Oh My God, They Were Roommates

7 | Boys Just Want To Have Fun

A gentle, light chord reverberated through the wooden body of Melvin 2.0. Ray gave the strings another experimental strum before his fingers fell along each string and began to pluck a sequence of notes to his heart's content. He closed his eyes and smiled up at the sun now that the morning fog was gone.

"This is the dream," Leo hummed beside Ray, reclined back against his hands, his feet spread out in front of him in the park grass. "Sing a song for me, O Great One."

Ray struck a chord, and Leo clapped a little. He followed up with a saucy little rift, one that Leo deemed "crispy." Ray rose an eyebrow at him and winked.

"'As the semester begins... I... go out on a limb,'" Ray said, which Leo replied to with, "Doesn't rhyme, but alright."

"'It doesn't have to rhyme, dear friend of mi-hi-hine,'" Ray sang, bitching his voice higher, and Leo whistled with a satisfied shake of his head.

"This is it. My favorite bop," Leo said.

"'—and I deci-hi-hide—! That this ass deserves better'—or rather this back deserves better—'than to lie... day by day... on a floor that has less pad-ding than a Christmas sweater—!'"

He concluded with a fantastical assortment of notes and at last ended with some dramatic, obnoxious strumming. He clapped his hand onto Melvin 2.0's hollow body and sighed, looking out at the park.

"I need a mattress," Ray sighed. He drummed his fingers on the wood and glanced over at Leo, who studied him for a long, silent moment, mouth ajar.

Leo gave a little shake of his head before slapping a hand over his short, buzzed hair and saying, "Wait—you don't have a bed, bro?"

Ray rolled his eyes. "No, I don't have a bed, 'bro'. My car's too small to fit a whole-ass bed!"

"Dude, then what've you been sleeping on?"

"A sleeping bag?"

"You know you can, like, buy mattresses online, right?" Leo said, and when Ray stared at him, Leo straightened and leant towards him. And here, Ray thought he'd have to go to a mattress store and lie where everyone else lied on. And then, he'd either have to pay extra to have them transport it, or Ray would have to strap it to the roof of his car. "They come in a small box and then they sort of inflate."

"You're kidding," Ray said.

"Or," Leo went on, gesturing vaguely with his hand, "we go on an adventure to a mattress store and I help hold the fort down—or, rather, mattress down—on the drive to your place."

Ray opened his mouth, holding back a smile because shit, that sounded like fun to him. One of his favorite endeavors in high school involved spontaneous, ridiculous, impulsive trips, and buying a mattress seemed like one of them.

But then, he remembered Sora's rule. No boys allowed. Leo would have to help him lug the mattress up.

Ray clamped his mouth shut and pouted his lips, turning away. He tapped a finger to his chin and hummed for a moment, eyes squinting as he narrowed his focus in on mattress shopping with Leo. Beside him, Leo leant over to see Ray's face.

Amidst the rules he and Sora set up, that morning Ray had asked that Sora let him know what days he'd be coming home late. It didn't help that Sora said, "Every night," and left. He had to assume that Sora wasn't exaggerating.

"I, um... I think it'd be a lot of fun. To go mattress shopping with you," Ray confessed, and while it wasn't a set plan, he was still convincing himself that there was no way in Hell Sora would march into the apartment while Leo helped him drag a mattress into the apartment.