The Adventures of James Maglinaw and the Tree with the Door

Marius Flores

Marius Flores had always – always – been loud. He was this geeky science major, who had a knack for causing the weirdest laboratory accidents.

One time, he accidentally set a pink plastic flamingo on fire in his efforts to measure the antiseptic capacity of a natural flower extract. How the flamingo got involved, much less any sort of fire, is still a mystery. Did Marius get in trouble? No. Not really. Because his natural flower extract did work and is now being used as a safe disinfectant spray for those sanitation tents you go through at border checkpoints.

He was brilliant! Couple that with his long and wavy black hair against his pale complexion, it is absolutely no wonder why the guy has never ever gone without a boyfriend since high school. At first, he only exclusively dated closeted jocks who wanted to try new things out. But then he started dating really nice guys – serious guys who were less complicated than your typical self-loathing basketball MVP.

James and Marius aren't dating though. Marius was seeing a guy named Sebastian whom James has never met for some reason which Marius keeps on pointing out as insane or crazy since Sebastian was in James' college. But then again, James couldn't be bothered. The guy had no social media accounts, no searchable data online; it was as if he were a ghost, which even for James was a bit too insane. But Marius was in-love, he kept saying his best friend ought to meet his boyfriend.

This was not, of course the first time Marius had introduced James to his boyfriends. James even has a bet that Marius could never keep a relationship for more than four months – and he has not. Try as hard as he did, all his relationships, even the serious ones always tend to have a fallout a little over three months or so after they start going official.

Sebastian and Marius though seem to be going strong. 3 months and 28 days. Just two more days and James would have lost the bet. This is exactly why Marius had come yelling on James as early as 7AM so he could finally rub in James face the fact that he will be able to be with someone for at least 4 months.

"I know you're in there. Open up!" Marius, as he was banging the door.

"Hangover!" James replied trying to muffle Marius shrieks with his pillow.

"I am not going anywhere until you open this fucking door!" Marius yelled.

"Hey, lunatic, my room mate is still asleep!" James replied.

"Fuck you, gago, Clyde left for home before the quarantine! I know you're alone." Marius cockily replied.

"Pisti! Fine. Wait let me just put some clothes on." James said as he took a worn out black t-shirt from his dresser and pulled up a pair of tattered denim shorts.

He opened the door to a beaming Marius, with his hair still that messy, but kind of not messy way wavy hair gets. He was looking quite dashing with his white longsleeved shirt and dark denim jeans.

"Oh. You look awfully nice. Should I change before we go?" James said sincerely as he looked down at his clothes which were clearly not cute. Marius however just jumped into the bed.

"You know, I should get a transfer and be your roommate next semester." Marius said, completely ignoring the boy.

"Dude no. I'm fine with seeing you a max of two or three hours a day." James replied. "More than that, I'd have to ask my mom for anti-anxiety medication."

"Boang." Marius retorted. "Just take na your bath and please try to dress better you are meeting the love of my life!"

Love of his life. James repeated Marius' exaggeration in his head.

"Yes mother." James teasingly answered as he headed into his bathroom for a shower. When he got out Marius was nowhere in his room.

"Breakfast at the mess hall. Wear this." A note was stuck on top of his short-sleeved blue button down top.

"Yes mother." James muttered to himself smiling at the blue shirt – it was the same shirt he wore the first time he and Marius met at freshman orientation. Since then on, regardless of their irreconcilable quirks and oddities, the two had been best friends; they were inseparable.