I knock on Ness's door. We just came from a little date, but he suddenly ran off. I know he's here, he has no other place to go. Ness soon opens the door and shows his distressed face. I tilt my head. He's never looked so down before. Even after his dad left, he still didn't look this stressed. Ness sighs and turns into the house. "Hey Lucas," Ness says. He walks in and plops down on his couch. I hesitate a bit. Ness usually doesn't like it when I come unannounced. He says it's because he needs to clean, but I feel like it's because he's always naked and needs to get clothes on. Despite Ness's normal reaction, I walk in. I sit down next to Ness and look at him.
"Ness, is everything alright?" Ness groans loudly. I don't know where that came from. Maybe he got possessed for a little bit. "Um, I'm assuming that's a no." Ness looks at me with a defeated look in his eyes.
"I'm just...I'm just confused." I slide closer to him, nearly connecting our laps together.
"About what?"
"About me. I've been feeling…..odd feelings.
"Oh? I think it's just a tapeworm," I laugh. Ness gives me a stern look. This look kind of scares me. Ness is never serious. He's never shown this look to me. Ness looks down at his lap and opens his mouth to say something, but seems to forget it midway through. He shakes his head.
"Shit," he says, his voice sounding more annoyed than distressed.
"CUT!" our play director calls out. We look at where the couches are facing and see our director. She's looking rather annoyed. Truth is, Ness has been stumbling on this line since we started this play. Ness can never say the lines "the feelings are about you." I don't see the problem. Ness shoots up. Our director-named Zelda-annoyingly looks at Ness. "Is it that hard to remember the line."
"It's not that, it's just." Zelda's right-hand man, and our good friend, Young Link, runs over. He gives Ness a sympathetic look before looking at Zelda.
"Don't you think this is a bit much? You are asking two straight boys to confess their love for each other," Young Link tries to convince Zelda. Did he already forget? I thought I told him about me a while ago, but maybe it didn't stick in his one-minded head. I just clear my throat. "Oh, I mean, how're you gonna ask one straight boy and one fuck boy to confess their love for each other." Dick. I am no fuckboy. I just so happen to post videos on Tik Tok making sexual faces...damn it. What's the point of getting a sweet ass haircut if I can't show it to people...with a sexy face of course.
"This is the last scene we need to make. This movie is due to the school by Friday. Do you know what today's day is?" Zelda asks, with eyes that look very menacing. I'm lucky I ain't Ness. Ness looks down.
"Wednesday," Ness says with a defeated voice.
"That's right. So you better get your shit together by tomorrow, or we're all fucked." Zelda storms off. I don't get why she's still able to work here when she talks like that. Sure, she turns normal plays into large movies, but she's a rude ass bitch. She could be a little more sympathetic to Ness. He did just go through a break-up.
Young Link runs onto the set. I stand up and we meet each other at Ness's side. "You doing alright?" I ask him. This movie is easier for me, but I can't imagine being him. Ness shakes his head. He looks up at Young Link.
"Can you do anything?" Ness asks.
"I'll try, but I can't promise anything," Young Link says. Zelda, who's still in this room, clears her throat for Young Link to follow her. This room is a room most schools don't have. This room is made just for Zelda's play movies. She turns a play that's been shown previously, into a movie for people to compare and contrast. One of the things people hate is the fact she uses completely different actors from the play. But they don't understand; just because you can act in a play, doesn't mean you can act in a movie.
Zelda and Young Link soon leave the room, leaving Ness and me alone. I jump off the set and sit in the chair that Zelda sits in when overlooking the movie. I see that Ness is still just standing on the set, surely feeling bad for himself. "Ness...why don't you practice right now?" I ask. Ness looks up confused. I find one of those black card things to determine which try we are on with a certain scene. I sit back and see Ness has a little smile. He backs up and sits on the couch. "Let's first have you say the line." Ness nods. I lift the top of the card up and slam it down, making a loud clapping noise. Ness opens his mouth but seems to be unable to say anything. This isn't as simple as him forgetting the line, there's something more. I drop the card and run to the set. "Ness, let me buy you some lunch 'K?" Ness quickly beams at this. He jumps from the couch and then off of the set. I chuckle before leading Ness out of the room.
