Work Text:
It was January, a few days after new years, and SMii7Y wanted to pass the time with his friend. John was on vacation for an entire week, not recording or streaming videos.
What did they do most of the time? Discord calls late at night, pondering how their lives were going.
"Jaren?" "What's up?" "Would you want to be my Valentine's? I know it's still in one month, but I'm planning something special. That's if - you say yes." There was silence for a few seconds, SMii7Y hadn't expected this question at all. Yes, he was in love with Kryoz but he didn't know that the other would feel the same for him. "Of course!" His happiness could be hear from the tone of his voice, already excited even if the date was yet to come. "Good, don't forget about it then."
"I won't."
"Wait so, you won't even have time to record a session with me until next month? That'll be March!" SMii7Y was annoyed and upset, his non-official partner had just told him that he was going to be busy. "Yes, I know, but my schedule is full until then, I'm sorry. Don't worry about Valentine's, we'll still do that." He was about to speak up, John interrupting him by continuing to talk. "Also, I'll send you messages every day. Even if we don't record together, it doesn't mean we can't talk when we are not working." "Okay.. You're right."
"Anyways, I want to show you one of the drawings I've created earlier," John paused, turning around to look through his room, spotting a canvas that was semi finished; pretty colours mashed together. "What do you think about it?" SMii7Y didn't know how to respond, still having his thoughts stuck about the fact they would barely interact or play together. It wasn't fair, he had always found time to reach out to Kryoz even if he didn't even have time in his schedule, talking to him while he was recording with other people. Smit wasn't going to start an argument right now though, he would feel bad about it. "It looks pretty. I love how well drawn the trees look."
"Are you sure? You sound like you don't like it." "No, I mean yes I'm sure, I just got distracted because I remembered I haven't fed Octavia." He lied, of course he did. It's not because the art was ugly, he was sure it wasn't, it's just that he hadn't even looked at it, too focused on his own damn feelings. Meanwhile John smiled - buying the poor excuse of a lie, just glad that someone liked the things he created. "Talking about feeding her, I'll go do that right now, and since it's already late I'll go sleep. Good night." Kryoz put down the canvas, looking at it for a few seconds before going back to the call. "Alright! Good night!"
Smit stared at the monitor, the call was already over, no sound coming out of the headphones, and yet he still stared at it. How did they even each this point, a week ago they were talking so many hours! Work shouldn't take that much time out of their lives! Before he could spiral more, he got up - deciding to go to the kitchen, thinking about making a snack for himself. Yeah, some food would give him energy, at least he thought so. Not even halfway through his house and Octavia was already running all around him, excited to see him after it had been a long day. He petted her, a giggle creeping out of him, she always knew how to keep him happy. "You wanna go out for a bit, girl?" He then resumed the walking, finally reaching the kitchen while the dog followed behind. He snatched a random banana, quickly eating it to not make Octavia wait, and went to wear a jacket that was next to the main door. "You're a good girl, aren't you." Smit grabbed the leash, put it on her collar and opened the door. She barked a few times, SMii7Y trying to shush her as it was too late to make noise.
"Octavia I just can't understand.. He said we would be talking every day, but yesterday he didn't even say a hi." He was sat on the ground, at a park they had just arrived to, the moon's light softly reflecting on the lake in front of them. It was peacefully silent apart from the words coming out of SMii7Y's mouth, and he liked it this way. "Am I overreacting?" She barked, responding to him but not because she knew what he was saying. "Yeah you're right." He stayed there for another thirty minutes, just enjoying the night. It wasn't warm but it also wasn't cold, just the perfect temperature. Though Octavia was getting tired of the outside world, pacing back and forth just behind Smit, often glancing back to where they had came from at the start.
"Alright alright, I know." He got up from the ground and patted his pants, cleaning them from the dirt that had accumulated. He whistled at her to take her attention, then grabbed the leash and started walking towards their home. "Sorry for bothering you so much girl." Smit giggled, looking at Octavia from time to time. "Your owner's head is just filled with so many worries." Now that they were back in the streets, cars could be heard on the background, sometimes a TV coming out of a house that was far too close to them, or someone else that had also thought of taking their dog out for the night. "I guess other people aren't so different."
When they finally arrived home he rapidly went to his bedroom first, dropping his clothes to the floor and laying down on his bed - face towards the pillows, Octavia next to him but already falling asleep. He still felt miserable, still felt upset because of John, if he kept going like this he wouldn't even sleep this night. At the end he reached out for the nightstand, grabbing the airpods and playing some music, the lullaby accompanying him to sleep, not realizing about the tears that stained his face.
