Devin

Grace sentenced me to three days of bedrest for my ankle and my head. I'm on day two, but it feels like it has been years since I last went outside. I've been eating the soup Ben left me a couple days ago and I think I developed a legit phobia of soup. Some people have visited, mostly giving me candy or flowers. I would kill for some solid food that is not in a can or drenched in broth.

I looked down at my phone, hoping for anything. The group chats were silent, nothing interesting happened in the world (according to the news). I went onto YouTube, hoping for something there. YES! Harris was streaming. Harris lived in this realm, and I hardly ever saw him; but I knew him well enough to know that he was a narcissist that should burn in a ditch, but at the end of his streams he always pranked someone, and as much as I didn't like Harris, I had to admit his pranks were pretty fire.

"We're out here by Nicole's base, and in case you don't know, Nicole is a total perfectionist. Everything has to be symmetrical and Feng Shui or whatever, so we're going to use that against her and prank her base." He stopped talking and snuck into her base. "We gotta be quiet so she won't hear us. I don't know where she is so she might even be here." He whispered. I watched intently as Harris snuck around her house, moving random objects over a couple inches from their original resting place. I don't know much about Feng Shui, but I think that's the Chinese art of placing everything in a certain way that will supposedly makes the "flow" of a room better. If random objects were moved, even if it was only a couple inches, it would take hours to find those objects and move them all back.

As Harris made his way up two the third floor of Nicole's building I heard a knock at the door. The sudden sound made me jump, and it felt like I just had a heart attack.

"I-it's open." I yelled. The door opened, and Ben stepped through, but more importantly so did the smell of actual food. "Is that food!"

"Eager, aren't we?" Ben chuckled. "I figured you were getting tired of eating only soup, so I got take-out from Alex's Pub."

"Oh my gosh yes!" I squealed taking a take-out container from his arms. Ben sat down next to me on the couch as he opened his box of take-out.

"What are we watching?" He asked; I pulled opened my take-out to reveal fish and chips.

"Friends. A marathon started playing on TV, so I recorded it." I replied squeezing lemon on my fish.

"Have you never watched it before?"

"No. Was I supposed to?" I joked.

"Friends is a classic! I'm surprised you haven't watched it."

"Well, I'm on episode eight, with no plan on stopping." Ben smiled and rested his head on the back of my sofa.

"Can I binge it with you?" He asked.

"The more the merrier!" I took a big bite of fish.

"Be careful its—" My tongue lit on fire and I immediately grabbed a napkin to shield mouth as I held it open in an attempt to put out the bonfire roasting my insides. "It's hot." Ben finished. I swallowed the lava fish and chugged some water.

"Yeah. I figured that out." I choked out.

"Sorry."

"Don't be. It was still better than soup." I took another swig of water. "Not that I didn't like the soup. I did for, uh, like—"

"Dev, I'm not easily offended." Ben playfully punched my arm.

"Ow! How dare!" I joked, weakly punching him back in a fit of laughter.

"You have a really nice laugh." Ben giggled. I picked up my glass of water in attempt to hide my blush.

"Uh, thanks." Right as things got quiet the commercials ended and the episode resumed.

/-/

Ben

"I'll see you tomorrow then?" I asked as I stood up, taking the trash from our dinner.

"If you wanna come by, I won't stop you." Dev replied, pausing the TV.

"Alright, I'll bring the gift of..." I tried to think of what Dev would want.

"Fried chicken?" He asked with a pleading smile.

"The gift of fried chicken. I was wanting some anyway."

"Thank you so much!" He exalted.

"Anytime!" I waved while walking out the door.

/-/

I landed back at my house semi-smoothly and heard a yell come from the kitchen. Who would be in my house at this time? I slowly walked inside and kept a hand in my pocket, holding my pepper spray.