It doesn't take us too long to get to the buffet. This buffet is Ness's favorite place to eat. He loves the steak from this place, I personally like the omelet. The chef is the dad of two of our friends, being Nana and Popo. They are rarely seen here, but Ness and I have specialty seats we're seen so much here. Ness and I sit in those seats. The seats are booths in the corner of the dining room. Next to the booths and table is a large window that looks at the building next door. It's not the best sight, but I have Ness for that. When I turn to look at Ness I see that he's just staring at me. I tilt my head.
"Ness?" I ask.
"Why do you always bring me here?" he asks.
"Um, isn't this place your favorite?" Have I been wrong this entire time? Is this not his favorite place? I don't want to let him down, I don't want him to hate me.
"It is…" Damn it. I just need to stop thinking ahead. "But, sometimes I think you take me here for another reason." I sit back, crossing my arms and thinking. What does he mean by that? An ulterior motive? I just want Ness to be happy. I care about him and I hate to see him so down.
"I don't think there's another reason," I force myself to say. Ness raises an eyebrow but then stands up.
"Welp, I'll get us our food." I look up at him. He's not the best with money, and I'd hate it if he lost all of it.
"You don't have to—"
"Lucas...You're paying for us, the least I can do is get us the food." I just nod, which seems to please him. He walks off, leaving me to myself. I don't stay in the silence for long, since my phone buzzes. I bring it out to see that it's Claus, he's texting me. He never texts me, I wonder what he wants.
Me: What do you want?
Claus: I am hurt that you think I'd use you.
Me: You want money, don't you?
Claus: Yes.
Me: There's a twenty by the picture of me and Ness.
Claus: Ahh, the one you jack off to. The twenty better not be sticky.
Me: What're you talking about?
Claus: You're telling me you don't like him?
Me: I don't. He's my best friend.
Claus: Where are you now?
Lucas: Huh. Oh, I'm at the buffet.
Claus: Right, with Ness?
Lucas: ...yea.
Claus: I rest my case.
I roll my eyes and turn the phone off. I don't like Ness like that, he's just my friend. Why am I acting like the character I am in the movie? I slam my head into the table and instantly regret it. Despite the regret, I don't move my head. The image of Ness comes into my head and it brings a smile to my face. It always happens like that. Whenever I think about him, I smile. He's my friend, but…
"Yo, you alright?" Ness asks. I shoot my head up to see Ness holding two plates, one in each hand. I fake a nod then Ness slides a large blue plate to me as he places his red plate by him. I look at what I have, and it's everything I love. It's a cheese omelet with chives, some good ole French Fries, some spicy fried chicken, then a small apple tart. I look up at him.
"You know me so well." Ness gives me an admittedly cute wink. Cute…?
"Well, only the best for you." On Ness's plate seems to just be a large steak and some cheese fries. He starts chowing down into his steak. A question doesn't pop into my head until I bite down on my omelet.
"Hey? Why can't you say that line?" Ness places his fork down and swallows his piece of steak. He sighs before looking up at me.
"It's 'cause you're my friend Luke, wouldn't you feel kind of weird?" I shake my head. I've never felt weird when making the movie. Even when Ness and I would get all lovey-dovey. We've even had to "kiss" if you want to call it that. Ness was able to do those things relatively easily. Then again, the more love-Dovey stuff was all filmed first, and then we tried to get this one scene completed. Maybe Zelda asked him to do too much, that kiss might've been the breaking point.
"I never felt weird when acting those scenes out." Ness looks down with a chuckle. He weakly grabs his fork and stabs it into the steak.
