too hard? A carving? Some sort of pole hitting it? Each time they do it, the more creative they get.
“Karl, are you okay?” he ends up asking.
Karl’s answer comes instantaneously. “No.” It’s a quiet answer, but so firm Sapnap feels it shake the floor below his feet.
There are certain things that Sapnap had noticed upon living in this house, and Karl’s answer is proof that there are certain things he still has failed to notice.
No, he isn’t okay. Karl isn’t okay.
Sapnap doesn’t ask why, instead he stretches his crossed feet forward, the soles of it meeting the side of Karl’s thighs. He nudges it lightly.
Karl looks at him and smiles for the first time that day.
—and then, he says, “I think I’m sad, Sapnap,” he sighs, the gentle smile smoothening the edges of his eyes, which turn back to the ceiling after staring directly at Sapnap’s eyes. “I shouldn’t be.”
Sapnap’s heart constricts quietly. With a pinched voice, he whispers loud enough, sincere enough, firm enough, “You can be. You’re allowed to be.”
Karl laughs, empty. “It just doesn’t feel right, you know? I feel like I have to be happy all the time.”
“No one is happy all the time.”
“I am.”
Sapnap hugs his knees to his chest. “You’re not.”
Lightning flashes briefly across the sky, bathing their living room into sudden light, and then sudden darkness, before the gray and blue settles back. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and for a split second, Sapnap hears the gentle whirring of the ceiling fan. It turns constantly and Sapnap can watch it for hours.
Karl is staring at it, too.
When the trickle of the rain sounds like it’s reached a quiet symphony with the wind, Sapnap speaks up. “I’ll be here, Karl. You know I’m here for you.”
Karl reaches a hand up, an eye closing as he angles his hands towards the fan, like he’s trying to see it in a new perspective. Maybe he is. The hand falls back to his side after a few minutes. His head then follows suit. He’s looking at Sapnap again. Sapnap meets his eyes.
“Genuinely, Sap, what does that mean?”
“Hmm?” Sapnap cocks his head to the side, urging Karl to continue. He does.
“What does ‘I’m here for you’ mean? Like, I’m not mad, or sarcastic, or anything. Just really curious. Because I never know what people mean when they say that. I mean I appreciate it, but, like. What? You’re here. Okay. Are you? Do people being here take away the sadness? I can’t really explain it that well but I’m also just confused. I never really knew what it meant, you know ?”
He doesn’t. Sanap doesn’t know. If anything, words aren’t as easy for him. Emotions; harder. But he has a presence, he’s here, and Karl hadn’t pushed him away. That has got to account for something.
“Sometimes.” He says, after a few beats, words level. “Sometimes they help. Sometimes they don’t.” He adds, picking at the material of his sweatpants, unable to look up for reasons he can’t name.
“What then?” asks Karl.
“What do you mean?”
“If it’s not sure that it can help, why do people still say it?”
The floorboard is smooth as Sapnap uncurls his feet once again, eyes going back to the ceiling fan. It spins, still. He lowers his upper body to the floor, so he can look at it easier. They’re both parallel to the floor and the ceiling now. Sapnap turns to his side, facing Karl. Karl is still flat on his back. His hand is outstretched between them. Sapnap wants to reach out.
“It’s an offer.” He says instead. “You can take it. You can not. But the fact that you know it’s there, right?”
“—Like you know those youtube videos where they place a cookie in front of a child and it’s a test if they’d eat it or not. The children wouldn’t have something to ponder about if the offer of a choice to take it or not wasn’t there.”
Karl nods, following.
Sapnap nods back.
“In that way, you aren’t required to tell me. But still, I would want to let you know that if you ever do need it, I will be here . When I say that I will be here, I mean that it can be just here. Like this. On the floor.” Sapnap lays flat on his back, staring at the rain pitter pattering down their balcony doors.
“—You can talk to me about whales, and sadness, and everything in between. I can talk. Or you can tell me to just listen, and I will. I’ll probably offer you shit advice, or just none at all because sometimes I just like to listen, but I’m here. I don’t know how else to explain it, Karl. I’m not very good with words, you know that.”
Karl sighs, Sapnap hears it. The boy turns to him.
“You’re very good with me, though.” The smile Karl gives now is pure. No tinge of sadness from earlier, and Sapnap doesn’t know why it makes his heart ache for all the best possible reasons.
“What?” he asks, dumbly.
“I think you know me, Sap. You see it. You see me.”
“I see you?”
Karl nods.
“And it’s scary, to be honest. We’ve been roommates for what? Three months? Four? And I already trust you this much. You’ve become so important to me that I…” Karl trails off. He takes in a deep breath, biting his bottom lip as his eyebrows furrow. He’s thinking again.