Two weeks had already passed by, two weeks of not knowing if John really loved him or not. The first few days Kryoz had kept up with the promise of talking every day, but after that? Only responding to a message three days later. SMii7Y asking 'how are you?' and a few more questions, just trying to still have that simple chat. Instead getting a 'good.' from the other, not a 'good! how about u?'. This was now pissing him off instead of making him sad, trying so badly to not lash out whenever the other was online yet not talking to him.
It was alright, everything was alright. There was still hope - Valentine's was right around the corner, just two days away. John had prepared something for the both of them. So what did he do? Buy a plane ticket to the USA for the 14th of February. This would be a nice surprise for Kryoz, he would surely be so excited to see him. He supposedly had some recording sessions for that day, but it was going to be okay, it was okay to miss one day. He had enough money to survive one day of not working. He just wished John had that same mentality.
SMii7Y was about to rip his hair out, but a DM stopped him. Finally, John responded to him in the same day- nevermind. It was Sovi. That's alright. Sovi would distract him from thinking about someone else. He checked the message, seeing that the other was inviting him to play with him, Daukey and Yumi. Knowing those three? He was about to have a blast.
"-AUKEY STOP GOING FOR ME!" Yumi screamed from the top of his lungs, his microphone not catching most of the phrase. They were, yet again, playing a tag game since the viewers enjoyed them so much. This one was new though, having more maps and more types of tag, like sardines. For now they decided to play normal mode though, and it was going as anyone would expect it to go. "Dude Yumi! Just let me catch you! Plea-" "NO!" Sovi was laughing in the background, far away from the two of them just in case Daukey suddenly wanted to go for him. "Go for SMii7Y instead or something!" "Where even is he?"
"I'm Batman." He ominously said, though instantly wheezed, standing on top of a pole while watching Yumi get chased, a bit he had done previously. "You're not HIM bro." Sovi chimed in after he had muted for a minute, probably talking to his chat, he did that most of the time. "How do you even know? Maybe at night I go beating up evil people." "Because if you were Batman, you wouldn't even say it." Yumi flatly said, staring at SMii7Y from the floor, finally gotten caught by the duck. He tried to parkour all the way to the top to tag Smit, failing over and over again. "Do you even know how to play?" "YES I DO!" Yumi got nervous and started button smashing on his controller, somehow finding the right button to get up. Smit seeing what was happening, started running away. His character decided to crash instead, Yumi having enough time to tag him. "AEUGH!" "Like I said, you're not him.." "Shut up Sovi! You're just a coward hiding away!"
"Woo, what a session this was." He was clicking on his monitor, making sure OBS had stopped recording while also talking to Yumi. The other two were already gone from the call. "Most of the game was you arguing with Sovi." "HAH! Yeah, I almost got him to say a slur." Yumi let out a giggle, remembering the first time Sovi had said something like that. Almost all the comments were about it. A comfortable silence fell over the call, both of them just doing some stuff on their own. A silence like this made him think of a person.
"Can I ask something?" "Yeah sure." Smit didn't know how to word it, or how to even get himself to ask about it. "If you uh… if you had a busy schedule, would you still talk to your partner every day?" It didn't sound as good as it had sounded in his brain, regretting the fact he was even speaking about this. Yumi almost laughed, but then decided not to with how serious Smit had sounded. "Of course I would. Why do you ask?" He went silent, a barely audible sniff coming out of his mouth. "Just.. nothing, don't mind me."
He walked out of the airport, phone in one hand and the suitcase in the other, a big smile plastered on his face. It was finally the big day he had been waiting for so long, meeting John for Valentine's day! He ordered an Uber to pick him up, and luckily since this was a busy spot, it was already there in less than five minutes. SMii7Y told the driver where to go. It was fairly far from where they were, around two hours away. That gave him the opportunity to talk with Kryoz and make sure the other was home, that's if he even responded to him.
'good morning John! what are you doing rn?'
A few seconds passed by when the message was read, three dots indicating that John was in fact answering him. He did a little celebration dance inside the car, receiving a side-eye from the driver. He didn't care about that though, only about how Kryoz responded so fast.
'im with the clooless guys, they wanted to go out to this cool bar'
Oh.
'they picked me up and now I'm in Puffer's car'
John sent a selfie photo, Puffer being the driver while Grizzy was on the back seat, doing something on his phone. Had John forgotten about Valentine's? About him? About the promise of specifically not forgetting? He had to endure a month of Kryoz almost not talking to him at all, and now this? Smit told the driver to stop, that he didn't need to go anywhere else anymore and paid the guy, rapidly getting out of the car. He didn't know how to react; sad? Angry? Disappointed? Everything just felt wrong, too many emotions all at once.