"I wish I was like you." Man, he sounds so defeated. It's not like anyone's holding expectations about him. No one, but those involved in the making of the movie, knows about us in the movie. Yet, it seems he's feeling so much pressure. That's when an idea pops into my head. We can practice at home, with no camera or lights on us.
"Ness?" Ness looks up, having put another piece of steak in his mouth. He swallows it without much chewing.
"Yup?"
"Wanna practice at my house, we could do it in private."
"SURE!" Ness yells. He's more excited than I thought he'd be. Ness seems to realize that and clears his throat. "I-I mean, sure." I just look at him and see a small blush growing in his cheeks, it's kind of cute.
After finishing the food we start our way to my house. It doesn't take us long since I live rather close to the buffet. We enter the house and I instantly see Ninten on the couch. He has a metal bowl full of M&Ms, his feet on the glass coffee table, and watching Spongebob. He doesn't have the healthiest of habits. That bowl of M&Ms never seems to empty out, almost like he has an infinite supply of it. Claus simply holds up his hand to greet us. He's not paying us any mind. Ness closes the door and looks at me. I know what he's thinking. We need to do it in private, so we need to kick Claus to the curb. I walk to the tv and switch it off. I turn to Claus who's already pissed off. "The hell dude, I'm trying to see if Spongebob taps Sandy's cheeks," Claus annoyingly says. He's so immature, sometimes I'm confused as to how we're twins.
"You're watching Spongebob, there will be no tapping of cheeks today," I say. Claus looks over at Ness, who's still standing at the front door. Claus chuckles. He turns back to me with his annoyingly lewd look on his face.
"You sure?" I aggressively point to the front door as Ness reopens it. Claus groans. "Fine fine." He stands up. "But I'm taking my M&Ms," he says as he snatches his bowl of M&Ms as if someone was trying to snatch it away. Claus walks over to the open door, but before leaving he looks at Ness, who's still holding the door open. "You better not give my brother an STD."
"What if I do?" Ness asks. Claus just stands there. He stays quiet...and I'm worried. He's rarely this quiet, but it's usually a blessing when it occurs. Without saying anything else, he just walks out. As he walked out I was able to catch a glimpse of his face, and man did he look confused and worried. Ness closes the door and walks over to the couch. I go to sit next to him. As I sit down, Ness brings out a few M&Ms out of his pocket. "I stole a few," Ness winks. He sounds so triumphant. He hands me three. I just plop all three in my mouth.
"You're such a criminal." Ness chows down on his few. He turns to me.
"What're you gonna do, lock me up?" Ness says in a strangely lewd voice. His eyes also resemble what his voice would look like. I should probably just go with it.
"Don't drop the soap," I wink. This is when Ness comes close to me. He even starts to hover over me, putting his hands on my chest to keep himself balanced. I move my head back to prevent both of our heads from colliding. Ness's lewd face only seems to grow.
"What if I do?" he asks.
"What…" Ness seems to quickly realize what he just said and backs up quickly. He clears his throat nervously.
"I-I mean...um. S-sorry." It takes me a minute to recover from what Ness suddenly did, but when I do I just rub my neck.
"It's alright." There's a long few minutes of silence. Neither one of us wants to say something that the other doesn't like, but why? Why do I suddenly care about what Ness thinks of me? Now that I think about it, I kind of liked it when Ness was on top of me. Despite me moving my head back...there was something about it I liked.
"So…" We both say at the same time.
"Go ahead," Ness says. What did I want to ask him? I don't really know honestly. Wait, we're here for a reason, we've gotta do that. I look at Ness, he's clearly uncomfortable. Why are we both like this?
"Um, so wanna practice?"
"...yea." It doesn't sound like that's what Ness was wanting, but we don't exactly have much time. He needs to get this by tomorrow or we're dead.
"..." Why can't I say anything? I didn't forget the line, did I? No, of course not it's, Oh? I think it's just a tapeworm. But, why can't I say it?
