Romance - Maybe, Perhaps, Once Was A Story

This Is Real Snot

...I cried...into his shoulders...

It wasn't a dream. I sniffed. This was real snot.

The tv shown red from the logo of Netflix, and the color cast deeply over the couches and beige walls made me feel...better.

It was a terrible day at work. A day I wished had never come. I felt odd...unwholesome...like I could do nothing right. The stuff was stupid-hard. But the stuff was hard for everyone.

I sunk further into his shoulder like a vampire into the shadows.

His arms stayed there because he knew I liked long hugs. I initiated them by nature so I forgot it was a trait of mine. He sequentially, breaking up the hug, snatched the ps3 remote battered from good use, and I watched as he clicked the play button. "Oh, I must get a bowl of popcorn," I said, rushing to the cabinet in the kitchen. I must eat popcorn...it makes me full and feel rewarded after a long work day. Not that my work day was longer than usual. It was just long.

I heard his footsteps patter behind me. I work from 6 to 9. Yes, read that as am to pm. It is a thing everyone drawn to the arts must do, when involved with a team. My time was theirs and theirs alone. My time had to be stretched because my skill was not enough. Work that I did, technical and computeristic, produced error. And that error wasn't a time reducer.

He rubbed my butt as I rose up and closed the cabinet. The packet of unpopped corn was in my hand. A victory.

The rest of the cabinet could reorient itself later. He mumbled.

What did you say? I asked over the hum of the microwave.

"I was thinking if you were feeling anything...other than the awe of my preparing anime for you," he mentioned.

"Felling anything? Quite in-tune, are you?" I try to refer from remarks like those, to not make him self-conscious about his efforts. They weren't wrong or anything. Just off-putting. But anybody who can cry when someone has their show on hold for them at their crib is basically...already off-put by many small, unnecessarily triggering things.

I sit down...it doesn't feel right. I feel like he is a stone, standing, and I am a beanie ball sifting more and more into the couch. His legs bend and unbend...and..."Michael, um, sit down and watch the tv with me, why don't you?"

He gripped my cheek and planted his lips. I watered them with my saliva, moving in and out of his mouth. "Um...you didn't mean something else when you said 'feel anything', did you?" I breathed, now that maybe ten of our life seconds were over.

"I meant something else. I don't usually talk so vague, you know that."

"Why are you talking vague, now?"

"Because I am trying to adjust to your anxiety, you know? I know you wanted to relax with some tv, because that's how you do it, but doing all this stuff for you makes me want a bit more."

"A bit more? All this stuff? You mean preparing the tv and...?" I looked around...I soon remembered that usually his ps4 is on. We both like to use the tv and so both have operated around each other's schedules well to use it, so we have both of our consoles in the living room. "Oh, right, interrupting your impulsive gameplay for me."

You whined, "you have a bath."

"Oh, wow...um...why...I can see how that stirs -"

"And me to sit down and watch anime with you."

My mouth opened. That's true. He would never watch my anime, though I have a taste for his. "Um...why.." I blushed, looking down at the different colored streaks of denim in my jeans.

"Yeah. So if you wanna do anything, just...I don't know, say, Kai, can you let me grab your -"

"Thanks, I said, exasperatingly sighing, but I don't want to feel horny."

"Sure," you moaned after saying. I didn't budge into sadness or sympathy...I simply popped one, two, three pieces into my mouth, and then I fast-forwarded backwards - whatever that was - I mean, I rewinded back to the beginning of the anime...because anything before the title music (at least for me, though it is usually only introductory or theme-setting) is important.