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Sapnap’s head spun and faces blurred around him as he took another sip from the red solo cup clutched in his hand. The clear liquid left a burning path down his throat, sickly toxins flooding into his veins and pumping through his body. His vision was hazy, pupils blown wide from the alcohol, and he winced when colored lights began flashing rapidly above the crowd in front of him. What seemed like hundreds of voices overlapped each other, shouting louder and louder over music that blasted from somewhere within the mass of dancing bodies that filled the dingy house. The bass rattled his bones as he leaned against the wall. He looked to his left, eyes moving slowly and lazily across the packed room until they landed on the boy standing next to him. The blond was looking at him intently and his mouth was moving, but no sound seemed to be coming out.
“Wha-?” Sapnap shouted, leaning closer to his friend.
Dream ducked his head and Sapnap felt hot breath across his neck as the taller spoke directly into his ear. “Have you seen George?”
Sapnap shook his head.
“Okay, I’m gonna go find him.”
“You’re leaving me to go look for your boyfriend?” Sapnap whined jokingly, smiling as he lifted his cup to his lips again.
Dream rolled his eyes. “You’ll be fine. Although, maybe you should start drinking water instead of whatever’s in that cup.”
With a parting smile, the blond pushed himself off the wall and disappeared into the crowd. Sapnap chuckled to himself drunkenly and returned his gaze to the people in front of him. He thought about what Dream had said and decided that he must be right. It was Dream after all, and if Sapnap knew anything about Dream, it was that he was almost never wrong.
Lifting the red solo cup to his lips once more, he downed the rest of the liquid in a single gulp, wrinkling his face and shaking his head in reaction to the bitter taste and fiery burn that danced across his tongue. He wobbled slightly as he pushed himself off the wall, suddenly realizing just how much he had had to drink as the room swam in front of him. Taking a deep breath and swallowing hard against the newfound dryness in his mouth, Sapnap made his way through the crowd, using his broad shoulders and sharp elbows to carve a path toward the kitchen, where he used the sink to pour water into his now-empty cup before drinking deeply. He sighed appreciatively at the hydration that immediately flooded his senses, chugging the water in huge gulps until the cup was empty, filling it up, and draining it again.
“There you are!” He heard a voice shout from behind him.
Sapnap swallowed the last of his water and placed the cup onto the counter next to the sink before turning sluggishly toward the kitchen’s entrance.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Karl said breathlessly, walking forward to grasp at Sapnap’s arm. “I need your help.”
Sapnap could smell the alcohol on his friend’s breath as he stepped closer and could see it in the dilation of his pupils, the inky black blown out so wide that cloudy gray irises were almost completely hidden. Small, pale hands gripped at the loose fabric of Sapnap’s hoodie sleeve, attempting to pull him forward and out of the kitchen.
“What? Where are we going?”
“I need your help, nimrod. Please?”
Karl tugged on his arm again and this time Sapnap went willingly, allowing the brunet to drag him back through the throes of the party. The room had grown even more cramped in the five minutes since Sapnap had disappeared into the kitchen, and the music seemed to have increased in volume, each note hammering into his ears and ricocheting around inside his skull.
The pair were pushed and shoved as they moved through the crowd, Karl still holding tight to the gray sleeve of Sapnap’s hoodie so that they wouldn’t get separated, until they reached a closed door on the far side of the room.
“Wait.” Karl leaned forward, dipping his head slightly just as Dream had done earlier so that his mouth was directly next to Sapnap’s ear. “You agree to help me right?”
“Yeah, sure,” Sapnap responded, tilting his chin up so that Karl could hear him.
“Okay cool.”
Karl released his grip on gray fabric and slid his hand down, intertwining his fingers with Sapnap’s before looking back up with a mischievous smile.
“Wha-”
Sapnap’s voice was cut off as Karl suddenly opened the door and pulled him through.
This room was very different from the one that they had just been in. It was much smaller and, thankfully for Sapnap, quieter. The thumping bass and echoing music was muffled by the door behind them, replaced with the dull rumbling of conversation. Sapnap closed his eyes for a brief second and sighed in relief as the pounding in his head faded to a low ache. Opening his eyes again and swaying slightly on his feet, he let his gaze sweep slowly over the scene before him.
A single dim lamp illuminated the room, casting soft orange light and weak shadows across the cream-colored walls. The air was hazy with smoke and thick with the scent of weed, gentle gray clouds floating and dancing through the room before disappearing as if they were never there.
Four or five people that Sapnap had never seen before, or maybe he had, he wasn’t really sure in his intoxicated state, were lounging on a worn leather couch that had been pushed against the wall to his left. One of them, a gangly brunet with a beanie pulled crookedly over his head, tilted his head back and blew a large puff of smoke toward the ceiling. Along the right side of the room, a TV was perched on an old set of drawers, bright colors flashing as animated characters acted out a storyline from an old tv series. The sound was off and there were no subtitles, so there was no way to tell what was happening on the show, but Sapnap doubted that anyone noticed since two of the people on the couch were staring intently at the screen as if it were the most interesting thing they had ever seen.
Looking away from the glowing display, his eyes moved sluggishly toward the center of the room, a smile spreading across his features when he noticed his friend Punz laying across a pile of pillows and beanbags on the floor, a blunt held loosely between his fingers. They nodded at each other in recognition and Punz’s brow furrowed in confusion, his eyes flicking down to Sapnap’s hand. Sapnap followed his gaze and realized that his fingers were intertwined with Karl’s, something that he vaguely remembered happening before they entered the room, memory already foggy from the alcohol.
He turned to the boy next to him and opened his mouth to speak. “Uh, Karl-”
“You’re back!” another voice cut across his words.
Sapnap looked away from Karl and scanned the room for the source of the interruption, which he found right away when a girl threw herself into his arms.
“And you must be Karl’s boyfriend!” she chirped into his ear before pulling away and holding him at arm’s length, letting her eyes roam across his features, unashamed.
“His what?” Sapnap blinked rapidly and stared at the girl in front of him, waiting for his brain to catch up with the overwhelming situation.
“Boyfriend!” Karl nudged Sapnap’s arm and gave him a meaningful look.
“Yeah! I was just asking Karl if he was single because I have the perfect girl to set him up with. She’s so sweet and kind and I just know that she and Karl would get along so so well, but then he said he couldn’t go out with her because he already had a boyfriend, which is a total bummer. But maybe when you guys break up, he could go out with her, I really think they would make a good couple.” The girl grabbed Sapnap and Karl’s hands as she rambled, dragging them toward the pile of pillows on the floor and flopping down next to Punz.
So this was what Karl needed help with.
“Oh right!” Sapnap exclaimed with a laugh, interrupting the girl’s seemingly endless string of thoughts. “I just didn’t understand what you said, I guess I’ve had a little bit too much to drink.”
“Me too!” the girl giggled, picking up a red solo cup from the ground next to her and taking a drink.
