Bitter Sugar Fights

“Hey, are you my new roommate?”

“Yeah, let’s have a good year!”

 _____

It had been a very, very, very long day.

Being the unlucky guy that he is, he somehow got a schedule mix up and ended up with several morning classes on Mondays, forcing him to get up before the sun just to drag his butt down to a very uncomfortable plastic chair to listen to several boring monotonous lectures on something that he wasn’t even studying about in the future. You would think that the universe had already been mean enough to him by making him the shortest male in his high school graduation class (Only five feet exactly; seriously, he had girls who were using him as arm rests), very clumsy, and absolutely atrociously socially awkward. Wait, actually he wasn’t just socially awkward. He was awkward in every sense. Seriously.

Sighing as he struggled with the stupid half-broken lock to his dorm room that just so happened to only turn broken when he was the one who was trying to open it, he felt a wave of exhaustion as he finally got to trudge inside to flop down onto his bed, tossing his bag of heavy expensive books to somewhere nearby. The books landed with a thud, and he rolled over to bury his face into a fluffy pillow, groaning incoherently. From across the room, there was a low chuckle. 

With a muffled shout, he said, “Shut up.” 

“Make me,” was the teasing reply. 

Sitting up with only a slight, really slight, rush of dizziness from a sudden lack of blood to his head, which totally did not make him sway side to side for a minute or two really, he shot a half-hearted glare at his lounging roommate who was currently basking in the glory of not having morning classes and getting to stay in his worn out pajamas and messy bed-head.

“Seriously, shut up. You don’t know the pain of morning classes to hermit,” he whined as the other boy dared to laugh again towards his laptop screen.

He sat cross-legged on his bed in wait of a reply, but all he got was the sound of scrolling, clicking, and typing as his roommate’s glasses flashed in random, faintly tainted colors from his computer screen.

Pouting, he shuffled off the bed and crawled onto the other twin-sized mattress to look at what was so interesting.

“Really? Tumblr again?!” he exclaimed in exasperation at the sight his brown eyes now took in.

From the corner of his left eye, he swore he saw a baby pink flush spread across his roommate’s cheeks and neck.

His blushing roommate brought up a hand to harshly shove his red-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose, muttering, “It’s entertaining. And you don’t get to judge, Kay, you browse YouTube just as much.”

Kay fell over laughing, kicking his feet up in the air childishly.

The other student flushed red and grabbed a pillow to smack Kay repeatedly.

“Okay okay! I give! I give!” Kay giggled, “I surrender, Liet!”

Huffing, Liet turned back to his laptop, only to fall to the side as Kay tackled his friend over. Both landed with a whump in the tall pile of blankets Liet had on his bed, laughing as they playfully wrestled each other.

Eventually, Kay got Liet pinned down with his arms pressed to his back, and both boys snickered as they got off the unmade bed, hair messy, breaths uneven, and faces stained a healthy red.

Kay sashayed towards their small refrigerator to take out a pretty slice of strawberry shortcake while Liet kicked back on their cheap green sofa. Whistling, Kay sat down next to Liet, already enjoying his sweet slice of dessert with a self-satisfying little smile. Liet watched with half-lidded eyes in amusement at his childish roommate for a while, before getting up to return with a cup of iced black coffee.

Kay cracked an eye open at the shift in the cushions, and the sight of the bitter coffee broke him from his happy little sugar-induced fantasy. Taking his fork out of his mouth, he grimaced and bit out, “Black coffee again? That’s gross, Liet.” 

Liet was unfazed, and merely took a deliberately slow sip, hiding his smirk behind the rim of his cup as Kay cringed.

“Ewww, you’re not human, I swear.”

Liet removed the glass from his mouth and tilted his head slightly, replying in an air of false innocence, “At least I’m not trying to make up for my bitterness with an excess amount of sugar.”

Kay’s entire form froze as his mouth went slack, bite of cake he was just about to put into his mouth forgotten in mid-air. 

“What….did you just say you little brat!!!” 

In a flash, both had set their respective foods on the carpet and Kay lunged at a smug Liet.

“I am not bitter! If anything, you’re the bitter one you social recluse! You don’t even go to class! You only show up for the tests!”

“And I still get higher scores than you don’t I?”

 

“You do not!!! We don’t take the same classes jerk!”

“See, there you go again with the mean words. How am I the bitter one if you’re always moping around about your unluckiness?”

“Well I must really have terrible luck if I got stuck with you as a roommate for three years!”

“You asked me to be your roommate after the first year genius!!!”

Liet now had Kay in a headlock as Kay kept trying to kick the other with his immobilized legs to no avail. Liet was cackling in glee and Kay stopped struggling to whine and pout about his uncomfortable positioning. 

Releasing his victim, Liet clambered off the sofa to pick up the cake and the coffee and set them on the tiny black bedside table they shared. 

Kay got up as well, and followed Liet’s lead to fall backwards onto his own bed. Silence took over the room.

Then, out of the blue, Liet murmured, “I guess we’re both kind of bitter though. Just in some different ways.”

Kay closed his eyes, pondering quietly to himself. 

Liet was right, of course. They were both closer to the cynical side in personality. However, while Liet took all his hurt and locked it away into the depths of his mind, locking himself in their dorm most days too, Kay went through each day riding on the highs of pretending to be happy. Kay got his happiness from the small smiles and the “thank-you’s” he received from strangers. Liet got his happiness from reblogs and likes on his posts on the internet. Kay liked looking at cute, lively things while Liet enjoyed angst filled works of fiction.

“Hey Liet?”

“Yeah?”

“What does it take to be happy?”

Liet did not answer once more, so Kay droned on.

“I like to think that I feel happiness when I hang-out with you. Or when I  hear a catchy new song. Is that real happiness though?”

There was still no answer.

“Will the hurt always stay with us?”

Liet jerked upwards on his bed, and Kay propped himself up on his elbows to look at his partner opening and closing his mouth without a sound escaping. 

“I-,” he finally sounded, “I suppose anything you say is happiness can be happiness. So, don’t….don’t get too caught up over it okay?” 

Liet fiddled with his glasses again, and Kay smiled gently, cheerfully chirping, “Yes Liet! Will do!”

Liet scowled in response, but it morphed into a hidden, begrudging smile after Kay dropped back down to rest on his bed. 

 _____

“Hey Liet.”

“What is it now?”

“You still need to get a life though.”

“And you need a girlfriend.”

“Hey! Be quiet you antisocial hermit crab!”

“You started the conversation though.”

“Why did I get stuck with you of all people?”

“Because you asked me to.”