Eunonia

Chap 4

"Okay," Jake muses. "I'm thinking we can just let people schedule when they want to visit each other to gather resources among other things, but we can, like, make a list of things people want so other people can find them and trade!"

"That doesn't sound that bad, actually," Heeseung says, taking another sip of his coffee.

They're in one of the nicer coffee shops on campus. It's Monday morning and eleven am, both of them having met up after their respective too-early classes, so it's bustling with students. Across the booth table from him, Jake pushes his glasses up his nose cutely and grins, brushing his dark hair away from his forehead.

"Do you think so?" He asks excitedly. "Of course, there are some students who left their Switches at home, or they don't have one altogether, which is why we need to set up a similar system for Pocket Camp. But yeah, a list of wanted items would be cool. We already have so many people who are pretty far in the game, too." He wiggles his eyebrows at Heeseung. "Have you started yet?"

Heeseung tries to get over the embarrassment of admitting this and fails miserably as he says, "Um, yeah. Last night."

"Oh, good!" Jake says. He claps his hands together. "Okay, I need to finish my starter pack for you so you can visit my island." Then he winces. "Ah, but my island looks like a mess right now, not gonna lie..."

Heeseung can't help it-he laughs, covering his grin with a hand when Jake blushes and scowls. He's just too cute, Heeseung truly doesn't blame himself for crushing so hard. "Jakey, I really don't care what your island looks like. I don't even have anything to go off of when it comes to what islands should look like, remember?"

Jake pouts, sipping at his own cold iced americano. Heeseung knows this because he'd tried it once and still swears to this day that it nearly gave him serious tooth sensitivity. "You should see some of the people on Twitter and Tumblr, you know. This game came out like three fucking weeks ago and they've already fully developed their islands. It's unfair!"

Heeseung snorts. "Well, yeah. On the bright side, they're really just wasting all their time playing video games compared to us, though."

Jake sighs forlornly, staring down at his drink. "What I would give to be able to ignore college completely just for Animal Crossing twenty-four-seven. Seriously."

"Of course you'd say that," Heeseung sighs, before he asks, "but is this game really, like... a way to de-stress for you?"

Jake nods emphatically. "Honestly, yeah. It's like... free therapy! Whenever you get super stressed out by life you can simply escape to Animal Crossing and focus on that, you know?"

"That sounds less like therapy and more like avoidance," Heeseung says dryly. He doesn't tell Jake that he gets it, though-he'd spent two hours on Friday night setting up his island and getting used to the basics before he managed to turn his Switch off, but by then it was two AM and he'd already lost the motivation to continue studying.

Jake grins and shrugs. "What can I say, really? But it's fun. I think you'll like it a lot."

"Hm," Heeseung hums. "We'll see."

"I'm really not kidding," he laughs. "You know Soobin hyung, right? The childhood education major? He was at our first meeting and dragged his best friend-I'm pretty sure you know Sunghoon too, actually!-and I'm literally not joking when I say Sunghoon hated Animal Crossing more than you did but is obsessed now, all of the sudden." Jake's eyes are practically sparkling from the fluorescent lighting of the coffee shop and the windows next to them allowing for natural light, and Heeseung thinks, how can anyone be this pretty? "I'm hoping I can be the Soobin hyung to your Sunghoon in this specific scenario."

Heeseung immediately blushes, looking away as he processes the silent implications of that, whether Jake meant anything by it or not. "I never hated Animal Crossing," he mutters.

"You're still a skeptic," Jake teases, before he falls silent and squints at Heeseung for a few moments. "Huh? Hyungie, are you blushing right now?"

"Shut up," Heeseung says, ignoring Jake's indignant noise of protest in favor of standing up and grabbing his backpack and coffee. "Let me walk you to your next class, Jakey."

"You can't just ignore me like this and then try to appease me right afterwards!" Jake complains, but he gets up anyway. "You bad hyung."

"I learned from the best," Heeseung says jokingly, laughing when Jake frowns and slaps his arm lightly.

The younger boy drags him out of the coffee shop by hand and doesn't let go as they walk down the sidewalk, tangling their fingers together, and Heeseung feels the sparks it sends up his arm long after he lets go.