Work Text:
“It's ridiculous that, in the age of information that we're in today, I can't just email papers to my teachers. It has to be printed, all formally and shit, which really when you think about it is just a waste of paper and time. It doesn't even really matter how my writing turns out, it's not like I'm an English major or anything. I know enough people who are, though, and I swear that I would probably kill someone in one of those classes before I got anything done. Likely with a thesaurus. Sounds like they're talking out of their asses most of the time.”
My roommate glanced up at me, rolled his eyes, and went back down to his paper. I rolled mine back, not to be out-sassed by this douche, and began scanning for a nearby printer. Everything sounded like I'd have to walk outside of the building, and with the weather in the negatives with windchill, my toes began to turn blue at the mere thought. The list scrolled on and on, and then I got to “Bob Marley – Always Jams”. God, that had be another student down here. Who even takes a printer to school with them anyways? No one worth giving the time of day to, that's who.
I was overtaken by instinct and decided to mess with them. I pulled up all of the links to bad, 2007-era memes and the even worse 2-month-old overplayed memes that my father had sent me in the past year, and began to print. I heard a shuffling and some loud swearing from a dude a few rooms over. Jackpot. Every single image stoked the fire, and my cackling grew loud enough that my roommate threw a pillow at me to try and shut me up.
It lasted almost three hours, spaced out every so often as to not actually light the printer on fire, but eventually the commotion stopped and I got bored. It was too dark out to walk across campus at that point anyway, and the library was closed, so I just made sure to set my alarm half an hour earlier so that I could grab it on my jog to class. Whatever. Hashtag-college-life.
My antics were minimal for the next couple of days, but it was too quiet in the dorms on Friday night. Everyone I knew was out clubbing and seducing, but I had yet another paper to finish. Who the hell even gives music majors papers to write? Heathens, that’s who. I was probably halfway through the paper when I got bored and my grammar fell apart, so I decided to take a break. The little green check mark next to my new, dearest, darling-est buddy’s printer was all too enticing, so I typed out a message and printed it.
“Did you miss me?”
The rip-your-hair-out bellows of annoyance were worth having to duck under my bed and pretend that I wasn’t there when he came knocking on every door to try and find the culprit.
The rest of the year went by fairly uneventfully, with only a few pages printed to the mystery printer a week. Surprisingly, the owner of the printer – a small boy, with unruly brown hair and super intense in-style eyebrows as angry as his temperament – never quite caught on to my mischief. I’ve gotta say, not sure if that’s a compliment to me or an insult to him. My roommate, whose name I knew at some point but no longer knew by the first day of second semester and went the rest of the year without addressing, unsurprisingly didn’t want to room with me sophomore year. Luckily for me, my friend Ophelia who I met in a graduation-requirement Philosophy class, invited me to live with her and a few of her other friends in one of those living-unit house things. She was chill and put up with me, the total mom friend but in a good way, so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad.
Summer came and went as it usually does, with lots of sleep and screen time. Before long, I was staring down at Ophelia, all five feet of her bouncing with excitement on my new doorstep.
"Welcome, Vin!” she cheered. I set my overpacked suitcases down behind me, picking her up and giving her a hug. I set her down, and she gave me a slight questioning pierced-eyebrow raise. “Why did you feel the need to pick me up?”
“It just felt right,” I shrugged, picking my stuff back up and walking into the house. It was cute and cozy enough, with two sofas and a television, a small kitchen, and a staircase up to where our rooms probably were.
“So, this is Phoebe, and this is Reiner,” Ophelia introduced, pointing to the two bodies absorbing the energy from the weird flannel material covering the couches. They were chatting idly, and I could register their conversation, but it was like they were writing on my brain with invisible ink.
“How long have you been up?” Ophelia asked after what felt like several seconds but was apparently almost two minutes.
“Not long enough,” I replied, chuckling and rubbing the back of my neck.
“Here, let me get you something,” she offered, heading over to the kitchen. I set my bags next to the staircase, delicately pushed Reiner’s gangly legs off the couch, and sat down. He grumbled at me for a second before switching couches and doing the same thing to Phoebe.
“Hey, so I was thinking that we could have a group text?” Ophelia offered, a little louder than necessary, from the kitchen. “That way, we can always have contact with each other in case we need something, or something happens, or anything like that.”
A murmur of agreement rose from the sleepy duo and I agreed. Ophelia came back out with a little yellow mug of dark coffee. It was a nice gesture, but I couldn’t drink black coffee and come out with my faculties in tact, so I just held onto the mug while the others bickered.
“Look, I just don’t get how you can watch the movies that you do. You just turned twenty, aren’t you, like, kind of behind for still watching cartoons?”