Sapnap looked at Karl and tilted his head questioningly at the girl next to them. Karl gave him a bashful smile and shrugged, seemingly at a loss for words.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Sapnap said. “I’m Sapnap.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, I’m Brooke!”
“Brooke’s on the cheerleading squad with me,” Karl chimed in.
Oh, of course. She’d probably been bugging Karl nonstop about this and Karl’s too nice to tell her to just shut up.
“Oh cool! Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t think Karl’s going to be able to go out with your friend any time soon,” Sapnap said, reaching over to Karl and linking their fingers together again.
Sapnap knew that Karl was already a physically touchy person, especially with his friends, so he would have no problem with holding hands or hugging, or really anything that might convince someone that they were actually dating.
Karl’s gaze lingered on their intertwined hands for a second before he lifted his head, meeting Sapnap’s eyes and mouthing a quick “Thank you.” Sapnap squeezed his friend’s hand in response and he noticed that a faint pink blush had crawled up Karl’s neck to dust itself across pale cheeks. He shrugged. It was probably just the alcohol swirling through his veins.
The rest of the night passed in a blur. Sapnap’s drinking began to catch up with him even more than it had before, and his memories became fuzzy. He could pick out certain things, like when Karl dragged him out into the crowd to dance, swaying their bodies close together and sliding their hands down to hold onto each other’s waists, or when he spotted Dream and George secluded in a dark corner, limbs tangled together so closely that he couldn’t tell where Dream ended and George began. But everything else became hazy around the edges, memories that were there but refused to come into sharper focus.
Sapnap awoke the next morning with a splitting headache. Trying to swallow around the dryness of his throat and ignoring how his stomach lurched, he blinked his eyes open slowly, wincing against the bright sunlight cascading through a crack in the window curtains. Lifting a hand to shield his face from the light and rub the sleep from his eyes, he realized that he was back in his own dorm room and he vaguely remembered having stumbled back from the party in the early hours of the morning.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. How did you sleep?”
Sapnap groaned in response.
“Seems like you had a lot of fun last night,” Dream continued, sitting up from where he had been laying on his bed and scrolling through his phone.
“Could say the same for you,” Sapnap grumbled. “Does George still have a tongue or did you swallow it?”
His roommate’s cheeks flushed and he mumbled a quiet, “shut up.”
Sapnap smirked to himself. Sitting up slowly so as not to upset his already delicate stomach, a lesson he had learned many times over, he propped himself up on his pillow and looked across the room at Dream.
“I feel like shit. I wish I was like you and wasn’t hungover right now.”
“Yeah, but then you’d have to stop drinking so much.”
Sapnap shook his head. “Can’t do that, that takes the fun out of everything.”
Dream rolled his eyes and looked back down at his phone.
“Well now that you’re awake, even if it’s already past noon, I’m going for a run. There’s a gatorade and advil on your desk for whenever you’re ready to get out of bed.”
“A run? Since when do you go for runs?” Sapnap swung his legs gently over the edge of his bed, taking a second to steady himself before sliding his feet slowly to the floor. His head continued to pound and his stomach lurched dangerously, but he shakily made his way toward his desk, collapsing into his desk chair.
“Since football tryouts are next week and I’m trying to be captain this season.”
Sapnap’s gaze, which had been focused intently on the blue drink sitting on his desk, snapped abruptly toward the door.
“Next week?” he exclaimed.
Dream sighed heavily as if this was the twentieth time they had discussed this, which, Sapnap realized, it probably was.
“Yes, Sapnap, next week. I’ve told you this, like, a million times and I’ve been asking you to go to the gym with me for months, but apparently playing Minecraft was more important.”
Sapnap shook his head in surprise. “Damn, I didn’t realize it was so soon. I’m fucked.”
“You’re not fucked, you’re just a procrastinator with poor planning skills,” Dream said, pushing an earbud into his ear. “And you’ll still make the team. You’re the best running back we’ve got, Coach would be stupid to cut you.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Wanna come run with me?” Dream smirked.
“No you fucking idiot, I almost threw up on the walk from my bed to my desk, there’s no way I could run right now.”
“Suit yourself,” Dream shrugged, opening the dorm room door and stepping into the hallway before turning back to casually add, “Congrats on you and Karl by the way.”
With that, he disappeared into the hallway, letting the door slam shut behind him.
Sapnap winced at the noise.
Wait, what did Dream just say?
Obviously, Sapnap remembered that he and Karl had pretended to be a couple so that the other boy wouldn’t have to go on a date with whoever Brooke was trying to set him up with, but he didn’t know that his friends actually believed them.
If he really thinks about it, him and Karl were pretty convincing. Despite his hazy memories, he can pick out a few different occasions where the line between being friends and being something more started to blur, even if it was all supposed to be an act. Wandering hands and flushed cheeks, sickly sweet breaths and racing pulses. Sapnap felt butterflies stirring inside his chest and fluttering down to his stomach as he thought back to the previous night, thought about Karl’s hand in his own, fingers sliding down to grip his hips, his back pressing into the taller boy’s chest as they danced. He shook his head as if it would shake loose the thoughts that had lodged into his mind, and pretended that the butterflies were just effects of his hangover, his body’s reaction to a lack of food and uneasy sleep.
Grabbing the gatorade off his desk, he twisted the cap off and took cautious sips, allowing his stomach to adjust to the new substance flooding inside of it. He took deep, steadying breaths as the vitamins from the drink made their way through his body, refreshing his aching head and weakened muscles. Unplugging his phone from the charger and opening his messages, he saw that Karl had tried to text and call him several times that morning.
He took a swig of blue liquid, swallowed the small blue pill that had been next to the bottle on his desk, and opened the texts from his friend.
Nimrod
hey, u up
Nimrod
r u still asleep
Nimrod
ur still asleep?? its noon idiot, wake up
Nimrod
call me when u get up
Sapnap smiled to himself as he opened Karl’s contact and tapped the phone icon. He lifted the device to his ear and listened as it rang once, twice, three times before it was answered.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Sapnap is, in fact, still alive,” Karl’s voice sounded through the phone’s speakers.
“Ha ha, very funny Karl. It’s not even that late.”
“It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon and you just woke up. How is that not late?”
“Whatever, just keep your voice down. You’re so loud, it hurts my head.”
“Turn your volume down, it’s not my fault you’re hungover.”
Sapnap clicked the buttons along the side of his phone, turning Karl’s voice down until it was at a manageable volume.
“How are you not hungover? You had way more than I did.”
“I guess I can just handle my alcohol better than you.”
He could hear Karl’s smirk through the speakers and pictured a lopsided grin spread across the brunet’s face.
“Mmhmm sure.” Sapnap hummed in noncommittal. “Why did you want me to call you?”
The line went quiet for a second as the boy on the other line became distracted with something.
“Karl?”
