#do you know how fucking long i spent downloading glaze for this
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“To know you is to love you.”
#one punch man#OPM#fubuki#psykos#fubukos#psybuki#fubuki x psykos#psykos opm#fubuki opm#carma art#take my heart dont lose it... listen to your heart#do you know how fucking long i spent downloading glaze for this#or uhhh drawing it in general#worth it. this is my lockscreen now. every time i look at it i want to cry. like in a good way. WAHHHHH#everything i draw gets a massive improvement from the last#probably because i was taking a life drawing class at the same time#something about drawing naked people constantly makes you better at anatomy and shading. who knew.#10/10 do recommend. take a life drawing class if youre an artist (and not a perv)#color work has always been my weakest point and im taking a painting class next quarter. none of u are fucking ready for me
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Flower | 25
; Hoseok x Reader
; Genre: Fluff
; Word Count: 4.2k
; Warnings: Drunken behaviour
; Synopsis: You finally decide to take a dip into the world of online dating and find the Flower dating app. One of the top matches for you proves to be a guy who looks to be your complete opposite; tattooed, pierced, a metalhead and oh…incredibly handsome. What happens when you throw caution to the wind and reach out to him?
; A/N: This is a fun chapter and I hope you all enjoy it too :D please let me know what you thought in the comments and reblog it so others can read it too!
; Flower Masterpost
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“Aren’t you bothered that he’s over there and not with you?” Jungkook asks, pointing over to the bar where Hoseok is currently standing and having what appears to be a very serious conversation with Namjoon, Eden and Jimin. Though given how tipsy he had been half an hour ago, you weren’t sure whether it was ‘meaning of life’ serious or ‘were all the children on Barney on drugs’ serious.
Smiling, you shake your head and take a sip of your Coke that you’ve been nursing for an hour now. “I’m his girlfriend, not his keeper. Besides, it’s his birthday. He can spend it wherever and with whoever he wants.”
“Very nice of you.” The younger man mumbles and you note the way he keeps shyly looking over at Soyeon, currently sitting opposite you in the booth you’d all situated yourselves in upon arriving. There were too many of you all now with Hoseok’s friends combined with you, Chungha and Soyeon, so they were also sprawled onto a table next to you.
“I’m just saying, but you’d both make a great couple.” The words whisper light against Jungkook’s ear and he shivers slightly as your breath tickles the small hairs of his neck. But he doesn’t say anything in response, instead just setting his jaw before looking back at his bottle of beer.
You’re not sure why you suddenly got bold enough to tell him that, but you were always braver when it came to helping your friends. On your own, you hated talking on the phone but if they needed you to talk on the phone for them then god dammit you’d do it.
Still though, you decide not to push it any further. You’ve said your peace and indicated to him that not only do you think they’d work well together, but also that you would most definitely approve if they decided to actually try out a relationship. The thought of it was quite exciting and you wondered if this was how Chungha and Soyeon had felt when you’d started dating Hoseok.
Leaning back, you casually listened in to the conversation that Chungha, her girlfriend Dahyun, Soyeon, Yoongi and Amelia were all having while Jungkook occasionally added his input. He was a naturally quieter guy, like you, which meant you both ended up simply observing for a lot of the time. Though you were even quieter than him as you weren’t drinking unlike everyone else.
From the glazed look in Chungha’s eyes, she was well on her way to being inebriated and you wondered whether it was the glass of white wine in her hand that was doing it or the two double Southern Comfort and lemonade’s that she’d practically inhaled earlier. Dahyun didn’t look much better and you chuckled as she struggled to get out a word, tripping over her own tongue as she slurred.
Amelia was also sober, due to her normal baby duties outside of this event, and you were pleased that she’d finally been able to come out for something. She’d told you earlier that the baby was being looked after by her sister for the evening, meaning this was the first time that Namjoon and her had been able to socialise like this with their friends in months.
You were pleased that she’d come for Hoseok’s birthday and as you looked over all his friends that were dotted around the room in his favourite bar, you felt a warm happiness swell in your chest at the knowledge they’d all come out for him. You couldn’t imagine being this cosy with this many people like he was but you’d long ago recognised that you were both different people with different needs.
So while you’d inevitably grow bored and tired of being around so many people in...okay well you were already there really, you knew that Hoseok would happily keep going until the early hours of the morning. And he’d made his intentions of getting absolutely fucked earlier in the day to you after he’d opened his presents.
Your vinyl player had gone down very well thankfully and he’d been ecstatic about it, desperate to begin playing some of the many records he’d already been gifted from his family and friends. Along with that, he’d begun drinking at noon with a bottle of special ale that he’d been given by Seokjin and had declared that for the first time in almost a year, he was going to get absolutely wrecked tonight.
The idea of that was horrible to you, someone who hated drinking, but you knew he didn’t let loose like this anymore. So you were more than happy to watch him drink himself into blissful happiness, surrounded by his beloved friends before driving him home later when he was probably too drunk to walk straight.
You were just very thankful that he didn’t do this often as you weren’t sure you could handle it.
“You should go to England, it’s great with a lot of history and beautiful landscapes outside of London. Plus, you can travel to Europe really easily as it’s so damn cheap. I mean, they can take a train to Paris! What the fuck?” Yoongi says, his voice a tone higher than it’s normal deep and rumbling level.
Laughing quietly, you watch as Chungha nods in an overexaggerated manner before pointing at Yoongi to make a point. Only she’s completely off and is instead pointing out towards the bar. Smiling, you gently take her hand and move it to the correct position and snicker when she doesn’t even realise you’ve done it.
“Right?! I mean...I mean a train! To another country! Like...woaaah. It’s crazy. Can you imagine? Do they have planes over there? Or is it all trains and stuff?” Dahyun gasps at Chungha’s slurred questions and you bite your lip in amusement, rolling your eyes at your best friend’s drunken ramblings.
“Chungha, you know they have planes. You flew from Greece to Italy, remember?” There’s a really blank expression on her face for a moment before realisation hits and she ooh’s loudly, excitedly waving her hands in front of her face.
“Oh my god! Yes! I did! Oh, Greece was so pretty. So...so blue. Pretty.” Jungkook is the one to snort this time and you look at him, raising your brows in question but he just shakes his head, a small smile dancing on his lips.
Finally, you decide to get involved with the conversations, leaning forward so that they can hear you better. “I’ve never even been out of the country before. Hoseok’s been to England though, some metal festival or something.”
“Yeah! That’s the trip I went on. We went to Download Festival and travelled around the UK after that. Went to Wales and Scotland too to get the full experience but we couldn’t get to Northern Ireland in time. Sucks, I wanted to see those big stone thingies in the sea. Man, Hoseok got seriously fucked at Download though. Like, he got into a drinking competition with these guys from the UK in the tent next to us and they absolutely destroyed him. He was vomiting everywhere all night.” Your brows rise at that, looking over at your boyfriend where he’s stood at the bar.
Well, he hadn’t told you that. Made himself sound far more cooler than what Yoongi had just told you.
“I thought he could hold his drink?” You ask, though you’re wondering about that as you watch him down another glass of beer. He’d never got so drunk that he’d vomited around you yet, but given his history you wouldn’t put it past him.
"He can, to a degree. But he was mixing all kinds of alcohol that day and it just...was bad. They thought it was hilarious. Hoseok did not enjoy the next day as he still went to the stages and watched the bands. Idiot almost got a migraine." Despite his words, there’s an incredibly fond look on Yoongi’s face and you note that he’s probably not quite as drunk as you’d initially thought.
Soyeon snorts with laughter and you look at her with a frown before noting the way she nods with her head towards your side with an amused smile. Glancing over, you realise that Jungkook has left and your boyfriend has taken his place.
There's a glassy look to his eyes that tells you he's a bit drunker than before and you wonder what Jimin had been giving him at the bar. The mischief maker, who you'd been well warned about by both your boyfriend and his friends, had sworn to make sure Hoseok had a great night. Which evidently meant he had to get the birthday boy absolutely shitfaced.
Hoseok feels overwhelmingly warm as he leans a little too heavily against you, his face having gone incredibly red from the alcohol he’d spent the day consuming. But as soon as you look at him, he gives you what you presume is meant to be a charming smile but instead makes it just look like he has wind.
And then he blinks really hard, causing you to tilt your head at him in confusion. He does it again before blowing you a rather sluggish kiss and you realise what he’s doing with a snort, holding your hand against your mouth.
“Baby, you’re not winking at me. You’re just blinking very hard.” The smooth skin of his forehead wrinkles immediately as he obviously thinks about what you’ve just said before he tries again, getting the same result. And then he purposefully holds one eye open with his fingers, causing you to laugh even harder as you take his hand to stop him from potentially hurting himself.
“Oh my god, please stop." Reaching out, you playfully cover his face with your hand and giggle when he simply flops his head into your palm, eyes closing with a ridiculously loud sigh. It was just after 1am and you were a little surprised he seemed to be flagging already.
Then again, you remembered that he'd been drinking in some form since noon now. The fact he could barely hold his head up right now was possibly the least surprising thing you'd heard all night.
“Are you okay?” Leaning closer to him, you make sure that he can hear you over the raucous talk and laughter of the other bar patrons and the music that’s blaring over the speakers. For a few seconds he doesn’t respond and you wonder whether he heard you, but then you see his face wrinkle and realise he was just taking that long to comprehend what you’d say to him.
“I’m not a baby.” He whines, bottom lip jutting out almost comically and you have to steel yourself to stop from laughing at him. Because he was certainly acting like one right now. But it also endeared you to him and you simply pushed at his lip till it was back in place. Each blink looks particularly slow and lethargic, telling you that he’s probably reached his limit.
“I didn’t say that but okay. Do you want to go home?” This time, you speak clearly into his ear as close as you can get. Almost immediately he makes a noise of protest, his shoulder coming up as he cringes from your voice being so close. ASMR always made him shrink away and you felt a little bad.
But he doesn’t start protesting wildly like some drunk people might, proclaiming himself to be perfectly fine and ready to troop on through the night while downing beer after beer. Instead, he stares blankly at the bottle in his hand for a minute or so, oblivious to the chatter of which 90s boy band was better before nodding slowly.
“‘M tired.” He sighs out and you watch closely as he lifts the bottle to his lips, about to take a sip before sighing and placing it back down on the table with an overly loud thunk. It makes some of them jump around the booth, their eyes widening in drunken surprise and you give them all a smile of apology.
“Here, enjoy this,” You say to Yoongi, hanging him the beer that Hoseok has rejected. There’s no point in letting it go to waste when there’s someone more than willing to have it. “Birthday boy is done for the night it would seem.”
That makes everyone pause, all of their gazes moving to your boyfriend. Hoseok doesn’t notice them, though you’re not sure he notices anything really given how it looks like he’s about to fall asleep right there. Chungha pouts dramatically and holds her arms out, wanting a hug from you which you give her with a laugh.
