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Courfeyrac was juggling four different textbooks in his hands as he nudged open the door and shuffled into the apartment. He sighed dramatically, and the books came crashing down one by one onto the countertop.
“Hey! Would you mind keeping it down?”
It was only then that Courfeyrac noticed the dimmed lights in the next room over.
“Sorry!” Courfeyrac called out hastily. He slipped off his shoes and set his overstuffed backpack on one of the kitchen chairs with infinitely more care. “I didn't think anyone would be home right now.”
Courfeyrac’s fingers wrapped around the door frame into the living room, and he squinted into the darkened room. There was a rustling as the blankets shifted. The couch cushion dipped as Grantaire rolled over onto his side to look at him. “Sorry to disappoint. It’s just me.”
“That’s not disappointing at all,” Courfeyrac replied. His eyes drifted over Grantaire’s messy curls, which looked more disheveled than usual today. The redness of his eyelids, the dark rims underneath them, and the flush on his cheeks were all red flags. “Are you alright?”
Grantaire blinked a couple of times. “I guess,” he mumbled, which Courfeyrac readily understood as no I’m not alright. Grantaire grimaced and yanked up one of their fuzzy grey blankets until it was nestled under his chin.
“How can I help you?” Courfeyrac asked as he padded over to the couch, his bare toes curling into the carpet. Even when Courfeyrac finally came to a stop right next to him, Grantaire continued to stare straight up at the ceiling. His eyes traced the blades of the ceiling fan, which were stationary, as it was the middle of January. A coating of dust had accumulated around the curved edges.
“Well,” Grantaire started. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do for me, unless you can explain in explicit detail why anything I do matters at all.”
Courfeyrac hummed in response. He chewed on his bottom lip as he contemplated the best way to handle the situation. “Did something go wrong in art class today?”
“None of it means anything,” Grantaire continued to say with a small shake of his head. His eyes were wide and his curls were fanned out across the pillow propped underneath his head. “I don’t know why I even try… I can’t do anything right.”
Courfeyrac’s expression softened as an idea formed in his head. He retreated into the study momentarily and returned with a small rectangle of white paper clutched in his hands. He fiddled with one of the corners of the page briefly before focusing his attention back on Grantaire.
“I think we should take this one step at a time,” Courfeyrac said gently. “Getting off the couch might be a good start.”
“Why?” Grantaire groaned. “It’s so comfortable here.”
“I know,” Courfeyrac said with a tilt of his head. “Just do it.”
Grantaire pulled himself up into a sitting position and then swung his legs over the edge of the couch. Courfeyrac offered him a hand up and he accepted it gratefully, his own calloused fingertips gripping Courfeyrac’s warm palm.
As soon as he was on his feet, Courfeyrac peeled something off the page and stuck it right to Grantaire’s bicep. “You just did something right,” he said simply.
“What the hell?” he gripped his sleeve and craned his neck so that he could investigate. There was a bright pink sticker with GOOD JOB! printed in white bubble letters stuck on to his t-shirt.
Grantaire deadpanned. “Stickers, Courf? Really?”
“Stickers make everything better,” Courfeyrac said confidently.
“Are you actually five years old?” Grantaire asked incredulously. “Where did you even get those?”
“Oh, Combeferre uses them all the time when he tutors kids at the local elementary school,” Courfeyrac explained. “I’m sure he won’t mind if I borrow them.”
Grantaire lifted a hand to rub at his tired eyes. They were stinging from a lack of sleep the night before. “So, where are you going with this?” he wondered.
“Show me the assignment that was handed back today,” Courfeyrac said instead. “Is it around here somewhere?”
Grantaire mumbled a few words under his breath and then crouched down. He patted along the carpet underneath the coffee table until his fingers brushed up against a crumpled up piece of paper. He passed it over to Courfeyrac, who took a few steps forward so that he could smooth out the creases against the wall.
The paper revealed a half-finished pencil sketch of someone with very curly blond hair. The face was not completed, had not even been started truthfully, but the hair, and the way light danced off the hair, was rendered in extraordinary detail. He peeled another sticker off the sheet and then returned the paper to Grantaire.
Grantaire could not suppress a smile when he saw that Courfeyrac had covered the C written in bright red ink with a big yellow star. In the center were the words FANTASTIC JOB!
“You really don’t have to do this,” Grantaire insisted.
“Maybe not,” Courfeyrac shrugged. “But at least I got you to smile.”
“What now? You’re going to just follow me around and give me stickers when I do stuff?” Grantaire was only half-joking.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Courfeyrac said seriously.
Courfeyrac followed close on Grantaire’s heels as he relocated his backpack, discarded in one corner of the living room. He knelt down and pressed a sticker that said YOU’RE BRILLIANT! right onto the creased blue cover of the sketchpad sticking out from one of the open pockets.
Grantaire’s vision started to grow blurry, and he swatted at his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I’m not,” he said quietly. “But thanks anyway.”
In response, Courfeyrac peeled off a small rectangular sticker and showed it to him as it dangled off his index finger. It was the word INCREDIBLE! printed in purple ink. He smiled and stuck it to Grantaire’s forehead.
Grantaire was overcome by the gesture. He spun around on his heel and made a beeline for the kitchen sink. He grabbed a tall glass out of the cabinet and filled it to the brim with tap water, which prompted Courfeyrac to press a circular WELL DONE sticker to the skin right beneath his knuckles.
Courfeyrac continued to follow him around the apartment as he gathered together his water bottle and his colored pencils. He located his coat and found a matching pair of gloves and even pulled on a pair of snow boots, which earned him a variety of stickers in various places on his body. By the time he was ready to leave and go to class again, he had stickers stuck to his arms and chest, serving as a visible reminder of all the things he had done.
“Thanks, Courfeyrac,” was all Grantaire could manage to say.
"Don’t mention it." Courfeyrac smiled and peeled two more stickers off the sheet. He pressed them side by side to Grantaire’s chest, directly over his heart. He smoothed them down with the edges of his thumbs and said, "This is it, I promise. But they’re the most important ones."
Grantaire gripped his t-shirt and pulled it forward slightly so that he could see the stickers.
Even though they were upside down, he could still clearly make out the words.
I TRIED MY BEST TODAY
KEEP TRYING