“Oh yeah. I just wanted to apologize for dragging you into the whole fake relationship thing. Brooke has just been on my ass for weeks about going on a date with some random girl and I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I figured,” Sapnap said with a chuckle. “You know, if you weren’t so nice, you could’ve just told her to shut up and that would’ve put an end to it.”
“Sapnap, you know I couldn’t do that! Brooke’s actually really nice and she’s one of my closest friends on the cheer team, I couldn’t just be an asshole to her.”
“Yeah yeah, I know.”
“But I do appreciate you going along with it, even though it was kind of sudden and weird. I think she believed that we’re really together.”
“She’s not the only one. Dream says congrats to the two of us by the way.”
Karl giggled, a bubbly sound that floated easily through the phone’s speaker.
“George said the same thing. He was giving me so much shit about it this morning, but I said something about him and Dream and he immediately dropped it.”
Sapnap grinned. “Oh my god, I know. Did you see them last night? I hope they got a room or something cuz whatever they were doing was not meant to be seen in public.”
“Honestly!” Karl exclaimed with another giggle.
They both dissolved into a fit of laughter until it fizzled out, leaving the line quiet again.
“Anyway, it was no problem to be your fake boyfriend, I guess we just fake a break up now,” Sapnap said.
“Actually,” Karl said, his voice colored with hesitation. “I kind of need us to keep dating.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, Brooke sort of told the entire cheer team, so now everyone expects us to actually be together. And I can’t just tell them it was all a lie, that would be so embarrassing!”
“But we could just fake break up! You can say that you caught me making out with some random girl or something and broke up with me for being a shitty boyfriend.”
“Sapnap! Do you know how problematic that would be? The whole cheer team would hate you just like they hated Jack! And since football season is coming up, that would be awful for you.”
Sapnap opened his mouth to protest, but hesitated before he spoke. He thought about the previous football season when the cheer team found out that Jack, one of the team’s wide receivers, had broken up with his girlfriend so that he could date a girl from their rival school. The cheerleaders had made it their mission to make his life a living hell. Sapnap shuddered as he remembered some of the stunts they had pulled. He really didn’t want that.
“Plus,” Karl chimed in when Sapnap didn’t immediately respond. “I don’t want the team to think that I can’t be in a long term relationship. I haven’t really dated someone in a long time and I think that’s why Brooke is trying to set me up. Like, I think they feel bad for me.”
Since Karl and Sapnap had met during their first year of college, Karl had only been in one relationship and it had lasted for just over two months. The girl that he had been dating broke up with him when he told her that he was bisexual, which everyone agreed was a really shitty thing to do, but Karl had still been devastated. For the past two years, he only talked to people or hooked up at parties, but hadn’t been in an official relationship since.
“Karl, it doesn’t matter what they think, you’re just waiting for the right person.”
Sapnap could practically hear Karl roll his eyes through the phone.
“Yeah yeah, whatever, thanks mom,” he said sarcastically. “But they are my friends and I don’t want them to pity me.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“We could fake date for like a month or two, just to show everyone that I’m not completely terrible at relationships. Please Sapnap?”
Sapnap pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the floor in front of him, lost in thought. He weighed his options: he could either break up with Karl and face the wrath of the cheer team, or he could continue their fake relationship and help Karl with his friends. Plus, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, part of him had liked pretending to be Karl’s boyfriend. He shrugged the thought away, telling himself that it was just because he hadn’t dated anyone in a long time either. Lifting the phone again, he sighed heavily.
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Yes!” Karl exclaimed and Sapnap winced at the sudden noise that blasted out of the speaker. “You’re the best!”
“Yeah, I know. Now don’t be so loud.”
“Oh, right.”
“But we need to set some boundaries. We need to be convincing, but I’m not trying to be like Dream and George.”
“I agree, I agree.”
“So I think- uh- kissing is off limits, right?” Sapnap said, stumbling awkwardly over his words.
“Yeah, yeah, for sure. That’s a little bit too close to crossing the line.”
As if grinding at a party wasn’t crossing the line.
“But I think hugging, holding hands, that stuff’s fine right? I mean, I already do that to everyone,” Karl continued.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
The line went quiet again.
“Um, should we tell our friends that we’re not actually together?” Sapnap asked, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.
“I don’t think so,” Karl said thoughtfully. “I don’t think we should tell anyone cuz then the secret would be out and that would ruin the whole thing.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I just hope Dream and George don’t ask us to go on a double date or anything, I don’t think I could take that.”
“Yeah right,” Karl scoffed. “They’re too busy giving each other mouth to mouth to do anything with other people.”
Sapnap laughed. “Yeah, true.”
Karl giggled.
“Okay, well I’m gonna go shower now. Talk to you later, babe.”
“Oh my god, do not call me tha-”
Sapnap hung up the phone with a smile, cutting across Karl’s words. He stood slowly, stretching out his stiff muscles, and grabbed a set of clothes from his dresser. As he walked to the bathroom and started the shower, running his fingers through the warm water, he told himself that the giddy feeling in his chest had nothing to do with the brunet boy that was now his fake boyfriend.
Sapnap should have known that being in a fake relationship would not be as easy as it seemed. Everyone wanted to know how it had happened; how had the two of them started dating? Who confessed their feelings first? Was it awkward? Had they kissed yet?
As soon as he stepped out of the shower that Sunday, Dream barraged him with questions. When he sat down in his nine a.m. class the following Monday, he got a jump scare from his friend Quackity who wanted to know every detail. Even working out with the football team wasn’t an escape because apparently everyone knew about him and Karl. Sapnap was shocked that so many people seemed to care. Since when had his dating life been of interest to anyone?
As the result of so many questions, Sapnap and Karl had frantically coordinated a story about how they had been friends for a long time and their feelings had slowly grown to be more than just platonic, leading to Karl confessing at a party and asking Sapnap to be his boyfriend. Karl said that he wanted to be the one who confessed his fake feelings because it made him seem more confident, so Sapnap let that be the case. In regard to questions about their first kiss, the two agreed to just laugh awkwardly and change the subject, figuring it was better to not give an answer than to make up a lie.
Their plan seemed to work without a hitch for a while. Since Sapnap had become increasingly occupied with football and Karl with cheerleading, on top of their already busy class schedules, they rarely saw each other, only texting back and forth occasionally. Their fake relationship hadn’t really been put to the test until about a week and a half after they announced that they were “officially” together.
Sapnap collapsed into a sofa situated in a quiet corner of the library, sighing in relief as he let his backpack drop to the floor. It was a Wednesday afternoon and he had just gotten out of his last class of the day, his eyelids drooping low with exhaustion. Gentle sunlight slanted through broad windows showering Sapnap with faint warmth, a soft glow illuminating the plush red couch that he lay upon. He flopped his legs over the arm rest and let his upper half fall further so that his body lay lengthwise across the cushions, taking up two thirds of the seat. Pulling out his phone, he scrolled through his twitter feed, allowing his brain to rest after such a long day. After less than five minutes, his eyes grew heavier and heavier until they could no longer remain open and his phone slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor.