"BEN!" A voice shouted from behind me. I screamed, a very manly scream may I add, (what are you talking about, Ben? You scream like a girl. I would know, I created you.) as I turned and sprayed the pepper spray in the man's face. "WHAT THE HELL DUDE!" Steven screamed.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't know that was you!" Steven ran over to the sink and tried to wash out his eyes in the running water. As his hair dangled dangerously close to the garbage disposal I asked, "By the way, can you not sneak into my house and jump scare me?"

"I TEXTED YOU!" He shouted. I pulled out my phone and saw the unread text.

"Oh. Sorry." Steven glared at me as he grabbed a paper towel and dabbed at his watering eyes. "So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Well, since Damian's Christmas Party is coming up—" Steven began.

"Damian has a Christmas party?"

"Yes! He has one every year, you're going right?"

"Yeah I think going, I just never got an invite."

"He told us that everyone's invited in an email blast."

"He did?" I questioned; I didn't remember getting an email.

"This is why you need to check your phone." Steven criticized; I silently nodded, waiting for him to continue his 'story.' "But anyway, since Damian is having his Christmas party, that you're invited to, I figured you ask Devin to be your date."

"W-What?" I nervously fiddled with the bottom button on my shirt. "Why would I ask Devin to be my DATE. T-That's weird."

"Are you really asking me 'why'? We all know that you have a crush on him, I'm not an idiot."

"Who is 'we'" I frantically blurted.

"Me and Lizzy."

"Lizzy knows!?!" I started to pace around the island in the middle of the kitchen. "This is really, really bad."

"It's honestly not that bad."

"Yes, it is!" I exploded. "Lizzy is going to tell Devin and that's going to make everything all weird! Then he will—"

"Devin told her."

"Wait, what?"

"Either Lizzy is really good at finding the signs, or Devin is not good at hiding them."

"So, Devin likes me?"

"According to Lizzy. She and Devin go on a run every morning and that's when they talk." I nodded along, taking it all in.

"When is the party anyway?" I unlocked my phone and found my calendar. "A week from now is Christmas Eve, that's party day, right?" Steven looked down at his phone.

"Yep."

"So, if I ask him to go with me, he will say yes?" I confirmed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I will make no promises dealing with other human beings in a romantic aspect. That is a dangerous game that I will not play."

"HYPOTHETICALLY, if—" I started.

"No hypotheticals; it either happens or it doesn't." Steven pressed.

"Please! Just listen. If I asked Dev to the Christmas party, do you think he will say yes?"

"According to Lizzy—"

"According to yourself." I corrected.

"Fine. I think Devin would go to the party with you."

"So, I should ask him?"

"You should've a long time ago! Now, I'm going to leave and cry for an hour, so I get this pepper spray out of my eyes." He grabbed a second bag of salt and vinegar chips that I left on the counter and walked over to the front door. "You better ask him tomorrow." He said, still not facing me.

"Fine, I will." Steven turned around to look at me.

"You swear?"

"I. Will."

"Alright. I'll leave now. But I'm only leaving cause my eyes are on fire." He finally opened the door and left, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Did I really want to ask Devin to the party? If I did and he rejected, we probably couldn't ever be friends; if I didn't ask him, I knew I would always wonder what would've happened. I grabbed a soda out of my fridge and moved over to a couch. The hard questions are for later. Netflix is for now. I thought while reaching for the remote to distract myself. 

1,462 words. I know this was supposed to be Chapter 5.5 not Chapter 6, but it's way too long to be a half of a chapter, so now its own chapter. Funny story, it took me a solid ten minutes for me to figure out how to spell Fung Shui. I was spelling it Funch Way, and I couldn't google the spelling because I didn't really know what Fung Shui even was.

Also, there's a line that says, "I think I developed a legit phobia of soup." I was going to put in what the phobia name was, but apparently there is no such thing as a phobia of soup, but there is a phobia of Russia. Shout out to anyone with Russophobia. Look it up, I'm not kidding. There is also kenophobia, the phobia of "void" (or empty spaces) and teratophobia, the fear of giving birth to a monster. Well there's your fun fact of the day.

Love y'all!

--Kio