☑️Gamer Love (taetee)

36. Mistakes

New got off the bus, walking dejectedly along the way to the apartment complex while thinking, everything that he got to hear from Nana running in his head like a tape record.

He stopped and looked down at his phone, ready to open the chat and read a message he'd just received. But his hands stopped, eyes glued to his wallpaper.

The picture of himself carrying a tiny, pale-skinned, shiny black-haired boy on his back, both giggling at the camera with twinkling eyes. He, with his best friend, his brother, and somewhat, also his mother and father, his Teetee.

Was he that big a fool in people's eyes that they'd think anyone could just come and talk some made-up shit to him and he'd believe them? That Tee, his Tee would ever, in a million years, talk behind anyone's back, let alone his?

But then again, didn't he too blame Tee? 

Yes, he was just that stupid! He was just that big of a fool!

He breathed out and again, stared at the picture. It was from his time at his grandma's. One of his most precious memories after the ones with P'Mek. He'd always been ridiculed, always been oppressed, always been rejected, and that, by the people who were supposed to love him. So how pleasantly surprising it must have been for a kid like himself to end up being loved and cherished by people he wasn't even related to. He was given love and a home at a time when he didn't have any. Tee didn't just love him, Tee adopted him with all his flaws. He even gave him the right to hijack his life when all New remembered giving in return was a shoulder to cry when Tee had lost his uncle. But Tee had given his life to New. He tolerated and pampered New to the extent that New didn't even realize when it happened yet he started to take that love for granted. Copter was right. New had been so lost in his world, in his head, that he didn't realize he felt entitled to Tee and didn't think anything he ever did would hurt or bother Tee just because Tee didn't complain about it. 

From copying Tee's assignments and cheating on his exam paper to gathering gossip and even making him do his dorm chores, New depended too much on Tee and didn't even stop to think if he was being a nuisance, not till Copter had taken his time to recount all the troubles Tee faced thanks to him. The time professor waved their identical assignments in Tee's face and insulted him for enabling other kids when the poor boy didn't even know New had copied his work because that was what New did, he just took things from Tee and didn't think over it. Just because he thinks he could. Because Tee won't be mad at him. Because he was Tee's baby.

Just hearing of that one event was enough to give New a reality check. How he must've been a constant pain to Tee as the teacher, as a punishment to a good student for giving in to a weaker one, had made Tee write a paper as an apology. God knows how many other times it happened and New didn't even know because he was New and he thought it didn't matter and Tee loved him too much to ever tell him how he was being a huge pain in the ass. Now that he did, now that he knew that, he realized how ignorant he'd been and how kind Tee was to him. How much Tee must love him to never mind or even complain when he accepted dates on his behalf in exchange for food or when he took his things or the times he disregarded Tee's wishes for his own fun or the times he, despite knowing Tee so well, did things that made him uncomfortable. 

He begged Tee's help with his studies, made Tee do his chores, acted cute and spoiled, and got his way with almost anything he wanted, and then, in the back of his mind, still felt inferior to his friend. He cheered on guys who tried to hit on Tee while feeling saddened by the fact that he wasn't being pursued, he was the one desperate to get through the interview and asked for Tee's gaming IDs and then he went on to use Tee's real ID, the one famous for his skill and game level and then, when he got elected, he cheered and showed off. He made a deal with a guy like Tay to help chase after Tee even knowing Tee didn't like the guy and after Tee started dating P'Tae, not caring how awkward and uncomfortable it would be for Tee, he still made Tay interview the couple and then came the deal with him almost spoiling Tee's birthday dinner by wanting to show off his best friend's boyfriend for his own entertainment even when he knew Tee would hate the idea.