Sapnap would wait, he will, but maybe this doesn’t need waiting. He sighs and decides to just let go of his inhibitions. He reaches out. His pinky finger now rests at the hook of Karl’s pinky.
“Are you scared of me, Karl?”
Karl clenches his hand once, squeezing Sapnap’s finger in the process.
He asks, voice soft, “Should I be?”
“Yes.” Because I think I want.
“I’m not scared of you.”
I think I want you, Karl.
A lone car roars somewhere down the street, and its lights caress their apartment in a quick flash of yellow before it fades into oblivion. It’s like something has shifted. Aligned.
Into place.
The silence stretches, and Sapnap was close to falling into a nap, when Karl speaks again.
“What if I’m unlovable?”
Sapnap sits up so fast he almost gets whiplash. Karl has his eyes closed. But there was a small fleeting upturn that played in his lips as Sapnap quickly rose up, like he knew what Sapnap did, and it leaves a tiny flutter in Sapnap’s stomach.
“What?” he asks, incredulous.
“People see me as someone cheery, a pillar of hope they say, and they can feel drawn to that. But what if I open myself to people but then they would shy away because I’m—” Karl sighs, “I feel like I have such a sad soul, Sapnap. What if they don’t like that and they leave me?”
His voice is small but Sapnap feels them too big, too suffocating.
His eyebrows furrow. These words…
They sound like they’ve been spoken before. They sound like Karl isn’t the one who originally thought of them, but he’s been told of it, and it stuck, and Sapnap is sad because how can Karl believe in such a thing?
The words are suffocating, and it’s making Sapnap choke for air, struggling to breath. He aches for Karl, aches with Karl. They’re words that Karl shouldn’t have heard in the first place.
“Then you don’t deserve that,” Sapnap starts, voice firm, words piercing, heart truthing.
“You deserve someone who values you, Karl. You’re such a wonderful person, and the most passionate and hardworking person I know. You’ve done so much for so many people, you’ve done so much for yourself, and everything you do just amazes me and inspires me to become better. You matter so much. Never forget that.”
“Sapnap.” A breath, barely a whisper.
Sapnap didn’t know he closed his eyes amidst saying that, so once he opens them again, the first thing he sees, even before the sun, is Karl’s eyes staring directly onto him.
Sapnap would shy away, like he normally would. He would brush it away, like he normally would. He would push him away, like he normally would. But he doesn’t. Because regardless of everything, Karl needs to know. Karl needs to know how much he is loved.
So with a hand supporting his upper body, he inches closer, holds Karl’s hand and holds it in place aligned with his chest.
Karl’s hands are shaking so Sapnap holds it tighter. Karl, who is laying flat on his back, in the middle of their living room, his unwashed chocolate hair a gentle halo around his head, the quiet lightning illuminating the shadows of his face, his short unshaved beard framing his face, his nose littered with blackheads and open pores and sunspots and stars, lips chapped and dry and true. His eyes hold everything unknown that Sapnap would only wish he could begin to understand. Karl is beautiful.
—And Karl is here, with Sapnap.
“You are loved, Karl,” he starts, voice merely a whisper, but it’s a whisper from the heart, and sometimes those words you can hear beyond the rain, “—so much, I wish you could take my heart and wear it for a split second. In that way, maybe you would never doubt again.”
“ Oh. ” Karl breathes out as quiet understanding dawns in his face.
The rain pitter patters on their window, the floorboards hum, and the ceiling fan whirring enhances the silence. Something softly clicks into place.
There will be certain things that Sapnap will learn in the future that he and Karl would be something more, but today it is this.
When Sapnap shifts and reaches to hold Karl by his cheeks, Karl does this:
Flinch— the first thing Karl did was flinch. From his lax state, his whole body would hiccup, like a deep intake of breath, anticipation, and then like nothing ever happened, he would stay still, eyes on Sapnap.
Stretch— after a few moments, Sapnap would lean down. He is nervous, and hesitant, but Karl would let go of his hands in order for him to stretch his arms around Sapnap’s head, circle it around his neck, and pull him close. Sapnap would kiss him.
Melt— and then they melt. To each other. Lips; perfect fits. Brown locks to a deeper chocolate, the only thing Sapnap will see is his eyes. He stares. In Karl’s stormy eyes, there is a tiny golden cloud that he never noticed before.
After a few heartbeats, of them being in each other’s warmth, of things finally slotting into alignment, of hands finally slotting together, they would not have moved yet. Sapnap, from then on, would always whisper a resolute, “Karl.”
Karl will smile at him right back.