“I understand that not everyone likes it, but it still amuses ani-me!” Reiner said, chortling to himself. Never before had I ever described someone’s laugh with such a weird word. Hopefully I never would have to again.
“One, that’s not even how it’s pronounced. Two, seriously? Grow up a little.”
“This isn’t in good fun anymore,” Reiner pouted, the verbal equivalent of a frowny-face emoticon.
“Good! You got the message! It never was!”
“Do I have to get the two of you a ‘get-along shirt’?” Ophelia demanded, and they stopped dead in their tracks. Phoebe’s arms were still up, and she lowered them very quietly.
“Sorry, mom,” they both said, with real guilt in their voices, which took all of my self-restraint not to laugh at. Good job, me.
There was a single precise knock on the door, and as Ophelia stood up to answer, it flung open and there stood all five-feet-three inches of disgruntlement that was our fifth and final roommate. “Greetings, sunshine,” Phoebe called out.
“Don’t even talk to me,” he responded, walking his suitcases like a stubborn dog inside and up the stairs.
“That’s Finely,” Ophelia explained to us. “He’s normally not…” she paused, thinking about her word choice like it was written on the ceiling. “Actually, yeah, he is normally like this. It’s just a little amplified right now because of certain family situations.”
“I feel that,” Reiner nodded. “No worries.”
“What the hell is Phoebe’s stuff doing in my room,” Finely yelled down the stairs, enunciating each and every word to try and prove a point.
“Calm down up there, Finster, you’re gonna need to save your voice for when your infamous Printer Ghost shows up again,” she responded. “Ophelia told us all about it.” The color drained from his face, his dark blue eyes rolling back in his head a little as he came down the stairs. I swore in my head, and then again, and then once more for every step he walked down.
“If that insolent shenanigan even dares to think about doing that to me again this year, I ask him to reconsider from the bottom of my very being,” Finely said. The gravity to his voice brought the atmosphere of the entire room down a tick, and I glanced at the others. All of their expressions had the same slightly-googly eyes, straight mouths, and flickering laughs being held down.
“Alrighty, we’ll make sure of it,” Ophelia said, patting him on the knee. “Oh, right - you didn’t hear about that, did you?”
“Actually, he did,” Finely interrupted.
“We lived on the same floor last year,” I stuck my head between the two of them. “It was a riot. This kid came knocking like once a week. Did you ever find out who it was? Ha, rhetorical question, of course you didn’t, didn’t you just say that? Right.” Subtle. Good job, Vin.
Finely raised an eyebrow at me, opening his lips just slightly in hopes of maybe finding the words to respond to that mess, and then decided against it.
With the initial panic of getting kicked out of the house because this new gnome felt uncomfortable passed, I assessed what was given to me. The owner of the bad-pun printer was now living under the same roof as me, but all of our new roommates knew about it and did I really want to risk his tiny wrath? I mean, I’m like six foot something so he hardly comes up to my shoulders, but he could still kick my shins.
Whatever. Hearing him get so riled up last year was still the highlight of my college experience, and I wasn’t quite ready to give that up.
“Do I have to be the mediator between you two?” Ophelia asked. I looked over and saw Finely and Phoebe in the middle of an intense custody battle, and took a long sip of my coffee. I set the empty mug in the sink and slipped upstairs while they tried to duke out rooms.
“Oh, Vin, you and I are sharing a room,” Reiner pointed out. I nodded in his direction and headed up the stairs.
With all of my stuff spread out across the floor like usual, I pulled out my laptop and musical equipment, composing amongst the cacophony that was still happening a few rooms down. The rooms were sorted out, and the house settled into silence.
I might’ve been a little too enthusiastic or something, but I found a really good picture of a blurry close-up doge meme with a very small “hello” online, so I had to fuck with him. I couldn’t help myself. The new name was three skull-and-crossbones with a “DONT YOU DARE” tagged on to the end, and I wondered if he was trying to egg me on purposefully. Probably not. Nothing that kid did was ironic. I hit “print” and let the giggles roll over me. I tried really hard not to, but apparently not hard enough, because after the printer finished chugging and Finely yelled, there was a knock on my door. I pulled my headphones off and leaned back precariously in my swivel chair. “Yeah?”
Finely opened the door with the meme in his tightly-clenched fist. “Why would you do this to me,” he said. It very definitely wasn’t a question or asking for an explanation, even though I would imagine that it should’ve been.
“What are you talking about?” If I play it chill, there’s no way for him to see that it was me, right?
“You...the ‘ghost printer’ who’s been terrorizing me since last year. Do you think that this is funny?” He popped the ‘f’ in funny and I looked at him with fake confusion. “Answer me, do you think that this is funny?”