He could feel his throat getting smaller, a sour pain growing, his lips quivering from trying not to cry, his vision getting blurry and his knees buckling. Smit put his hands on the knees, using them as a support just to not fall to the ground. Heartbroken was the right word. He had done everything in his power to talk to John because he loved him, even travelled to America for him. But he didn't do anything for SMii7Y. He grabbed his phone once again.
'Today's Valentine's day btw. Thank you so much, I really love the thing you planned for me.'
'sorry, i forgot about it'
'Well I didn't. Have fun with Clooless.'
He then shut off the phone, not paying attention to the notifications he was getting. This had been a dumb idea, he should've just waited at his house, with Octavia and would've gotten upset only at night when realizing John forgot about him. But no, he had to go out all the way to USA just to get upset at 11am. Smit started walking, he didn't know where he was, but he didn't care. He just wanted to be home right now.
SMii7Y stopped wandering around after what felt like forever, the suitcase feeling too heavy to even carry anymore. He sat on the curb, deciding to ask someone to pick him up. Clooless? Well he already knew they were busy. Matt was in another country while Sovi and Daukey surely were doing something together. That would leave Yumi being the only one free, supposedly. He could also just order another Uber but he just didn't want to pay that much, so he simply called Yumi. After various tries, the other finally answered, voice full of tiredness. "Dude, I was sleeping, what do you want?" "Can you uhm." He paused to recollect his thoughts, trying to make his sadness less audible through the phone's microphone. "Can you come pick me up. Please? I'm in America." There was some shuffling around from Yumi's end, Smit not knowing what the other was doing. "Yeah, send me your location, I'm on my way." He went to discord and sent him the location.
"You're not mad?" He heard Yumi scoff, in disbelief from the question that was asked. "Why would I be." "Because I suddenly told you to come for me." He felt bad, having to bother the other so early in the morning, when most of the time Yumi did streams at night, not having a chance to sleep well. "I don't mind. I'm just pissed off because you're alone." Sadness started to build up again. How could he be so kind to him? How could anyone be so kind? "Do you want to tell me what happened?" Yumi's voice was soft, grounding Smit in a way that he hadn't felt before - for some reason he didn't have the need to cry anymore, all his focus on the person that was talking to him. "Maybe.. later. When I'm in your car." "Sounds good for me."
"You can stay in my house for a bit if you want." That.. wasn't a bad idea actually, he wouldn't be too alone then. And Octavia was in good hands, he had left her with his parents just in case he wouldn't return home the next day. Also, to be honest, he really enjoyed Yumi's company more than others' lately. "Yeah, I would like that." The other simply hummed in response, concentrated on driving more than on the conversation now.
He stared at his phone, Yumi had hung up a few minutes ago since he was close to SMii7Y's location, leaving him to wait with his own thoughts. The screen showed him a notification from Kryoz, he was too tired to even look at what it said, already knowing how upset he would get when reading it. A car's honk took him out of his little bubble of thoughts, now realizing Yumi was finally in front of him. He got up from sitting on the curb, sending a wave at the other while approaching him. Yumi pulled the window down, words coming out of his mouth while pointing behind him. "You can leave the suitcase on the back seat."
After putting the suitcase on the back part of the car, he got in the copilot seat, now somewhat nervous to even speak up about what happened. Somehow Yumi knew how to read through him. "If you don't wanna talk it's alright." Yumi started the car, already putting his home's location on the GPS. SMii7Y fidgeted with his hoodie's sleeves, a fake laugh coming out of him. "No, no. I just, traveled here to visit Kryoz for Valentine's and he.. he said he had something planned for me but then completely forgot about it." He was embarrassed to say it out loud, now thinking it wasn't that big of a deal, that it wasn't enough to cry about it. "While also going out with Puffer and the others." He placed his hands on top of his face, trying to hide the fact that yes, he was crying again. Smit felt so impotent about this situation, thinking that maybe there would've been a way to stop it from ending like this.
He didn't notice the car stopping, didn't notice how the other got out of the car and went around - opening the copilot's door - until Yumi was practically hugging him. He let himself be embraced, sobbing more than he wanted, staining Yumi's clothes with tears. Neither of them said more words.
After a few minutes, he had finally calmed down and Yumi returned to the pilot seat, but still had one hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him with the best of his abilities. "You feeling better?" Smit nodded, voice too hoarse to even make an attempt to talk. "I'll continue the trip home then, and when we get there you'll get to see Marty!" Yumi removed his hand from Smit's shoulder to fully concentrate on driving, he was mad and disappointed at John.
