Work Text:
It was dark by the time Trey and Cater returned to their room. Cater jumped onto his bed and slung his blazer over the comforter, collapsing onto the bed with a sigh.
“Don’t take on so many orders next time, Trey!” he grumbled. “You need to understand your limits if you want this business to be long-term, and I’m not going to be here every time to help you out, you know!”
“My bad,” said Trey amiably. “Thanks for the hand, though. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“That’s right, praise me more.”
His reply got a hearty laugh out of Trey, the kind that had his heart going wildly off-beat. It was good that Cater was lying on the bed. From that angle, there was no way Trey could spot the minute changes in his expressions that he always tried his best to control.
Trey was about to sit down on his bed, when he froze suddenly and dashed to the clothing rack. Hastily, he put on his suit coat.
“What’s wrong?”
“I forgot I had an errand I needed to make. Gotta go to the Mystery Shop right now.”
Ever the busy guy. “It might be raining, so be careful!”
Trey grabbed the umbrella by the door and saluted him. “Gotcha. I’ll be right back.”
The door slammed shut.
Cater stared at the ceiling, the quiet ambience of underwater sounds drowning out his thoughts. He took out his magical pen and raised it into the air, twisting the pen around and admiring the shine of the gray gemstone. He pointed it at the ceiling.
“Split Card.”
A clone of himself appeared by his bed, staring down at Cater with his eyebrows raised. He sat up on the edge of his bed, and gestured himself to sit beside him.
“What’s up, me?” asked Cater 2.
“Just a teensy bit tired,” Cater himself replied, leaning against Cater 2's shoulder. Scratch that, it made his clone sound like an experimental subject.
Cay-cay, so he decided he should refer to him as, wrapped his arms around his shoulders and snuggled him in. “You’re only going to get more tired by using your signature spell like this,” he whispered. “Didn’t you already have to summon multiple of ourselves when we were baking this afternoon?”
“It’s fine. I’m gonna go to sleep after this,” he replied. “And also, I kind of want to talk.”
“About what?”
“Before that, lemme check Magicam first!” Cater took out his phone.
Cay-cay chuckled, hugging Cater around his stomach and resting his chin on his shoulder. “I was thinking of doing the same.”
He hummed as he made quick replies to his recent posts. They were getting more and more engagement as he got to know more people in NRC. His following and follower counts both increased significantly, and there were so many stories on his feed that it would take quite some insistent tapping to go through them all.
“Ah!” Cay-cay pointed to the post at the top of his feed. “Another post from Vil!”
“You’re right!” It was a picture of Vil studying intently, a textbook and notepad open in front of him. Cay-cay scrolled down to the description of the post.
“Doing some weekend reviewing,” he read. “#NRC #studying #studentlife… and then a hashtag of the brand of gel pens that were in the photo.”
“Always sneaking in advertisements,” said Cay-cay. “Sad. I wish we were popular enough to get sponsors.”
“Well, we aren’t a mega-celebrity like Vil!” he said, taking a screenshot of the post. “Gonna get this pen the next time I visit Foothill Town,” he made a note to himself, scrolling away to the other posts.
“A horoscope prediction post! Let’s see what advice it gives us for tomorrow.” Cay-cay traced his finger down the list of zodiac signs, stopping beside Aquarius.
“You’ll be swept away by the currents of what has been weighing you down.”
They both fell silent.
Cater quickly scrolled away from the post, laughing nervously as he did. “I’ve never believed in horoscopes anyways. They’re just for fun. Actually, why should you ever believe what a stranger on the internet says about you?”
“You do realize,” said Cay-cay, “that this post was made by the divination account which you said was really accurate before?”
“C’mon now, where’s all your positivity?” he gave a dismissive wave. Of course Cater realized, and that’s all the more reason not to think about it. Not when he was already so worn out after the long day.
His fingers stopped at a post, green background and white words drawing his attention. “Unconditional giving is the best language of love.”
Cater threw his phone onto the bed and covered his face with his hands. “Magicam doesn’t help at all!”
“Who are we thinking of right now?” teased Cay-cay. “A certain green-haired roommate that we’re totally simping for?”
“No.”
Cay-cay hummed, unconvinced.
“Okay fine. You got me.” Cater dragged his hands down his face. “I’m just regretting choosing to help him with the side job thing.”
“Regretting how?” asked Cay-cay. “You were pretty stoked about the idea.”