Looking over at the others, who are slightly more sober, you give them a stern face. “Please make sure she doesn’t drink too much and gets home okay.”
“She’ll be fine.” Soyeon says and you realise she’s the closest thing to sober on the table outside of Amelia. It even looks like she has a big glass of water to keep her going too and you give her a relieved smile before gently persuading Hoseok to leave the booth. He wavers dangerously on his feet, once standing, trying to get his balance before staggering off with his weight leaning heavily on you.
“God, you’re much heavier when drunk.” You mutter, shifting yourself to cope better with the dead weight of his arm on you. There’s a brief pause by the bar to say goodbye to everyone else, and you’re not surprised when no one protests you leaving when they see how far gone Hoseok is now, before you successfully manage to navigate out of the busy bar and onto the street.
Your car was in the nearby parking lot and what had been a two minute walk ended up being ten minutes with Hoseok walking at a snail’s pace. Though that was because he’d almost fallen over about three times. He was surprisingly quiet though, which you found odd as he was pretty loud and boisterous when tipsy.
Not a single word leaves his mouth until he’s slouched in the passenger seat of your car with his seatbelt finally secured, looking very much like the drunk person he was with his limbs placed wherever they’d happened to land. His head rolls back on his shoulders until it thumps against the window, letting him look at you as you fasten your own seat belt and turn the key in the ignition.
“‘Luff you.” He mumbles, the words slurred but still audible to you over the quiet noise of the car engine. Glancing over at him, you can’t help but smile as your heart squeezes at the sight of him. His eyes are beyond glassy now, so unfocused and yet it’s almost like he’s looking at you with his own heart. Hoseok is not only a quiet drunk, but a sappy drunk too apparently.
The speakers kick to life as it connects to Spotify on your phone and you cringe slightly as Metallica starts playing. You’d let him pick the playlist for the night and now you were going to have to suffer for the rest of the journey home as you’d already started driving.
Hoseok is so quiet on the trip back that you keep panicking, looking over to make sure he’s okay only to be met with his blank, impassive stare. Though you think it’s probably only blank because thinking is likely too hard at the moment. It makes you want to giggle at the thought but you don’t, biting your lip to stop yourself.
“You’re pretty,” Glancing at him quickly, you note the way his hand is wavering as he attempts to touch your cheek, only his aim is wildly off and you make a noise of protest as he instead bops you on the nose. It doesn’t deter him though and for the sake of driving safely, you take his hand and press it to your cheek instead. “So pretty. Love you.”
“Okay Hobi, I get it. Thank you. Now, please stop poking my face while I’m driving, okay? You can touch my face all you want when we get home.” You ask him, giving him a persuasive look before taking his hand and squeezing it before placing it back on his lap. For a moment, you think he’s going to argue but he quietens down again, slouching and you’re not sure you’ve ever loved him more than in this moment weirdly.
The rest of the journey is much easier and you pack up outside your apartment building with ease, Hoseok’s car next to your own. Getting him to your apartment is a bit of an issue given he doesn’t appear to have really sobered up any since leaving the bar and you have to cajole him into getting back up when he slides down the wall of the elevator, giggling to himself as he sits. It’s only with the promise of cuddles and Kasumi that he finally gets back up and staggers down the hall to your door.
“God, I really hope I don’t have to do this too much.” You mutter as you get him inside, watching as he toes off his shoes while leaning heavily against the wall. As much as you love him, you hate dealing with drunk people because there’s just no reasoning with them sometimes. Thankfully, at least Hoseok appears to be an amenable drunk.
“Hello my baby! My little angel, oh hello chicken. My little Kasumi-pud, my beautiful girl. I’ve missed you! Aren’t you the cutest kitty?” Hoseok has become immediately distracted by the sight of Kasumi as she walks over to greet you both, the soft chirp causing Hoseok to explode into even more drunk nicknames that get increasingly ridiculous.
And then you curse as he gets a little over eager in his attempts to pet her, bending over instead of crouching and soon toppling onto the floor due to his lack of balance. Kasumi starts, her eyes wide and every inch of her primed to run before moving back over to Hoseok, sniffing his nose and mouth curiously as he simply giggles and strokes her in a surprisingly gentle motion.
“Hoseok! Come on, get up. I don’t want you to hurt yourself now.” You grumble, helping him to stand despite his protests at wanting to stroke his ‘ickle chicken’. Why he was calling her that, you had no idea.
You’re soon shown that Hoseok is even more of a handful once home as you turn around to take your own shoes off and hang up your coat because as soon as you’re back, you realise he’s gone. Eyes widening, you wonder where the fuck he went before you hear the shower turning on in the open bathroom door.
Rushing inside, you see Hoseok has half undressed himself and is standing in the shower, eyes closed as the water beats down on him. Only he’s still wearing his shirt and is only naked on the lower half, causing you to sigh and roll your eyes.
“Hobi, come on. I don’t want you to get hurt or...drown or something.” Grasping his arm, you try to encourage him out of the shower without causing him any harm but he yanks his arm away in protest, a sound that he must assume is a word leaving his mouth before he goes to grab his shampoo.
“Fuck sake.” You mutter, realising he is not going to let you take him out of the shower. Fine, if he won’t leave then you’ll at least make sure he doesn’t drown himself. It takes a bit of encouragement to get him to take his soaked shirt off but you appease him by instead taking over the hard work of washing his hair and body for him. Why he’s so insistent on this you don’t know, until he mutters when you wash his arm.
“Icky. I’m icky. Stupid Sambuca.” It’s then that you realise his arm is ever so slightly sticky beneath the water. Someone evidently spilled Sambuca over his arm instead of actually drinking it, and your nose wrinkles at the thought of him going to bed stinking of aniseed, alcohol and being sticky.
Drunk Hoseok apparently makes the occasional good decision.
Once out, you manage to help him get a towel wrapped around his waist before he decides he wants to impale himself on his toothbrush. Brows rising as you watch him, you wonder if this is just general drunk Hoseok behaviour. He was a generally neat person normally but you don’t particularly remember anyone getting this drunk and demanding to be clean before bed.
Still though, you don’t want him to hurt himself so you carefully brush his teeth for him. And try not to notice the fact he’s giving you that sappy look once more. It’s not quite as cute when his mouth is full of toothpaste foam. Or maybe it’s even cuter given he’s evidently incapable of controlling his facial expressions.
After coaxing him to spit out what was in his mouth, and not swallow it like he’d almost seemed like he was going to, you finally get him to the bedroom where you make him sit on the bed. He does so pliantly, his lips pressed together in a content smile that makes his dimples show and causes him to look far younger and sweeter than the extensive tattoos on show do.
Brushing his hair for him, you press a kiss to his forehead before pointing at him with narrow eyes. “Stay here. Do not move. I’m going to get you a glass of water that I want you to drink and then we’ll dry you off and get you dressed, okay?”
His response is a nod, looking very much like a child with how eager it is and you snort in amusement before leaving to the kitchen. You’re probably gone a minute, if that, before heading back into the bathroom with a glass full of fresh water and pausing in the doorway at what you’re seeing.
Hoseok has not sat still like you’d told him. Instead, he’s stood up and is now completely naked. Only he apparently appears fascinated by the fact he has a penis and is too busy giggling to notice your arrival.
Clearing your throat, you watch as he looks up with wide eyes. If you’d thought it was because he’d been caught doing...whatever he was doing, then you were wrong because instead he just gives you the brightest smile. You’re about to ask what’s wrong when he proceeds to point down to his groin with excitement.
“Look! A helicopter!” And then he gyrates his hips until his dick swings in a circular motion, causing you to sigh so deeply that you’re not entirely sure if you haven’t just felt your soul leave your body. Taking a moment to yourself, you stare at the floor before looking up with a smile.
“That’s great Hoseok. Now please drink this while I get you dressed.” He pouts at your lack of reaction but you figure it’s probably the best route right now. Otherwise he might be encouraged by your laughter to do something even more silly. The last thing you need is for him to wake up having injured himself doing something stupid in your bedroom.
He takes the glass from you and begins to drink, the sound overly loud and exaggerated but you don’t question it as you make him lean against the wall, allowing you to get him into some boxers without him falling over and hurting himself. A shirt gets childish whines, apparently he’s too hot, but you finally get it on him and get him to sit back on the bed.
“I’m going to get you another glass. Please...just sit there, okay?” There’s no response this time and you wonder what he’s got upto this time when you head back to the bedroom, only to find silence greet you.
Silence, because Hoseok has evidently decided it was time to sleep. He’d curled himself up under the covers, despite his insistence of being warm, on your side of the bed and appeared to be completely gone. Smiling fondly at him, you place the glass on the bedside table next to him before finding his phone from the jeans he’d thrown off in the bathroom and plugging it in to charge next to yours.
Thank god he’d taken these off before showering.
Going through your own nightly routine, you crawl into bed next to him on his side and sigh as his scent overwhelms you. Hoseok doesn’t move at all and you wonder how strong his hangover is going to be in the morning. Or if he’ll even remember anything that’s happened.
You’re definitely telling him about his dickcopter though. Chuckling to yourself finally at the memory, you shift forward till you can kiss his clothed shoulder fondly and get yourself into a more comfortable position.
His tattoos were never going to look intimidating ever again now.
#armiesnet#networkbangtan#btswriterscollective#ficswithluv#hoseok fluff#hobi fluff#j hope fluff#bts fluff#hoseok fic#hoseok fanfic#hoseok fanfiction#j hope fic#j hope fanfic#j hope fanfiction#hobi fic#hobi fanfic#hobi fanfiction#bts fic#bts fanfic#bts fanfiction#hoseok x you#hoseok x reader
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Electrify My Heart
summary: Dan Howell picks his college major almost at random. Even after a gap year, he doesn’t know what he wants to do, so he supposes he might as well pick whatever will make him the most employable and impress the largest number of his relatives. Within his first semester, he knows he made a mistake and switches out. Except Dan’s major isn’t law. It’s computer science, and Phil is his TA.
rating: PG13
wc: 13k
notes: for all the notes go read the ao3 version but tldr ty @itsmyusualphannie for being beta and ty to lots of other ppl and imposter syndrome real
read on ao3 or under the cut
College was hard, Dan decided, and his classes hadn’t even started yet. All he had wanted was coffee, and god, why did everything have to be so hard? He was waiting in line at a coffee shop on campus with some cutesy name- “The Daily Grind”- and a ridiculously long line. Really, it should not be taking this long to get one iced coffee. He was just beginning to wonder if he should give up and go somewhere else when someone slammed into him from behind. Dan stumbled and fell.
“Oh my god. I am so sorry.”
Thank god Dan hadn’t gotten his coffee yet. “You’re fine,” he said automatically, standing up.
