Kahoot x Reader

Chapter 35

Music plays from the headphones strung along Toohak's neck.

"Just to make myself clear," he says over the song's rolling chorus, "I'm only meeting her. That's it."

Kahoot rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You talk to our mom as the son she doesn't know is her son and I pretend you're just a friend. I've got it."

They walk side-by-side over to Kahoot's house. Each step brings them closer to an inevitable revelation. In the distance, storm clouds clot together, forming a wall of grey smoke in the sky, sucking the air from the surrounding atmosphere and causing an eery quiet. A calm before the storm.

"Aren't you excited?" Kahoot asks. "You finally get to see my room! And your mother, of course."

"Excited. Yeah."

Toohak drags his heels up Kahoot's single-car driveway. It's a suburban house, much nicer than his place; the outside is constructed with dyed brick and adorned with white trim, creating the kind of model house you'd see in neighbourhood pamphlets.

"Is your mom as cookie-cutter as your place?"

"Um, she used to drive a minivan and has a bob, if that counts?"

It's his house so Kahoot doesn't bother knocking before throwing the door open and barging inside. Toohak follows, a few timid steps behind him.

"Mom! I'm home!" Kahoot yells. "My friend is here for you to meet, remember?"

"Be there in a minute!" she replies from somewhere upstairs.

"She'll be here in a minute," Kahoot says to him.

Not a moment later, Jamie Masters walks down the stairs, a book in her hand and a smile on her face. She stops when she see Toohak.

"Wow, Kahoot wasn't kidding. You two really do look-alike," she jokes.

"I told you. If Toohak here wasn't a year older than me, I would've though we were actually twins." The lie rolls smoothly off of Kahoot's tongue, so smoothly that he surprises even himself.

"Nice to meet you, Toohak."

Kahoot feels likes he's going to burst out of his skin. They're meeting! Finally! They're finally meeting! He turns to see Toohak's reaction, and that's when he knows something is wrong. Toohak's face is a sickening shade of white. He's staring at her like she's a ghost.

"Nice to meet you too, Ms. Masters," he croaks out.

"Please. Call me Jamie."

Jamie tells them to have fun and then retires back upstairs. Kahoot notices that Toohak's hand are shaking.

"Dude. Are you okay? Shit, I'm sorry. Maybe this was too soon."

When Toohak was a child, the thing he valued the most, after his pet parrot and his favourite toy, was a printed photograph of his mother. In the picture, his mom is nestled under Mr. Adams arm, both of them young and smiling and happy. It's a nice photo. What's even nicer is that Mr. Adams let him keep a copy.

"That's my mom," Toohak whispers, looking at the stairs.

"Yeah," Kahoot mumbles.  To himself, he adds "Definitely too soon."

"No, you don't understand. That's my original mom. My dead mom. My mom who's married to my dad."

"Oh. My mom looks like Mr. Adams wife? Oh, my God, Mr. Adams was married? Huh. I didn't think he had it in him."

"No. She doesn't look like her, she is her."

Kahoot raises his eyebrows. "You think that my mom is your other mom who happens to be dead. That's both untrue and- and kind of sad, really. "