ᯓ2★
I rub my eyes and check my watch, 5:00AM.
I usually wouldn't get up this early. I guess I’m.. scared.. For the next week? I’m scared of my roommate, that's for sure. I haven't always been the smartest.. In fact, I’ve literally never been smart!
My families wealthy enough that I haven’t had to get a job yet.. And I’m worried I never will. BUT! This year I’ll get smarter. I’ll try not to bedrot so much.. And maybe make a friend or two?
Who am I kidding.
I get pretty hungry and it’s 5:00AM so I assume my roommate’s asleep. I could probably sneak a quick snack if he isn’t awake.
I tiptoe through his bedroom, and to the kitchen. I grab a small bag of chips and open it as quietly as I can. Apparently as quiet as I can is not so quiet.
Turns out, he’s a deep sleeper! I don’t know how he’d react if I woke him up, but he looks like he’d shred me to pieces if I were to say anything bad about him or his mother… assuming he has one?
I get distracted in the kitchen by the flappy dunk game on my phone. My swish streak is 72, the most I’ve ever gotten. Holy shit. This has got to be some sort of record.
72
73
74
0
“FUCK!”
I slam my phone down on the countertop, and then realize how loud I just yelled. I silently pray to the video game gods that nobody outside a five foot proximity of me heard that.
My prayers did not work.
“EUGHHH.. fuck—ROBBERS GO AWAY….!” I hear a muffled scream.
Damn, this guy is paranoid of robbers. I curse myself for waking him up and proceed to slowly walk my way to his bedroom and baby talk to him that it’s all just a dream. What the hell am I doing.
He seems to catch onto my tactics fairly quickly and punches me in the face. I knew I deserved it but I yelled at him anyway.
“WHAT WAS THAT FOR?”
“Dude, why the fuck are you trying to hypnotize me it’s like…,” He checks his watch, “5, 5 in the morning. How the hell did I even wake up?”
It’s hard to understand his gruff voice, especially when he’s drowsy.
“I-uh.. lost my flappy dunk streak on my phone and.. Yelled .. I think. Or! Or there were actually robbers! And-and.. I-uh saved you..!....?” I shrug.
“That game is shit.”
“HEY–! … yeah it probably is.” I rub my temples.
He snorts, “You enjoy a lot of shitty games.”
“Like what? You don’t know anything about me!”
“You have a Fortnite backpack.”
“Fortnite isn't that shitty.”
He nods with a very unsure look on his face... I think.. It's dark. I don’t know what he’s trying to imply but Fortnite is the best thing to grace this planet since Sprite. He’s just too dumb to understand the true beauty.
He yawns, and I mirror soon after. I walk back to my room in awkward silence while he scrolls on his phone. What else are you supposed to do at 5am?
I realize I made a fatal mistake. I run back to the kitchen while tip-toeing.
“What are you running for ..?”
“I– forgot my chips.” I look down, defeated.
“Ok fatass. That doesn’t answer my question, you could have walked, I don’t bite.”
“Uh-huh, sure you don’t. Why are you so nosy anyways?” I scoff at him, then walk back to my room one last time.
Each of the rooms have one small TV, big enough for me to hook up the XBox I conveniently brought just in case.
Turns out, I've forgotten how to hook up an XBox! I try to be as quiet as possible, trying to shove the USB-C plug into literally every nook and cranny I can find on the TV. What the fuck am I supposed to do now.
Until he walks in.
“Dude, you’re causing a ruckus. What the hell are you doing?” He groans.
I sigh.
“Why do you care.”
He turns on the light and I am blinded. Why is it so bright? Couldn’t he have waited until the sun came up?
“I see the problem..”
He yanks my hand away from the cord and presents it up to me. His hands are too cold for my liking.
“This is the wrong cord.”
“WHAT!?”
“Yeah,”
He grabs the longer cord and plugs it into a small indent on the back of the TV.
“Voila,” he says blandly, “turn it on.”
I hold onto the power button as it flashes green, and the TV flashes. It displays all my treasured games in their full glory, Minecraft being marked as last played.
“Uh.. Thanks man..”
He shrugs and I see a small smile tug at his lips as he walks away. Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought he was.
I boot up Minecraft to make sure my dog’s still alive, and sure enough he is.
I craft a nametag, and decide to name him Knife. After all, I'm spending a possible 2 years with my roommate so I’ll need to get used to him somehow.
I throw a chip in my mouth and log out of Minecraft. Chips are not enough to satisfy my hunger, so why not make some mac and cheese. Yet again, I walk past Knife’s room, when suddenly yells to me,
“HEY!”
“OH MY GOD WHAT?”
“Calm down, I just wanna compare schedules.”
“Ok…..?”
I walk backwards to his room and get out my schedule. We seem to have five of eight classes together, as well as lunch. Cool, it really doesn’t matter to me. We both simultaneously shrug and I trek to the kitchen to make my mac n cheese.
I boil the water for a while, then pour in two boxes because maybe Knife wants some.
When I think the noodles are sticky enough, I drain the pot and put in extra butter. Who doesn’t like extra butter? Maybe emo guys don’t. Well this mac n cheese is more for me than him.
