Floor 5 (septiplier)

chapter 7

- hello yes I am back

It was silent after that, except for nothing but a short breath of a laugh from Jack. He had this look on his face that was difficult to read, and he kept looking at the floor. I could tell he was trying to say something back, something witty to attempt to lift the greatly heavy, awkward blanket of gay from the space.

Immediately feeling nothing but sheet regret for my comment, I averted my glance to the wall in front of me, tinges of red painted across my cheeks like war paint of bashfulness. It was almost as if I was afraid to look back at him, hell, I was afraid.

"Fuckin' hell, look at us we're already flirting." He says confidently, his voice wavering due an incoming chuckle. I could somehow hear his attempt to brush that off.

"Jeez, at least take me to dinner first." I laugh back, playfully scoffing in disgust.

"Fine but you're paying." He fires back, turning his nose up before laughing again.

This is so easy when we get back into it, just me and him, being sarcastic assholes. I feel comfortable.

When I check my phone again, I note that it's been a pure half hour of us talking and joking around. I don't know if he's flirting, or genuinely thinks I'm funny, but I couldn't count on one hand how many times I made him briefly double over with laughter. And it's quite difficult to put into words how happy that made me.

After the jokes die down, we slide easily into actually conversation. I had learned that he moved here from Ireland to major in early childhood education, and he was an extreme video game nerd. Internally beaming at the newly found similarity, I told him, to quote myself, that I was too 'gaming trash'. After laughing at that, he began to gush about his apparent favorite game, Shadow of the Colossus.

I didn't stop him, nor did I want to. For the next ten or more minutes, I stood casually slumped against a wall, hanging on his every excitedly pronounced word, every now and then contributing a comment, which would remind him of something else to say, his eyes gaining a fresh sparkle. It was honestly adorable to watch how his eyes lit up with every new sentence.

"And hey, I'm gonna sound like a crazy stalker person but what level is your dorm on? I was thinking maybe you'd wanna come to mine and I could show you what it's like. None of my friends really care about gaming so..?" He says, a lift of uncertainty in his voice, like he regretted asking.

I tried to contain my eyes from bulging out of their sockets at what he had just proposed, but there was no hiding the blush that spilled onto my face.

"Aw, you're so red, have you never been asked out before?"

"W-what, you were a-asking me-" Words with no intelligible meaning or context were spilling from my mouth at this point.

"Yes, Mark, before you combust, I'm asking you on a date. I didn't forget your little remark from earlier. Do you accept?" He asks and I swear he inches closer to me.

"H-holy shit um. Yes." I say, still bubbling out words like an overflowing cup of soda.

"Great." He says with a giddy giggle.

He then leaned over and quickly kissed my cheek.

The intercom sounds as I brushed the kissed spot delicately with my index finger.

1 hour and 30 minutes left.