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“Gray I’m home!”
Thomas closes the front door and drops his book bag off to the side, his whole body relaxing as he moves to remove his shoes.
He always liked Fridays; it was the one day of the week where his schedule wasn’t swamped with classes. What he didn't like, was waking up early to go do lab work. At least his classes end mid-afternoon.
Thomas was just glad to be home. He'd love to go take a quick nap on his couch, but his parents won’t be back until later in the evening. And if he knows his sister, Gray probably forgot to eat lunch.
He rubs his cheek. He'll need to make her something to eat; something that was filling enough to satiate her until dinner, but not enough to eventually spoil her appetite. Oh the things he does for Gray.
With that goal in mind, Thomas tosses his keys into the bowl by the door and moves further into the house. “Gray?”
He frowns as he's met with silence.
Thomas passes by the empty living room and kitchen, noting the lack of dirty dishes on the countertops, before making his way over towards the stairs. Just as he reaches the first step, he hears a quiet digital explosion noise followed by a muffled argument coming from somewhere on the second floor. He rolls his eyes.
He follows the sound up the stairs until he ends up in front of Gray's room just as he hears the explosion noise again followed by a, “MICRO!”
“Okay—That one was an accident”
Grinning to himself, Thomas gently pushes the door open before leaning against the doorframe to take in the comical sight that greets him.
For some reason, he finds Micro sitting in Gray's gaming chair, hunched forward like a shrimp with his gaze locked onto the game he's currently playing. Sitting to his right is Gray, slumped backwards in her own chair in her baggy indoor slacks. The parts of her hands that peek out from her sleeves are smooshed against her cheeks as Micro does something to cause the digital boom to play from her speakers again, making her cackle at Micro's look of pure misery. Side by side, Micros' snow-white hair stood out amidst the purple and black colour scheme that coloured Gray's rich two-toned hair.
The walls in Gray's room are covered in various pictures; there's some of her and her friend Magic, some where she's with Thomas himself, and some that are comprised of various groupings of their combined friend group. Turning back to the duo sitting in front of the computer, Thomas admits to himself that it's always odd seeing his worlds collide as he takes in the sight of Micro in Gray's room. He's glad that they get along. Plus, he has to admit that Micro fits into the aesthetic of the room very well with his purple hoodie.
Not that Thomas pays that much attention to him. He would never do that. They're just friends.
Thomas ignores how his stomach churns at the thought.
He figures now is a great time to make them aware of his presence. “Well this is an unexpected.”
Gray looks up from her monitor. Her expression quickly brightening up as she catches sight of her brother.
“Hi Thomas!” She grins, spinning her chair around to face him. “How was the lab?”
“It was fine,” he says, adjusting himself against the doorframe. He nods his head at Micro right as another boom resonates through the room. “What’s Micro doing here?”
Gray looks over at Micro, who finally caught onto the new presence in the room and hasn't stopped staring. She turns back to her brother and shrugs.
"He said something about wanting to talk to you?" Gray says, nudging Micro in the shoulder. "But you weren't here, so I thought I'd teach him how to play minesweeper, but he's really bad at it."
"It's why I'm playing it through Roblox," Micro pipes up, seemingly having woken up from whatever stupor he'd been stuck in. "She said it might be easier for me."
Thomas doesn’t understand how that would make it easier. He narrows his eyes at Gray. “You just wanted an excuse to play Roblox.”
Gray chooses to ignore him—rude—and spins around in her chair to look at Micro. “Does this mean you’re done playing?” she asks, kicking her socked feet in a swaying motion.
“Probably yeah,” Micro says, ruffling the top of her hair. “Thanks for entertaining me Gray.”
Gray grins up at him before her smile suddenly drops. “Okay then get out.”
She suddenly raises one of her legs to kick Micro off her gaming chair, before swiftly settling into it herself. Thomas watches on, amused, as Micro looks at her, betrayed, only for her to shoo him off. They watch as she turns back towards her monitor, already locking back into Roblox minesweeper.
Micro looks up at Thomas from his spot on the floor. “Dude, are you seeing this shit?” He cries out, pointing towards the teenager actively ignoring their presence. “After we bonded over minesweeper and everything?”
Thomas can’t help but laugh. “At least she didn’t force you to make a Roblox account,” he points out, offering him a hand to help him up. Micro looks from Thomas’ face, to his hand, before his cheeks turn a little pink. Thomas narrows his eyes at the sight. "…Micro."
Micro holds his hands up. "In my defense," he starts. "She refused to let me use her account after she showed me how to play. Something about now wanting me to ruin her records."
Thomas fondly shakes his head. Oh Micro… "Anyways, not that I don't love your company," he says, leaning against the door frame, "But what's with the sudden visit?"
He ignores the loud BOOM coming from Gray's computer, as Micro's eyes suddenly flit away from him.
“Dude did you forget?" Micro pouts at him. "We were supposed to work on that one project.”
Now Thomas knows he's lying because he knows they don't have any projects in the classes they share. Thomas definitely would've remembered if they did, especially if it was one they had to do together.
"Right…" Thomas decides to be nice and move on. “You don’t seem surprised that Gray’s home.” Another BOOM plays from within the room.
“No I was,” Micro admits, shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets. “But she told me that she didn’t have school today.” He raises an eyebrow at Thomas.
BOOM.
Thomas bites back a grin at how unsubtle he is. “Yeah she wasn’t lying,” he says. “Her school gave them the day off. Something about a giant bee infestation? I don’t know.”
“Wow, I can’t bee-lieve that happened.”
BOOM.
Thomas rolls his eyes, but he doesn't stop the small smile slowly growing on his face. “Micro that was awful.”
