After we outgrew friends, Kairo and I decided the two of us were enough for each other. Trying to blend in was tiresome when we didn't fit in with groups of people who sometimes saw us as outsiders.
Okay, maybe our actions, like sharing inside jokes, hugging each other, and feeling comfortable enough with each other, made us never consider what we did as "gay" until someone pointed it out to us.
Kairo and I would laugh so hard because we didn't care how people saw us. Gay or straight? Two guys could have a deep connection as friends without the whole "They're gay." thing.
But it was one day that something changed. It wasn't a physical change or an emotional change.
It was the way I saw Kario. You know how you see something, but it's plain until the right amount of light hits it at an angle that you see the beauty of what you're looking at. It was like the sparkle in his eyes, the gentle curve of his lips, and the mischievous glint in his eyes.
Every inconsequential thing he did, I gave it a deeper meaning. Like I'm studying a piece of text trying to dig deeper when there may not be anything to find between the lines.
Friends. That's what I circled back to us being just friends.
Being best friends we went to the same college together and even studied in the same department. Even though Kairo was in the Photography wing and I was in the Art wing, it still put us in the Visual Arts department.
It was Saturday afternoon when I woke up in Kairo's bed. He's on his bedroom floor sleeping like he always has. Whenever I stayed the night, he would let me have his bed while he took the floor. My face was in his red pillow—the soft fabric of the cotton pillowcase. The smell of coconuts, fresh linen, and sunshine were familiar smells I was used to when it came to Kairo. In a way, it was comforting.
I pulled the pillow from under my head and swung it down, hitting Kairo in his face. He grunts and cusses.
"Wake your bitch ass up. I'm hungry," I said.
He snatched the pillow and threw it back up on the bed. I moved to the edge of the bed looking down at my friend.
"You're fucking annoying, Noah."
"I see your lips are moving, but my breakfast isn't being made."
Kairo sits up stretching his arms over his head. He sleeps without a shirt, just in boxers. His long blonde hair looks like a crazy mess. He looks at me for a moment, then smiles. It's a half-sleepy smile. Not fully awake, but in between not wanting to be awake.
I'm downstairs in the kitchen when Kairo finally comes rolling in. He touches me all over my face and I swat at his hands; he laughs and I let out a fake dry one.
"I hope you washed your fucking hands after using the bathroom," I said.
Kairo said, "No I didn't, played with my balls too." And He was dead ass. He walked over to the refrigerator looking to see what was inside, asking me what I wanted to eat.
I'm sitting on a stool at the kitchen island while scrolling through my phone. "McDonald's."
He looks over his shoulder at me for a second. "You're a fat fuck."
"Your lips are moving, but I don't see ordering my shit."
Kairo grumbles to himself. He takes my phone from me and orders from Uber Eats. We ended up in the living room sitting on the sofa while watching some anime Kairo was into called Jujutsu Kaisen.
He's been trying to get me into it ever since it came out. I'm not into anime. I still watched it with him, even though I thought this shit was boring as hell.
I'm laid back on the sofa hugging a pillow. I was unaware that I was staring at Kairo until he lifted his hand to push his hair from his face. It's that moment again where in the right lighting Kairo was something more than he was.
And what I was seeing scared me.
There was a thin crossing of lines that my mind wanted to explore in all its deep depths of my best friend.
I knew him but I had wondered what it would be like to know him as a lover. In a way, I saw a glimpse of who he was as a lover with the people he dated in the past. Gentlemen, sweet, caring, and too much of a nice guy.
Kairo meets my eyes. I quickly looked away and at the TV. My face is burning. He asked me why I was just staring at him with a spaced-out expression and instead of answering him, I went to grab our food when it arrived.
"You really are a fat fuck." Kairo said. I took two of his nuggets and placed them into my Big Mac.
"Fat-shaming isn't nice."
"Then stop being a fat fuck."
"Tell it to your mom, bitch."
Kario didn't finish the food. I ate his. So okay, maybe I was a fat fuck, but he was going to throw it away anyway and I can't let good food go to waste.
Kairo was telling me about this dating mixture he got invited to next weekend and begged me to come with him. I teased him a bit telling him he couldn't talk to girls without my help.
But In reality, he's the one who talked to girls for me because oftentimes I was too shy and would freeze up whenever a girl tried talking to me. Lame.
So out of the two of us, Kairo was the cool one. He could talk to girls without a problem.
When Kairo's older twin brothers came back home in the evening we decided to bounce over to Arjun's house.
Now he wasn't our friend and I didn't even know the guy only through Kario because they're in the same department. A tall Indian guy with bright blue hair who wears too much eyeliner.
He's showing us a vintage camera he got off eBay. Kairo and he are geeking out over the body of it, all the insides, how it was still a better camera than said newer models that were made to replace it.
Shit was pretty boring to me.