“I think you dropped this.”
Sapnap’s eyes snapped open. He jerked himself upright and turned toward the voice.
“Karl?”
“What’s up, nimrod,” Karl greeted him, shrugging off his own backpack and leaning it against the couch next to Sapnap’s.
“I thought you had a class right now.”
“I didn’t go. We’re just covering the same stuff we did on Monday and I already understand it, so I figured the time would be better spent studying or something. Clearly, you don’t have the same intentions.”
“My brain hurts, Karl. I don’t wanna do work,” Sapnap whined, lifting a hand to rub across his face.
Karl giggled and gestured to the seat next to Sapnap.
“This spot taken?”
Sapnap shook his head. “Nah, go ahead.”
Karl’s lips curled into a tired smile and he sat down heavily, the weight of his entire day joining him on the couch.
Sapnap moved to lay back onto the cushions underneath him before he realized that he would basically be laying on Karl’s lap. The idea of resting his head on Karl’s thighs and letting the taller boy run pale fingers through copper hair flitted through Sapnap’s mind. It sounded nothing short of perfection and he almost closed his eyes in bliss at the mere thought of it, but he quickly shook his head and pulled his legs off of the arm rest, turning his body so that he was sitting normally on the couch, leaving a space between him and Karl.
Sapnap still felt a little bit awkward about their whole fake dating situation. They were supposed to be convincing as a couple and they had set up boundaries, but he didn’t want to overstep and make Karl uncomfortable.
“Y’know,” Karl interrupted his thoughts, leaning forward to pull his laptop out of his backpack. “You don’t have to sit that far away from me. I don’t have cooties or anything.”
Sapnap smiled and scooted closer to Karl. He sat close enough that their shoulders and knees were brushing, but not so close that they were on top of each other, a nice middle ground.
“Are you actually doing homework?”
“Yeah,” Karl sighed.
Sapnap wrinkled his face in disgust.
“Gross.”
“What, doing my work is gross?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Well passing my classes isn’t gross, you should try it some time.”
Sapnap gasped, feigning hurt. “How dare you, my grades are just fine!”
“Mmhmm,” Karl hummed sarcastically.
The shorter boy rolled his eyes and returned to scrolling through twitter. They sat in comfortable silence, broken only by the sound of Karl’s fingers tapping at his keyboard or Sapnap chuckling occasionally at a funny tweet, until they both looked up from their screens at the sound of approaching footsteps. A familiar bubbly, rambling voice floated across the bookshelves and into the corner where the two boys sat. Sapnap cocked his head slightly, not able to place exactly where he knew that voice from.
“It’s Brooke,” Karl whispered, something like alarm flashing through cloudy gray eyes.
Sapnap nodded in recognition, looking back down at his phone.
“Put your arm around me,” Karl whispered again, his voice more urgent.
“What?” Sapnap shot back.
“We’re supposed to be dating, dumbass, now act like it.”
Sapnap lifted his arm from where it was resting at his side and wrapped it around Karl’s shoulders, scooting closer to him so that their sides were now pressed flush against each other. Letting his hand relax and curl around the side of Karl’s bicep, he rubbed soft circles into the exposed skin under Karl’s sleeve with his thumb, feeling sparks skitter and jump across his fingers as he did so. He pointedly ignored the red flush that he could feel rising to his face at being in such close proximity to the other boy. Looking to his right, he watched as Karl stared intently at his computer screen, seemingly unfazed by the situation, until Sapnap looked closer and
saw the same warm hues spilling across pale cheeks.
“Oh my god! Hi Karl!” Brooke and two other girls had appeared from around the side of the bookshelves in front of the secluded corner where Karl and Sapnap sat.
Sapnap had never seen the other two girls before, but he assumed they were also cheerleaders by the way their eyes lit up at seeing Karl.
“Oh, hey! What’s up?” Karl looked up from his computer, grinning broadly.
Sapnap chuckled to himself at how effortlessly the boy feigned his casual behavior, as if he hadn’t just ordered Sapnap to act like his boyfriend in order to keep up their relationship’s appearance.
“And hello to you too, Sapnap,” Brooke added with a sly smile, giving him a not-so-subtle wink.
“Hi Brooke,” he responded.
“You must be Karl’s boyfriend! I’m Tina.” One of the girls that Sapnap didn’t know chimed in. She was short with long brown hair that was pulled back from her face by two bright pink butterfly clips. “You guys are seriously so cute together! I see now why Karl talks about you all the time.”
“Oh really?” Sapnap said with a smirk, using the arm he had around Karl’s shoulders to briefly squeeze him closer. “He hadn’t mentioned that to me.”
“Well, I- I wouldn’t say- I don’t talk about you that much.” A fiery blush climbed up Karl’s neck, red wine spilling rapidly across a pale tablecloth.
”Oh please,” the other girl chimed in, another short girl whose hair was split into halves and pulled back into two high pigtails, one side black and one side white. “He talks about you all the time. It’s getting hard to shut him up, honestly.”
Sapnap chuckled gently as Karl lifted his hands to cover his face which flushed impossibly darker by the second. He felt his chest swell as he processed the idea that Karl actually talked about him to other people; that the brunet cared enough and found him important enough to mention him in conversation, especially with friends he didn’t know. Sapnap’s heart suddenly felt very soft and warm as he thought about how touching this simple act was, realizing that it meant more coming from Karl than if Dream or George had done the same thing. He didn’t really want to think about why that was. Using his fingertips to pull Karl tighter into his chest, he squeezed him close once more.
“Aw Karl, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Sapnap said, his words colored with a shade of fondness that he had never heard himself use before. “I’d be worried if you weren’t talking about what a great boyfriend you have.”
“You guys are seriously adorable, I can’t!” Brooke giggled. “Well, we have to go study for an exam that we have tomorrow, but we’ll see you guys later!”
The other two girls smiled brightly and waved goodbye as the three of them turned to make their way through the bookshelves in search of a table.
Sapnap couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. He slowly pulled his arm from around Karl’s shoulders and turned his whole body to face the boy, moving to sit cross-legged on the couch. Dropping his phone onto the cushions between his legs, he said nothing, simply stared at the mess of brown curls that poked out from above pale hands where Karl’s face remained hidden. He held back his laughter as the silence stretched on, both boys waiting for the other to say something. After several moments, he decided to be the one to break the delicate wall between the two.
“Karl,” he said softly, contained glee evident in his voice.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Karl said grumpily.
“I’m not gonna make fun of you, I promise! I think it’s kinda sweet, actually.”
Karl snorted in response. He finally pulled his hands away from his face, heavy blush still painted across his cheeks. Gray eyes shone with embarrassment, caution, and something else, something like hope, as they lifted to meet Sapnap’s gaze.
