It Starts Here / 𝗯𝘅𝗯 (✓)

12.5: Snoring and sleep talking

CHAPTER TWELVE AND A HALF
Nineteen (and a half) years old

It's embarrassing to say, but living with Felix is exhausting.

It doesn't take long for Ares to feel like he's ten years old again, having his best friend sleep over day after day and loving it, until he's craving some time alone. This time, there is no parent to pick up said friend and there are no breaks in between hanging out because they're both always painfully around.

Ares thanks God every day that they agreed on having two separate bedrooms when looking for a place to live.

Felix insists that the doors remain open at all times. Ares first finds this a problem when he thinks he's going to explode if he doesn't separate himself from Felix trying to figure out how the microwave works. When Ares tells him that he'll help, Felix only tells him that he'll do it on his own. If he can't figure out how to use a microwave on his own, there's no point in being alive.

Ares calls him dramatic and Felix looks at him and says, "Oh, I'm sorry, are my struggles frustrating you?" and Ares has to stop himself from screaming out loud.

When Ares opens the window to cool himself off in late summer, Felix is already cold and they spend ten minutes trying to convince the other why Ares could just take off his socks and how it wouldn't hurt Felix to put on a sweater. Felix complains about the smell of coffee and Ares hates how he insists to keep the plates and cups apart. Ares does one thing and Felix does another and somehow they always clash.

It's needlessly to say that nineteen-year-old Ares finds that living with nineteen-year-old Felix is exhausting.

"Hey, can you open the door for me? I think I forgot my key this morning."

Ares pats down the pockets of his pants and then his jacket for the third time since he arrived at the door, keeping his phone closely pressed between his cheek and shoulder. He tries to listen for Felix walking on the other side of the door when Felix says, "What? I'm not home," and Ares almost drops his phone.

He drops the the grocery bag that has made his fingers red from how long he's been carrying it and takes the phone into his hand. "What do you mean you're not home? You said you didn't have any classes today so you were going to stay in bed and watch that new drama all day. Because you deserve a day off."

Now, Ares is pretty sure he can hear a car and then another one go by in the background when Felix says, "Yeah, but then the bakery called and asked if we could move the job interview to today instead."

Ares groans and hits his forehead against the door. "Why didn't you text me?"

"What good would that do?" he hears. "You'd still be locked out."

Ares knows that Felix is right but he still says, "Then I would've waited at campus or spent longer grocery shopping, I don't know—I just assumed you'd be here to open the door for me, but—" he sighs. "It doesn't matter. When will you be back?"

"I'm going in now, but I'm not sure how long it'll take." Ares suppresses another sigh, reminding himself that Felix has already told him once how stressed it makes him to hear it. "Maybe forty minutes?"

"Just shoot me now."

"Sorry, Ares, but it's not my fault that you forgot your key."

Half-annoyed, Ares says, "You were the one who said we didn't need another key in case of an emergency."

"Putting a key under that fake plant Cass bought us is basically just an invitation for burglars. Besides," he says as Ares eyes the plant in question, "I didn't think you'd actually forget your key this fast."