The next morning, Dan awoke to find himself slumped against the wall in his hallway, his phone beeping loudly and streaks of light streaming in from above the door. He squinted in the light as he picked up his phone and answered.
"Hello?" There was no reply but Dan could hear someone sigh on the other end. "Hello?" He repeated.
"Dan?" It was Phil, his voice was groggy and he sounded very tired.
"Oh my god, Phil! Are you okay? Where are you?"
"Why did you kiss me?"
"You wanted to know what was wrong." He heard phil laugh a little at this.
"I got your voicemail." His voice seemed to go a little strange when he said this, but only for a moment.
"Oh?"
"I'm bringing home Chinese food for dinner so don't make any plans." The line went dead and Dan sighed. He stood up and walked back up the stairs to make himself some breakfast in the kitchen, before making his way to the living room and sitting down on the sofa with his laptop. However, he just stared blankly at the screen as he was lost in his own thoughts, which were all hounded by Phil. It was mostly things like 'Why did you do it Dan?' and 'What where you thinking?'.
The day passed painfully slowly as Dan just moped around the empty house, feeling lonely, with only his harsh, destructive thoughts for company. A little after seven, he was watching television in the living room when he heard the door open next to him, unaware that Phil had let himself into the house a few moments earlier.
"Hi." He heard Phil say from next to him, his voice was low and quiet and almost sounded mournful but Dan refused to meet his gaze and stayed silent. "I brought a takeaway, as promised." At that, Dan allowed himself to glance down at the bags Phil was holding.
"You can sit down if you want." He replied after a moment. Phil did as he was told and sat on the sofa, putting the bags on the coffee table before them. He began unpacking the boxes and left to get some plates from the kitchen, leaving Dan on his own again. He continued to stare at the screen while Phil was out of the room, internally panicking. 'What will I do? How should I act? I mean, last time he reacted really badly but I think we need to talk about it. If we do talk about it 'tho, I-' .
"Dan?" He heard Phil's voice say all of a sudden, startling him slightly. He didn't look at Phil because he had accidentally let his eyes fill with tears and he couldn't let Phil see. "I'm not gonna ask what's wrong because..." His voice trailed off and he sat down again on the sofa, quite near to Dan.
"I think we need to talk about last night, Phil." Dan said and Phil was clearly taken aback by this suggestion.
"What is there to talk about?" Dan stayed silent, surprised and saddened by his slightly aggressive reaction. "Well?"
"I'm not gonna just sweep it under the rug."
"Well then you decide what we should do! After all, you were the one that did it." He looked away when he heard this as he felt himself welling up and tears filled his eyes again but he heard Phil sigh in dismay shortly after. "I'm sorry, that was unnecessary... I want to be here for you to help but you have to tell me what's going on, Dan." He felt a pressure on his shoulder and realised that phil had placed his hand reassuringly on it.
"Well...no, nothing's going on, I was just messing about, that's all." He said and pushed Phil's hand away, still looking in the other direction.
"What?" He heard that Phil's voice was a little strange when he said this, perhaps even hurt- but he knew he couldn't let his imagination deceive him.
"I was just messing about, just a big joke...how were my acting skills then?"
"What about your message?" There was definitely a hurt tone in his voice then, even if he was trying to hide it.
"It was nothing."