“You think it’s sweet?”
“Yeah, I think it’s endearing that you talk about me all the time.”
Karl smiled shyly and his eyes flicked down to his lap before he looked back up through thick lashes.
“You really don’t think it’s weird?”
“Not at all! We’re trying to be convincing with the whole fake dating thing, it would be a huge red flag if we didn’t talk about each other.”
Sapnap smirked before adding, “And I mean, I know I’m the best, so I think it’s great that you’re telling other people too.”
Karl giggled and rolled his eyes. “Yeah right, nimrod, you keep telling yourself that.”
The shorter boy grinned to himself and picked his phone up from the couch, spinning his body to face forward again, shoulder and thigh pressed against Karl’s. After scrolling aimlessly for a few minutes, he pulled up Spotify and grabbed his earbuds out of his backpack.
“Wanna listen to music?” he asked.
“Mmm, I don’t really like to listen to stuff when I’m studying.”
“But I have a song I want to show you.” Sapnap offered one of the earbuds to Karl with a smile. “Please?”
Karl rolled his eyes again. “Fine,” he said shortly, taking the earbud and pressing it into his ear.
Sapnap put in the other earbud, opened one of his playlists, and selected a song, turning up the volume. He continued to scroll through his music as the song played, queuing songs that he thought Karl would like, and watched his reaction. Karl began to nod his head gently to the beat, tapping his fingers along the side of his laptop as Sapnap mouthed the lyrics that swirled out of the earbud speakers and into their ears. The two sat together, silently listening as the song played out, as if bound by a spell that would not allow them to speak until the final notes had been completed.
“So, what did you think?” Sapnap asked as another song began to play, this one a very familiar favorite of their friend group.
“I thought it was good, I liked it. It’s almost like I showed you that song last year or something,” Karl said with a small smile.
“You what?”
“I showed you that song, idiot. Last year when we took our summer road trip, I played that song on aux, remember? George wouldn’t stop fake moaning at that part in the middle and Dream almost kicked him out of the car.”
Sapnap face palmed at his own ignorance. Of course, now that Karl brought it up, he remembered that exact scenario, including how he had stuck his head out the window and felt the cool wind rush through his hair as they drove. That road trip was one of his happiest memories.
“I’m literally so dumb,” he groaned.
“Yeah, a little bit,” Karl giggled. “But that’s okay. Can I queue a song?”
Sapnap passed his phone to the boy sitting next to him, watching as he tilted the screen away and typed rapidly. He swiped across the screen and gave the phone back, setting it gently into the palm of Sapnap’s hand. Sapnap wondered if he too felt the singe of flames across his skin as their fingers brushed or if that was just happening in his head.
“I moved it up in the queue,” Karl said, directing his attention back to the laptop screen in front of him.
The two fell back into comfortable silence. With the quiet hum of the music in his ears and the fatigue from the day still heavy in his bones, Sapnap began to feel sleepy again. Heat from Karl’s body where they were pressed together seeped through his thin t-shirt and enveloped him in warmth, encouraging his tired eyelids to resume their path downward. Without meaning to, Sapnap felt his consciousness slipping away from him again and he tilted his head, resting his cheek against the soft fabric where Karl’s shirt covered his shoulder. Since Karl had a few inches of height on him, even sitting down, the position was incredibly comfortable and Sapnap quickly drifted off.
He awoke to the feeling of someone shaking him gently. The side of his face was pressed against something warm and he snuggled into it, trying to pull himself closer to the source of the heat.
“Sap,” a soft voice spoke, barely above a whisper and colored with tenderness. “You gotta get up.”
His eyes opened slowly and he winced as bright lights flooded his vision.
“Wha-” he mumbled, waking up completely disoriented.
“We’re in the library. You fell asleep.”
Sapnap sat up and realized that the voice had come from Karl, whose side he had been curled up into and whose shoulder he had been resting his cheek on.
“Oh, sorry,” he mumbled. “How long was I asleep?”
“No worries. And a little over thirty minutes. I thought about waking you up earlier, but you looked so peaceful that I just let you sleep,” Karl said, pink hues painted delicately over his features.
Sapnap blushed as well, suddenly understanding that he had used the other boy as a human pillow for the last half an hour. He hoped he hadn’t snored, that would have been beyond embarrassing.
“Oh, thanks. Y’know, for letting me sleep on you.” He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed at his eyes, wiping sleepy fog from his vision. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah, I was gonna go grab some dinner. Dream texted that he was heading to the dining hall, so I was on my way to join him. You wanna come too?”
“Sure,” Sapnap yawned.
He noticed that his earbuds had been unplugged from his phone and wrapped carefully around themselves so that the wire wouldn’t be tangled.
“Oh no!” he exclaimed, looking back up at the other boy. “I missed the song you wanted to show me!”
Karl giggled. “It’s fine, you looked like you really needed the rest. I queued it again so you can still listen to it.”
Sapnap smiled his thanks, tossing the earbuds into his backpack and standing up before lifting his arms above his head to stretch. He dropped his arms and pulled his shirt down from where it had ridden up, turning back toward the couch. As he did so, he saw Karl quickly avert his eyes, busying himself with the process of packing his laptop away and rummaging for his phone. The two boys gathered their belongings and departed from the red sofa, walking away from their secluded corner.
“Wait, here,” Sapnap said as they made their way toward the more populated area of the library.
Shifting his phone from his right hand to his left, he slipped his now-free hand into Karl’s, intertwining their fingers. He wasn’t quite sure what had come over him and he hoped Karl wasn’t uncomfortable with it, but something felt so right about the way their palms pressed against each other, clicking together like two pieces of a long-separated puzzle. Karl looked down in surprise but didn’t say anything, just started gently swinging their arms forward and backward between them as they walked. His face lit up as he grinned a secret smile that was meant only for him, but Sapnap noticed it anyway and found a similar expression curling over his own features.
The next few days seemed to pass in blur, but Sapnap noticed that there was a distinct shift in his and Karl’s relationship. They knew deep down that it was still fake, telling themselves that none of it was real, but on the surface the whole thing suddenly felt easier, more natural. They would often meet up between classes and stroll around campus holding hands, or find each other in the library and press themselves close together as they studied. Whatever the shift was that had taken place was never addressed or questioned. The two simply enjoyed these new aspects of their relationship and pretended that the line between friends and something more wasn’t becoming increasingly fuzzy with each day that passed.
That weekend, Sapnap and Dream had their first football game of the season. As the newly appointed captain, Dream had been pushing the entire team to work their asses off for the past several weeks in order to prepare for the game, which just so happened to be versus their rival school. Karl and the rest of the cheer team had also been putting in extra time to work on some over the top cheers and routines that would one-up anything that the other school could do.