There's this brief moment that Kairo makes a joke about me to Arjun and I'm just like fucking really?
Arjun is laughing. Then I was laughing until I punched Kario in the stomach.
The three of us sit on Arjun's bedroom floor. There's yelling from downstairs from his dad and uncles over a football match (Not American football).
Arjun's mother is nice with the sweetest smile that makes you feel like you are welcome in her home. She brought us cut-up fruit and some snacks. His mother takes her time telling me and Kairo what each one was: Maddur Vada, Aloo Tikki, and Paneer Popcorn.
He's kind of embarrassed by his mother sticking around and getting us to eat. She clapped when my eyes went wide after I tasted the Maddur Vada.
"You like?" she smiled.
I nodded stuffing more into my mouth. She laughs.
Arjun's accent is deep and thick when he thanks his mother for bringing us snacks before he pushes her out the door. Kairo and I yelled out thanks before Arjun slammed the door on her.
There's a bin of vinyl records next to Arjun's bed. I'm digging through them. There are a few rock bands that I recognize because my older sister would play them. Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Beach Boys and Queen.
"She's pretty right?" Kairo held his phone for me and Arjun to see a picture of a tan-skinned girl with wavy dark hair.
"She's a babe," Arjun said.
"She's okay looking," I said.
Kairo and Arjun share a look.
"What?" I asked both of them as I grabbed another Maddur Vada.
"Nothing," they said together.
Nothing? Almost felt like something but I let it drop out of the air.
"Who is she?" Arjun asked. He leans over the phone to get a better look at the girl.
"Sonni," he said.
I reached over to snatch Kairo's phone so I could get a better look at this girl myself.
And of course, she's pretty. Looks a little short. Kairo's type. His weakness. Short girls.
"Like I said, she's okay looking." I tossed Kairo back his phone. He fumbles to catch it.
Arjun laughed. He Jabs me in my ribcage with his sharp elbow.
"Are you jealous?" he asked.
Maybe he means it as a joke and I should just take it as one.
"Hell yeah," I said. "She might be taking my best friend away."
The three of us ended up leaving Arjun's house to go to a park down the street from his house. I hadn't realized how talkative his ass was until he stopped talking to take a picture of some trash on the ground. He shows Kairo the picture asking him what he thought.
We're on the playground just chilling until Kario and Arjun decide to grab my legs and drag me down the slide. I'm kicking at them. Cussing too. They think shit is funny.
Then Kairo found a dead bird. He cried. It reminded him of Peanut, his baby chick he had when he was like seven and his twin brothers killed it saying they wanted fried chicken.
Arjun was talking again. His accent would switch between an English one and back to his motherland one whenever something excited him. He talks with his hands too. He's like a ball of light. Too energetic jumping from one place to another, jumping from one topic to the next.
Now he's on to me.
"Noah, right?" he asked. We're alone. Kairo went off into some bushes to take a piss.
"Yeah," I said. It's so dry the way it comes out, but I didn't want to be speaking to Arjun without Kairo for some reason.
"We can be friends?" he motions between us.
He doesn't notice when I inched away from him.
Nothing against him. I just don't see myself having another friend. Kairo was enough.
Kairo rejoins us, whipping his hands on my shirt. I hope to God it was water and not his piss.
"You think Arjun is cool?" Kairo asked.
By the end of the night, Arjun had to head home. Even though he was twenty-something, he still had a curfew.
"Cool? No."
Kairo threw his arm over me. Pulling me into his side until I had fit perfectly there. We walk in sync with each other.
"I think he's pretty cool."
"Marry him then." I rolled my eyes.
"I notice you have been a little bitchy today. Do you like need to get your dick sucked?" he started making these lewd sounds like was sucking a dick.
"You offering?" I joked.
"For a hundred bucks, I'll do whatever baby."
"Hmm, a cheap whore."
"Like your mom," he said.
Haha funny, Kairo.
His twin brothers make it their mission to harass us as soon as we step foot through the door. Hayden and Hunter were twice our size built like linebackers.
The TV in the living room was going with an old rerun of Jerry Springer. The audience chanted: Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.
His brothers block our way up the stairs. Their arms folded in front of them as they looked us up and down.
"Well, look at the two lovebirds," Hayden said.
"You two sneak off to fuck?" Hunter asked.
"At least one of us is getting ass," Kairo said with a bit of an attitude.
Hayden does like this sissy slap to Hunter's shoulder. "See, I told you he was gay!"
"Are you gay?" I asked Kairo.
"Shut the fuck up." He said.
"I just want to know who my best friend is. If we're keeping those kinds of secrets from each other, then are we really best friends?"
Hunter and Hayden look between us.
Kario slapped his hand over my mouth. He tells his meat-headed brothers to get the fuck out of our way. As we walked up the stairs. Hunter and Hayden were bickering with each other about Kairo's sexual identity.
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