“Seriously, I’m sorry. Are you alright?” A face with shaggy black hair and blue eyes peered intently at him.
“Yup,” Dan said, “Pretty sure.”
“Let me at least buy your coffee for nearly killing you.”
Dan froze. “Uhhhhh…”
The boy laughed. “Calm down, I’m not asking you out. I just mean coffee. Don’t worry.”
“Oh,” Dan said, relieved. “Uh, yeah, that’d be great. Coffee, I mean.”
“Great,” he said. “I’m Phil, by the way.”
“Dan.”
It turned out that Phil was a grad student in computer science, the same subject Dan was majoring in. Dan’s eyes glazed over when Phil started talking about what exactly his specialization was (something about human-computer interaction and other words Dan didn’t understand), but Phil steered the conversation away from that pretty quickly once he noticed Dan’s reaction.
“So you’re a freshman? How’s the college life treating you so far?”
Dan shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. It’s kind of nice not having my parents around, but also, I’m really bad at doing adult things.”
Phil smiled. “It’s okay, I didn’t really know how to cook until I got an apartment my junior year. As long as you know the basics-”
“No,” Dan interrupted. “Like, I’m really bad at doing adult things. I set my ramen on fire because I didn’t know you needed to put water in.”
Phil was clearly struggling to remain composed. “Recently?” he inquired politely.
“Yes,” Dan said.
Phil laughed, and the way he laughed made Dan feel like there was a slowly growing bubble inside of him. “I’m sorry,” Phil said, “But look on the bright side. That’s actually hilarious,” and Dan had to admit it was.
When they parted two hours later, after all the ice in his coffee had melted, Dan had added Phil on every social media platform known to man and had Phil’s number saved in his phone with instructions to text if he had any issues.
Dan wanted to, he really did. He had never wanted to text anyone so badly. He gathered the courage to send a “Hi! It’s Dan!” text, then quickly threw his phone across the room, only to pick it back up immediately when it buzzed with Phil’s response.
It was just a smiley face. Why was Dan so excited about a fucking smiley face? A fucking smiley face that Phil probably only sent because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Dan spent the rest of his weekend in his dorm, leaving only to attend exactly one welcome event and spend a truly disturbing amount of time (and money) at The Daily Grind, hoping he’d run into Phil again. Why Dan didn’t just text him, he couldn’t explain. He hadn’t sent anything since the introduction text and Phil’s smiley face reply.
If the universe wanted him and Phil to be friends, the universe would have to work a bit harder.
***
Classes started the next Monday. After the disaster that was the one welcome event he attended, he had spoken to exactly zero people, unless you counted the barista at The Daily Grind. He was almost relieved when classes started just because he’d be around other people again, and if that didn’t say something about how isolated he was, he didn’t know what did.
His relief quickly vanished when his alarm went off at seven am for his eight am calculus discussion section. He dragged himself across campus to his classroom, where he promptly fell asleep when given a worksheet. No one in his group woke him up, and when the TA came around to collect their worksheets, Dan sheepishly turned in a piece of paper with his name on it and a few scribbled numbers he must have written before he passed out.
Dan looked longingly at the time on his phone. He really didn’t have time to take a nap before his next lecture, but oh, he desperately wanted to. He considered skipping, but he knew he should at least attend the first lecture to get an idea of what the attendance policy was like.
He found somewhere on the main quad to sit for a bit, but he must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, a bell was faintly buzzing in a nearby building, his CS 115 lecture was starting right now, and he still wasn’t sure exactly where it was.
He ended up being around ten minutes late, and as he paused outside the wooden double doors to catch his breath, he again considered just not going. He checked the time again and groaned. He really did feel bad walking in so late, but it was either that or not at all. He straightened up, wiped his hands on his shorts, and opened the door as quietly as possible.
His eyes worked over the seats, searching for an empty spot. There was an entire empty row in the front, but there was no way in hell Dan was sitting there. He spotted a seat in the middle of the back row, and briefly debated turning around and leaving so he wouldn’t have to ask the people at the ends of the row to move.
After looking around again, he braced himself and walked up to the end of the row.
“Excuse me?” Dan whispered.
The girl sitting at the end of the row rolled her eyes and tossed her blue hair over her shoulder, closing her laptop and standing up so Dan could pass.
“Thanks,” Dan whispered, moving past her, which required them to be far closer than Dan was entirely comfortable with.
The rest of the row was mostly a blur of groans and snickers, but everyone at least moved their laptops back so Dan could step over their knees.
Finally, Dan sat down in his seat, his ears burning, and pulled out his laptop.
The professor paused. “And if everyone could make an effort to be on time next time,” she said with a mildness that terrified Dan, “That would be appreciated. Thank you.”
Dan shrunk into his seat. An auspicious beginning to his college career. Hopefully, his lab later in the day would be better than his lecture.
It was not. After standing in line for at least twenty minutes and eating a rushed lunch and attending a two-hour-long lecture for his film class, which was interesting but incredibly long, he showed up to his lab.
He was on time, at least. He even managed to find an empty table. But then the empty table started filling up, and his tablemates all wanted to talk to him, and it was almost a relief when the TA walked in to start class. His relief vanished when he and the TA made eye contact.
It was Phil.
Phil’s eyes widened slightly, but he recovered quickly. He pulled out his laptop and adjusted his glasses. “Welcome to your first lab section,” he said. “I’m Phil Lester, your TA. I’m here to help you work through your lab problems, homework problems, and Machine Project, but they’re ultimately graded by the online autograder, which I have no control over, so bring up any issues about grading to Professor Ross. Any questions?”
Someone’s chair squeaked.
“Okay then,” Phil said. “Today’s lab is to download, configure, and familiarize yourself with IntelliJ. I’m sure that sounds easy, but even experienced programmers have issues getting used to IntelliJ, which is why we’ve devoted a lab period to it. Your instructions are online. Let me or the CAs know if you need help with anything.”
The lab passed with mind numbing boredom, but by the end, with the help of his tablemates and a bored-looking Course Assistant, Dan had IntelliJ up and running.
As he stood to leave, his stomach growled. He really should have picked a lab that was earlier in the day, but whatever. Even if Dan was able to figure out how to use his student portal, it was probably too late to transfer lab sections. He glanced at Phil, but he seemed absorbed in helping another student, so Dan just put his laptop in his backpack and trudged away.
He stepped outside the Computer Science Center and took a deep breath, aiming himself towards his dorm and a thirty-minute walk home, but he was interrupted.
“Hey! Hey, Dan,” Phil said, running after him. “How’d I do?”
Dan looked up. “Phil?”
“Yup,” Phil said. “It’s so funny that you ended up in my class. It must be fate.”
Dan wrinkled his nose. “I don’t believe in fate.”
“Well, you’re no fun,” Phil observed.
“There’s a thing called coincidence.”
“I’m just trying to think of a smooth way to ask you to coffee again, Dan. Work with me here.”
“Is that allowed?” Dan asked.
“Being friends with people in your lab section? It’s not exactly encouraged, but I don’t grade you or anything, so as long as I don’t display blatant favoritism it should be fine.”
So he really did just mean coffee. Again. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“You won’t. Besides, if I did get in trouble, which I won’t, it would be my fault, not yours.”
Dan shrugged.
“Anyway, if you’re not comfortable with it, that’s fine. But I really liked you and thought it would be nice to spend time together sometime. You know, if that’s cool. I know you probably have a ton of work right now, but if you get a chance.”
Phil was nervous, Dan realized. “I think I’d like that,” he said slowly.
Phil smiled. “Text me,” he said, reaching out to touch Dan’s hand briefly. “Anyway, which way are we headed?”
“My dorm’s kind of far.” It was the farthest dorm from the main quad, actually, since Dan had put off registering for housing until a week before the deadline.
“My apartment’s definitely farther. Want a ride?”
“Where are you parked?”
Phil jerked his head to the left. “Like ten minutes that way?”
Dan hesitated. Yes, he did want a ride from Phil. But Phil’s car was parked on the opposite side of campus from his dorm, and it would probably take just as long to walk to Phil’s car and get a ride to his dorm as it would to just walk there.
“Sure,” he said before he could regret it.
“Cool,” Phil said, starting to walk. “So, how are you liking CS so far?”
“It’s fine,” Dan said cautiously, following him.
“No, really,” Phil said. “I do course development for CS 115. I want to know if I made it better or worse.” He flicked his hair out of his face. “I also want to know how things are going for you, of course,” Phil added hastily.
“The homework’s been kind of hard,” Dan said hesitantly.
Phil nodded. “Did you take APCS in high school?”
Dan shook his head.
“No prior coding experience?” Phil continued.
Dan nodded.
Phil nodded. “Yeah, that would do it. Coding has a really harsh learning curve, and Java, in particular, is really unpleasant to beginners. If it were up to me, the class would be taught in Python or something, but we already have so much infrastructure for Java, and a lot of people in the CS department don’t like Python, so it’s probably not happening.”
“Oh.”
Phil shrugged. “Sorry, you’re probably not that interested in how I think your class should be taught. I kind of do that sometimes, talk about things I think are really interesting but no one else does.”
“It’s fine,” Dan said, and weirdly, it was. When Phil talked about things, he had this way of drawing people in- Dan could listen to him for ages. “The way you talk about it makes interesting.”
It was hard to tell in the slanted light of the setting sun, but Phil might have blushed. “Thanks,” he said, “But you really don’t want to get me started on my thesis topic. It’s embarrassing how much I talk about it.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Dan reasoned.
“My ex-boyfriend cited it as one of the reasons he decided to break up with me,” Phil said.
Dan winced. “I’m sorry.”
Phil laughed, but it wasn’t the laugh he normally laughed. This laugh was harsh and brittle. “It’s not your fault.”
Dan didn’t have a lot of bad breakup stories, but he thought he’d try. “I dumped my ex-boyfriend because I found him on Tinder under a fake name.”
“How’d you know it was him then?” Phil asked.
“Oh, he used his real photos. Just the name was fake.”
“Yikes.”
“You could say that again,” Dan said. “Anyway, I lived. It wasn’t that great of a relationship anyway.”
They had reached Phil’s car. Phil fished in his pocket for his keys. Dan awkwardly stood by the side of his car, debating whether to sit in the front or the back seat, before deciding he was not a twelve-year-old being given a ride by his friend’s dad, and ducking into the front passenger’s seat.
“Which dorm?” Phil asked, starting the car.
“Walton,” Dan said.
“Nice,” Phil said. “I didn’t go here for my undergrad, but I hear that’s one of the better ones.”
Dan shrugged. “It’s okay. I got a single, which is nice, but it’s kind of far from all my classes.”
Phil nodded.
“Do you know how to get there?” Dan asked.
“Not really,” Phil confessed.
“Me neither,” Dan said.
