Chapter Text
“Hey, it’s good to see you! Again. How’ve you been?” Noé sat cross-legged on the lumpy patch of grass across from his best friend.
...
“Sorry to bother you two days in a row. I have some pretty cool news that I wanted to tell you. Guess what!”
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“I started going to therapy!” He gave an awkward thumbs-up, pausing for a moment. “Domi finally convinced me to schedule an appointment, and I saw her for the first time today. Neat, huh?”
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Despite no response, he continued, putting on a smile. “Most of the session was spent talking about my history. I get that it’s necessary, but I was kind of bored. But something weird happened. Even though she just met me, she said that I should look into making new friends.”
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He tapped his fingers anxiously against his leg, still wearing a smile. “It’s not just me, right? That’s weird to you too?”
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“I don’t know about you, but I thought it was a little presumptuous. Assuming I have no friends, all because my best friend doesn’t talk to me anymore? I mean, what about my coworkers and roommates? And my classmates and the people at the library? And what about Domi?”
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Noé paused to count. “Roommates, coworkers, Domi– see, that’s already like, nine people. And that’s not even including my friends at the library from last semester. I have plenty of friends. She also mentioned that it seems like I have a hard time making friends. I don’t think it was intended to be offensive, but I’m not sure. What do you think?”
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Silence. The corners of his lips felt too heavy to continue smiling. He couldn’t keep pretending. “If you’re tired of me, you can just say so. I won’t know unless you tell me. That’s always been the case.” His voice faltered. “Or, you know, you could talk about yourself. Remember when we were kids? How we used to stay up to talk for hours?”
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“Remember how Teacher would get on our cases for pulling all-nighters? We never ran out of things to say.” The air was heavy around him. “We could tell each other anything back then. So why are you so quiet now?”
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More silence. Noé’s heart ached in his chest. "Remember the good old days before… before we knew we had targets on our backs?” His vision became blurry with tears, looking at the piece of granite in the ground in front of him. “Hey, Louis, come on. This isn’t fair. You know you can talk to me. You’ve always been able to talk to me. You know that, right?”
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A single raindrop fell onto his head. “I mean, I guess you didn’t know that, huh? Not when it came to… bigger things. That’s why you’re in the ground instead of out here with me, right?” He couldn’t hold back anymore. With his head in his hands, he wept as silently as his dead friend’s responses.
…Yikes, maybe I do need to make some friends.
The moment it started pouring, Noé’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was his landlord.
[Hey so Roland should have talked to you about this already but in case he forgot, you’re getting a new roommate.]
Huh. Roland, in fact, did not tell him about it. This was the first he’d heard.
[Oh. Is Jean-Jacques’ girlfriend officially moving into his room?]
The reply ruined Noé’s day as quickly as he read it.
[Of course he forgot to tell you. He’s moving into your room.]
Olivier often joked about keeping Roland on a leash. As much as Noé liked both of them, he couldn’t help but think that might actually be necessary. What do you mean he forgot to tell me something that important? He couldn’t move for a good minute or so until Olivier texted again.
[Sorry.]
There’s a little over a week before the fall semester starts. Maybe there’s still time to reorganize the room.
[How many days until he moves in?]
The reply took a lot longer to send than it took to type.
[Tomorrow. Roland left a box by your door.]
Tomorrow? What box?
Another text.
[At least rent will be cheaper with the two of you, right? I’ll message you later about pricing once we figure things out.]
There wasn’t time to be upset about it. The only thing Noé could do was hurry.
Since leaving the cemetery, every single thing must have gone wrong. He tripped over an uneven patch of grass around Louis’ headstone. The rain only got heavier. He spent his last quarter getting onto the bus. And the bus seemed slower than ever. Simply the worst.
By the time Noé got home, there wasn’t much daylight left. As promised, there was a huge, person-sized box next to the door. He nearly dropped it, not expecting it to be so heavy. Dang, is this a whole bed or something? When he opened the door, he was greeted with an oddly placed twin-sized mattress in the middle of the living room …Geez, it is a bed. He wondered why the box wasn’t put with the mattress, but he figured the mattress was delivered separately. That, or maybe Roland was purposely trying to make things difficult? No, he wouldn’t do that. He’s one of the ones that are usually nice to me. But either way, this whole situation was incredibly frustrating.
Noé crossed his arms while looking disapprovingly at the mattress and box he had dragged to his room.
Great. Not only do I have to redo my entire room, I also have to set up a bed. All before the new guy gets here tomorrow. What a joke. He worked well into the night and morning to clear a space for his new roommate.
Noé finished around 8am after twelve hours of mostly uninterrupted anxiety, but he did feel better. Partially because he bought himself a donut from the gas station nearby as a reward for doing the impossible. Even he was impressed with how much he had gotten done in that amount of time with no notice.
Once the room was complete, Noé laid back on his bed with a soft thump. His brows were furrowed and he wore a pretty severe pout, although the severity of it was subconscious. But really, with everything that happened that day, how could he not be upset?
He turned to Murr, who was resting on his own bed next to Noé’s. “What did I do so wrong, that Roland and Olivier would exclude me from this until the last minute? Do you think it’s personal, Murr?”
Upon hearing his name, Murr opened one eye to peek at Noé, then closed it, uninterested. Noé often ranted to him like a gossipy teenage girl that recently got her first real phone, so it was likely that he had learned to tune out the sounds by now.
Noé sighed. “I can’t think of any reason they’d have animosity towards me. I’ve gone over my last in-person interactions with both of them. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what I could have done to upset either of them. I wish they would just tell me if they’re mad at me.”
Maybe I should ask the therapist how to read people who refuse to communicate. That might be more “helpful” than working with this stupid grief I’ve already gotten over.
He stopped himself, remembering the presumptuous remark the therapist suggested at their visit.
“It may be difficult, but you should try to focus on friend-making to help you through your grief.”
Thinking about it some more, he came to the conclusion that asking for help with that would prove her right, and he did not like that idea.
“Difficult? Tch, I’m plenty good at that. Making friends, maintaining relationships, reading cues – I’ve worked so hard to get as good as I am!” At that moment, it didn’t occur to him that, despite claiming he was good at being social, he was ranting to a cat. So he continued, “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
As the rain finally stopped pouring outside, Noé thought of an idea to prove his therapist wrong. The new roommate could present a great opportunity. Noé’s mood instantly brightened as he plotted.
“Murr! This is going to be great!” As the sun peeked through the clouds outside and spilled into the window, he committed himself to making friends with whoever this new roommate would be. “I’ll have one more friend by the end of the school year! That’ll show her!”
But he didn’t expect it to be so messy.