“I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” I responded, turning back to my computer only to realize that the picture was still full-screen and he could see it. Fuck. Okay. Cover blown. I did the only sensible thing that I could do at that point. I closed my laptop, got up from my chair, looked him in the eyes, and walked straight past him out the front door.
It was dark out, and the fall winds were yet to catch up with campus. We weren’t that far, maybe a block out, obviously still owned by the university though. The late-summer air kept the pavement at a dull glow, which helped me to forget about the fact that I forgot to put shoes on before I left. Maybe it was on purpose, though.
I was walking aimlessly, kicking pebbles in my path and sometimes losing my feet in the darkness, when I heard my favorite small one jogging up behind me. “Vin!” she exclaimed. I stopped, turning around and waiting for her. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I assume you heard?”
She nodded back, before asking, “And why is it that you’re out here right now, ten minutes away?”
“I just did it to make a point and it got away from me. I’m...not even sure where I am right now.”
“That sounds like a remarkably accurate metaphor for the rest of your life,” Ophelia commented.
I rolled my eyes at her, crossing my arms a few seconds into the silence. “It’s his fault for bringing his own printer to campus, though. Like, what did he expect?”
“Vincent,” Ophelia chastised.
“Hey, there’s no need for that,” I held my hands up. “I am not an old white guy. Also, you’re not my real mom.” She laughed, and we began the slow walk back to the house. We were greeted inside by Phoebe and Reiner playing Mario Kart and Finely, the bathed cat, curled up in the back corner of a couch. Reiner tossed a controller at Ophelia, and I stood in the doorway. I motioned to Finely and he, grumbling, followed me out onto the porch. I kept the door open behind him just in case anything went wrong, though.
“Look, I talked to Ophelia, and it sounds like you’re really upset by this,” I started.
“I am,” he grumbled. I tried to look him in the eyes for emphasis, but his darted everywhere except me.
“I can kinda see why you’d think it’s irritating. I won’t do it anymore, except maybe a few times here and there-”
“Stop. I’m going back inside.”
“No no no no, no, please wait,” I grabbed onto his arm and he stopped, huffed, and turned back around. “We’re going to have to live together, so let’s just try and be civil, okay?”
“Oh, you want to try and be civil? That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day! You? You giant, vapid, idiot -”
“Let’s just be on mutual neutral terms, okay?” I yelled over him, sticking my hand out between us.
Finely looked taken aback, mulled over his options, and then shook my hand. “Let’s be as civil as we can. But I’m warning you right now, if you try and pull anything on me, I will give you nothing short of retaliation.”
“Got it,” I noted, and we headed back inside with only one dagger thrown at me from Finely over his shoulder.
The first couple of weeks of the semester with all of us under one roof went by about as smoothly as it could have, with only particular snapshots standing out to me. Otherwise, we played video games courtesy of yours truly, drank coffee mixed with energy drinks, filmed ourselves eating as much popcorn as we could in sixty seconds, helped each other to write papers, and sometimes even studied together.
The first major bonding event that we had came maybe three days after classes started. Ophelia came home from her first Thursday class in tears, just short of a sobbing wreck. I could hear it from upstairs, and I was the first one to fully wrap myself around her to try and absorb all of her sadness with my stomach.
“What happened?” Reiner asked, a twinge of unknown guilt in his eyes. I shrugged, and Ophelia rubbed her makeup on my shirt before looking up at him. She looked like a really intense mess, like maybe she belonged in an 80s rock band or something, but Phoebe and Finely came down shortly after the waterworks subsided.
“It’s Aven,” she told us, rubbing her already vampy eyeshadow further off her face. Aven was her high school best friend, and unfortunately for our little lesbian, the woodland faerie of her dreams. Aven was cute for a girl, but Ophelia had been romcom head-over-heels for her straight best friend for probably three years. “We were roommates last year, right, but I invited her to live with us this year, and she said that she didn’t want to, and then she was really weird last summer, and then she’s in my class this year and we were best friends, what happened, I’m too scared to talk to her now. I bet she thinks I’m just awful.”
“Anyone who thinks you’re awful deserves a kick to the head,” Phoebe stepped in.
I guess that kind of helped, because Ophelia nodded in thanks. “It’s just gotten to be so much, you know?” We all walked over to the couches. This was going to take a while to sort through. “I thought that we were okay - I mean, she knew that I was gay, and she was fine with it - but all of a sudden...oh God, do you think she found out?”
“Maybe,” Phoebe shrugged. “Do you think that you’d want to date someone who was so upset with you being who you are, though?”
“I just didn’t think it’d hurt so bad,” Ophelia sniffed.
“Did you honestly think it’d hurt any less?” Ophelia looked over at Phoebe, still looking like she’d watched the first five minutes of Up for the first time. “Harsh realities, coming from our champion cold-hearted aro ace.”
