It was 8 pm, right after dinner...

XLI

It must have been Eddy's God damn signature move! Those skilled fingers relaxing any muscle lucky enough to come his way. Must have been all the practice for the Sibelius! They'd made Brett crazy before and had awaken a desire just a few minutes ago he hadn't even known existed in him. Brett sighed heavily, while he tried to bring a very treacherous body part of him to calm down.

Yes, he was in his own room, on his own bed and could theoretically even lock the door, but there was just no way he was going to touch himself, knowing the cause for him being a horny mess was his best friend, who was not in the slightest aware of those dumb feelings Brett had towards him. No! He would never go there! He'd feel too guilty afterwards and his guilt was massive enough already.

Brett turned around and tried to let the exhaustion of his body take over so he'd fall asleep for a bit. It must have worked, because when he woke up, it was nightfall already and he was so hungry he felt nauseous at the same time. He groaned, took his phone, looked at the time and groaned again.

"Eddy...", Brett whined, stumbling into the living room and spotting the other at the dining table, working on his laptop.
Eddy lifted his head. He looked tired and his hair was a mess, like he'd been brushing through it several times.

"Brett, you awake? How do you feel?" Eddy's voice was hoarse, like he hadn't used it for a while.
"Hungry..." Brett plopped himself down on a chair opposite of Eddy.
Eddy looked at the time on his laptop and furrowed his brows. "God, it's eight p.m. already? No wonder..." He stretched his arms over his head and yawned.
"Haven't you had any rest?", Brett asked, frowning. Had Eddy skipped lunch too because he'd had to work? And as far as Brett could tell, he'd also never come to bed... At least not his. On the other hand, Eddy wasn't sick, so a daytime nap was probably not necessarily required, unlike for him.

Eddy shook his head. "Too busy. I watched over the videos with Hilary again and figured, we need a proper outro for the skribbl.io one and an intro for our conversation, so I shot those and sent them to editor-san."
"Sounds like a ton of work. Why didn't you wake me up?"
"You were sleeping so peacefully and you need rest, Brett."
"But you doing everything isn't okay!", Brett exclaimed, throwing his heavy arms up half the height he normally would have.
"You being ill isn't okay either! Don't worry, I can manage. Leave it to me!" Eddy patted Brett's shoulder on the way to the fridge and opened it

"So! Dinner is long overdue! What would you like?"
"What do we have?"
"Some vegetables. I guess I can try my luck with fried rice noodles and veggies. How does that sound? I use little oil, just for you." He blew a kiss in Brett's direction, causing Brett to huff.
"Leave the corniness out of the way and I'm down."
"Great!", Eddy said and started taking out the ingredients for their dinner.

Brett contently observed Eddy, how he chopped the morning glory and carrots and soaked the noodles in water. A feeling of homeyness washed over him and he suddenly wished, that things would never change. That they could always stay best friends, live together, have meals together, work together and share their dream. He had to swallow hard, as thoughts of a different future came up, of Eddy finding himself a girl he could marry and leaving Brett behind, starting his own little perfect family...

"Hey!", Eddy said loudly over the range hood fan, "You okay? You look gloomy."
Brett snapped out of his depressing reverie. "Yeah", he answered slowly, "I'm fine..."
He tried to tell himself, that Eddy wasn't even near settling down, but it didn't really drive those images of himself acting as a fake-happy best man at his best friends wedding away...

Dinner was quite delicious, although Eddy had left out all the great sauces because of Brett's illness and had only used soysauce and pepper, and Brett felt the energy and a better mood returning with every bite.
"Thanks! That's really good!"
"Yeah? You for sure look better", Eddy remarked, bringing chopsticks full of food to his mouth.
"You're getting good at this cooking thing."
"I've always been good, you just didn't appreciate it!"
"Yeah, sure! What about those frozen dumplings you burnt just... was it like two months ago?"
"You distracted me!"
"With what? Sitting there and scrolling on my phone?" Because that's what he was usually doing when Eddy was preparing food.

Eddy scraped around his bowl with the chopsticks, avoiding Brett's gaze.
"You...", he started, but his voice died down like a shaky bow giving up on bringing forth any clear tone.
"Me what?"
"You... You!" Eddy exclaimed and gestured towards Brett with his free hand.
"..."
"Forget it!"
"Forget what? I don't get it!" Brett could see, how agonizing it was for Eddy to continue on this topic, but he somehow found great glee in this. If Eddy could throw him off his game, he might as well do the same from time to time. To keep the balance!

"I told you! It's you who's distracting!", Eddy finally gave in.
"But I didn't do anything, did I?"
"You don't have to! Don't you understand?" It wasn't an outcry, but it was a close thing. Paired with those intense big eyes Eddy stared Brett down with, it was almost intimidating enough for him to let it go. Almost. Brett glared back, not ready to back off yet.

"You distract me with fucking simply being around sometimes!", Eddy explained loudly and looked away.
Brett frowned. "That makes zero sense, bro! How are you still not used to me?"
"Well... You're still special, you know?"
"Sappy!" Brett smiled, but satisfied with the answer and letting him off the hook.
"You just had to press further!", Eddy complained, but the corners of his mouth lifting up too.

Brett was distracting for Eddy, sometimes.

Interesting.