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"I won't lose to you this time, Kris!"
The bluebird pushed up his glasses as if he were one of those characters in an anime, before tightly gripping his respective controller. The teen in the green sweater simply smiled, amused by how confident Berdly was despite losing the prior 10 games. This was usually how most of their time gaming together went, despite Kris being more casual about it than Berdly was. However, that could also be put down to the fact they were playing Garfield Kart.
He huffed, putting his controller down.
"I suppose you've won, but you won't next time. I'm getting sort of bored of this now, anything else you'd like to play?" He slid a box of games over to Kris, letting them browse through the selection. They spent a few minutes going through the box, while Berdly tapped the ground impatiently with his wings. Eventually, Kris pulled out a game.
"How about this one?"
"Are you sure? I thought maybe you'd want to continue playing something more competitive?"
Kris nodded, and Berdly thought back to his dream from a few days ago. The one with the 'dark world' or whatever it was. He had already admired Kris a bit for reasons he himself did not understand, but seeing them lead a group so seamlessly had made those feelings stronger, even if it was just a dream.
"You seem like the type of person who'd want to be the leader of the team, Kris. Shall we have a game of rock paper scissors to decide?"
Kris shrugged, Berdly taking that as a yes.
Great.
He really was having an unfortunate losing streak today. Not that he minded letting Kris lead that much after the dream, but deep down he was almost dreading the idea of finding out Kris maybe isn't the same as the person they were in that dream. They had seemed different lately, they weren't particularly close but they did hang out sometimes, so he had just shrugged it off as Kris struggling to adjust with Asriel being away at college. But the dream had made him think, what if it meant something, surely it couldn't, right?
"Berdly."
He snapped back to reality, he had spaced out and hadn't realised the game was loaded.
"Sorry, I was just thinking about something! Let's uh. Start playing."
It was clear to Kris that whatever that something is was bothering Berdly. They tried not to pry too much, and just focused on the game. It wouldn't do much good considering Berdly seemed like the type who wouldn't find it easy to open up about things.
"You're the leader Kris, just tell me what to do and I'll go along with it. There's a boss soon, if you don't know what to do I'll try my best to help you out, or we can swap."
They spent what was probably hours playing the game, mostly silent. Neither of them minded the silence. Berdly found it a bit awkward yet comforting, plus it wasn't exactly unusual for them to spend time together like this. Kris stood up and walked over to power off the console.
Berdly cleared his throat.
"I can't remember if I ever properly talked to you about it but, do you remember that day I was at the library with Noelle, and we fell asleep while waiting for you and Susie?"
Kris nodded.
"Well, I had a weird dream, and you were in it… I've been thinking about it a lot and how much it changed how I thought about you as a person."
He sighed, laughing a bit.
"That must sound really silly, doesn't it? It was just a dream after all. It probably didn't mean anything, just forget I brought it up. You should probably head home now, it is getting late after all. I'll walk with you."
He threw on his jacket, walking outside with Kris. It wasn't dark yet fortunately, but it was probably for the best if Kris went home early, especially after Berdly probably making things extremely awkward by bringing up that dream.
"Can you tell me more about it?" Kris suddenly had spoken up, breaking the complete silence as they walked.
"My dream? Well." He smiled a bit, his face turning a slightly reddish tone as he recalled the details of it. "We were in this other world and at one point we ended up fighting. I thought it was really admirable how you led a team so well. I've always admired you a lot, but I never knew you could be that cool." His face turned an even brighter red once he realised he had said that out loud. He had wanted to tell Kris about how he felt, but he hadn't even figured it out himself properly yet, but his reaction told Kris everything they needed to know.
They smiled, trying to hide it. As much as they wanted to tell Berdly that it wasn't a dream, they'd feel almost guilty for it, after all, that wasn't really them, it was more like they were witnessing everything that happened at that time while they were being controlled.
Berdly felt like he was going to explode, after all he had just humiliated himself immediately before coming to the realisation he had a crush on who he just humiliated himself in front of. Would Kris think of him differently now? Would they think he's weird? A million thoughts were running through his head, he considered making up some excuse and just going back home now.
"And do you still think I'm as cool as I was in your dream?"
Berdly jumped slightly, surprised by how suddenly Kris spoke up.
"I mean, sure, you seemed a bit different in the dream, but I guess I do. It was like I saw that same side of you while playing that game, except it didn't feel like you were as different as you were in the dream." He couldn't make eye contact with them, he was too embarrassed and afraid. "I hope you don't think I'm weird for feeling this way about you, I'm sure you've already realised what it is. I mean, you probably realised before I did just now."
They reached out silently, grabbing onto Berdly's hand, or wing rather. They felt the same way, they really did. They also got to see a different side to Berdly when they were in the dark world together, how much he cared for his friends, even if he was a little obnoxious sometimes.
Berdly had no idea how to respond to this, or what to say. What was there to say? Did this mean Kris reciprocated his feelings, or were they just trying to comfort him?
"We should uh...continue walking."
He half expected Kris to let go when they continued walking, but they didn't. Kris was also a bit stuck on what to say, they had initiated this but didn't know how to react since they'd never exactly been in this situation before, or really felt this with anyone. Their face took on a slightly disappointed frown as they realised they were almost basically right outside their house. They let go and looked at Berdly, quickly kissing him without thinking, and pulling away almost immediately after doing so.
"I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Y-yeah."
Kris waved as they entered the house and shut the door, leaving Berdly just standing frozen in place. He felt like he was going to scream once they were out of sight, still trying to process what happened.
"Did that. Did that really just happen?"
On the same day he had realised he had a crush, that same crush kissed him. He couldn't stop smiling as he walked home, both excited and nervous for school tomorrow. One thing was for sure, he was going to tell Noelle about what happened immediately.