The first half of the game went smoothly. Dream was easily one of the best quarterbacks that the school had seen in a long time and it showed. He effortlessly connected passes and executed running plays, scoring touchdown after touchdown. And Sapnap didn’t want to pat himself on the back too much, but as the starting running back, he made his fair share of plays, gaining yardage easily and converting several crucial third downs.
The score was 30 - 7 at halftime with Dream and Sapnap’s team in the lead. The players raced off the field whooping and yelling, watching as the cheer team ran on to perform a routine during the break. Helmet in hand and white bandana pulling back his sweat-slicked hair, Sapnap scanned the crowd of cheerleaders as they passed each other, looking for one in particular. When he finally found him, his jaw dropped, breath catching in his throat as his eyes practically bulged out of his head.
Karl’s mousy brown curls were pulled back by a wire headband, leaving the pale skin of his face exposed to the near-blinding glare of stadium lights. This boy was the moon, glowing and shimmering in all its brilliance, dusted by cosmic beauty and sprinkled with constellations of stars. Pink hues traced the highest points of his cheeks and dipped over the bridge of his nose. There was no storm found within usually cloudy gray eyes as they were alight with joy and sparkling with happiness. But as breathtaking as Karl’s features were, that was not the only thing that robbed the air from Sapnap’s lungs.
His gaze drifted down from Karl’s face to the rest of his body, taking in the tight cheerleading top that hugged his upper body and cut off above his belly button, leaving a sliver of skin exposed. Their school’s colors had never looked as good as they did then, clinging to Karl’s chest and wrapping over his shoulders. Yet hungry green eyes drifted lower still, tracing the outline of a narrow waist and devouring the curve of soft hips until they stopped at the hem of a skirt.
A skirt.
Sapnap could have died right then and there and he would have died a happy man.
A pleated tennis skirt hung off of Karl’s body, cutting off high across milky thighs as he walked and fluttering teasingly higher as he jumped and bounced across the field.
Unable to tear his eyes away or pick his jaw up from the ground, Sapnap startled when he realized that the brunet was smiling directly at him, their gazes catching each other through the crowd as though they were magnetized. He waved timidly, feeling a sudden swirling of new feelings through his chest and thoughts through his head. Karl waved back, beaming brightly, and gave Sapnap a quick thumbs up before he was gone, swept away into the mass of people on the field.
The football team made their way to the locker room where their coach would be giving the usual halftime speech. All the other boys were slapping each other on the backs and barking with laughter, the room filled to the brim with good spirits since their team was doing so well, but Sapnap’s mind remained outside where he knew that a certain boy was performing.
By the time they returned to the field for the second half, Sapnap had recovered enough to shift his focus back onto football rather than dwelling on soft skin and tight fabric. But as the players rushed across the grass and the game resumed, it became apparent that something else had taken place during the brief pause. Either the other coach was a professional motivational speaker or Sapnap and Dream’s team had become overly cocky, because their rivals stormed the field with a force that was proving to be too much for the home team. Their offense racked up point after unanswered point while their defense transformed into a brick wall that prevented Dream from getting any sort of momentum going.
Suddenly, there were less than fifteen seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, and the game was tied 30 - 30. The home team had the ball on their own forty yard line and had just used their last timeout. Dream and Sapnap jogged onto the field behind their teammates, hearts in their throats and hands shaking with nerves. The stadium shook with the cheers of spectators and the blaring of music.
This was it. Time for one more play.
Dream stepped up behind his center, hands outstretched for the snap, and spared one last glance at Sapnap as he lined up behind him. They both nodded once and Dream’s eyes returned forward. His voice was hoarse as he screamed out the play call and motioned for the center.
The ball was snapped and all hell broke loose.
It flew into Dream’s hands and he turned quickly, holding it out as Sapnap ran by him for the pump fake before taking off through a gap in the offensive line. He watched as Dream’s eyes scanned upfield, taking in the man-on-man coverage that rendered his receivers useless. Sapnap made a hard cut into open space and threw his hands in the air, a rapid motion to draw Dream’s attention. It worked, and Sapnap saw the ball arcing through the air toward him, illuminated by flood lights as it sliced through the night sky. He caught it, tucking it safely under his arm before turning upfield once more and pounding his feet into the grass, taking off into a flat out sprint toward the other end of the field.
A defender came at him from the side and he cut quickly, letting the player use his own momentum to miss the tackle as he continued to fly down the sideline. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another defender coming toward him, but by then it was too late as he looked down at his feet to see that he had crossed into the end zone and scored.
He had done it. They had won.
The stadium exploded. An eruption of screaming, yelling, and cheering ripped through the night air. Sapnap felt himself getting lifted off the ground as his teammates picked him up and placed them on their shoulders. They let out sounds of victory, whooping and slapping each other on their helmets as they paraded Sapnap down the field. He scanned the crowd and found Dream, helmet clutched in his hand and blond hair slicked back, staring up at him with the biggest smile he had ever seen on his face. Sapnap pointed at him and yelled words quickly drowned out by the cacophony of noise, but Dream seemed to get the message, pointing back in return.
The area around them began to fill with people as students fled the stand and stormed the field, racing across the grass toward the players. From his perch on the shoulders of his friends, Sapnap continued to study the crowd, eyes roaming in search of someone else.
There.
He leapt back down onto the ground and pushed his way through the mass of people, grinning wildly as his shoulders and elbows cut a path down the sideline until he reached a certain brunet boy that was standing with the rest of the cheer team. He watched as Karl turned to another cheerleader, that girl that he had met at the library with the split dyed hair, and giggled, watched as he wrinkled his nose as he laughed and lifted a hand to cover his mouth, watched as his chest rose and fell rapidly as he released sounds of joy into the air. A rush of affection and desire surged through his body, pouring directly into his muscles and bypassing his brain. Without thinking, Sapnap ripped his helmet off his head, dropped it to the floor, and pressed forward, lifting his hands to cup Karl’s jaw and pull him down into a searing kiss.
Fireworks exploded behind his eyelids and sparks skittered across his lips. Karl tasted like sweet summer rain, like pure unfiltered sunlight, like everything good in the world, and Sapnap ached to savor it all. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, sending his senses into overdrive and setting every nerve in his body on fire until his brain finally caught up with what he was doing.
He pulled away and stepped back in shock at himself, dropping his hands back to his side before letting his eyes roam over Karl’s expression. The taller boy’s lips were parted into a perfect “o” of surprise. His cheeks were alight with red-hot coals, pale skin burning with heat.
Running a hand through sweat streaked hair, Sapnap opened and closed his mouth several times, searching for words. Before he could think of anything to say, his teammate Sam grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back to the locker room, slapping him on the back and rambling about the game.
But all Sapnap could think was that he had fucked up. He had broken one of their boundaries. They said that kissing was off the table, the one thing they wouldn’t do in their fake relationship, and yet Sapnap had done it anyway. He wanted to apologize, to say that he didn’t know what had come over him, that he didn’t mean to do it. But a little voice in the back of his head told him that wasn’t true. He had meant to do it and he didn’t regret it for a second.
