Chapter Text
Sapnap had been scheduled to show up after his roommate.
He had known that even before he got on campus, known that before he’d even arrived in the city. Not necessarily because the school had told him outright, but because his move-in block was the last one available. And he knew they wouldn’t double-book their dorm, it was all too stable and organized.
So Sapnap hadn’t been expecting an empty dorm when he got to the top of the stairs. Or when he slid his key through the door handle, pushed it open and wandered into the dorm room alone. He was glad his parents had elected to let him go off on his own—he was already enjoying the independence. And he’d brought his own car packed full of his own stuff. He didn’t need any help.
His dorm wasn’t empty, but it was desolate. There was evidence of his roommate’s arrival—a made bed, a cluttered desk, a smattering of posters on the wall—but the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Sapnap didn’t think much of it; if anything, he was happy to have the room all to himself. It would only make moving in easier seeing how he didn’t have to dance around another person.
But he’d have to return eventually, so Sapnap didn’t waste any time. And the sun was long gone by the time he’d finished, his body aching and dead tired from shifting his bed down from a full loft to a half all on his own. His mystery of a roommate was still yet to be seen, but Sapnap had spent some of his music-filled solitude wondering what type of person he was.
There was a poster for some band called Glaive—which Sapnap totally didn’t have to look up—some pretty colored art for Kingdom Hearts, a keyboard beneath his bed and a guitar alongside it. His desk was already a mess of open notebooks and scattered pens, and it was difficult to tell if that was a side effect of actually using the desk or just dumping stuff on top of it.
The wondering was cut short when the door swung open.
Sapnap sat up on his still-made bed, tugged the earbuds free from his ears and paused his music with a distracted gaze. He was assuming the boy in the doorway was his roommate.
And despite the fact that Sapnap had never even considered anything about his physical appearance, he looked exactly how he thought he would. Fluffy brown hair, oversized sweater, Monster can in hand—it just made sense with the way his side of the room looked.
And he spoke first. “Hi!” Shut the door behind him, tried to wave with his hands full of a can and a phone. “My name’s Karl.”
Strangely, that made perfect sense, too.
Sapnap swung his feet around the side of his bed to stand, nearly startled by how far away the floor was. Right. Half-lofted.
“Nick,” he pulled his hand up for Karl to shake, “but all my friends call me Sapnap.”
“Cool!” Karl put his drink and phone down on the desk. “Sapnap it is then.”
He spun around to face Sapnap with the warmest smile on his face, and just like everything else had, his complete avoidance of Sapnap’s outstretched hand made sense.
He instead stepped in closer, wrapped his arms around Sapnap and pulled him into a friendly hug. It only lasted for a moment, barely more than a second—but Sapnap came from a group of friends that never hugged each other, so it managed to catch him off guard enough to fail in the reciprocation department.
Karl didn’t look put-off though, he only kept smiling. Sapnap let his hand fall back to his side with an awkwardness only he could feel in the air, tried to match the gleam of energy that radiated off of Karl’s face.
Already he could feel the exuberance coming off of the boy—the way he bounced on his toes, his quick spin to grab his things back off his desk, the ring-clad hand that came up to push too-long hair out of his eyes.
Yeah. The energy drink in his hand really made sense.
“Okay,” his voice rivaled his body language in excitement, “I know we just met, but. I have an idea.”
Sapnap raised an eyebrow. “An idea?”
“Yeah.” Karl moved to sit on his bed, patting the space beside him with a comforting slowness. “C’mere. Hear me out.”
Sapnap moved with an edge of hesitance, but he sat down beside Karl nonetheless. Stood up on his toes awkwardly to get up onto the mattress, slid backward until he hit against the wall just as Karl had. Their feet dangled precariously over the edge of the mattress—clad in dirty converse and black socks, respectively.
“Okay,” Karl pulled his legs up to untie his shoes, “I thought of something the other day that I wanna do with my roommate, which is you.” His shoe hit the floor with a satisfying thunk. “I think it’ll help us get along.”
Sapnap narrowed his eyes. “Get along?”
“Yeah!” Karl turned to face Sapnap properly, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “I don’t want a roommate who hates me, but…” he pushed his hair out of his eyes, “I don’t want to come off strong, y’know?”
“You won’t—”
“Shh!” Karl interrupted, laughing light and giddy through all of it. “We should have a day. Just one, every week, where we promise to hang out.”
Sapnap brought his knees up to his chest, cast Karl an incredulous look from across the bed. Karl only looked at him expectantly, brought the Monster can back to his lips and sipped carefully.
“A day?”
“A day.”
“Which…” Sapnap furrowed his eyebrows, “which day?”
“I thought I’d let you pick.” Karl twisted his body awkwardly to set his half-full can down on the desk. “Any day you want. And it’ll be for us, so no making other plans.”
“Like, ever?”
“Well, if it’s really important, then we can make an exception.” Karl grinned sheepishly. “But we’d have to talk about it first.”
“Okay.” Sapnap nodded. “A day. For us.”
“We’ll do fun stuff!” Karl leaned closer to Sapnap, the mattress shifting beneath him in all his excited movement. “And we can take turns picking what to do, so it’s fair.”
“Yeah.” Sapnap smiled. “Fair.”
“So pick the day,” Karl urged. “Any day. Your choice, totally.”
“Are you sure?”
Karl shrugged. “My schedule’s flexible.”
“Well, I’ve got football practice on Saturdays, so let’s do Sunday.”
“A weekend?” Karl’s eyebrows knitted. “Are you sure?”
“Well, duh,” Sapnap grinned. “More time, right?”
He didn’t miss the way Karl’s eyes lit up, gaze running brighter than it had all evening—and that said a lot when it came to Karl, so Sapnap has noticed. His teeth were a glimmer of ivory behind pink lips, and Sapnap had never found someone’s glee-filled smile so endearing.
“It’s settled then!” Karl clapped his hands once for emphasis. “Sundays. For us.”