"Umm, Lucas?" Crap. I've gotta say it to him. He needs to hear the line.
"..." DAMN IT. Why can't I...it's Ness. I can't stop thinking about him. Ness is my friend, that's all. So why, why can't I get him out of my mind. There's no way what Claus said was true, he's an idiot. I'm able to force my head to turn to Ness, who looks concerned. "I-I can't." Ness slouches back on the couch and looks at the blank tv.
"Great, now we're screwed." I sit back. We look at the tv, despite the screen being off, we seem to be attached to it. Maybe it's because of our reflections on the tv. Do I like Ness? That can't be. This feels too much like some type of shitty Fanfiction, why do I feel something about Ness so suddenly? I look down at my hands.
"Ness?" Ness stays silent for a bit. "Ness?"
"...yea?"
"Do you think...Do you think we can't say our lines for the same reason?"
"..." I look back at the tv. I can see that Ness is looking down, surely thinking about something similar to me.
"Ness?"
"What reason do you propose?" Ness looks at the screen. I'm looking at his reflection, which makes it look like Ness is looking at my reflection.
"Could we be feeling the same thing our characters do?" We stay silent some more, but this one is due to our thoughts. Despite the silence, we never take our eyes away from our reflections, neither of us seeming to be able to look at the other in person.
"...If...If I do...what would you say?" What would I say? What would I say? Yes? No, I can't. He's my best friend...but then, why do I feel these feelings. This isn't who I expected my first love to be. Is this how it feels, or am I just sick? I might need to pop some pills, I hope Dr. Mario has extra.
"I'd say I feel the same." WHAT. I didn't want to say that. I wasn't ready, why'd I say that. Shit, fuck. How do I recover? Maybe just say it's a prank bro? No, that'll just piss him off. Due to looking at Ness's reflection, I see that Ness turns to face the real me. CRAP. He's looking at me, how do I ditch? Boney ate my homework? NO, you idiot, what do I—
"Lucas?" Fuck. I shakily turn my head to face Ness's surprised one. Oh Jesus, here we go.
"Yea?" Ness instantly pulls me into a hug. A hug? A HUG? Ness hates hugs. Maybe he's testing me. Why do I like it? Why do I want more? ARGHHH!
"...'Cause I do." What.
"What?" Ness breaks the hug up and looks at me.
"I dunno, Luke. I'm still trying to figure things out. Can you help me?" God, why do you have to look at me with that innocent face? Can't you see I'm still trying to figure things out? But...he's my best friend...and my crush. I have to help him.
"Of course," I say, grabbing his hands. I start rubbing his hands with my thumbs. This seems to cheer him up. "We'll figure this out, together." Ness smiles. It's so relieving to see this. I did something right.
The next day comes. After school, Ness and I run over to the recording room to hopefully finish recording the last scene so it can quickly be edited into the movie. We hesitate at the door, but when I look at Ness's face, I see determination. He not only needs to do this, but he also wants to. We walk in. "YOU'RE LATE!" Zelda screams at the top of her lungs. Despite sitting quite far away in her director's chair, her voice reaches over to the door in the corner. This screaming instantly makes me more worried about Ness. I look back up at him, expecting him to lose his determination, but he doesn't. He looks just as determined as he did before. He's really trying hard. I can't be caught slacking.
"Sorry," Ness directly says. He rushes me onto the set. We get into position. Young Link, the cameraman, holds up all five fingers...even though his thumb isn't—this isn't the time for that. He moves down to four, then three, then two. Ok, this is it. We can't screw it up. We didn't end up practicing much yesterday, but we did help each other. Young Link puts one finger up, then none. It's time.