As much as he had tried to shrug it off or ignore it, he couldn’t hide from it anymore.
Sapnap was completely, undoubtedly, irrevocably in love with Karl Jacobs.
The rest of the weekend was filled with nothing but celebration. Sapnap and Dream attended party after party until they could hardly see straight, let alone support their own weight as they staggered back to their dorm room in the early hours of the morning.
But despite the distractions that Sapnap tried to throw at himself, regardless of the drinks he downed or the people he danced with, Karl’s face never left his mind. It was as if the surprise and shock that had colored delicate features had tattooed itself onto the back of Sapnap’s eyelids. Every time he closed his eyes, he relived the greatest mistake he’d ever made.
Not that he regretted the kiss, in fact he could still feel the electric feel of Karl’s lips against his and he ached to once again feel the sizzle of sparks that had left their mark along his skin. But the mistake was that he had crossed the line. The line between just friends and something more had become blurrier and blurrier until Sapnap had disregarded it completely, his own selfish feelings and desires taking a hold of him and shattering his platonic façade. And Sapnap knew that he could never face Karl again, could never look him in the eyes and apologize for something that he didn’t regret, could never lie and say that he wasn’t in love with him, that they could go back to whatever they were before. Their friendship now lay in ruins, shards of broken glass and piles of rubble that indicated what once was.
These thoughts spiraled around his brain, an endless loop of misery and heartbreak that no bottle could drown and no song could overpower.
An entire week went by as Sapnap avoided speaking to or seeing Karl. He became a hollow shell of his former self, walking around campus alone, head hanging low and earbuds plugged in, ignorant to the world around him. He avoided the library altogether, aware that that was where Karl would be spending his free time since exams were rapidly approaching.
Sapnap spent a lot of time that week in his dorm room, bent over his desk in the hope that doing homework and studying would be able to take his mind off of the swirling storm clouds that continued to pour their sheets of rain and blow their gusts of wind through his head.
But no such luck.
Karl lived in his every thought, in the way that he stuck his tongue out when he concentrated on an assignment, or the way that he would tap an off-beat rhythm with his fingers when he was thinking hard about something. Even music became a place for the brunet to reside, as Sapnap would get lost in memories of how the boy would throw his head back as he danced at parties or how his eyes would light up if his favorite song was played. He just about dropped his phone whenever the song from the library, that he had mentally dubbed “Karl’s song,” shuffled through his playlists.
There was no escape from the beautiful boy that haunted his days and nights.
Sapnap knew that, at some point, he would have to face his actions. He would have to deal with the fact that he had kissed his best friend and ruined their friendship, their fake relationship, everything they had ever had between them. But for the time being, it was much easier to avoid the whole thing, run away from the problems that followed him like a shadow, change the topic whenever Karl came up in conversation.
As the week went on and Sapnap became more and more consumed by his misery, he knew that Dream had noticed that there was something wrong, but the blond had yet to say anything. He offered to go to dinner with Sapnap more frequently, nudged him so that they would go to the gym together, stayed at the dorm instead of going over to George’s every night. Sapnap appreciated the gesture, grateful that his friend was doing his best to support him without knowing the root of the problem.
Finally, the end of the week rolled around. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, Sapnap remained in the dorm room, pretending to study for an exam that he had the following week. Dream, out of solidarity, decided to keep him company. The two had a quiet tension between the two of them, an unspoken agreement to let the situation lie until Sapnap was ready to address it.
“Hey Sapnap,” Dream asked suddenly, leaning back in his desk chair and propping his feet up on the edge of his bed. “Are you coming to the party tonight?”
“Which one?” he replied, not looking up from the paper in front of him.
“The cheer team is throwing a party to get everyone hyped up before the game tomorrow.”
Sapnap’s heart leapt into his throat, nearly cutting off his words as he choked them out.
“Oh, um, I don’t think so. I really have to study for this exam.”
Dream narrowed his eyes slightly in suspicion.
“Since when have you taken your classes this seriously? Plus, Karl’s gonna be there, don’t you want to see him?”
“Nah, that’s okay. He’d uh- he’d understand that school is more important.”
Sapnap looked up from his page and turned in his chair to find Dream studying him carefully, an x-ray gaze scanning across his features.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” Sapnap’s heart pounded in his ears, almost drowning out his words.
“I thought things were going really great for you and Karl, you guys seemed to really like each other. But now you haven’t seen him all week, ever since the football game. What happened?”
“N-nothing happened.”
“Really? Cuz that’s not what Karl said when I asked him.”
“You did what?” Sapnap’s blood was rushing to his face in anger at the same time that his hands began to shake anxiously. What had Karl told Dream? Did he know everything?. “My relationship is none of your business, Dream. Just because I don’t hang all over him like you do with George doesn’t mean that something happened between us.”
“Look, I know you’re just getting defensive because you don’t want to talk about it,” Dream said smoothly, ever calm in the face of Sapnap’s temper. “But I’m always here for you if you do.”
Sapnap watched as the blond turned back to his desk, his back facing the rest of the room.
Should he tell him? It would be nice to get everything off his chest, and Dream might have a suggestion of what to do, a nice easy solution that would patch everything back together. But Sapnap also began to sweat at the thought of telling Dream the whole story. Not just about the kiss and about his feelings, but he would be exposing that the entire relationship was fake, which he and Karl had agreed was off limits.
But what did Sapnap care about what was off limits? He had already broken one of the boundaries that they had set, why not break another?
“Dream,” he started, his voice shaky.
The blond turned back around, green eyes shining with soft sympathy and kindness.
“I fucked up,” the shorter boy said simply.
The room was silent. Sapnap’s skin tingled uncomfortably and his legs began to shake as nerves crawled up and down his body.
“It’s okay, Sapnap. I’m sure you didn’t fuck up as bad as you think you did.”
Sapnap scoffed. “I don’t know, man. It’s definitely not good.”
He broke down and told Dream the entire story, starting with the party where Karl had asked Sapnap for help and ending with Sapnap kissing Karl on the football field. Once the words started flowing out of his mouth, he couldn’t stop them. He was just so glad that he could finally tell someone about the whole thing since he had been holding it inside for so long. When he reached the end of the story, his voice was hoarse, both from talking for so long and from speaking around the lump that had formed in his throat.
Looking down at his lap and twisting his hands together, Sapnap quietly left off with, “So yeah, I fucked up pretty bad.”
After several beats of silence, he dragged his eyes upward toward Dream, already dreading the look of pity and concern that he expected to find. What he didn’t expect was the broad smile that curved his friend’s lips upward or the mischievous glint that danced in his eyes.
“Wha- why are you smiling?” Sapnap choked out.
“Sorry, sorry,” Dream said, a repressed chuckle evident in his voice. “I just- I don’t get it.”