“I was, and that’s the entire problem. You’re not supposed to help someone you’ve only known for two months that much. Ugh, I’m fueling my own attraction to him.”
He buried his face in his knees. “Hey, can I lie down in your lap?”
“You don’t need to ask yourself that, you know.”
Cay-cay crossed his legs on the bed and shot Cater a welcoming smile. He smiled weakly in return, and slowly laid down, resting his head on Cay-cay’s laps.
“I don’t know what to do,” he muttered. “Trey and I are roommates. We’re friends. I’m not supposed to be feeling this way.”
“This isn’t the first time you started to like someone shortly after you got to know them,” Cay-cay pointed out. “You were worried all those times too, but the feelings disappeared before you knew it, right? It’s like going along with trends.”
“But Trey isn’t like that,” he argued. “He’s not flashy or popular, or particularly pretty or hot… though I guess he is attractive in his own way. His jokes aren’t funny, and he doesn’t keep up with what’s popular. He doesn’t even like taking selfies together.”
“Then why do you like him so much?”
“I don’t know!” Cater said, and paused. “Well, he’s thoughtful, and really looks out for the people around him. He’s so kind, and weird, in a cute way. ”
Cater watched him go from someone bewildered by his dorm sortment, to trying to find his place in the dorm and starting a side business of his own. And he was so proud of that. Sometime during these two months, Trey’s presence had become special to him, and that was a fact Cater found very frightening.
“To be honest, me, I kind of want to date Trey.”
Cay-cay widened his eyes at what he said. “Do you really mean that?”
“No.” Cater laughed and sat up. “That would be bad, right? All the crushes I’ve had while moving from place to place, and I’ve never thought about wanting to date any of them.”
“Here goes Cater, lying to himself again.”
“Look, it can only go this way, alright? We’re going to be roommates for two years. Maybe for once I’d be able to-”
“To what?” prompted Cay-cay.
“Nevermind,” he muttered. “Also, you’re me. Why are you acting like you don’t know?”
“It’s no fun to talk to someone who already knows everything you’re going to say, right?” said Cay-cay.
“Anyways, whatever you decide to do, I’ll always be rooting for you.”
Cater waved goodbye to Cay-cay, and watched as the clone of himself dissipated in sparkles. He flopped back onto his bed. The toll of using his signature spell, even if only for a short time, wore down his body even more with fatigue. Now he didn’t even want to move from his spot.
The dull ache in his stomach reminded him he hadn’t had dinner yet. He should have told Cay-cay to get dinner for him before he left.
“Dating, huh…”
Getting into a close relationship with someone spells disaster. Relationships are painful to maintain, and things go south so easily, it just isn’t worth it. Even worse when it comes to dating. Romantic relationships during high school never last long. Cater would be looking for trouble if he ever decided that he really wanted to go out with Trey, not to mention that he might not feel the same way about him.
Cater almost jumped when the door opened, forcing him out of his thoughts.
“Trey, you’re back.”
“Yep.” He returned the black umbrella to the rack by the door. Cater squinted and made out the shapes of two bowls on a tray, levitated into the air with magic.
“What’s that?” A whiff of something invigorating caught his nose. “Smells spicy.”
“Cup ramen. Thought you might be too tired to go to the cafeteria, so I grabbed some at the Mystery Shop.” Trey carried one of the bowls to Cater’s desk. “I added some chili powder for extra kick.”
“You actually poured the cup ramen into a separate bowl? That’s so extra!”
“I added some other stuff, too.”
Seaweed, meat, soft boiled eggs and fish cakes. The noodles looked like something you might see at a ramen shop. Is it even instant noodles at this point? Sometimes Cater forgets Trey’s not only good at baking, he’s almost a professional cook, too.
“Trey, wow, this looks amazing! Thank you so much!”
He took a photo of the noodles and uploaded it to Magicam, typing out “Having some cup noodles for dinner!” and drowning the description with a bunch of made-up hashtags. In the middle of them all, he hid one tiny #Trey , and he hoped that no one would notice.
That’s right, the help he lent wasn’t unconditional. Cater was selfish, and cared far too much what people thought of him. He just wanted Trey to like him. And maybe get his cooking in return. It wasn’t because Trey’s laugh cheered him up more than any amount of satisfying videos and memes ever could. He took a sip of the soup, hoping the spice would drown out his thoughts.
Damn it, the noodles Trey made are really good.