Newcomers

Passing The Time

Cody woke up at 4 in the morning the next day. He hadn’t had too much trouble going to sleep, but he did have another nightmare.

This is so annoying, I really can’t relax for more than two minutes.

He rolled out of bed and hopped down to the kitchen, in a couple hours he would be limping instead of hopping. Not his favorite mode of transportation, but at least he’d be able to walk. He grabbed some lucky charms and fixed himself a bowl of cereal. The sun wasn’t up yet, so he turned the lamp on so that he didn’t have to sit in complete darkness. He leaned on his arm and used a random video as background noise. People have weird sleep schedules sometimes, maybe Seojun would be up. He was bored anyway, and talking to him would be nice.

(Hey, are you up?

/No

(Really Seojun?

/ 😊

/What’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?

(Aren’t you?

/You got me.

/What’s going on this time?

(Nothing, I’m just awake.

(Got bored and wanted to talk.

/Okay cool. Anything you wanna talk about?

(Not really. I just kinda felt like talking to you.

/That’s nice.

/I was thinking about you actually.

(Really? Why?

/I haven’t seen you in person in a while since you’ve been at home.

(Aww. You miss me? 🤭

/Why are you always picking at me?

(Not always.

(Only sometimes.

/Sure…

(You should come over when I get home later today.

(Tell me more of your story.

/Sure, that sounds cool.

/You got any snacks?

(Nah, but I can get some while I’m out.

/Okay cool. I’m gonna go back to bed. See ya.

(Goodnight.

Cody smiled as he read over the texts again. Even when they didn’t say much to each other, he still loved talking to him. He was just so nice to be around.

Suddenly he heard the backdoor shut. He jumped in surprise and cocked his head towards the hallway.

Am I being burglarized right now? Is that even a real word? I think that’s a real word. Fuck, my leg is still set, there’s no way I can defend myself, or hide without anybody hearing me.

He froze in place and watched breathlessly as he heard quiet footsteps come closer to him.

I guess this is the end. Hey wait a minute.

He realized while he was listening, that those footsteps sounded familiar. Meaning someone he knew was coming into the house, but who was it?

He watched silently as Graham turned the corner. They met eyes and stared at each other silently, frozen in place. “Oh hey Cody. I didn’t know you were out here.” He said awkwardly. “Were you at the Min’s house again?” Cody asked. “No.” Graham said hesitantly. Cody made a face at him.

“Okay yes, but you can’t tell anybody.” Graham said. “I don’t know, something like this seems like a pretty big secret to keep Graham.” Cody said. “Oh my God, what do you want?” Graham asked in annoyance. “It’s Saturday, which means you got paid yesterday.” Cody started. “Seriously?” Graham asked. “Yep, any chance you might have I dunno...twenty-five bucks on you?” Cody asked. Graham sighed. “I never thought you’d stoop this low Cody.” Graham said. Cody shrugged. “Well, you were wrong.” Cody said. “I’ll cash a check later today, just keep quiet.” He said.

“I can do that, but one question.” Cody said. “What is it now?” Graham asked. “Why do you want me to keep it a secret so bad?” Cody asked. Graham shifted uncomfortably. “He’s not ready for anybody to know about us yet.” He said. Cody raised his eyebrow at him. “Are you guys even together?” He asked. “I thought you said one question.” Graham said. Cody shrugged. Graham sighed again. “It's complicated.” He said. Cody shook his head and sighed. He decided not to ask him anything else. “Okay, I’ll leave you alone, good luck with that.” He said, hopping back upstairs.

Graham stood alone in the room. “Well that didn’t go how I planned.” He muttered.

Cody sat back on his bed. He didn’t really wanna go back to sleep, but he wasn’t sure what to do now. He decided to break out the rainbow loom and get to work. He picked out neon green rubber bands that would glow in the dark and made a basic four band pattern. He was rusty at first, but as time passed, muscle memory took over again.

He had almost forgotten how much he’d liked making these as a kid. He put a shiny purple crescent moon charm on the bracelet and he was done. “Looks pretty nice.” He said to himself. He set it on his nightstand and rested his hands, Though his brain was used to it, his hands weren’t anymore since he hadn’t picked up a loom in years.

Now it was 6:35 and his doctor’s appointment was at 9. Unfortunately, he still had time to kill before he could get to the fun stuff. He decided to mess with his hair out of boredom.

Since he had left it alone yesterday, it was to his lower back. Definitely not the length that he wanted it to be. “Let’s try this again.” He muttered. He put his hair into a ponytail, and grabbed a bigger pair of scissors than he had last time. Carefully, he started cutting it off.

This better be decent.

He undid the ponytail and shook his hair out. It was just above his shoulders, and a little messy, but mostly okay. He sighed in relief. That means, he didn’t have to find a way to hide his mistakes today.

After that he decided to take a little nap to pass the time.

That didn’t end up working because he couldn’t go back to sleep. He sighed in frustration, and rolled around in his bed until his head hurt.

Maybe I should’ve texted seojun later.

He decided to watch someone play the sims 4 on YouTube and forgot about his boredom until his dad came into his room at 7:30.

“Cody. Are you awake?” He asked, cracking the door open. “Yep.” He replied, looking up from his phone. “Okay good, we’re leaving at 8:50 so get ready to go.” He said. “Okay dad.” Cody replied. He got up from his bed a few minutes after Charlie left the room and looked for something to wear.

Since he had showered the night before he didn’t need to take the time to shower this morning. Most of his clothes were too small and uncomfortable to put on. He was very annoyed. Good thing he was getting new clothes soon. Eventually, he found one of Graham’s oversized spiderman t-shirts that he had accidentally grabbed with his laundry, and a pair of red basketball shorts. “Yep, this’ll do.” He muttered to himself. He looked at his phone. It was 8:20 now, he had about thirty minutes of time to spare.

It really took me like an hour to find this?

He crossed the room to sit at his mirror and brushed out his hair. Thank God it was still the same length he had left it. It would’ve been a huge pain in the ass to have to trim it again. Too bad all of the pink was gone though.

He clipped his bangs behind his ears and kept the rest of it down. “Looks fine to me.” He thought aloud. After that, he put on one of his white tennis shoes, and quickly realized that he definitely needed new ones.

Aw come on!

“Cody, are you ready to go?” Charlie called from downstairs. It was 8:45, almost time to get his cast off. “Yeah!” He called back excitedly, forgetting the tightness of his shoe around his foot as he hopped down the stairs again.