I knock on Ness's door. We just came from a little date, but he suddenly ran off. I know he's here, he has no other place to go. Ness soon opens the door and shows his distressed face. I tilt my head. He's never looked so down before. Even after his dad left, he still didn't look this stressed. Ness sighs and turns into the house. "Hey Lucas," Ness says. He walks in and plops down on his couch. I hesitate a bit. Ness usually doesn't like it when I come unannounced. He says it's because he needs to clean, but I feel like it's because he's always naked and needs to get clothes on. Despite Ness's normal reaction, I walk in. I sit down next to Ness and look at him.
"Ness, is everything alright?" Ness groans loudly. I don't know where that came from. Maybe he got possessed for a little bit. "Um, I'm assuming that's a no." Ness looks at me with a defeated look in his eyes.
"I'm just...I'm just confused." I slide closer to him, nearly connecting our laps together.
"About what?"
"About me. I've been feeling…..odd feelings.
"Oh? I think it's just a tapeworm," I laugh. Ness gives me a stern look. This look kind of scares me. Ness is never serious. He's never shown this look to me. Ness looks down at his lap and opens his mouth to say something.
"The feelings...are about you." He did it.
"M-me?" Ness looks up at me. His once stern and serious face, now a sorrowful and sad look.
"Lucas…" Uh oh. Please don't tell me he can't say this part. "...I like you." My eyes widen. He got through it, it should be smooth sailing from now on.
"Ness…" Ness then tackles me into a hug and kisses me directly on the lips. Wait, this wasn't in the script. There was no kiss here, what the hell is he doing. But, it feels nice. Despite it not being in the script, I melt in the kiss. Wrapping my hands over Ness and allowing the kiss to go on for as long as Ness wants. Two minutes it goes on. Once it breaks up Ness looks down at me with an oddly lewd look.
"I hope you can forgive my feelings."
"...I hope you can forgive me for having the same." Ness smirks. I don't know if we're talking in character or not. But, then again, our real names are the same as the character's we're acting as. Ness sits back to where he was at first, allowing me to sit up.
"I'm glad."
"Yea…"
"CUT!" Zelda yells out. Oh crap, here it comes. It was fun whilst it lasted. I see Zelda looking at us from her chair. She grows a smile then starts to clap. "That was great, you did more than was even written down. Now we can get this done." She jumps up and runs over to the camera. As she's tampering with that, Young Link walks over to us. His eyes stop on Ness.
"The hell was that?"
"A kiss?" Ness shrugs. He looks at me. You sly dog.
"Yea, we wanted to make the movie more fun," I say. Young Link looks between us, clearly not believing our excuse. Ness shoots up and holds his hand toward me.
"I heard it's best for actors to stay in character, shall we?" Ness slightly bows his head. Where'd this confidence come from? It's strangely attractive to see him like this. I grab his hand.
"We shall." Ness giggles. We start to walk toward the door.
"The fuck is going on?" I can hear Young Link ask after us.
Welp, today's the day. The movie is being played in front of the entire school. I hope it's good. And I hope Ness hurries up with our damn snacks. I soon see Ness with clearly full pockets. He enters our row of seats and starts walking down. He sits in the chair next to me. "Sorry, I'm late. I had to bribe Mr. Rool to leave the auditorium," Ness apologies. Claus, who's sitting on my left side, looks over at Ness.
"With what?" he asks.
"Bananas. He's crazy about them I guess." Ness reaches into his pocket to grab the few snacks he brought. Technically we're not supposed to be eating snacks, but we're the stars of the movie so...screw it. Ness hands me a blue Tootsie Pop. Right as I put it in my mouth, the movie starts. The main characters are quickly shown off, and their names cause Claus to look at us.
"Why are they named the same as the actors?"
"Who the hell knows? The writer probably got too lazy to actually make creative names," I suggest. Claus just gives me an odd look but looks back at the screen. Ness grabs my hand. As I look at him, he slightly tightens his hand. Most would probably find this act to be slightly uncomfortable...but I don't. I just grow a smirk and look back at the movie. The movie, not just about the characters learning about love...but the actors too. Man, this really does feel like a romance scene ripped straight from a fanfiction.