Sasha still hadn’t answered the question.
“It’s… fine,” he finally said.
Cooper shot him a gentle smile. “That’s about the highest praise this place deserves.”
“Well, if you ever need anything, we’re right next door, okay?” Ellie said. “Being on your own can be hard.”
Sasha nodded. He could agree with that, but asking for help was harder. “Thank you.”
This was awkward and it was Sasha’s fault. He had heard them through the wall at night as they ate their dinner and talked and laughed. It wasn’t like this. It was comfortable and everyone had fun.
“Do you like video games, Sasha?” Abra asked, and Sasha realised he’d been staring at the collection of video game consoles stored under their TV.
Sasha twisted his lips together in consideration. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Ellie asked.
The truth was that Sasha generally liked exactly one game at a time which he would play way too much and try to complete every part of, only he’d get bored of it before he got that far so he’d end up collecting all five hundred feathers or whatever but never finishing the main questline.
“I play games on my laptop sometimes,” Sasha said, which didn’t really clarify anything.
“Not a console gamer?” Abra asked.
“I own a Wii,” Sasha said. “But not a TV, actually, so…”
“You can bring it over here some time and hook it up to our TV so we can all play together if you want. We have a few consoles, but not a Wii.”
“Do you want it?”
“I— no, I wasn’t asking you to give it to us,” Abra asked. “Just, you know, since you don’t have your own TV to use it with…”
“You can have it if you want,” Sasha said. “I wouldn’t use it even if I did have a TV, so it’s fine. I only have Wii Sports and a Zelda game, though.”
“Why don’t you bring it over after we’re done eating and we can all play together?” Ellie suggested.
Sasha hadn’t really planned for dinner and an activity, but he couldn’t really say no, right? Well, he could, but he shouldn’t and he wasn’t sure he wanted to anyway. It was just kind of a lot, and he didn’t want to look weird in front of Cooper’s roommates because then they’d tell Cooper that he was weird and maybe that would finally make him not want to be friends with him.
Or maybe Sasha was overthinking all of this and it would actually be fine.
“Okay,” Sasha said.
Sasha wasn’t very hungry, probably mostly because his appetite and his social anxiety didn’t play well with one another, so he ate a few more of the chips and then gave the rest to Cooper and went to get the Wii.
Sasha returned with the Wii and then stood there awkwardly with it in his arms for a few moments. “I’ll, um, plug it in?”
Cooper nodded enthusiastically. His mouth was full of food.
Right. Yes. Plug it in. What else would he do? He just didn’t like to assume things because his intuition for social situations was questionable at best. Like, what if touching other people’s TV cables without asking was considered really rude? He’d never been in a situation where that had come up before, so how could he possibly know?
Sasha started trying to plug the Wii in and was instantly confused. It had been a few years since he’d used it. Was he allowed to unplug any of the cables that were plugged in? He should ask, but then they’d ask which ones and honestly he didn’t know the names of literally any cables and that was probably weird.
But then Cooper crouched down next to him, and he was helping him or rather completely doing it for him. Sasha probably could have just gotten up and left him to it, but he wanted to stay and be on the floor together for a little bit.
When Cooper was done, they went and sat back down on the bed and Cooper offered Sasha one of the Wiimotes.
Sasha shook his head. “No thanks. Someone else can play.”
“You sure?”
Sasha nodded. “I just want to watch.”
Cooper held the Wiimote out to Ellie instead. “Is there golf in this? I’ll kick your ass at some Wii Golf.”
Ellie scoffed as she accepted the Wiimote. “Have you ever even played Wii Golf before?”
“No, but my dad made me play real golf when I was too young to know about saying no to things.”
“Were you good at it, though?”
“That’s… besides the point. I have real golfing experience and you don’t.”
“I’ve played mini golf twice, bitch.”
“Fuck.”
They started up the game and began playing. Cooper immediately got his ball stuck in a sand trap and Ellie ricocheted her first ball off a tree.
“High numbers are bad in golf, right? Low scores win?” Ellie asked.
“Mm… my score is higher than yours so I’m gonna go with no,” Cooper said. “If the game says you win at the end don’t worry about it, that’s a bug.”
They continued to shit talk one another and they continued to both be really bad at Wii Golf. Sasha had heard their banter through the wall many times and now he was here, a part of it… sort of. He was present, certainly, but he didn’t really know how to participate in this sort of thing.
When Cooper ultimately lost the game, he offered Sasha the controller again. “Why don’t you show us how it’s done?”
Sasha didn’t take it. “I’m really not good at it. I never played it much.”