“Can you navigate?” Phil asked. “If I tried to Google Maps and drive at the same time I would one hundred percent kill us both. I have no coordination.”
“Encouraging,” Dan said, pulling out his phone and typing his address in.
Phil laughed. “It’s okay. I’m not the world’s best driver, but I’m not the worst, either. Probably.”
“If you say so,” Dan said. “Okay, take a left here.”
Phil turned.
“Okay, then go straight for a while-”
“That’s what my mom said when I came out as bisexual.”
Dan sputtered. “What?”
Phil clarified. “Well, she said she hoped that wouldn’t stop me from settling down with a nice girl someday. But later it turned out I was gay, so joke’s on her.”
“Oh,” Dan said. He hadn’t known Phil was gay, and that knowledge sent a knot to Dan’s stomach that he decided to ignore. He was not attracted to Phil, he reminded himself firmly. “I haven’t told my parents I’m… whatever, yet.”
Phil nodded. “That’s fine. Coming from high school, I assumed that most people were out to their parents, but it turns out that lots of people aren’t out to their parents. I actually feel like most people aren’t. I don’t know, maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part, but I just wanted to let you know. Plenty of people have gay lives at college and their parents don’t have any idea.” He paused for a moment. “Sorry. That was probably weird.”
It was, a little bit, but Dan didn’t say so. “Thanks,” he said. “Um, right here. I mean, turn right. Sorry.”
“Got it,” Phil said, turning. He abruptly braked for someone crossing the street. “God, I hate driving on campus.”
The person crossing the street turned around and glared. “I think the feeling is mutual,” said Dan.
Phil started driving again, more carefully this time. “At least it’s not winter. Driving in the winter here ranks as one of the worst experiences of my life.”
“Is it that bad?” Dan asked.
Phil laughed. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Dan blushed. “No.”
“I bet you didn’t even bring a coat.”
“Was I supposed to? Can’t that wait until Thanksgiving?”
Phil glanced at Dan, incredulous. “You didn’t bring a winter coat?”
Dan shrugged. “Is that bad?”
“Dear god. You’re going to die. When it gets cold, remind me to lend you a coat. I have extra.”
Dan’s face was still hot. “You don’t need to-”
“I want to.”
Dan felt like his face was on fire. “That would be nice. If you don’t mind.”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it,” Phil said.
Dan shrugged. He was glad that Phil was focusing on the road and couldn’t see his face, which was probably getting redder by the minute.
“Some people do that,” Dan said.
Phil glanced at Dan and smiled. “I don’t. Whenever I offer you something, I mean it, okay?”
“Okay,” Dan said, staring at his feet.
Phil laughed. “You sound like I’m yelling at you. I’m offering you help, Dan. If you don’t need it or you don’t feel comfortable getting it from me, that’s fine, but don’t say no just to avoid being a burden. You’re not.”
“Sorry,” Dan said.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Phil said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Sor-” Dan started, then stopped. “Thanks,” he said.
“That’s better,” Phil said.
Dan laughed. “Are you sure you’re not majoring in early childhood education? You sound like my kindergarten teacher.”
“Pretty sure,” Phil said, “But I was actually looking into being a professor for a while.”
“Wait, really?”
Phil laughed dryly. “Yeah. That dream lasted about three months into my Master’s. There is no way I could survive a Ph.D. program.”
“Oh,” said Dan. “Sorry.”
Phil glanced over at Dan. “You’re doing it again.”
“I am sorry, though. That sucks.”
Phil shrugged. “It really isn’t that bad. You can get some pretty sweet jobs with a Master’s degree in computer science. Just not generally jobs being a computer science professor.” Phil pulled up outside Dan’s dorm. “Anyway. This is you, right?”
Dan started. “Yeah. It is. Uh, thanks.”
Phil smiled. “Yeah. No problem. Let me know if you need a ride anywhere again.”
“I will,” said Dan, who had no intention of becoming such a burden.
“Or if you ever need any help with anything CS-related or anything. You’re not bothering me, I swear. I love computer science and I love helping people.”
Dan couldn’t help but doubt that. “Thanks,” he said, still with no intention of becoming such a burden.
“Have a good night!” Phil called as Dan stepped out of the car.
“You too!” Dan said, shutting the door.
***
Dan’s first week of classes flew by in a blur. He had more homework than he’d ever had in his life, and he was handling it badly. Luckily, most of his professors seemed pretty understanding about it- his film professor gave him an extension on a reading quiz he completely forgot about, and none of his CS homework assignments were due until two weeks into class.
Before he knew it, the first Machine Project for CS 115 was released. He mostly ignored the initial release since the deadline wasn’t for two more weeks- he had plenty of other homework to do anyway. A truly astounding number of papers to write for his English and film classes, a crushing number of assignments for his physics and calculus classes, and the daily homework problems for CS 115 on top of all that.
He continued isolating himself. He wasn’t proud of it, but it seemed like everyone around him had condensed into social groups while he wasn’t paying attention, and now even when he tried, they wouldn’t let him in.
He didn’t mind too much. He wouldn’t pretend it was fun, eating meals in the dining hall on his own and sitting by himself in every lecture, but social interaction was too painful to be worth it. Besides, he wasn’t even sure if he had time to have friends. It wasn’t like he had an abundance of free time to kill.
Anyway, he had Phil. Dan was still a little bit scared of him- he was a grad student after all, and Dan was just a freshman- but they talked sometimes outside of class. Phil sent Dan memes about computers that he didn’t always understand. Dan replied with memes about video games they both played. They usually talked after Dan’s lab. Phil offered him a ride home again, but after Dan declined once, he didn’t offer again. They met up at the coffee shop once to study together, and even though Dan didn’t get much done that day, just being around Phil made him feel much better.
It was already the deadline day when Dan finally remembered his MP. He hadn’t meant to leave it this late, he really hadn’t, but everything was so overwhelming and there was so much going on and it couldn’t be that bad, could it?
He had woken up early. It was ten am. His deadline was eleven pm. That was plenty of time.
He pulled out his laptop, following the instructions on the course website, and surprisingly managed to download the MP starter code with no problems.
Actually completing it was a different story. He had read the instructions over a couple of times, but he still wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Still, hesitatingly, he started typing. There were some red squiggles underneath some of his lines of code, but he ignored them for now. He searched the crowded upper menu, selected the “Test Checkpoint 0” option from the dropdown menu, and clicked run.
A scarily large number of lines with red symbols next to them appeared. Trying not to panic, Dan did his best to decipher them. Each line started with the word “error,” which was probably very bad. It was mostly a mix of errors that read “; expected” and “illegal start of expression,” with one “reached end of file while parsing” error thrown in at the end.
Dan stared at his screen. What file, he wanted to know, and what the fuck was a parsing? He stared at the errors some more. He hit run again.
He got the same error messages. Again.
After some more staring, he decided to go to office hours. He packed up his laptop and checked his phone to see who was holding office hours right now. His heart started beating a bit faster when he saw that Phil was holding office hours for eight hours starting in fifteen minutes.
Well. It couldn’t hurt to see Phil. It gave him something to think about on the thirty-minute walk to the Computer Science Center, at least.
He really needed to figure out the bus system. This was way too much walking.
Office hours for CS 115 were held in the same room as labs. It was large, spacious, filled with enough tables and chairs that the forty or so students in his lab always had room left over, but today, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find a seat. He stood inside the door, scanning the room for a seat before giving up and aiming for a spot on the floor near a table and an outlet. He plugged his laptop in and raised his hand, waiting for help. Miraculously, a CA came to him within a few minutes. “What’s the issue?” he asked.
“Um, I don’t really know,” Dan said. “My code won’t compile and I’m getting this error?”
The CA bent over to look at Dan’s screen. “You probably have a missing parenthesis or curly brace somewhere,” the CA told him. He flicked shaggy blond hair out of his eyes.
“Where?” Dan asked.
The CA double-clicked on the error message, which brought his cursor to the start of one of Dan’s method names. “Somewhere above here, probably.”
“But where?” Dan asked.
The CA shrugged, already moving away. “I’m really sorry, there are a lot of people I need to help. You’ll have to look for it yourself.”
Dan scowled and stared at his code, looking for the line with the error. His eyes flickered between lines of code, scanning for matching parenthesis and curly braces. His eyes blurred. It looked fine. It really looked fine. Was there really something wrong? He hit the run button again.
The same error message appeared. Dan groaned in frustration. He went back to hunting for his mistake.
Half an hour later, Dan found his mistake. This time when he ran his code, the test suites started running too. Dan let out a breath he had been holding for much too long and let his shoulders sag, relief coursing through him. He didn’t even care that he failed every single test. The fact that his code ran at all was honestly a miracle. He stared at the new error messages, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. He had no idea what he was even looking for, but he stared at it resolutely, fighting back a yawn.
He was just about to give up when Phil materialized in front of him. “How’s it going?” Phil asked.
Dan looked up. “Oh, hey. I didn’t know you were doing office hours today,” he lied.
Phil smiled. “Surprise, I guess. How goes the coding?”
Dan explained the situation.
“So you’ve moved on from getting a compile error to getting a runtime error!” Phil said. “Now you can start debugging.”
“Lucky me,” Dan said.
Phil laughed. “Debugging isn’t fun, I’ll give you that. But when everything falls together? It’s the best feeling in the world.” He glanced around. “I should get to helping people.”
“What if I need help?” Dan complained.
“Raise your hand,” Phil said, trying and desperately failing to wink before sweeping off to help other students. “See you.”
Dan returned to his laptop, hiding a smile. His smile slowly faded as he worked. His code was not as easy to fix as he had hoped it would be when he first got it to compile.
He worked on it for about an hour, during which a chair opened up at a nearby table and he scrambled for a seat. He raised his hand.
It only took a few minutes for Phil to arrive. “So what’s the issue?” he asked, leaning over Dan’s shoulder.
“I’m not really sure,” he admitted. “There’s, um, a lot going on.”
Phil nodded. “So, where did you start?”
“Kind of everywhere,” Dan confessed.
“Okay, well, don’t do that,” Phil said. “How about you start with the first method?”
Dan scrolled up. “This one?”
“Sure. It doesn’t really matter.”
Dan had some code written there, all spaghetti lines splashed with lines of red like tomato sauce. He resolutely ignored the slight pangs of hunger in his stomach. “It’s failing the tests.”
“Well, you’re not done, are you?”
Dan felt slightly silly. “No,” he mumbled.
“Then how about you get it done?” Phil said. “Read the documentation a few times and ask me if you have any questions, but try to find answers in the documentation first.”
Dan scowled. Phil smiled. Why was his stupid face always so fucking happy?
He read the documentation, like Phil told him to. When he got confused, he read it again. It slowly started to make more sense.
He started typing again, working on a single method this time instead of jumping around. The first two went okay, but he got stuck on the third for an embarrassingly long time.