Micro has a cheeky smile on his face as he beams at him, like a cat that caught the canary. “Nah, I think you loved it.”
BOOM...BOOM...BOOM—
“Could you just give me a second,” Thomas asks Micro, not waiting for his response before turning his attention back to his sister just as another BOOM plays out from the computer speaker. “Seriously Gray?”
Gray turns around. “It’s not my fault I keep hitting the bombs,” she says.
Micro frowns at her. “That’s absolute bullshit Gray," he states. "You're like, a master at this game. You kept flaming me for messing up.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m failing so much because you guys keep distracting me,” she says. "Have you ever thought about that?"
No, Thomas thinks. She's definitely doing this on purpose. And he does call her out on this: “You’re doing this on purpose aren’t you.”
Gray huffs, a small pout beginning to form on her lips. “Well maybe if you weren’t still in my room, I wouldn’t be interrupting your flirting.”
Both of their faces instantly burn a bright red. The sight of the incredibly visible flush on Micro's pale cheeks only serves to make Thomas' blush burn brighter. “We’re not flirting!”
Gray just rolls her eyes. “Okay well, whatever this is—" she motions towards where they're standing, "—do it somewhere else. And preferably not in my room.”
The next thing they know, both Thomas and Micro are being pushed out of the room and back into the hallway. They turn back to face Gray right as she closes the door behind them.
No one says anything for a few beats. Then Micro sighs.
“I should just go," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. His gaze is glued to the floor. "This was a bad idea.”
Micro barely makes it one step before Thomas reaches out and gently grabs onto his wrist. He tilts his head to try and get a good look at the other's face, yet Micro simply turns his head away.
Thomas frowns.
“Micro," he calls out gently. Thomas lightly tugs and Micro lets himself be pulled back. "Why are you here.”
Micro's gaze doesn't lift up from the floor. "…It's stupid."
"Please?
Micro bites his lip. He uses his free hand to ruffle the top of his hair before sighing. "Look, I don't know, I just," he hesitates, biting his lip.
"It's just that, we haven't hung out in a while, and I've like, missed you I guess," he confesses, his eyes drifting to where Thomas's hand has slid down from his wrist as his pale cheeks flush again. "I didn't really have a plan when I came over."
Oh… Thomas has to fight to keep a silly grin off his face. "That's not stupid," he says. He finds himself lacing their fingers together in a lazy hold. "I've missed you too."
Micro's face reddens further. Thomas quietly laughs as Micro tries to cover his face with his arm. "Dude you can't just say things like that," he whines.
"Why not?" Thomas takes a step closer and leans down to try and make eye contact with Micro. Thomas has no idea this sudden confidence is coming from, but he may as well run with it. "I have missed you."
Micro let's out a strange squeak and if that wasn't the cutest thing Thomas had ever heard. It just made him want to be more bold.
Thomas didn't have the time to think about how uncharasteristically he's behaving as he reaches up to poke one of Micro's dimple-like moles bracketing his mouth. "Other than the totally real project we have to do, is there anything else you had in mind?"
Micro finally looks up at him to pout. "You're being mean," he complains. "Be nice to me."
Thomas hums. "That doesn't sound like an activity to me," he teases, giving in to his feelings as he grins like a fool.
Micro's pout only deepens. "Fine," he grumbles.
Thomas suddenly feels a firm grip on his hands and looks down to find that Micro has properly locked their hands together. He looks back up, and the determined look on Micro's face is enough to make him swallow.
"Are you free tomorrow?" Micro asks. He starts swinging their joined hands. "We could go out, get some food, and then go back to my place."
That sounded fantastic to Thomas, but he still has some dignity left. He settles on a, "That sounds like fun," smiling as Micro's face lights up in response.
Their little bubble of happiness suddenly pops as the door to Gray’s room opens again, making them jump. They turn to find Gray standing in the open space, staring at them with an exasperated look on her face. It’s one Thomas has seen many times, usually on his own face when Gray shoves her phone in his face to get him to do a TikTok with her.
“When I said to move your conversation somewhere else, I meant like, downstairs,” Gray states. She spreads her arms out and motions towards the space where the two guys are standing. “I didn’t mean you should continue it directly outside my door.”
The comment makes Micro's complexion revert back to its previous supernova state. Thomas feels a small pang in his chest as Micro, flustered, dramatically drops his hold on his hand and tries to make himself scarce, much to Thomas's disappointment.
However, right as Micro reaches the top of the stairs, he stops and turns back around.
"We're still good for tomorrow?" Micro double checks, eyes darting across Thomas's expression.
"Looking forward to it," Thomas says earnestly, before adding, "You're picking me up though."
Micro smiles goofily at him and Thomas has to bite back a grin. His breath catches in his throat as Micro's eyes seem to catch onto the movement.
"Great," Micro breathes out, sounding a little distracted. It sends a flutter of warmth straight through Thomas's chest. "Yeah, cool. Awesome."
Thomas follows Micro's gaze as it drifts over to Thomas's right side. Gray is still standing there, looking disgusted in the way little sisters tend to do. They both flush.
"Right, sorry—" Micro starts stumbling backwards, pointing behind him. "I'll just, I'm going to head out now."
Without another word, Micro turns around and proceeds to sprint down the stairs. Thomas watches him go. His heart feels so full.
Gray turns to her brother and gags at the look on his face. "You guys are so lame."
In lieu of a response, Thomas just wraps an arm around her and ruffles her hair, making her grumble as she tries to push him away. Yet Thomas can still hear the laughter in her voice.
Satisfied, he figures it's about time he starts making them some food. As he drags Gray down to the kitchen, he finds himself looking forward to tomorrow.