Cooper cycled back to the menu. “What about… bowling?”
Sasha shook his head. “I’m not good at any of them. Really.”
“You don’t get good at things by not doing them, though, right?” Ellie asked.
Sasha made a quiet sound of agreement. He couldn’t exactly argue with that logic, but he still didn’t want to play.
“Is it because you’re afraid me and El are going to tease you like we tease each other?” Cooper asked.
Sasha picked at his fingernails and didn’t respond, because yes, but he didn’t want to admit to it because they would think he was a baby who ruined everyone’s fun by being too sensitive.
Cooper nodded. “Growing up, my oldest brother was no fun to play video games with. He’s four years older than me, so he was always better than me and he never let me win and he’d make fun of me for being bad. So then the first time I played a game with Ellie, I think it was Mario Kart, and she was way ahead of me and she kept targeting me every time I nearly caught up and I got so mad. Like genuinely upset. And she was just like… what the fuck. Because it’s just a game.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Sasha murmured.
“No, but I mean the point of this story isn’t you should suck it up and not take it seriously. The point is then she apologised and we talked about why I was upset and figured out boundaries and now we can make fun of each other and ourselves and nobody gets hurt. And neither of us do it to Abra, not because it bothers him but because he’s psychologically incapable of doing it back and that’s no fun. And that’s the point of all this. Not to be good at games, just to have fun with friends.”
“And sometimes to get to know one another better,” Abra added. “Watching Cooper cry about losing Mario Kart wasn’t fun, but we learnt more about him from it and we were closer afterwards.”
Cooper clicked his fingers and pointed at Abra. “Also important. When I first started being friends with Abra and Ellie, I was obsessed with this idea of being a fun person. They were helping me a bunch with school and I knew I was kinda third wheeling on them, so I was like… well, I’ve got to be fun, all of the time, or they won’t want me around because what else am I good for?”
“Another fun fact about Cooper is that he has insufferably low self esteem despite actually being a really cool guy who we love and appreciate,” Ellie added.
“Listen… yes. Anyway, trying to be a fun person all of the time actually makes you way less fun because the fun has to be like… organic. It has to be real. Also, I feel like most people don’t really want their friends to be fun all of the time. That’s exhausting, and I’m tiring enough to deal with just like… at a baseline. Anyway, the point is…” Cooper fell silent and his expression slowly sunk into a frown. “Actually, I’ve forgotten what the point was. Uh…”
“Friendship yay?” Ellie suggested.
“Yeah, something like that. Anyway, do you want to try the bowling game, Sasha?”
Sasha hesitated, then he nodded and took the controller. “I’ll try it.”
Neither of them were exactly good at it, but Cooper encouraged him when he was struggling and cheered him on when he hit a lot of the pins, so Sasha didn’t feel like he was doing too badly.
It was actually kind of fun, but by the time the game was finished Sasha was done. He had filled up his social bar and now it was overflowing and he needed to rest.
“I should probably, um. I should go now,” Sasha said.
“Oh, sorry. Did you have plans?” Abra asked.
Sasha opened his mouth and then swallowed as his throat closed off. He didn’t have a response for that because no, he didn’t have plans. He was just going to go and sit alone in his apartment, but it would seem really rude if he told them he’d rather do that than hang out with them.
This was why he hated lying. He hadn’t even really lied, and already he was caught in a web of deceit. How did people navigate social situations?
“Sorry, nevermind, don’t answer that,” Abra said. Ellie and Cooper were both looking at Abra and Sasha got the feeling he had missed some silent conversation that had passed between them. “It was nice meeting you, Sasha. I hope we see you again some time.”
“Yeah, thanks for coming by!” Cooper said. “Let me unplug the Wii for you.”
“Oh, no. It’s fine. You can keep playing. Maybe if you don’t want it taking up room in your place, we could try the date night thing again? I still have the food and the biscuits you brought…”
Cooper grinned, then bit down on his lip as though he was trying to suppress his smile. It was cute. “Friday’s in two days if you want to…”
Sasha nodded.
“Great! I’ll see then then around six?”
Sasha nodded again. “Okay.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then!” Cooper still hadn’t stopped smiling. “Bye, Sasha.”
Sasha did his best to give Cooper a smile in return, though he knew his probably just looked weird and not nearly as cute as Cooper’s. “Bye.”
Sasha returned to his apartment and curled up in the corner of his bed, exhausted but… happy? Was that what this was? There was definitely some kind of positive emotion tangled up within the nest of his anxiety. Despite the stress, as he thought back on the evening, he was surprised to realise that he didn’t regret going over to Cooper’s place.
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