He looked around and raised his hand, but the TAs and CAs all looked busy, and none of them seemed to notice. He sighed and put it down.
He must have sighed really loudly, because the girl next to him shot him a look.
“Sorry,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s fine.”
He glared at his screen again, hoping that the error in his logic would suddenly jump into focus. It didn’t. He sighed again.
The girl next to him glared again.
Dan meant to apologize, but he accidentally said something else. “Can you help me?”
For one frightening moment, he thought she might snap him in half. But then she didn’t. “With what?” she asked.
“I don’t know why I’m failing this test case.” He turned his laptop towards her.
She hesitated for a second before looking. Her eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, I got that error before.” She reached over to scroll on Dan’s laptop and pointed out a section of his code. “You see here? You’re not checking that the input is valid.”
Dan stared at it. “But-” Something clicked. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.” He reached for his keyboard and added a few lines of code above the section she had pointed out. He ran the autograder and held his breath.
A hundred percent. Thank god. He allowed himself to look up from his laptop for the first time in an hour and realized the room was almost empty except for him, Phil, the girl sitting next to him, and a few other scattered students.
Dan spent a few more moments glancing at Phil, trying to gauge when he would be done so they could leave at the same time, but Phil didn’t look like he was going to leave anytime soon. Dan watched as Phil sat next to another- student? course assistant? TA? Dan couldn’t tell. Phil laughed and threw his arm around the other boy.
He knew Phil had an ex-boyfriend, Dan realized with a jolt, and it sounded recent, but he had no idea if Phil was currently seeing anyone. There was a lot he didn’t know about Phil. Ears burning, he buried his face back in his laptop, trying to look busy, even though he didn’t have anything left to do other than submit his work.
He snuck another glance at Phil. Phil didn’t have his arm around the other boy anymore, but they were hunched together over the same laptop, shoulders pressed together, exchanging glances and the occasional laugh as the other boy explained something, animated. A bolt of jealousy shot through Dan’s stomach. He tried to ignore it.
They were just quiet enough that Dan couldn’t make out the details of their conversation, but just loud enough to be distracting. His eyes were drawn back to them again and again.
Dan had always been a jealous person. He had learned to cope with it over the years, but nothing ever seemed to make it go away completely. It stemmed from a place of insecurity, he knew, because as nice as Phil might be, as nice as anyone might be to Dan, there was no way they would ever really like him. And if they did, they were just seconds away from realizing what a bad deal they got with Dan, how much better they could do.
Dan wrenched his gaze away from Phil again. He could submit his work when he got back to his dorm. He waited until Phil’s back was turned before slipping out the door.
***
The next Monday, when Dan slunk into the back of lecture and sat in the closest seat to the door he could find, he realized he recognized the head in front of him. He tapped her shoulder to say hello.
“What’s your name?” Dan asked. “I just realized I never got it this weekend. Sorry.”
She glanced at him, startled. “Helen.” Her blue hair rustled, and suddenly something clicked.
“Hey, wait. Did we meet on the first day of class?”
She stared at him. “Were you that guy who was late?”
Dan nodded. “Yes.”
Helen laughed. “God, I thought Professor Ross was going to kill you.”
Dan smiled, embarrassed. “I thought so too. I’m Dan, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Dan.” She smiled.
“Really?” Dan asked. “I’m going to be honest, most times we’ve met before I haven’t made a great impression.”
Helen froze. “You totally think I’m a bitch; I’m so sorry.”
“No, no,” Dan started, but Helen was already talking again.
“I’m so sorry, I was just super stressed that first day of class and when I saw you the other day I hadn’t finished my MP yet and I-”
Dan cut in. “Seriously, you’re fine.” He smiled. “And you helped me anyway, which is what really matters.”
Helen took a deep breath. “Cool.”
“Cool,” Dan said. “So, do you-”
Their professor started speaking, interrupting Dan. “Later,” Helen said, swivelling to focus completely on class.
Dan envied the totality of her focus, the way she was able to switch it on and off like it was nothing. The only thing he had ever been able to focus on with that kind of intensity was video games. He reluctantly turned back to the front of the room and tried to herd his thoughts into something resembling order.
He failed. No matter how much he tried to pay attention to the lecture, his thoughts kept drifting back to Phil. Phil, offering to buy some dumb freshman a coffee. Phil, offering him a ride home. Phil, teasing him when he asked for help and telling him to wait in line. Phil, helping him anyway.
Dan smiled. He couldn’t help it.
Oh god. He had a crush on Phil.
There was no way he could be expected to focus on class now. No way.
He tried anyway. He wrote some notes on a google doc. Something about inheritance and pets and dogs and cats and he wondered if Phil was a cat or a dog person and fuck. He was fucked.
He tried really hard to focus. He really did. But when class ended, he had about five lines of notes that probably wouldn’t even make sense to the professor if he showed them to her.
His mood brightened slightly when he noticed Helen waiting for him at the door of the auditorium.
“Hey!” he said, hurrying to meet her.
“Hey!” she said. “So, how was lecture?”
“It was lecture,” Dan said. “How do you expect me to say it went?”
Helen shrugged. “I took APCS last year, and we’re finally getting into stuff that I haven’t seen before. I actually really like it.”
“This is my first programming class,” Dan said.
“Oh, wow,” Helen said. “I would probably die.”
Dan was dying a little bit. “It’s pretty rough,” he admitted.
“Why are you taking it then? Is it a required class for you?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “This is my major. Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” she asked.
Dan shrugged.
She let it drop. “It’s required for me too. I’m actually a double major, though; this and film studies.”
Dan stopped. “Wait, are you by any chance in my film class too?”
“FS 105?” she asked.
“Yes!” Dan smiled.
“One o’clock, Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Professor Min?”
Dan nodded again. “We should try to sit next to each other.”
“Sure!” she said. “Can I give you my number?”
“Yeah,” Dan said, digging through his bag and handing her his phone. She quickly put her number in and handed it back.
“See you around!” she said.
“See you!” Dan replied. He made the usual walk back towards his dorm, but he felt a bit lighter than normal this time.
***
After seeing Phil with the other boy in office hours, Dan tried to avoid Phil at his next lab. He managed to escape a tiny bit early while Phil was talking to another student. The next week, he wasn’t so lucky. When he tried to duck out, Phil was already waiting for him outside the classroom.
“I haven’t heard from you in a bit,” he said.
Dan shrugged. “I’ve been busy.” It wasn’t a lie. Most of his classes were completely kicking his ass at the moment, and he still hadn’t started the next MP, which was sure to be a completely new level in the history of ass-kickery.
“Classes are catching up to you?”
Dan nodded.
“You seemed stressed at office hours. I hope MP Zero went okay?”
Dan nodded. “I think I just left it a bit late.”
Phil huffed. “That’s a mood if I’ve ever heard one. I’m the world’s worst procrastinator.”
Dan felt that that title should probably belong to him.
“Anyway, I hope you’re doing okay,” Phil said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The first semester of college can be really rough.”
Dan blinked. Was Phil… worried about him?
“Thanks,” Dan said, his voice coming out startlingly watery.
He hadn’t expected Phil to show… genuine concern for him. Maybe he wasn’t just some dumb freshman Phil had picked up out of pity. Phil seemed to… actually care about him.
Phil nodded. “Let me know if you ever want to talk,” he said softly.
Dan nodded, not trusting his voice.
“See you around,” Phil said, patting Dan’s shoulder and moving past him with a quick, almost embarrassed smile.
“Yeah,” Dan echoed to an empty room. “See you.”
***
Dan was determined not to leave the second MP to the last minute. He started it an entire week before it was due.
He downloaded the starter code and read a bit of the documentation, then decided he deserved a break. He picked up his phone and texted Phil.
i’m bored, he said.
Dan barely put his phone down before he got a reply.
Mood, Phil said.
Dan opened the text. He wasn’t even sure how he would reply, but Phil was already typing again.
Where are you?
Dan glanced around his dorm room. dorm, he sent.
Where’s dorm? Phil asked.
Dan settled back into his pillow of blankets. you know where i live, he replied.
I forgot.
Dan laughed. ur the worst friend, he typed.
Just remind me lol don’t mock me like this
Dan wanted to push it further, but he also wanted to know why Phil wanted to know where he was. walton, remember? he sent.
That’s only ten minutes from where I am rn lol, Phil sent back. Wanna meet up?
Dan only hesitated for about ten seconds this time. sure, wya?
Phil sent him the address of the coffee shop where they first met: The Daily Grind.
Dan responded with a thumbs-up emoji. He shoved his feet into his sneakers and left his dorm faster than he would have thought humanly possible.
It was embarrassing, he reflected, how easy it was to get him to go places Phil would be. Maybe he would go to classes more often if he got someone to text him saying Phil would be there ahead of time.
The walk was supposed to be ten minutes. Dan swore the anticipation made it feel like at least twenty, but according to his watch it was actually seven and a half.
He arrived at the coffee shop only slightly out of breath. He saw Phil almost right away, but had to wait ten minutes in line for his coffee before he was able to slide into the seat across from Phil.
“Hey,” he said.
Phil smiled. “Hey. How’s it going?”
“Okay. I got started on the next MP today.”
Phil’s eyes lit up. “Good!” he said. “Not too hard, I hope?”
“Yeah,” Dan said, deciding to quickly change the subject. “What are you working on?”
Phil frowned at his screen. “Thesis things.”
“Writing?”
Phil shook his head. “No, not yet. Just looking at data.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure,” Phil said, turning his laptop around, “But it probably doesn’t mean much to you.”
It didn’t, but Dan nodded anyway. “Nice,” he said.
Phil shrugged. “It’s not really nice at the moment, but thank you.” He paused. “Did you bring anything to work on?”
Dan had his laptop and most of his notes for his classes, so he could work on those, he supposed, but he didn’t want to. “I was hoping we could just hang out. If you’re not too busy, anyway.”
“I could use a break,” Phil admitted, closing his laptop. “What do you want to talk about?”
Dan thought about it for a moment. “Tell me about your thesis topic,” he eventually said.
Phil started. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” said Dan. “Just make sure to explain it to me like I’m three, because in Computer Science years, I am.”
Phil nodded slowly. “So, I’m studying human-computer interaction. Do you know what that is?”
“No idea,” Dan said, sipping his coffee.
“Well, it’s basically- like, we communicate with computers using a keyboard and mouse. Or a touchscreen if you’re on a phone, or a touchpad if you’re on a laptop, or whatever- you get the idea. And mostly that works okay, but what if there were better ways to communicate with your computer?”
“Are there?”
Phil shrugged. “Well, I like to think that what we have now is better than crawling around inside a computer and reconnecting vacuum tubes like they did seventy years ago or whatever.”
Dan nodded.