Once the butter is melted, I sprinkle in the cheese powder and an unspecified amount of milk. I mix it all up until it looks decent, then scoop some into two paper plates because we’re both too broke for actual dishes. I need to get a job soon.
I awkwardly bring Knifes plate over to him.
“I mades’ us mac n cheese.. Want some?”
“Not really but I’ll take it.”
Jeez this guy’s a jerk. I worked so hard on that mac n cheese, and for what!? Whatever. At least I have my own plate.
⋆⭒˚.⋆
The week goes by fast, and before I know it classes start tomorrow. Fuck school man, I know I said I wanted to get smarter but let’s be real. Bedrotting is WAY better than waking up at 6am every morning just to sit through some boring ass classes for seven hours.
Me and my roommate have been on.. Decent terms I think! Maybe a friend, probably not. He said my mac n cheese was okay and I take that as a compliment. But he’s either playing some.. Electric guitar all day, or scrolling on his phone with headphones on. He seems like a music guy. I wonder what music he likes, so why not ask him.
“Knife, what music do you like?”
He raises his eyebrow at me then scratches his head.
“You’d be .. surprised. I’d rather not tell.”
Music doesn’t seem like something to be kept secret but I’ve had my fair share of privatizing things that didn’t need to be privatized, so I let it go.
Maybe he listens to Clairo or something. Either way it’s not really something to be ashamed of. I decided to unhook my XBox from my TV and replace it with my Switch. I’d brought a lot of gaming consoles… At this point I’ve lost track.
I load up Mario Golf and play solo. Until I hear him. A smug remark.
“Mind if I join?”
I thought I’d already pissed him off enough for him to completely ignore me, but not today. Nice job Pickle, classes haven’t even started and you’re already making friends!
I try to sound as nonchalant as possible, “Sure, whatever.”
I cancel out of solo mode and click on multiplayer.
The game starts, and right off the bat, we both get birdies. It seems to continue neck and neck throughout the game, until Knife gets a hole in one on the last hole. No coming back from that.
I sigh, “Good game.”
He nods and repeats, happiest I’ve seen him. This might’ve been the second time I’ve seen him smile, the first barely counting. I can’t help but grin knowing I made the grungiest guy alive beam a little.
We agree on a rematch, and the process seems to keep looping as the sun goes down. Knife wins, I win, Knife wins, I win. We both decided to call it a night at nearly 12AM. It was actually.. Funner than I thought it’d be. This Knife guy’s a lot funnier than he appears to be.
I wonder if he thinks I’m nice.. Not that I careee… It’d just be nice to know.
We’re both on the couch, nearly dozing off, “Hey.. Let’s do this again sometime. You’re nicer than you look.” I smirk, He rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, okay…,” I can see another smile he’s trying to fight off! “Insult my appearance again though, and you're dead.”
“It wasn’t an insult!”
“Whatever..” He yawns before walking back to his room.
Okay. Classes start tomorrow.. I think I’ll be okay. Yeah.. I’ll be fine.
I close my eyes.
…
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
“FUCK!”
I forgot I set that loudass alarm. I slowly get up and walk around to see that Knife’s already dressed and ready. Guess my 5am wakeup a week ago ruined his sleep schedule or something.
Other than the occasional six hour video game session, we haven’t talked to each other much; I can tell he’s starting to warm up to me though. Sometimes I can feel like I can tell him anything even though we’ve barely ever even made eye contact. I’ve had to stop myself from telling him too much a couple times now. It’s probably the fact I have no other friends. Does he even consider me a friend?
I’m overthinking this.
Knife see’s that I’m awake and waves to me.
“Made us waffles. Hope you like ‘em.”
“Thanks.” I smile,
I notice how my waffles are green, presumably on purpose, he probably knows my favorite color is green by now. Maybe he does consider me a friend.
I grin at the thought, then realize I’m not yet out of my pajamas.
I decided to procrastinate on that and focus on eating my waffles. Damn, these are good. I touch my finger to my chin attempting to keep myself awake.
Once I finish devouring my waffles, I just scroll on TikTok and snack on Takis until it’s time to go, not realizing I’m forgetting something.
Knife suddenly walks past me and grabs a handful out of my Taki bag. I guess.. That’s a sign hes getting.. More comfortable around me..? Or maybe He’s just a dick. Whatever. I don’t care.
I check the time and see that we gotta go, so I get my crocs on and yell to Knife that It’s time to go. He follows me out the door and we start walking to our first class. We banter about random stuff along the way, anything we can think of from GTA VI the Switch 2 release. It was surprisingly comfortable.
In the blink of an eye we’re outside our first period classroom. History.
“Ready?” Knife asks.
“More than you.” I chuckle and snark.
Knife then widens his eyes, and curves his mouth in a way that looks as if he’s holding in the biggest laugh of his life.
”Are you-hhhh are you sure about that?” He mumbles out.
“Dude. ..what?”
He signals me to look at my clothes and I do so.
My eyebrows furrow and my mouth drops agape.
Fuck. I guess the first day of class is pajama day.