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Realizing it had been quite some minutes and Sunny still hadn’t come out of their bedroom when going to look for his phone, Kel decided he would check up on him to see if he was having any sort of luck. When he slowly opened the door, though, he didn’t see his husband rummaging around in their belongings in search of the misplaced item. Instead, he was sitting on the bed, looking at the first page of a very, very familiar book. Well, it wasn’t really a book. It was a photo album, which their very good friend, Basil, had kept long ago.
“It’s been a long time since we looked through that,” Kel commented, and it seemed that Sunny hadn’t realized that he had entered the room until just then, because he ended up being so startled that he’d jumped a little. “Oh,” Kel chuckled guiltily, “Sorry, Sunny!”
Realizing what had just happened, Sunny laughed softly, a barely visible smile on his face. “No, it’s okay. I don’t know why that startled me so badly,” he shrugged, assuring Kel that he wasn’t at fault. “And, yeah,” he said, “It has been a while. I came across it while looking through my phone and I thought I’d go through it. Do you want to look, too?”
“Yeah, for sure!” Kel grinned, nodding eagerly, sitting down quickly right next to Sunny, wrapping his arm around him without a second thought, to which the latter didn’t seem to mind at all. “It’s always fun to see these old pictures of us.” Kel examined the photo album, which as he’d noticed before, was already flipped to the front page where they could see some pictures of them along with the captions that Basil had written ten whole years ago now. Wow. Had it really been that long?
“You used to be so short,” Sunny said, pointing at the picture of him at Basil’s birthday party. “You were even shorter than me.” He almost giggled.
Kel put a hand on Sunny’s head briefly, ruffling his hair. “Yeah, but that doesn’t matter now!” He chuckled, “I got a growth spurt while you barely grew more than a few inches. I can’t imagine being shorter than you, now!”
Sunny turned the page, shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he said, kind of trailing off, distracted by the other photographs. He snorted a laugh just a little seeing the photos of Kel losing miserably in an arm wrestle with Hero. “Do you think you could beat him at that now?”
Kel rubbed the back of his neck nervously with a chuckle, looking away. Of course, Kel was athletic, but… “Uh, maybe?”
“Is that a no?” Kel didn’t answer that question, which Sunny paid no mind to, instead pointing at another picture in the section: Him, Kel, Basil, and Aubrey all in Sunny’s childhood bedroom. Kel looked at the picture, too, smiling wide, but not yet getting the chance to speak as Sunny was talking. “Aw. Basil and Aubrey were busy cuddling stuffed animals, but you hugged me instead. …I’m surprised no one guessed we’d end up together.”
Kel laughed, too, looking at the nice picture with wide eyes. “Yeah. I think I had a crush on you then and just didn’t realize it…”
Sunny only smiled in reply, turning to the next page. Maybe he’d already guessed that sometime in the past. Or, maybe Kel had already told him that, and he just had forgotten. That would definitely be a possibility, now that he was thinking about it.
When the next page was turned, Sunny almost immediately pointed to the picture where Sunny and Kel were holding up a flower crown, where Kel’s face seemed to be just about as red as a tomato. Jeez. Had he really been blushing that much? How had he never noticed that before? Embarrassing. “You definitely had a crush on me,” Sunny said, matter-of-factly. Yeah, uh, he was probably right about that. Sunny turned the page again, looking at the pictures of them in the rain and a few others. “We should really all hang out soon.”
“Yeah!” Kel agreed. “It’s been a little bit…and a little bit’s too long! Maybe we could go to Gino’s or something! It’s been a while since we’ve been there, too, hasn’t it?”
“Mhm,” Sunny hummed, flipping to the next page, where their trip to the beach they had way back when could be seen.
Kel smiled at the sight of one of the pictures, this time being the one to point. “Look at you buried in the sand! Aw.”
Sunny, seemingly a little embarrassed, rolled his eye, and flipped to the next page. “Aw!” Kel smiled again, “And there! You’re in a box!” Sunny huffed, turning the page again. “Aw,” is what came from Kel again, but this time it was a disappointment at the page turn instead. “Okay, okay, fine.”
Sunny chuckled looking at the picture Kel had taken of himself, briefly glimpsing over the caption. “I don’t think anybody ever believed that you took this picture by accident,” he said.
Kel laughed. “Yeah, probably… I, uh, wasn’t very good at convincing anybody of that. Not that that would help, seeing as I obviously took it.”
“Very obviously,” Sunny added, turning the page again. That next page was mostly pictures of Mari and pictures of Sunny with her, which he clearly noticed, although he didn’t say a word and just rested his chin on his hand. Kel rubbed his side in an attempt at comfort, which he seemed to appreciate, before he closed the photo album. “I’m glad Basil took these,” he said. “I kind of wish that there were more of them, though.”
Kel nodded in agreement before he spoke. “Yeah, me, too. But it’s okay! Like you said, it’s good that we have these ones at least. And, I know it obviously isn’t the same thing, but we can always take more photos now.”
Sunny nodded, seeming to almost yawn. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”