“But then when you get to weird, complex stuff like AI, it’s like, we could communicate with this the way we communicate with regular computer programs. But we could also do literally everything in the terminal, and we don’t, partly because it’s a pain in the ass and partly because it makes technology super inaccessible to non-tech people.” Phil paused. “Like, could you imagine scrolling through Instagram by running a program in the terminal and putting in a new command to see each photo, and there was a special command to like or comment or share? That’d be a terrible user experience.”
“I don’t even know how to do anything in the terminal,” Dan confessed. “I think the only time I’ve ever opened it is when someone else did it for me.”
“Exactly!” Phil said. “It’s also really unfriendly to beginners. Like, can you even imagine having to program computers in an era where you’d actually have to program in actual machine code? I would die.”
Dan confirmed that, he, too, would probably die under those circumstances. Or just pick a different major.
“So anyway, to make, for example, things like AI more accessible to people without a PhD, or people without any technology background whatsoever, we need to build user interfaces for those. And those user interfaces might not look anything like computers we’re used to. For example, some people are looking into AIs you can communicate with the same way you’d communicate with another person, or computer programs that are controlled by your brain. I mean, they’re a long way away, but I’m actually doing some research with that.”
“That’s… really cool,” said Dan.
“So yeah,” Phil said, messing with his coffee mug. “It’s way more complicated than that, obviously, but that’s the gist of it.”
“Thanks for telling me,” Dan said.
Phil shrugged. “Thanks for listening. I know it’s not really interesting unless you’re already interested.”
Dan shrugged. “I’m interested in you. So it’s interesting.” He realized the way that sounded when the words were just halfway out of his mouth, and he felt blood rising in his cheeks.
Phil’s cheeks colored. He cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said awkwardly.
Dan tried really, really hard not to die. Luckily, Phil changed the subject. “So, how’s everything else going for you? Like, the not-CS stuff.”
Dan decided not to tell Phil that his life was, in fact, falling apart, and he had no friends. “It’s going okay,” he said. “My classes are honestly really intense, though, I haven’t had much time outside of them.”
“You said you got a start on MP One, though, right? That’s good.”
Dan shrugged. “I cloned the repo.”
“That’s still a start,” Phil encouraged.
Dan shrugged again.
“Feel free to ask for help if you need it. Office hours are basically 24/7, and this time I’m not doing Sunday office hours, so I’ll have some free time then if you want me specifically.”
“I think I’ll be okay,” Dan lied. “But thanks.”
“Yeah, any time,” Phil said, looking down. His phone buzzed and he jumped. “Fuck.”
“What?” Dan asked.
“Sorry,” Phil said. “I have class in fifteen minutes.” He glanced down at his phone. “I mean, it’s just a lecture….” He trailed off.
“No, you should go,” Dan said. “I have class soon too.”
“Yeah,” Phil said, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Sorry. Um, see you soon?”
“Yeah, of course!” Dan said.
Phil hesitated for a bit, leaning towards Dan as if he was going to give him a hug before lurching back again and awkwardly waving goodbye. “Text me,” he said, before leaving.
Dan did, eventually, just not under ideal circumstances. The next week, he sat down to start actually coding for MP1.
He didn’t understand the documentation or the starter code, or what an object was and why it was oriented and programming. In general, as the kids would say, he was not vibing.
He considered texting Helen, but then he remembered how stressed she was before the last MP deadline and thought better of it.
He remembered Phil’s offer to help. He hesitated, but reached for his phone anyway.
i need help, he texted Phil.
Don’t we all, Phil replied nearly instantly. With what?
MP1, Dan said.
We can meet up if you want? Unless your question is pretty basic, then you can just ask now
Even though Phil had offered to help him, a wave of relief crashed through Dan when he realized Phil really meant it. He hesitated. meeting up would be good if you’re not too busy
I’m not! I’m just hanging out at the daily grind all day. Let me know if you want to stop by.
Dan didn’t want to look too desperate for help, but at the same time, he was. i’ll be there soon, he replied. He tossed his laptop and charger into his bag and left the library.
***
“That was fast,” Phil commented when Dan slid into the booth across from him.
“I was nearby,” Dan said.
Phil closed his laptop. “So what do you need help with?” he asked, leaning across the table.
“I think something’s wrong with my constructor,” Dan said.
Phil frowned. “That’s like, half the checkpoint. Can you be more specific?”
“Uhhhh,” Dan said. “So, I think the issue might be that I’m having trouble with the concept of a constructor.”
“Okay,” Phil said. “What part?”
Dan felt his face go red. “All of it?”
Phil sighed. “Can I use your computer?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Phil tilted Dan’s laptop towards him, pulled up a browser and quickly navigated to the course home page, and then the slides for last week’s lecture.
“Here you go,” Phil said, clapping Dan’s shoulder. “Let me know if you have any questions about the notes.”
“Thanks,” Dan said sarcastically. He spent about 15 minutes reading through the slides before switching to watching the lecture videos at two times speed, reaching over to tap Phil on the shoulder and ask questions whenever he reached anything that confused him.
Then, when he finally finished reviewing lectures, he started the MP. It made a bit more sense now. A bit.
After he had written out most of the checkpoint, he ran the test suites, but again, his code wouldn’t compile. It listed a few errors this time, luckily not as many as he had gotten last time he had the missing curly brace. He frowned at his screen, unable to decipher what exactly they meant, before flipping his computer to show Phil and tapping his shoulder.
Phil pulled his headphones off to examine the screen.
“Hang on,” he said. “Are you writing out the entire thing before trying to compile and test it?”
Dan looked up at Phil. “I mean, not the entire thing.”
“But most of it?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“Don’t do that. Run your code literally as often as possible. It makes it easier to tell when you break it. Didn’t they mention that in lecture?”
Dan shrugged. He honestly wasn’t sure what was happening in lecture these days.
“Well, they should have,” Phil said, returning to his coffee. “Anyway, the first two errors are probably telling you you’re missing a semicolon, and it looks like the third doesn’t recognize a variable or method name. Common culprits for that will be typos or forgetting to declare it properly.” He paused to scroll a bit through Dan’s code. “Yeah, just take a look at each error on its own, fix it, try running your code again, and see if it makes it better or worse. And in the future, run your code more often so you’ll generally only have to fix one error at a time.”
Dan groaned.
“Debugging never gets fun, kid.”
Dan wrinkled his nose. “I’m nineteen. Don’t call me kid.” He decided not to comment on the other reason he thought it was weird for Phil to call him kid.
“Sure, kid.” Phil reached over to pat his head. Dan swatted his hand away.
“Oy. Don’t mess up my hair.”
Phil laughed.
“I’m serious. I spend like an hour straightening it every morning. If you mess it up I’ll kill you.”
“Okay, okay,” Phil said, leaning back. He raised his hands in the air. “No hair touchy. See?”
“Good,” Dan said, returning to his work. Occasionally, he stopped to ask Phil questions. Phil was annoyingly unhelpful. He refused to answer half of Dan’s questions, instead redirecting him to google or the documentation.
“It’s my sacred obligation as a tutor,” Phil said. “You’re never supposed to just give people an answer. You have to give them the skills to find the answer themselves.”
“Did you memorize that from a handbook somewhere? That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.”
Phil shook his head, looking hurt. “I wrote the handbook we use to train Course Assistants.”
Dan laughed. “Of course you did.”
Phil looked insulted. “Someone had to.”
Dan relented. “I’m sure it’s a great manual.”
Phil sat back, still pouting slightly. “We didn’t have any training procedures before I took over the program.”
“Thank you for your service,” Dan said.
“You’re welcome,” Phil said. “Now get back to work, kid.”
They fell into comfortable silence. Phil put his headphones back on, and Dan slipped his earbuds in.
He was actually making decent progress when Phil interrupted him by pushing Dan’s computer screen down slightly.
Dan looked up.
“It’s getting late. I think I’m going to go back to my apartment,” Phil said.
“Oh,” Dan said. “Okay.”
Phil started clearing his books of their table, then hesitated. “Want to come with?”
Dan’s heart started to beat faster. “Yeah, sure,” he said, doing his best to sound normal.
“I hope that’s not weird. Sorry, I just get my best work done there, and it’s getting close to dinner- if you don’t mind staying for dinner, anyway, we could also grab something on the way.”
“I’m cool with whatever,” Dan said, starting to pack his things.
“Instant ramen it is!” Phil said. “I also have mac and cheese if you’d prefer that. The college staples.”
“Sure,” Dan said. “It beats dorm food. They’re having meatloaf tonight.”
Phil winced. “Is that as bad as it was at my undergrad?”
Dan shrugged his backpack over his shoulder. “Probably. Meatloaf is bad everywhere.”
Phil laughed. “Don’t tell my mom I laughed at that.”
“Why do moms everywhere think meatloaf is so great?”
“I wish I knew,” Phil said. “Maybe I’d be able to get them to stop making it.”
“The one thing technology can’t do,” Dan mused.
“I promise you there’s a Silicon Valley startup dedicated to that somewhere.”
“Really?” Dan asked.
Phil rolled his eyes. “There are dumb silicon valley startups for almost everything.” He stood up. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” said Dan, following.
“My car is in the shop,” Phil explained. “I hope you don’t mind walking.”
“That’s fine,” said Dan, who would never dream of saying anything even if he did mind.
“It’s not too far, just twenty minutes. I normally walk it, actually, since parking on campus is hell.”
“I walk that far all the time. I still haven’t figured out the bus system,” Dan admitted.
Phil laughed. “Wait until it gets cold. You’ll figure it out soon enough.”
“God, don’t remind me,” Dan mumbled. Phil laughed.
They spent the rest of the walk in comfortable conversation. Phil asked Dan about his family, and Dan asked about his in return. Dan told Phil about his younger brother at home in California and his parents who were so insistent that he get his degree. Phil told Dan about his older brother who already ran his own business, was engaged to his girlfriend, and was only a year and a half older than him.
“It’s kind of hard to measure up to that,” Phil said with a slightly bitter laugh. “I mean, I love Martyn, I really do, but I’ll never be like him.”
“Is it your parents pressuring you about it? Or just yourself?” Dan asked.
Phil shrugged. “Mostly me, I guess. It’s nothing they’ve really done, I just… feel like I’m not what they’re supposed to want. Even if they don’t mind.”
“You’re getting your Master’s degree,” Dan said, “In a subject that will actually get you a job after you graduate. That’s better than a lot of people can say.”
Phil was quiet for a moment. “But I’m me,” he said. “I dropped out of my PhD program and my grades in undergrad sucked and I don’t even know why they let me in here. And my parents want me to hurry up and have babies, and I’m, well, gay.” He shook his head. “Sorry, that’s so dumb. I was joking with that thing I said the other day about my mom, they don’t mind. Literally everyone around me is fine, I’m just… not. I don’t know, I can’t imagine someone not being disappointed in me.”