“What do you mean ‘you don’t get it’? I kissed Karl and he clearly didn’t want me to and now I’ve ruined our entire friendship. How is that funny to you?”
“It’s not, it really isn’t. I’m so sorry.” The blond shook his head and forced the smile off of his face. “I guess I just know things that you don’t. But we’ll get there, don’t worry.”
Sapnap was thoroughly confused. Dream knew things that he didn’t know? Things to do with Karl? Like what? And why was that funny?
“Now, let’s walk through this,” Dream spoke again, interrupting the questions buzzing around his skull. “Why do you think Karl chose you to be his fake boyfriend?”
“Cuz who else would he choose? It would have to be someone that he’s close to and he trusts, but everyone knows that you and George are dating, so neither of you would work, and Quackity wasn’t at the party.”
“Wrong, Quackity was at the party. I passed him and Karl talking when I was looking for George, so he absolutely could have chosen Quackity, but he didn’t. He chose you. Why?”
Sapnap sputtered, at a loss for words. “Wel- uh- I-”
“Okay, just think about that one for a minute. Next question: Why do you think that Karl didn’t want you to kiss him?”
“We made clear boundaries at the beginning of this whole thing and said that kissing wasn’t allowed because it was too close to crossing from platonic to romantic. And you should have seen him after I kissed him. The way he looked at me was just…” Sapnap trailed off.
“Who suggested that kissing would be off limits? Was it Karl?”
Sapnap thought back to that phone call all those weeks ago. “Um, no. It was me.”
“So he never explicitly stated that he didn’t want you to kiss him?”
“Well, I guess not. But that was still one of the rules-”
“What did he say after you kissed him?”
“Uh- nothing. He just looked at me. And then Sam ran over and dragged me into the locker room.”
“So he didn’t say that he hated you or that you disgusted him or anything like that?”
“Well obviously not, Dream, otherwise I probably would have dropped out of school and moved across the country.” Sapnap rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“So let me sum up the situation as I see it. Karl initiated this whole fake dating thing, he chose you out of everyone that he could have picked, he instigated that whole thing in the library and told all of his friends about you, and he didn’t say anything bad after you kissed him. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Sapnap went to shake his head, but then cast his mind back over their entire relationship. He remembered every time Karl had squeezed his hand or looked at him with big shining doe-eyes, remembered how easy it was to spill bright pink stardust over pale cheeks or draw a bubbly giggle from between parted lips.
Oh.
Oh.
“Wait…,” he started slowly, his words having yet to catch up with his brain.
“Finally!” Dream explained, bursting into laughter and shaking his head in amusement.
“Karl likes me?”
“Yes, you fucking oblivious dumbass, Karl likes you.”
“How- How did you know?”
“Well, first of all, I have eyes, so I could see the whole time that you liked each other. But he also told me after you kissed him.”
Sapnap’s mind was racing, his thoughts going a million miles an hour, spinning faster and faster around his brain.
“I need to go talk to him,” he said, standing abruptly. “Oh fuck, what am I gonna say?”
“Just tell him that you like him too,” Dream said, still grinning wildly.
Sapnap grabbed his phone off the desk and stumbled over to the door, pulling his shoes on in a hurry as he went. He tugged the door open and stepped into the hallway before sticking his head back into the dorm and saying, “Thank you, Dream.”
The blond waved his hand nonchalantly and chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. Go get ‘em, tiger.”
Sapnap raced through the building and burst out the lobby door, laying out in a dead sprint across campus. As he ran, he fumbled with his phone, pulling Karl’s contact up and dialing the number. Each dial tone shot nerves through Sapnap’s body. What if he didn’t answer? Finally, Karl picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hi?” his voice seemed shaky and unsure as it came through the phone’s speakers.
“Where are you right now?” Sapnap panted.
“Are you running right now?”
“Just answer the question, Karl. Where are you?”
“At the library, but I’m leaving now.”
“Okay,” Sapnap breathed heavily as he ran through the plaza on campus. “Stay right there.”
“What?”
Sapnap hung up the phone and kept running, making the final turn around the student center, the front of the library filling his vision. Squinting into the wind blowing against his face, he could make out a figure standing on the library steps. He kept pushing, a stitch in his side and his lungs heaving as he grew closer, until he finally reached the bottom of the stairs.
“What are you doing?” Karl called down to him, skipping down the steps and leaning against the railing as Sapnap doubled over.
“Hang… on…” Sapnap gasped out between breaths. “Shouldn’t have… run…”
Once he finally got enough air back into his lungs, he stood up straight and looked at the boy in front of him. Messy brown hair hung loosely over delicate features formed in a confused expression.
“I’ll ask again, what are you doing?”
“I’m in love with you, Karl Jacobs.”
Karl’s eyebrows shot up and his lips parted in surprise. “You… what?”
“I’m in love with you. Totally, utterly, wholeheartedly in love with you. And I’m so sorry for avoiding you for the past week, but I really thought our friendship was over after I kissed you and then Dream talked me through the entire situation and I realized that I was a big dumb idiot, so now I’m here to-”
Karl’s hands shot out and gripped Sapnap’s shirt, tugging him forward and cutting off his rambling as their lips met. It was like the first breath of fresh air after being under water, like every cell in Sapnap’s body, every atom, was falling apart and putting itself back together again. He could feel Karl smile into the kiss, lips curving upward as they moved against Sapnap’s own, and he couldn’t help but mirror the expression. When they finally pulled apart, they stopped and looked at each other, taking in blown-out pupils, flushed cheeks, spit slicked lips, before bursting out into laughter. They laughed so hard that they wheezed, Karl’s giggle ringing through the air like the tinkling of a windchime.
“I love you too, you big dumb idiot,” Karl said, lifting a hand to cover his mouth as he continued to laugh. “I can’t believe it took you this long to realize that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I got a whole lecture about it from Dream. But I guess that just means that you like me for my stunning good looks instead of for my brains,” Sapnap chuckled.
“Definitely not,” Karl teased.
As Sapnap caught his breath for the last time that night, he simply stared at the beautiful figure before him, at a loss for words to describe the feelings of sheer joy and love that ran rampant through his chest as the light from the sunset cut across Karl’s face, illuminating the moon once more in all his glory.
“Um, do you want to go to dinner?” Karl asked, smiling bashfully. “I feel like we shouldn’t just stand on the library steps forever.”
“Give me just one more second. I want to take everything in so that I can remember this moment for the rest of my life,” Sapnap replied.
The brunet giggled as he flushed pink and fidgeted with the sleeve of his jacket, but allowed another few seconds to pass as Sapnap stared at him lovingly, eyes memorizing every detail of his face, every curve, every freckle, every strand of hair.
“Okay, let’s go,” Sapnap said, extending his hand.
Karl stepped forward and took it, lacing their fingers together and pressing their palms against one another, two pieces of a puzzle that would be separated no more.