Kahoot x Reader

Chapter 30

Being alone isn't always lonely. Solitude is nice. When there's no noise, no distractions, just you and your thoughts, it can be a welcomed relief, like your own little island of peace. A place to just be.

But it easily becomes too much. That island of serenity can start shrinking and disappearing until all that's left is a place for your two feet in the sand and no one else's. Just you. That's when being alone is no longer a relief, but painful. It creates a hurt that aches so deep that light can't reach it, like the dark trenches of an ocean, and even the most skilled divers can't access and fix it. At least, not one that Toohak knows.

Toohak is familiar with both versions of being alone. Has been his whole life. Have you ever had that persistent feeling of forgetting something? That something isn't quite right, or that something is missing? Think of an object you lost long ago appearing in plain sight. The wind up toy that went missing years ago sitting in the middle of your desk as you walk into your room, staring up at you eerily like it knows something you don't. Picture that feeling, only this time, there's no object. You walk in and see the desk and you don't understand why you're so unsettled by it. You don't understand how every space in your house seems void of something that can fill it. You don't understand that feeling of empty, missing, gone.

But the day Toohak meets Kahoot, he finally starts to get it.

He mentions him to his dad one dinner. Jokes about having a twin. Asks if Kahoot is in any of his classes.

"Wait, how do you know him?" Mr. Adams tone is stern.

"I...well, I went for a walk and I bumped into him," Toohak mumbles. He isn't a fan of lying, but it sounds much better than saying he found him underneath his window with a couple of other kids. "He seems cool."

"What about our rule?"

Oh, yeah. That.

"The rule is stupid. It'd be nice having friends here and back home. It just doesn't make sense." Toohak crosses his arms. "Why can't I?"

"Because I said so." Mr. Adams jaw is clenched. "The rule is there for a reason."

This was a conversation they had had many times before. Ever since Toohak started visiting here, his dad asked him just one thing: to not leave the house or talk to people. It was fine to do so where he lived, but for whatever excuse he couldn't do so in the town of Maple Park.

"Yeah, but what reason?"

"Because I said so."

"That's not an answer! Say something that makes sense!"

Toohak slams his hands down. He can see the muscles in his dad's jaw contract, his knuckles turning white as be holds his fork, and he looks one second away from splitting the table in half with his bare hands as he stares at it. But when he looks up, his eyes are panicky.

"Rules are there for a reason," he says, taking his time to enunciate each syllable. "You just have to trust me on that."

Toohak finishes supper with his eyebrows perpetually scrunched downwards. Rules are there because someone thought to create them. He always followed the one where he had to stay in the house while he visited his dad. He let it limit where he could and couldn't walk. Well, not anymore.

The catalyst for the rule's demise started with that conversation at dinner, and ends that night when Toohak awakens to rocks being thrown at the office window. The glass panes have many chips now from previous nights, and when he opens the window he has to duck as a stray pebble goes flying into the room.

"Watch it!" Toohak whisper-shouts as he sticks his head outside. Street lights illuminate a kid outside under his window. Peering up at him is none other than Kahoot, a beanie pushing down his hair and red and blue glasses framing his face as shadows cloud around him.

"Sorry!" Kahoot shouts back, his voice way too loud.

"Shh! Be quiet. You're going to wake up my dad."

"But..." The gears in Kahoot's head start turning. "Wait, Mr.Adams is your dad?"

"Yes, now be quiet. I'm climbing out."

Toohak hops down and catches himself before landing on his hands, brushing off his pants. Kahoot is just staring at him. His eyes are locked on his face and darting all over like they don't know what to focus on.

"Why are you here?" Toohak asks, blunt and straight to the point. It shocks Kahoot out of his daze.

"Oh. Well, I uh, I found something awhile ago and...when's your birthday?"

"What?"

"Just answer, yeah?"

"August 15th, 2001. Why?"

"Me too! Okay, so this is the thing I said I found, one sec." Kahoot digs in his pocket and comes up with a folded piece of paper. He all but shoves it in his face. "Boom. Look."

Toohak grabs the paper and opens it up to find a photo. It shows a young woman in a hospital bed, a baby cradled in each of her arms. Each one is swaddled in a blue blanket and look like they're newborns.

"That one's me," Kahoot says, pointing. "Or I might be the other one, actually...but anyways, the one that isn't me is my twin brother. But see, the thing is...I don't have a brother. And then I meet you, and you look like a duplicate of me, and we have the same birthday. Are you catching my drift?"

Toohak stares at him blankly for a few moments.

"Oh. Oh. You think this is some kind of 'Parent Trap' bullshit," Toohak says, voice void of expression. Kahoot gasps in mock offence.

"'The Parent Trap' is not bullshit! It's the cinematic masterpiece of my childhood, how dare you!"

Toohak waves him off. Kahoot continues.

"Anyways, when I asked my mom about the picture, I swear she almost started crying. She said I did have a brother, but that he was taken. He was kidnapped, right from the hospital."

Toohak sighs. He has a sharp remark on the tip of his tongue, intent on ignoring Kahoot's sob story and saying how pointless this is, when suddenly his blood runs cold. Kahoot continues talking, but he can't hear him. 'He was kidnapped, right from the hospital.' Toohak's mind flashes back to Camille, huddling in his basement, and without his permission his mind replaces her with himself, curling up on the damp floor with his head buried in his knees.

"What? What is it? Am I missing something?" Kahoot asks, snapping his fingers in front of Toohak's face.

"Shit. What the hell." Toohak's mind hurts. It's simultaneously going a mile a minute and not moving at all. He can't think.

"Care to share with the class?"

Toohak looks startled, eyes wide and hands grasping at nothing. He shakes his head and doesn't stop.

"I think you should go. Bye, Kahoot." Toohak turns on his heels and heads back to the window.

"What? No, wait! Stop! What happened, what's wrong?"

Toohak doesn't answer him. His hands are already on the ledge trying to hoist himself up.

"Come back! Was it something I said? C'mon!" Kahoot is desperate now, grasping at straws. "You can't deny that this is weird! Haven't you ever felt like you were missing someone?"

That stops him. Toohak turns around, letting go of the ledge.

"What do you want me to say? If what you're implying is true, then that means that I have another family out there, and that the one I have is false, and - and I can't deal with that, okay?" His voice goes quiet. "Just leave me alone. Come back tomorrow night. I need time to think."

"O-Okay." Kahoot replies. He watches Toohak as he climbs up into the window. "Well, goodnight then."

"Yeah. You too."