They arrived at Yumi's house around 12pm, almost 1pm, and it was mostly quiet apart from the cats' meows. Some rooms felt empty, not decorated like normal houses. Yumi's office was way different though, it being a stark contrast against the other parts of the house. It was funny to him, how Yumi didn't bother to take time out of his life to even put a simple plant on the corner. Marty uncaringly approached Smit while Zeke was maintaining the distance of ten feet, not trusting a single thing about the new 'intruder'. "You should meet Octavia one day. She'd be excited to meet you." He petted the orange cat below its head, it started purring, comfortable enough to lay its guard down. "I'm sure she's a nice dog." Yumi said, checking something in his PC then turning it off.
They moved to the living room, sitting on the sofa while Yumi put on a random show on his TV, not really watching it but using it as background noise. "I'm going to order some McDonald's, you want some?" He looked up from his phone, now his gaze on Yumi. "You can just order me a McCrispy, thanks." The other finished up ordering the food, now just scrolling on tiktok, not knowing what to talk about.
They stayed like this for a while until the delivery guy finally dropped off their food, after a quick check they made sure everything they ordered was included in the bag. Once that was done, Yumi was quickly the first one to start eating, enjoying the taste of his burger. "Damn you're fast!" The other just glared at him, not having expected Smit to say that. "Dude, leave me alone." He laughed, but decided not to pry any longer and started mauling at his own burger.
Smit was waiting for Yumi to come back, the other had gone to take out the trash now that they had finished lunch. Being here gave him a sense of belonging, it told him that he was safe here, nothing to worry about. He liked this feeling, maybe he could stay here a few more days than planned. The main door opened, Yumi entering and then quickly shutting the same door. "Would you wanna be Valentine's?" That was unexpected, it caught him by surprise, leaving him with his mouth open. "What?" "What you heard." Why would Yumi ask something like that? This was the equivalent of asking someone to be their partner. Now that he thought more about it, it made sense. The way Yumi started trying to record more sessions with him, asked him if he was alright whenever he got sick - and now today, going out to find SMii7Y even if he had just woken up, not getting mad at him. This newly found information made him look at Yumi in a different way, one that he once thought he'd be only able to look at John that way.
Yumi started getting nervous, confidence now gone with how much SMii7Y was taking too long to answer him. "I mean you can also say no-" "Yes." They both stared at each other in awe, Smit could see how Yumi's eyes lit up with joy, although his face didn't reflect the same. "Wait here please, I need to go buy something." Smit wheezed at the sudden urgency that coursed through Yumi's veins. "I don't have anywhere else to go man." "Okay dude."
It had been a few hours since Yumi had returned from the store, not showing what he had bought and going to the kitchen instead, leaving the bags there. Smit would lie if he said he wasn't curious, the other still being in the kitchen after he had told him he was prohibited from going there. He was kind of bored, nothing much to do since he hadn't brought anything from his house apart from some clothes. At least Marty was accompanying him, the cat purring once again. From time to time he could hear Yumi doing something; either cooking or moving some furniture.
Then Yumi popped out of the kitchen's door, walking towards SMii7Y and carefully grabbing his hands. He guided them towards the kitchen without saying a word. Once inside the room, Yumi let go of his hands and sat down on one of the chairs prepared. Smit glanced everyone, the things that were more prominent in the room being; a pair of chairs, a round table and two plates with steak right in front of the chairs. There was also a cake on the edge of the table, with some red flowers - more specifically roses - next to it. "Oh shit I forgot the candle." Yumi grabbed his phone and searched up a video of a candle, then placed it on the middle between two glasses of wine. "I hope you like it."
He sat down in front of Yumi, just too surprised to say anything and started eating. People think most youtubers don't know how to cook, but fuck - this steak was delicious, it deserved to be in a five star restaurant or something. "The steak is good, did you hire someone to make it or what?" "No, I made it myself." He kept eating, the meat was juicy and well done, easy to bite and cut.
After they were finished with the steak, Yumi cut some cake and placed it on Smit's plate, then cut some for him. Surprisingly it wasn't a chocolate cake but instead had a lemon flavour, and it wasn't too sweet like he also expected it to be.
"So uh.. What does this makes us?" Yumi asked shyly, different from his rude persona he always showed in his videos. Smit thought about it deeply, while he felt some kind of love towards him, he also wasn't sure about those feelings and wanted to be careful about this. "We can be partners but-" He paused, pointing his fork towards the person in front of him. "We take this slowly, and we don't tell the others until we feel like we're ready." Yumi nodded, looking like he was about to explode from too much excitement, this was still a win for him.
"Also.. thank you."
"For what?"
"For today."