I felt a little awkward just kind of sitting there during their conversation, but there wasn’t really anywhere that I could just butt in. I sat there rubbing circles on Ophelia’s back and burning holes in the carpet.
“Romance is always such a difficult topic, but one that always needs addressing,” Finely assured the weight sitting on all of us. “As a hopeless romantic with a religious upbringing, though, I feel the need to let you know that there really is someone out there for all of us, even if you don’t find them right away.” It may have assured Ophelia, but it just made me kind of uncomfortable. Thinking about the fact that there are probably people out there predestined to fall in romantic love with me gave me the heebie-jeebies. Platonic love? Fan adoration? Be my guest. The fact that Finely was the one saying that also just kind of hit me wrong. I would’ve been fine if it was Reiner - I’d had that guy pinned as a hopeless romantic since day one, and I could see that he was painfully in love with Ophelia. That wasn’t going to end well in any universe. Reason number two that I’m just not a romantic kind of guy. I still had a $5 bet with Finely that Reiner and Phoebe were going to bang by the end of the semester, though. That might be my $5 down the drain now that I knew Phoebe was not into people, though.
“Well, if you need to, you can always lean on me, Ophelia, and remember-” Reiner started and was promptly interrupted by a raspberry from Phoebe.
“That was very graceful and insightful, fantastic work, Ms. Loria-Alvarez,” Finely applauded, rolling his eyes. “I’m sure that Ophelia appreciates your sentiment though, Reiner.”
“Yeah,” Ophelia nodded, wiping her nose on her sleeve. I side-eyed her and got up, grabbing the roll of paper towels from the kitchen and setting them in her lap. “Thanks, guys, you’re really great.”
“I know,” I shrugged, biting a smile. Ophelia laughed, one of her deep true laughs, and my gut filled with sunshine.
The rest of the fall went smoothly, but with shortening winter hours came shortening professor tempers and Reiner’s mood spiraling out of control. I spent more and more of it locked away in the living room, kicked out of our shared bedroom. The couch was my bed, but that was okay, because it meant that I got to spend a lot of time getting kickass at the few video games we had. I even found a way to develop my own levels for Beautiful Katamari, which was pretty awesome, because making really messed up things pop up out of nowhere was the best way to get genuine reaction sound clips out of people to use for sampling projects later.
There was one conversation that we had while I was in class, though. Finely and Phoebe had been fighting yet again over who really “deserved” the one-person room and, like the screaming toddlers they are, took it into the group chat.
FINELY: No, really, you have no idea why I need that room. It’s a medical single.
PHOEBE: but ok like
PHOEBE: i AM a medical single
PHOEBE: i am medically single also i have a condition
FINELY: Alright, give your justification.
FINELY: I’m waiting.
PHOEBE: eidetic memory
FINELY: Oh come ON. That’s not even a hindrance, that’s a positive thing.
PHOEBE: damn
PHOEBE: thought the big words would throw u off ur track a lil
PHOEBE: not so much tho lol
REINER: Does this really need to be in the group text????
FINELY: Yes. This is our receipts.
FINELY: Also, I think you all deserve to know the reason that I have the single room.
OPHELIA: if youre not comfortable with us knowing, its ok finely!! i know but i know its very personal for you so only do what you want to do
FINELY: Thank you.
FINELY: I don’t know, I feel like you guys deserve to know that I’m a trans guy.
PHOEBE: o
FINELY: Yeah, “o.”
FINELY: That’s me, your resident panromantic demisexual trans dude. At the ready.
OPHELIA: is “at the ready” a thing that people really say?
FINELY: If not, it is now.
PHOEBE: ok ok ok
PHOEBE: so like
PHOEBE: im aro ace
PHOEBE: and ophelia's hella gay
PHOEBE: and ur like. a giant patchwork blanket of labels
PHOEBE: is this secretly the pride house 2.0
PHOEBE: did i miss a memo somewhere
PHOEBE: is there gay paperwork i have to fill out
PHOEBE: gay illuminati??? in MY home????
FINELY: That’s a good question, even with the phrasing as...scatterbrained as it is.
FINELY: Reiner, Vin?
VIN: uh well
VIN: im very straight
OPHELIA: oh, really
VIN: like
VIN: ultimate-brostatus very straight
VIN: king of heterosexuals with my very female companion at my side
VIN: no bromo
VIN: straight
FINELY: I see.
PHOEBE: but like what r u
PHOEBE: are u straight i cant tell
REINER: :^)
REINER: Phoebe you’re so funny when you’re trying to be sarcastic!!
OPHELIA: shaaaAADDEEEE from the left
REINER: Thank you???
