Serendipity

Goodnight, My Dear.

PBG lay on the couch. He hadn't turned on the light, but the TV was on and that seemed to be sufficient. He stared up at his phone, squinting into the light. He had been trying for what seemed like forever to compose a text to Hana, but nothing was working. He was considering giving up entirely when his phone buzzed. He suspected it to be a game notification or something of that nature, but to his surprise, there on the screen was a turquoise speech bubble. Inside, it said, "hey Peebs hows life?" Accompanying Hana's question was a curious Turbie emote.

He selected everything in the text box and deleted it, replacing it with a quick reply, "could be better. You?" How witty.

"Same."

PBG sighed, feeling frustration prickling over his head and arms. "Thanks, you're really giving me a lot to work with here," he mumbled, rousing the suspicion of Haru, sitting across the room chewing on a blue rubber bone. He cocked his head and whined quietly in confusion. "Sorry, Haru," he groaned. "Maybe I should just let it go."

Haru bit down on the bone toy causing it to squeak, and walked over to him. He rested his fluffy head on PBG's chest with another whine. PBG reached over to scratch behind his pointy ears. He was about to set his phone on the coffee table when it buzzed again.

Haru sat down and gave PBG a quizzical look.

PBG read the text under his breath, "so what have you been up to since graduation?"

He began an answer, narrating to Haru as he typed, "just been kinda messing around really. Started a little show on youtunnel with jeff a few months ago. Wbu?" He glanced over at Haru as if to ask, 'is that good enough?' Haru, of course, said nothing but turned up the corners of his mouth and panted as if he was smiling. PBG took that to mean his reply was satisfactory and tapped the send button.

Not even a minute later, Hana's reply lit up his phone screen. "Not much. The shop closed up after my dad passed so i moved back here to find work." a moment later, a second bubble popped up on screen, "cant say ive had much success" accompanied with a slant-mouthed emoticon.

PBG felt a pang of sympathy that made him half want to cry and half want to hug her. His soft spot for Hana had never fully gone away; even during the bitter spells he hoped she was doing well. He cursed silently and began to tap out a reply. "aw that sucks :(" that sounded far too short. He decided to voice a lingering curiosity he hadn't realised when he saw the barista earlier that day. "do you still talk to mai?" Maybe that was too forward. He went to delete it, but hit the enter button instead. He yelped as the chat bubble appeared on screen, but quickly decided that it wasn't worth the effort to panic about. She clearly hadn't been panicking about him, he thought, a sinking feeling growing in his stomach.

His phone buzzed. Haru looked at him, probably expecting him to read the text, but he just stood up and tossed his phone down on the couch. "I'll read it later, don't worry." Maybe.

Haru whined, seemingly carrying on the conversation, but as PBG was about to respond, he glanced over at the dog bowl, a force of habit whenever Haru whined, and saw that they were empty. Oh.

While standing at the sink waiting for Haru's water bowl to fill, he heard his phone ring in the living room, the jaunty, Marionette Party tune signalling that Jeff was calling. He could wait. He twisted the tap off with a creak and carefully set the bowl on the ground next to the fresh bowl of kibble and plopped back down on the couch. He listened to the voicemail Jeff had left as Haru lapped water loudly across the room. "Hey, Peebs, I was gonna call you at midnight, but you didn't answer," he paused for a moment, as if he was staring pointedly over invisible glasses. "It is now 12:01. Your follow up on operation Hana is overdue and I must say, I'm disappointed. Anyway, text me or something, I'm going to bed."

PBG locked his phone before the robotic voice could tell him what to do, and immediately reopened it. He began to write a text to Jeff, telling him about his brief exchange with Hana.

Now that he was thinking about it, he never did get back to her, did he? She was probably worrying. He shook that thought as soon as it arrived; of course she wasn't worried about him. Pushing the bitter thought aside, he sent the text to Jeff and switched over to Hana's chat window.

Her last message was short, shorter than her previous ones at least. "Not anymore."

There were no emotes, no discernible tone or anything. Perhaps he had been too bold in asking, but he had no reason to believe they were no longer friends, right? It had been a while, but one would think that friends as close as Mai and Hana had been would stick together, right?. Especially since Hana was going through such tough times.

PBG shook himself out of this train of thought and refocused on replying. Perhaps it was best to change the subject, he thought, as he typed out a hasty answer: "oh... so have you been playing many games?" Maybe it sounded dismissive, but he sent it anyway. The last one didn't seem to phase her in any way that concerned him, so he figured it would be fine.

Surprisingly, her reply came within minutes. "Mostly mobile but yeah"

Before he could get frustrated at her apparent lack of regard for rekindling their relationship, (platonically, as she would seem to have it,) his phone buzzed again, once this time to notify that a second text had arrived. "I'm really liking Nokemon LEAVE"

He couldn't help the smile playing softly at his lips--he was too caught up in the image of a slightly shorter, still-pink-haired girl gushing about her latest mobile fixation as they watched cherry blossom petals fall around them. He tapped out an answer, his bitterness melting away. "Oh wow me too! What team did u choose?"

Her pink text bubble appeared, reading, "green team. You?"

"Same"

"We should look for nokemon together sometime!!" he had to keep from swooning as familiar warmth filled his body. It really felt like he was talking to Hana again.

"So what youre saying is we should hang out soon?" he pressed send without thinking. Of course that's what she meant. Still, panic seized him. What if she thought he was hitting on her? He scrambled to type a fast, "as friends of course yknow to catch up or whatever," but before he could send it, a blue bubble appeared on the screen. He hesitated before reading the white text, "yep!!"

He sighed heavily in relief, startling Haru who had since lay down at the foot of the couch, and deleted the hasty draft. He replaced it with, "give me a time and place and ill be there."

She replied not thirty seconds later, "2 tomorrow at the spacebucks. Night pbg."

He had barely finished reading it when a lone, pink heart emoji followed. He could hardly move as he sent a green one back, his heart thumping hard in his chest.

"Goodnight, Hana."  

(that title is incredibly cliche and im not even going to apologize. this is wattpad. thanks, -willow)