“No,” Dan said. “I get it.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
Phil cleared his throat. “That was sad.”
Dan laughed. “If you want sad, we can talk about my relationship with my dad.”
Phil shook his head. “That’s okay. Unless you want to.”
“There isn’t much to talk about. He’s just, y’know. Vaguely a homophobe.”
“I’m sorry,” Phil said. Dan could see the pain reflected in Phil’s eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Yeah,” Dan said. “But thanks,” he added more softly.
“Sure,” Phil said.
Dan cleared his throat. “Anyway,” he said, changing the subject, “You mentioned you knew a lot of dumb silicon valley startups?”
Phil laughed. “Luckily, most of the worst ideas never got that far. Mostly, I’m just annoyed about how pushy those people get. I once had a guy try to talk to me about his password manager startup the week before finals while I was in the library trying to study.”
Dan laughed. “Did you let him?”
“That’s the worst part,” Phil said, letting his voice rise to a whine. “I didn’t want to be rude and tell him to go away so I just sat through his entire ten minute pitch. It was awful.”
“Oh no,” Dan said, giggling.
Phil thumped his shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me,” he whined. “It was traumatizing!”
Dan laughed harder.
“Don’t pretend you’d be any different,” Phil reproached.
“You don’t know me,” Dan defended himself. “Maybe I’m secretly super confrontational.”
Phil wrinkled his nose. “Sure, kid.”
“Don’t call me kid,” Dan reproached.
“Sure, child.”
“That’s worse. I will have you know I am a legal adult.”
“Sure you are,” Phil said.
Dan pouted. He didn’t look that young. “I’m not that baby-faced,” he said.
Phil looked skeptical.
“I’m not,” he insisted.
“Sure,” Phil said, smiling. “Anyway, my apartment’s just over here.” He led Dan to a door just a few feet into an alley. He jiggled his key in the lock, pushed his shoulder against the door, and led Dan into in his apartment.
Dan didn’t really know what to expect from a college student’s apartment, but he supposed Phil’s apartment fit the stereotypes. It was small and dimly lit, but mostly clean, with a common area with a sofa and a TV connected to a kitchen and a hallway that Dan assumed led to the bedrooms.
“We can work in my room, if that’s okay,” Phil said. “I don’t want to bother my roommates.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Dan said automatically. Inside, though, he was freaking out. Phil’s room? He was almost 99% certain Phil didn’t mean it like that, but if he did...
Phil must have noticed the look on Dan’s face, because he paused. “Are you sure it’s fine?”
“Yes,” Dan insisted.
“Was it what I said earlier? I was just teasing,” Phil said softly. “You’re not that baby-faced. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”
Dan’s face felt warm. “No, it’s okay. Sorry, I just-”
“You don’t need to apologize if I made you uncomfortable,” Phil said.
“You didn’t,” Dan said.
“You’d tell me if I did, right?”
Dan shrugged helplessly.
Phil shook his head. “I swear to god.”
“I’ll try,” Dan said.
“Good. Now, do you want to go to my room or do you want to stay in the living room?”
“Your room is fine.”
“Okay,” Phil said, leading Dan through his living room, down a hall, and into his room. He immediately dumped his backpack onto a pile of (hopefully) clean laundry. “Sorry it’s a mess,” he said, clearly embarrassed. “I wasn’t expecting to have anyone over today.”
To be honest, Phil’s room was pretty messy, but Dan wasn’t in a position to judge. Living in a single dorm room without his mom to yell at him to pick up his dirty laundry meant things could get pretty bad in his room.
Phil gestured to his bed. “You can sit here if you’d like. There’s also my desk.”
Phil’s desk was buried under mountains of papers, and it looked like there were some stacked on his chair too. There were way too many papers for someone whose main assignments were submitted via GitHub. Dan sat down on the bed.
“Cool,” Phil said. “I’ll be back in a minute, just going to make the ramen. Make yourself at home.”
Dan was tempted to snoop, but he opened up the MP again instead, staring at his code. He was only failing one test suite now, but he couldn’t figure out why. He checked the time. He only had an hour before he had to submit his code.
He frowned, as if glaring at his code would make it suddenly make sense. He thought he might be making progress when Phil’s door opened, interrupting his thoughts.
Phil handed Dan a mug and a spoon. “Sorry,” he said. “All the bowls are dirty.”
“That’s fine,” Dan said, setting aside his laptop. He could take a few minutes to eat.
It seemed like Phil had the same thought process, sitting next to Dan on his bed with his own mug and bowl. They ate quickly in companionable silence, but Phil was the first to finish, downing the last of his broth and setting it on his desk. Dan followed his lead.
Before Phil could get too absorbed in his own work, Dan tapped his shoulder.
“Can you help me with this for a sec?” he asked.
“Sure,” Phil said, looking over Dan’s shoulder. He paused for a moment, head cocked to the side, before speaking again. “That for loop- why does it only go until the length of the array minus one?”
“Because otherwise-” Dan stopped. “Oh. I was trying to avoid an index out of bounds exception, but I guess I didn’t need to do that there.” He was acutely aware of Phil’s shoulder pressed into his back.
Phil shrugged. “Let’s see.”
Dan changed the code and ran the test suite again.
Slowly, the symbols next to each test case turned green.
Dan stared at it, unbelieving.
“Don’t forget to commit and push,” Phil said.
Dan nodded, still in shock, his hands moving to submit his work almost automatically. “It worked,” he said breathlessly. “It worked!”
Phil closed his laptop and set it aside. “Really,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I was right?”
“Literally shut the fuck up,” Dan said, putting his laptop on top of Phil’s and flopping down so he was lying right next to Phil. “You’re so fucking annoying.”
“Really,” Phil said, laughing into Dan’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Dan groaned, and then Phil’s eyes were right there, so close, and then they were even closer, and their lips were touching, and it was nothing and everything like Dan had imagined.
Phil was warm and soft and solid in his mouth, under his hands, beneath his skin. His hands ran over Dan’s chest, dipped under his shirt. Dan gasped.
“You okay?” Phil asked, his normally light eyes dark with concern and something else.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “Yeah, that felt… really nice.”
“Okay,” Phil said, running his hands down Dan’s arms. “We don’t have to-”
“I want to,” Dan said, gripping Phil back. “Please don’t stop.”
“Okay,” Phil said, and he kissed him again, and this time he didn’t stop.
Afterwards, when the heat and grasping hands were done, Dan sat up, but Phil pulled him back down.
“Don’t go,” he said, wrapping his arms around Dan.
So Dan didn’t.
***
Dan’s alarm was blaring. He shifted, mindlessly, reaching for his phone to turn it off.
He fell out of bed. “Ow,” he mumbled, finally getting his phone to shut up.
Phil’s head poked out from his bedsheets. “Dan?” he asked groggily.
“I have a class,” Dan said, pulling his boxers on.
“It’s so early,” Phil said.
“Yeah,” Dan snapped. “That’s how eight am’s work, Phil.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Phil said, sitting up. “Do you need anything?”
“How long does it take to get to the main quad from here?” Dan asked, yanking his shirt over his head.
“Like half an hour? I can walk you-”
“Fuck,” Dan said, looking at his phone (which was at a disturbingly low percentage). “I’m going to be late.”
“You can skip, Dan, I really want to talk to you-”
“No, I can’t,” Dan said harshly. He was tying his shoes now.
“Okay,” Phil said, “But Dan, we really need to-”
Dan left before Phil could finish his sentence.
***
He wasn’t sure if he should have bothered going to class. All he could think about was Phil anyway. The way his hands felt tangled in his hair. The way his mouth felt on his skin. Certainly not definite integrals.
He had classes back to back until his CS 115 lab. He didn’t even have time to go back to his dorm to change, just to scarf down a quick meal in the dining hall. He hoped no one noticed he was wearing yesterday’s clothes, but who even would? It wasn’t like anyone cared enough about him to pay enough attention.
He considered skipping his lab. He never really got anything out of it, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face Phil possibly ever again.
He checked his grade. Well. No chance of missing lab, then.
He slunk in the back of the classroom and chose the closest seat to the door. He tried not to make eye contact with Phil when he walked in. Phil didn’t even seem to notice Dan. He looked disgustingly put together, Dan thought. He had no right to look like everything was fine.
Phil approached his lab table. Dan looked down.
“Dan?” Phil said. “Can I speak with you after class?”
Dan’s face was hot. He continued staring resolutely at the table. “Fine.”
“You and your boyfriend fighting, Howell?” the guy at the end of his lab table mocked.
“That was inappropriate, Nathan,” Phil said.
Nathan just rolled his eyes. Dan’s face got even hotter.
He didn’t finish his lab. At a certain point, he gave up trying. He was useless at coding, and he was even more useless with Phil standing behind him every time he turned around. He scowled, staring at his screen, willing a solution to appear. He was almost grateful when Phil dismissed the class and he could put his laptop away and give up.
He started to head out the door when he heard Phil’s voice.
“Dan,” Phil said.
Dan turned around, rolling his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
Phil blushed. “I hope you didn’t forget about our meeting,” he managed, flustered.
“How could I forget?” Dan asked, sarcasm lacing his voice.
“Dan.” Phil took a deep breath. “I’m trying to give you some leeway right now, given the situation. But that is not an appropriate way to speak to your TA.”
Dan stared at Phil sullenly.
“Okay,” Phil said. “Dan, you’re not doing very well in this class.”
Dan continued staring.
“I’m not here to encourage you to drop the class or anything. Hopefully this is a temporary setback we can work through. There are a lot of resources available to you as a student of this university. We want you to succeed.”
“That’s nice,” Dan said. “Anything else?”
Phil sighed. “Dan, can we talk?”
“About what?”
“I think you know what. You kind of ran off this morning.” Phil took Dan’s silence as encouragement to keep talking. “Dan, I- I shouldn’t have done that. I’m your TA, and you’re my student. That’s bad enough. But Dan, you’re my friend. I wanted to make sure that everything we did last night… that you were okay with it.”
Dan stared at the ground.
“I would never want to hurt you. But you need to tell me if I did.”
“You didn’t,” Dan said.
Phil relaxed slightly. “I’m glad. But I’m still sorry.”
Dan rolled his eyes. “It was that bad, huh?”
“I just meant- Dan, I really like you. But I can’t do this while you’re my student. I’m sorry. I just can’t. Maybe next semester, if we’re both still interested, but right now, I’m just not comfortable with that.”
“Great,” Dan said.
“Really, I’m sorry. I hope we can still be friends.”
Dan’s stomach twisted. “Friends.”
“It’s okay if you can’t do that. It’s okay if you never want to see me again. You can switch lab sections. You can-“
“No,” Dan said. “You’re literally my only friend. I’m not losing you over something as stupid as this.”
“That’s really sweet,” Phil said. “But you really need to get more friends.”