OPHELIA: np
REINER: But yeah no i’m straight too just perhaps less aggressively so than vin.
OPHELIA: he is an outstanding image of bro
OPHELIA: well-deserving of all of his muscle tank tops
OPHELIA: perhaps less so of his pink dress shirts
VIN: there is no need to attack my fashion
VIN: that is NOT in question here
VIN: also im in class thanks a lot fuckers
VIN: not about to get kicked out of class got shit to learn see yall when i get back
Assholes. The whole lot of them. I made sure to lecture them when I got back, because my phone was my lifeline and my child and also both of my parents, tied up into a neat little electronic package. Their persistence came with the territory of knowing them, I learned, especially because the bickering continued when we all got home.
I also realized, pretty far along into the whole “college experience” actually, that the only reason that I even have to go to college is because it turns out that apparently writing music for an audience is hard - unless you've got a math brain like mine. It's all just about finding the right number and order and frequency of notes that will make people the happiest. Luckily, I've spent years of my life cultivating enough of an online fanbase to find the sweet spot, and then tweaking it from there for different professors. Once I got out of taking the rest of my general education classes, everything was smooth sailing.
I was working on a piece one day in my room, jamming out with my giant headphones on, when Finely stepped into my little habitat. I was spread out pretty far from my desk, and the action of opening the door cracked my headphones out of my laptop. I glared up at him, scrambling to try and get the plug back into my laptop. He stopped me though, holding my hand back and then turning his head to hear the sound better. I opened my mouth to try and get him to move his damn hand, as warm and soft as it was, but he shushed me.
“Shit, is this Eclipsoidal?” I nodded, and his eyes widened. There went all of Finely’s shit, pinging across every flat surface it could find and never quite making it back to its owner. “Are you listening to this, for real? Oh man, I really love this artist, I’m impressed by your electronic music repertoire! Maybe we do have something in common after all. Damn.”
I couldn’t help myself at that point. I put my headphones to rest back on my shoulders where they belonged, and ushered him closer into the room. I pointed at the screen, and watched his eyes get wider as he watched my composing software work its magic. “No way,” he breathed. “Show me more. I’m not convinced.”
I rolled my eyes at his obvious lie, and opened up the sheet music for one of my most popular songs. It played through, and he looked like someone just told him that there was a new holiday dedicated to him. “This is so incredible, I can’t believe this, I sent you a letter one time but I’m not sure you got it, but I mean that was in high school so I wouldn’t really want to see it again...” he trailed off, and I cracked a smile at him. “Oh my god, everyone else loves your music so much, hold on!” He bolted out of the room and was yelling at the rest of the house to come upstairs before I could even get out of my chair.
“Hi, I’m Eclipsoidal, and welcome to my crib,” I motioned inside from the doorframe, and the others laughed. Phoebe tweeted something about me, which I later found out were just a bunch of capital letters interjected with “roommate” and “eclipsoidal” and exclamation marks, and we all sat around, listening to my music. It was a pretty sweet moment, if I had to say so myself.
I was pretty impressed to say that the power of my music was the thing that brought our house together. We joked freely, our group text always going even when we were all idiots who were sitting in the same room. Some jokes started up from I don’t even know where, but even Finely got in on the action sometimes. It was a little bit like texting your grandpa, but in a good way. If that’s even possible.
By the time that second semester hit, we were all invested in sitting down for meals together when we could. Finely and I were tennis-joking back and forth one day over breakfast when, out of nowhere, Phoebe interrupted.
“Okay, but when are you two going to get gay married?” Phoebe asked through a mouthful of scrambled eggs. Reiner choked on his coffee, coming dangerously close to a spit take, and I laughed.
“Yeah, come on Finely, I’ve been waiting for so long,” I prodded.
“Running with the hypothetical, where are we going to go on our honeymoon?” Finely asked.
“We’re going to Yellowstone, remember? To go watch the buffalo and the weird swirly colors and the eruptions.” I wiggled my eyebrows and watched as Reiner’s coffee went sufficiently far across the table.
“It is too early to hear about your ‘eruptions’, Vin,” Ophelia sighed. She closed her eyes for a second, probably imagining a fantasy world in which I didn’t just say what I did.
“Hey, get your mind out of the gutter! Have you never heard of Old Faithful? Come on,” I joked.
“Anyways, logistics,” Finely said quickly, probably to try and change the subject. “How are we getting there?”
“Your bike,” I said.
Finely gasped. “No,” he breathed. “No way. Wyatt is my baby. He’s my maid of honor.”
I shook my head and laughed, “I was just kidding. Our child can’t be your maid of honor. He’s too little. He’s got to be our ringbearer.”
