They were filming a Smosh Game Bang when Ian noticed it.
It was subtle, unobtrusive and subliminal, yet not hidden.
Matt (Sohinki) had just narrowly lost a match of HALO, Anthony having snuck up behind his character and ganked him at the last possible second. Matt had been furious, and in the process of throwing his controller on the ground, (afterwards turning to exchange sharp words with his dark-haired friend), Ian had caught a glimpse of it, the sleeves on Matt's sweater bunching up just enough for him to see it.
A simple, gold ring.
Ian hadn't said anything - he didn't know what to say, honestly. It probably wasn't a big deal. At least that was what he told himself. At first.
They had filmed the Game Bang (Joven and Lasercorn being the losers in the end, and thus having to endure nerf gun shots to the face), and everyone had finished up and gone back to working, with the exception of Mari, leaving with a smile and a promise to bring back something to eat.
After idle chatter had died down the Smosh Games HQ had taken on the familiar sound of total silence, with the exception of the tap-tap-tapping of keyboard keys and the occasional mouse click that seemed to echo in the room.
Ian glanced up from his computer, temporarily abandoning the script for the new video he was in the process writing, and found his eyes lazily wandering over to Matt.
And that's when he saw it again, after observing the image of Matt focusing intensely on his computer screen, his long fingers tapping on the keyboard, his headset snug on his head.
The glint of reflective metal that caught his eye.
The ring.
Thinking back to his original hypothesis - he realized that he was probably wrong about his first assumption.
Matt wasn't exactly the "fashionable" type, like Anthony. Not to say that he didn't take pride in his appearance, but Ian could never imagine him shopping for accessories or wearing anything that wasn't practical.
Maybe, and this thought caught even him by surprise, maybe he was... engaged?
That seemed to be the only possible reason.
Ian chuckled to himself.
He and Matt were good friends, and he'd like to imagine that, if Matt had done something as big as getting engaged, he would have told him.
Matt... enagaged?
He shook his head, slightly, smiling and dismissing the notion.
Nah, he was probably over thinking, like Anthony always said he tended to do.
His thoughts drifted slowly from Matt to Anthony, who was sat at his desk, scribbling and writing on some papers.
Editing the final drafts of the script, Ian realized
He had a look of intense concentration on his face, the look Ian only sees when he's doing something like this, like writing or editing a video.
A look so rare on his normally grinning persona that it almost seemed out of place.
It struck him, suddenly, and, seemingly out of nowhere.
The familiar overwhelming feeling of pride, swelling up inside his chest.
Pride for all the things that he and Anthony had managed to accomplish together, for all the things that they'd done, for the legacy they'd built and all the lives that they'd changed.
Although he was, technically, three months younger than his best friend, he couldn't help but get the feeling that Anthony was... well... all grown up now.
They'd come so far. From young sixth graders working on a class project to the adults in charge of...well... all of this.
They'd done so much more than grow up together - they'd built something together, the two of them - two unusually immature adults versus the world.
Yet, somehow, whenever Anthony would look at Ian, look at him with those brown eyes, all he'd see was the scrawny, long-haired teenager with a crooked smile and a dream.
Ian blinked, realizing he'd been spaced out, staring at Anthony.
He focused his vision again and quickly came to with a start, realizing that Anthony had been also watching him all this time.
He met those brown eyes, those brown eyes that he'd grown to know so well, and smiled.
Anthony smiled back at the blue-eyed man, his eyes lighting up with something that was familiar and foreign at the same time.
Time stopped and they just sat their, brown eyes gazing into blue, for what was probably a couple of seconds but felt like a couple of hours, before returning back to their respective jobs.
Ian dropped his gaze first, knowing all to well how easy it was to get hopelessly entangled in those brown emeralds.
And then they both looked away and time started again.
After a couple of hours Ian saw a figure, Anthony, stand up and stretch, picking up car keys on his own respective desk. He caught Ian's gaze again, raising and eyebrow and motioning slightly towards the doorway with his head.
Ian took this as his cue to leave.
He saved the file on his computer (he was now nearly complete with his script), and shuffled out of the room behind Anthony, mumbling a quick goodbye to his coworkers, who responded with nods and "See ya's" (from Joven).
As Ian stepped out into the hallway, chatting to Anthony about something or other (with Anthony he could never really recall - he always found himself distracted, watching his cherry lips moving rather than paying attention to the actual words that came out of them), and was thus caught offguard when he nearly ran into someone, narrowly missing a collision with a tall, dark man, his Phone flying out of hands and landing with a distressing metallic "plomp" sound on the ground.
"Woah! I'm sorry Flitz, I didn't see you there." Ian apologized, steadying himself against a wall.
Flitz let out a light laugh and adjusted his X Men baseball cap, "No, you're good - I think it was my bad."
They mumbled a somewhat awkward apology to one another and Ian was about to take his leave when he noticed his phone, on the floor near Flitz.
Flitz, noticing this, mumbled nonchalantly, "I got it.", and bent down to pick up the phone.
As he did, something on his hand reflected brightly, for a split second, off of the overhead fluorescent lighting.
Ian realized what it was with a start.
It was a ring. A gold ring.
The same gold ring he's seen Matt wearing earlier.
So, did that mean... wait.
Amra and Matt... Flitz and Sohinki...
No. There was no way, no possible way... except...
Except that this was the only possible explanation.
Ian came to this realization with a start, like a bolt of lightning shooting all the way from his head to his toes.
He looked at Flitz, holding out his phone and smiling, brown eyes bright behind his large glasses, like they always were.
Flitz and Sohinki, huh?
Surprisingly, this kind of explained a lot.
It... it actually kind of made sense, he caught himself thinking.
All those things that he'd caught wind of but promptly disregarded.
Smiles that lasted a little too long and gazes that were a little too intense. Hushed conversation and simple offhanded comments that seemed to make sense now.
Huh.
Interesting.
Ian quickly got his phone back and thanked Flitz, who replied with a smile and a half-nod before disappearing into the main room.
He then got in the elevator alone, enjoying the cold feeling of the steel button as he selected his floor number, and knowing Anthony would wait for him by the car before he left.
He enjoyed the feeling of temporary weightlessness as the elevator zoomed down, a robotic voice then announcing that he had arrived at the correct floor.
Stepping out of the elevator and into the lobby, he catches a glance of tanned skin and melted chocolate eyes. Anthony stood, on his phone, by the elevator, not even realizing that he'd arrived.
And he had the oddest thought. Well, not the oddest perhaps (he did have something of a wild imagination). A thought that popped in, uninvited, into his brain.
He remembered when Anthony was engaged, when he'd had a ring on his, now bare, finger.
Looking at Anthony, taking in all of him, he had the strangest what could only be called "vision" or "daydream".
He pictured, if only for a second, an outline of shiny gold, reflecting, on the ring finger of his taller counterpart.
Like a piece of sunlight wrapped around his finger.
But then he blinked and the reflection was gone, dissipated as easily as a ray of sunlight.
He smiled and exhaled, all the air leaving his body in a sudden whoosh, before breathing again. "Hey."
Anthony looked up quickly from his phone, his eyes smiling as soon as they met the blue ones before him. "Hey."
And time stopped and they smiled at each other.