“I know,” Dan said. He did, unfortunately, but knowing he needed more friends didn’t mean it was easy to make them.
“Dan. If we’re going to be friends, I just need you to know I really am sorry. It was my job not to cross any boundaries, not yours, and now I’ve gone and made it all weird.”
“Stop acting like this is all your fault!” Dan exploded. “Stop sitting there fucking apologizing like you did something I didn’t want. I’m nineteen, I knew what I was doing, and if I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have fucking said I wanted it.”
Phil stared at Dan. “Dan, I- look, I’m just saying-”
“Well, stop.”
Phil raised his hands defensively. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Okay then. I guess we’re done. Unless you have anything else you want to say.”
Dan glared at him. “No.”
“Okay. See you next week, unless you decide to switch lab sections.” Phil reached for his coat.
“Wait,” Dan said. “I have a question.”
“About?”
“Computer Science.”
“Okay,” Phil said, stepping closer to Dan.
“Do you like CS?” Dan asked quietly.
Phil sighed. “It’s, well, it’s a love-hate relationship. And to be completely honest, I hate it more than I love it most days. But when I love it, I really love it. And even when I hate it, I really do believe that software has the power to change the world. And I want to be a part of that change.”
Dan nodded, staring at the floor.
Phil moved even closer. “I know a lot of people go into CS for the wrong reasons,” he continued, even more gently. “It sounds cool or the starting salaries are so high or they want the power to reshape the world in their image. And then they get here and it turns out computer science is hard, and frustrating, and time consuming, and sometimes, it’s just not for them. And that’s okay. It doesn’t make them any less valuable to society or less intelligent.”
Dan stared even more intently at the floor, willing himself not to cry.
“Are you thinking of changing majors?” Phil asked.
“I don’t know,” Dan said, and his voice came out disturbingly watery. “What would I even change it too?”
“You can figure that out. It’s okay if you do. It’s not for everyone.”
“No, it’s not,” Dan said. He blinked and suddenly the tears that he had been trying to hold back rushed out. “It’s not,” he repeated, this time through a sob.
“Dan,” Phil said, reaching for him, then closing his fist on thin air. “I’m really sorry.”
“For the last time, Phil. Stop apologizing.”
“I just want you to be happy, Dan. I hate seeing you like this.”
“That must be really fucking hard for you, Phil. Want to tell me more?” Dan couldn’t help the bitter laugh that spilled from his throat.
Phil watched helplessly. “Computer science is hard, Dan. Especially if this is your first class. Computer science is frustrating and confusing and hard and no one’s code ever works right on the first try and if you’ve never had a breakdown over an assignment you either have incredible time management skills or you’ve only been doing CS for like a month or you’re a liar. And I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t suck, but you come out from it a better version of yourself each time. I’m the programmer I am today because of all of the times I’ve failed.”
Dan couldn’t help the waves of anger that rose up sharp and aching in his lungs. “That’s great, Phil, thanks. Thank you so much for being helpful. Really, it’s all going to be fine, because even though I’m fucking miserable, I’ll be a better person at the end of the day.”
“If you’re really that miserable you should drop,” Phil said.
Dan was silent.
“The drop deadline for CS 115 is in a week,” Phil said. “You have time to think about it.”
Dan nodded and wiped at his face.
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked desperately.
“I don’t think so,” Dan said.
They stood in silence for a few more moments before Dan left. “I don’t think we should talk anymore,” he said shakily, before walking out. Dan didn’t look back, and Phil didn’t follow. He went back to his dorm room, where he was finally able to cry again.
***
The actual moment was rather anticlimactic. The form was less than a page, and all he needed to do for it to be official was get his academic advisor to sign it, which wasn’t difficult, considering his grade in CS 115. Then he uploaded it as a PDF to his student portal and his major change was approved two days later.
Dan expected to feel better afterwards. Somehow, even though this had been sitting like a pit in his stomach for months, he just felt worse.
Without CS 115, his schedule felt weirdly empty. He had gaps in his schedule where he used to go to lecture (sometimes), study, work on the MP, and have mental breakdowns.
He left his dorm more often. He paid more attention in his other classes. He even made a few friends from his film class that he studied with sometimes. They even had time to hang out when they weren’t doing homework. One of the girls in the group probably had a crush on him. Dan supposed she was kind of cute. He didn’t know. He didn’t know much of anything lately, including what the fuck his sexuality was and whether or not he wanted to mess with some girl’s feelings in the process of finding out. And that was without even considering whatever the fuck had happened with Phil- if he was ready to move on from that relationship, if it could even be called that.
Dan filled his life with the things college was supposedly supposed to be about. He went to parties. He spent time with friends. He stayed up too late. He experimented with his look, leaving his hair in its natural, curly state instead of straightening it every morning. He wore clothes that weren’t baggy sweatshirts and jeans. He painted his nails. He even started wearing a tiny bit of makeup.
So why did he still feel so empty? It was probably natural after a breakup, or whatever you were supposed to call what had happened between him and Phil.
Dan had no reference for “normal.” He didn’t know what this was supposed to feel like, but he had a hunch that it wasn’t like this.
He stumbled through his days. He made an appointment with his school’s mental health center, but he wouldn’t be able to see a therapist for at least three weeks. Midterms were coming up, the woman on the phone explained, and they always filled up quickly around then. For now, all he could do was wait.
About two weeks later, he got a text from Phil.
You down for coffee today? I know you said you didn’t want to see me which I totally understand but I really miss you and I want to talk some things over.
Dan wasn’t sure how to respond. He wasn’t even sure if he did want to see Phil again.
idk i have a lot of homework
Phil replied almost instantly. You can bring your homework! I have some work to do too
Dan hesitated.
His phone dinged. We can be study buddies lol. It’ll be fun
Again. If you don’t want to come that’s fine. I just wanted to talk
Dan picked up his phone. sure, he typed, sending it before he could regret it.
Alright! 3:00?
sure, Dan sent again.
Perfect! See you then!
And then Dan had nothing to do but wait.
He regretted not asking Phil to meet up with him earlier than three. Now he was just going to spend the next two hours feeling incredibly anxious.
He tried to work on some homework, but he couldn’t focus. He could feel the same feelings he used to have for Phil bubbling up inside of him again, and he did his best to shove them down. Last time they spoke, Phil had said he wanted them to be friends. He had also had sex with him, so Dan felt Phil was sending a few mixed signals, but that wasn’t the point.
Dan wasn’t even sure what he hoped to gain out of a conversation with Phil. Closure, maybe? Some sort of reconciliation?
He certainly wasn’t hoping for a relationship. Was he? He wouldn’t have agreed to meet with Phil if he didn’t at least want to be friends. Probably.
He let himself imagine it. Just for a second.
He shut his laptop, grabbed his keys, and shoved his sneakers on. He needed a walk. He went through the process of leaving his dorm almost automatically, taking the back staircase instead of the elevator so he wouldn’t have to run into anyone else. Once outside, he shoved his hands in his pockets, doing his best to ignore the chill in the air.
He had put on his angstiest short playlist before he left, but when it ended about half an hour into the walk, Dan’s hands were too cold for him to even consider taking them out of his sweatshirt pockets for long enough to select a new playlist, so he just went back to his dorm, collapsing on his bed. He checked his phone. He still had an hour to go. He glanced longingly at his Xbox.
He probably had time for a quick game, he decided, reaching for his controller.
After just under fifty minutes of Skyrim, he felt much better. He rolled out of his bed, and after messing with his hair for a bit in the mirror, he put his thickest sweatshirt back on and left for The Daily Grind.
He spotted Phil almost immediately, staring at his laptop with two coffees sitting in front of him.
Dan approached.
Phil looked up. “I’ve got our drinks,” he said.
“That was fast,” Dan said.
Phil shrugged. “Maybe I got here ten minutes early to make sure you had your coffee when you got here. Who knows?”
“Thanks,” Dan said, sipping his coffee.
“Yeah, of course,” Phil said, and the way he said it made it sound so much like Dan had done him the favor that he almost believed him for a second.
They sat in silence for a while, before Dan spoke. “I submitted my major change form.”
Phil’s face lit up. “Dan, that’s great! What did you decide to change it to?”
“I was thinking something more arts-based. I’m taking a film class this semester and I really like it. I also really like the idea of creative writing. I don’t know.”
“Well, the good thing about most humanities majors is that it’s way easier to pick up a double major or a minor than in engineering. I actually really wanted to minor in English in undergrad, but I just didn’t have the time.”
“Wow,” Dan said. “How didn’t I know that?”
Phil shrugged. “I don’t talk about it a lot. Everyone has dreams that died, I guess. It’s impossible to fit them all into one life.”
“What if I don’t have any dreams?”
“You’ll figure it out,” Phil said with so much confidence that Dan almost believed him.
“I guess,” Dan said.
They were quiet for a few more minutes. “I dropped CS 115 too,” Dan said.
Phil looked up, his smile slowly growing. “I’m that shitty of a TA, huh?”
“I feel bad,” Dan confessed.
“I always felt bad whenever I dropped a class in undergrad,” Phil said. “I can’t imagine dropping out of an entire major.”
Dan focused on his coffee. “You said you liked being a TA because you liked to help students succeed.”
Phil paused. “I did,” he said. “And I do. It’s probably the most rewarding part of my job, and I’m going to miss it a lot after I graduate.”
“Even after watching people like me fail?” Dan asked.
“Dan,” Phil said. “No. You didn’t fail. You realized a subject wasn’t for you. That’s incredibly different.”
Dan shrugged. He didn’t really want to get into an argument with Phil, but he still felt like a failure, and he wasn’t sure anything could change that.
Phil sighed and changed the subject. “So how have things been going for you?”
Dan filled Phil in on the changes in his life, and Phil talked a bit about what had been going on in his. They avoided any difficult topics, choosing to stick with idle chitchat instead, but the pit in Dan’s stomach was growing.
There were some things he needed to ask. He gathered his courage. “Are you doing anything today?”
Phil looked slightly surprised, but he just shrugged. “Depends why you ask.”
“I’d like to hang out some more. If that’s okay.”
Phil blinked. “Hang out… why?”
Dan shrugged. “You’re really cool and I’d like to be friends with you.”
Phil looked disappointed. “That’s all?”
“Well.” Dan took a deep breath and looked at Phil’s eyes, studied their not-quite-familiar composition of blue and yellow and gold. “Maybe more. If you’d like.”
Phil reached across the table to take Dan’s hand. “I think I would.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a few more moments before Dan spoke. “You know, it’s getting cold out.”
Phil smiled. “It is. You still need that jacket?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Want to head to my place then? You can grab it there, and we can… hang out. Do whatever you want.”
Dan smiled. “Sure.”
Dan left Phil’s apartment the next morning. He forgot Phil’s jacket.
Oh well. He’d just have to come back.
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