“I already called dibs, sorry. I don’t see any rule books for our gay wedding. Thus, I make the rules,” he asserted.
“I see who’s the top in this-” Phoebe started to say.
“Damn it Phoebe, it is too early,” Ophelia interrupted, a little louder this time.
“Anyway, this relationship doesn’t exist, so there will be no wedding. Ever. Not between Vin and I, anyways. As panromantic as I am, this just...won’t work,” he explained.
I pouted at him. “Oh, Finely, honey,” he made a face, so I made sure to draw out the word. “Think of our children! We need to set a good example and give them a proper nuclear family.”
“Oh my stars, Vin, you need to stop,” Finely grabbed the edges of his eyebrows with his fingers and covered his face.
“We’ve got to get going for class. We can talk about this on the way,” I told him, and put my dishes in the sink for someone else to deal with. He followed suit, and mirrored my every action until we were walking down the sidewalk side by side. “So, about this wedding-”
“It’s not happening, Vin,” Finely decided. “You can drop the joke.”
I held up my hands in defeat. Our walk was mostly quiet, but the music building was one of the closest to our house. “I’m here, so I’ll see you in a few. Love you, honey.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Finely rolled his eyes, and then made some fake retching noises to show just how irritated he was with me. Oh, he loved me too. He adored me, like he was a sentient plant species and I was their sun god.
But something was a little different this time. I took a step towards the door, but every time I think about this moment it’s like I’m launched right back into it all over again. I can’t even remember what it was, but I’m sure I said something stupid to Finely. He stops. He stares. He wrinkles his eyebrows before propping his left bold, size 48 font eyebrow up, as if to prepare them for the expression-filled gymnastics they'll have to do. And then suddenly, he smiles.
It's a full-face, toothy, eye-crinkling giddy grin.
Shit.
That's it. That's the moment. It's just like Phoebe has always spouted off about from her ancient poetry books about whatever – where everything stops and nothing matters anymore. That is the moment that I love him.
The first indication that we had of Vin's impending doom was the gradual change in theme of his songs. He wasn't one to write love songs, even when he wouldn't shut up about his latest fling. There are words he wouldn't use, phrases foreign to his tongue, but when he titled a soft, slow song “(i think they’re the) one”, I couldn't help but try to swallow the lava-and-hatred butterflies coming up from my gut. I bet they were awful.
OPHELIA: so, who's this “they” you've started writing all of your songs about?
VIN: ABSOLUTELY none of your business
PHOEBE: but youre so quick to tell us about all of your other fwbs????
VIN: excuse you, almost all of my relationships have been legitimate
REINER: Except for like...every one we've heard about :V
VIN: wow, rude
PHOEBE: lmayo
PHOEBE: tru tru B)
OPHELIA: yeah, normally i don't condone this but i'm awfully curious. baby's first, after all.
VIN: i am the oldest out of all y'all how does that make me a baby
OPHELIA: we're all babies
PHOEBE: a 3-bedroom cottage full of screaming infants
PHOEBE: sounds about right
PHOEBE: alternatively, everyone youve ever met is a baby
PHOEBE: cashiers, family, bedmates
PHOEBE: the president
PHOEBE: ngl, obama is kind of a baby tho
REINER: YOUR mama's obama
PHOEBE: wait really
PHOEBE: dang i couldve been capitalizing on this
PHOEBE: couldve kicked some girls in the face at lollapalooza
PHOEBE: couldve straight up gone to lollapalooza in the first place
OPHELIA: a girl can dream
OPHELIA: also, if you kicked a girl in the face, she wouldve liked it right
PHOEBE: of course
REINER: ????
PHOEBE: it was a meme from like two years ago maybe
PHOEBE: ill send you the link
REINER: Ok. Also: where is obama's mama? We cannot have an infant governing our entire country, sir
PHOEBE: ^^^^^^
PHOEBE: youve gotten wise young padawan
REINER: not wise, just less sad
OPHELIA: :') i'm so glad <333
FINELY: It is certainly very good to hear, my friend. (ᅌᴗᅌ* )
VIN: there you are!! i was starting to wonder
OPHELIA: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow not one but TWO !!'s
PHOEBE: awwww
PHOEBE: what precious, super ultra mega hella wicked gay nerds
FINELY: Don't.
I was just glad that it wasn't a video call, given that every single shade of red in our visible light spectrum was currently being represented on my face.
PHOEBE: im just laughin
REINER: *slides up to finely and boops him on the face* don't try to deny it too hard!
FINELY: Reiner. We've talked about this. What have I said about using asterisk-actions?
REINER: that I'm not a weeb or 12 and we're not on gaia and therefore I shouldn't use them...
FINELY: Good child.
REINER: >:P
FINELY: No. What is that emoticon even doing? Can you stick your head out of your room and make that face for me?
REINER: Angry eyebrows and frustrated, immature tongue sticking-out
REINER: Also no, because unlike you guys, Im actually in class right now
OPHELIA: really though, vin, im curious. cant you tell us anything about him?
VIN: nope
OPHELIA: nothing?
VIN: nada
PHOEBE: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
REINER: :O x^)
OPHELIA: reiner........
FINELY: I'll be back in just a moment, guys, I've got to go and finish cleaning up my room before I have to go to class.
OPHELIA: got it!! see you later
VIN: see ya
I closed my laptop, frustrated, and it probably slammed a little more than it should have but frankly I didn't really care. I was alone in my room, which I won completely fair-and-square against Phoebe and thus spent a lot of time in, so naturally it didn’t matter to anyone what I did. I silently screamed into my pillow a little bit, and rolled over with the pillow still on my face to feel my phone buzz. My heart skipped a beat straight down into my stomach when I saw that it was him, stupid fucking wonderful him, who texted me.
VIN: yo bro, you okay?
ME: Yes, I'm fine. Why do you ask?
VIN: bc I know you dont actually have to clean your room
ME: I'm that transparent, huh? Lol
VIN: takes one to know one
What did he even mean by that? Whatever. I couldn't think about that for too long.
VIN: also I saw your room ten minutes ago and it was fine
VIN: so like unless a hurricane went swirling around in there or something
ME: Unfortunately, nope.
VIN: shucks
VIN: wanna play katamari?
ME: Not really in the mood, sorry.
ME: Also, when did you start saying 'shucks'??
VIN: ?????
VIN: you SURE you're okay
VIN: bc it sure doesn't seem like it
VIN: mario kart?? ill let you pick the tracks this time
VIN: i know you hate rainbow road so we won’t have to
ME: Thank you, but no thanks.
ME: I'm getting a headache and stress and stuff.
VIN: I see
VIN: well, feel better, okay? See you after class
ME: Thank you
I spent the next 30 seconds debating whether or not to send a heart emoji, and then took the “no homo” route and tossed my phone aside. I’d have to untangle this mess another day, but I stared an extra ten seconds at him every time I saw him. Maybe the answer was in his face (or maybe he just looked particularly nice all the time, both are viable answers). I’d have to take him up on his game offer at a later date, but now, all I needed was a cold shower and a sign either way.
After a few weeks, I came to the startling realization that Finely was probably hella dense. The hints that I’d been dropping from my music weren’t hitting him at all. And they weren’t so much ‘hints’ as they were ‘gigantic fucking love boulders’. My next plan, obviously, was breakfast food puns. Everyone loves those. Even Reiner, who’d started looking pretty down again. Poor kid’s emotions ran him in circles.
I saved a favorite few from the internet and began printing them to Finely’s printer one by one. Some notable mentions include, but are not limited to: how long has this been BREWING? (with a coffee mug with a heart over it); hot. (over a piece of toast coming out of a toaster); i find you a-PEEL-ing (under an apple); and you SPICE up my life (under a jar of cinnamon). Finely just stopped in my doorway a few minutes later, hands full of bad puns and a confused look on his face.
“Look, I’ve already told you that we’re not getting gay married, so you don’t have to court me,” he joked, tossing the pages onto my floor and walking away. The slight pink tinge on his face wasn’t something I missed, but who knows where it came from.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t very good at flirting. That wasn’t something that I was about to admit, though.
I thought about all of the ways that I could make it more obvious (without outright saying it because I didn’t want to freak him out too bad, but maybe I could and then play it off as a joke, or who knows) during class. I didn’t actually pay any attention to the lecture, which probably wasn’t in my best interest. I had more pressing matters than historical tonalities, though.
I hadn’t even gotten my foot in the door by the time that Finely had me cornered. “Vin, can I talk to you? Outside?”
“Uh, sure,” I shrugged, closing the door after him again. “Are you alright?”
“I, yeah, I’m fine,” he nodded, a few times more than he really needed to. He was a worse liar than me.
“No, really, what’s up with you? You’ve been acting really weird lately. I want that little ankle-biting gremlin of my fake husband back,” I told him, pushing his bicep with my elbow in that weird joking way that people do sometimes.
He shook his head, holding back laughter. “So, uh, Vin, I have a few questions to ask you.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, first off, I wanted to make sure that you know that I’m-”
“A huge nerd? A troll in a very small man’s body? A ghost?”
“N-no. That I’m...not...very straight.”
“Yeah, you’ve mentioned it.”
“I’m like, really not straight.”
“Okay, thanks for reassuring me. I won’t push any ladies your way in the future.”
“No, I mean, if you want to, that’s fine. I guess...I was also wondering who you’ve been writing all of your songs about?”
“Well. Mostly they’re about me trying to pass my classes. They haven’t been very inspired lately.”
“Oh. I mean, uh, that’s fine, no worries. You can write about whatever you want, obviously, I’m not going to stop you or anything. Also, I was wondering about your love life a little? How have your interpersonal relationships been going?”
“Is this a lecture about sexuality awareness, because I can assure you that I have enough free condoms to last me for my entire life, or -”
“Vin, I'm in love with you.”
“Oh.”
I kicked myself internally for that one, but it was too late to back up. What the hell, Vin? There are reasons that I don’t do romance, and this is big fat reason number one. I’m way too awkward.
“Yeah. I'm sorry. I know you won’t reciprocate, because of the whole thing that you’re straight. But I felt like you deserved to know.”
It was silent for a few seconds, but then a lightbulb went off. “It’s okay. We can still be friends. No homo, bromo. Bromosapien. Theodore Brosevelt. Uh, do you wanna go play Katamari with me? You can kick my beautiful ass in it this time. I won’t be too hard on you.”
“Vin, I still don’t think that you can kick anyone’s ass in Katamari. It’s not possible. There’s no way to even ‘beat’ anyone else.”
“Then explain how I’ve done it so many times.”
Finely huffed, crossing his arms. “Fuck off.”
“See, you’re already feeling better. Let’s go play. I made a custom level the other night when I couldn’t sleep that I wanna try. Are you cool with seeing how terrible it is?”
He laughed, and I opened the door after a few seconds of stumbling. The game took way longer to load than it ever had in the past, and I stared squarely at the monitor while Finely observed his controller. When it finally booted up, I showed him the top-down view of the level, and he stared at it incredulously. I’d spelled out “Finely, I love you” in dominoes, with little candy hearts and other romcom-level stuff around it.
“So?” I asked, fingers teetering on the edge of the couch. He stared at it, and then back at me, and then back at the screen, and then put his head in his hands. “Is this bad?”
“I...no, no, of course not,” he said quickly. “I just...I thought you weren’t queer?”
“Nah, I am.”
“Then why the everloving fuck would you say that you weren’t? Were you not comfortable with me? What about what just happened on the porch? Why -”
“I say a lot of stupid things when I panic,” I explained simply.
“You’re so stupid,” he groaned, rubbing his temples, and then tilting his head off of one hand to look up at me. His eyes, big and blue and beautiful, caught me off guard.
“Yep, that’s me. The stupid meme printer.”
“Oh, god, you are an idiot.”
“Yep, but you know what?”
“What?”
“Now...I’m your idiot.”
“That is so cliché.”
“You're the English major here. Also, shut up.”
“Make me.”
“Boy, those are fighting words.”
He sat up a little straighter. I set our controllers down on the floor, and he tilted his head like a confused dog. We locked eyes for a second, and I couldn’t help but to push our faces together. It felt like eating ice cream for the first time, and he pushed his head a little closer to mine. We only bumped noses a few times, cracking eyes open and giggling at each other, but the feeling of his face against mine made up for any other awkward moves.
“So, this is what ‘neutral mutual terms’ looks like, huh?” Phoebe cackled from the staircase. I pulled back, breathless and startled, and Finely groaned. We both held up two birds to her, throwing them from our pockets and winding them up in her general direction. She laughed again, said, “I owe Reiner twenty bucks,” and then escaped back up the staircase again.
“Do you want to play this level for real now, though?” I asked Finely after I made sure that she was actually gone.
Finely laughed, a soft and breathy laugh, nodded, and leaned his head up against my chest. I was sure that he could feel just how hard my heart was beating into his skull. Judging the small smile growing on his face, he didn’t really mind. I handed him a controller and we started the level, curled up together and wreaking havoc, just like I’d imagined.
I made a point of giving Finely’s printer a loving tap the next time I went into his room. The time after that, it was a dramatic monologue. “Thanks for everything, buddy.”
“Are you talking to my printer?”
“Yeah. It’s this thing’s fault that we’re together, anyways.”
“I feel like that might’ve happened even without you being a total ass.”
“Me being a total ass is part of the charm, right?”
“Oh, definitely. I’m swooning, Mr. Carrier, please do as your name suggests and carry me bridal-style into the sunset.”
I rolled my eyes at him, and he rolled his eyes at me, because he was just that original. He tried to play off that he was irritated with me, but I knew better than that.
The technicolor flashing lights of our games only helped us to sleep more soundly hours later, wrapped up in each other's arms, controllers dangling loosely from our fingertips. As far as I was concerned, we were invincible, and that was all that mattered.