The morning light burst through the windows and hit me directly in the eyes. What a nice way to wake up. I noticed Dante and Travis were in the kitchen simply talking.

"Dante, they fell asleep together for the second time in a row. Are you sure they aren't gay dude?"

"Travis knock it off. You know Laurance just doesn't want to wake him up."

"Well yeah but still..."

"Travis we fell asleep together last night on the couch too, you know."

   "Well yeah but I was annoying the girls! After they kicked me out I was tired okay! I just came in, was going to watch the anime, and fell asleep!"

   "Yeah, okay. Sureeeeee ya did Travis."

   "Shut up before I hit you."

   "You wouldn't hit me."

   "Bet."

I saw Travis' arm hit Dante lightly on the shoulder.

   "Told you I would."

  "Travis you hit like a baby."

  "NO."

  "Shut up before you wake Laurance and Gar."

   They went back to eating and began speaking quieter to the point I couldn't eavesdrop. I got up and almost keeled over from the cold.

   "Travis for Irene's sake stop messing with the thermostat."

   "Oh look, the freezebaby is awake~" Travis cooed.

   "Shut up." I turned the temperature back up.

  "Garroth, you and I both know you are the only one who likes the temperature that high. We are all dying of heat dude."

   "Yeah sucks for you."

   "You can add blankets! You can't remove skin!"

   Dante snickered. "Travis don't test him."

   "Dante, he's way too weak to skin me."

   "Alright Garroth, knives are in the second drawer on the right."

   I started walking over and I grabbed a knife and Travis jumped backwards.

  I started laughing and just grabbed a piece of toast made prior to me waking up and put butter on it.

   "You're an asshole dude."

   "I'm aware."
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    The morning went quite okay, it was all light-hearted and there was nothing more mentioning me and Laurance. It was about 11 until Laurance finally rose from his slumber.

   He groaned. "What the hell time is it?"

   "3 past 11 boss."  Dante replied.

   "Nice joke, what time is it."

   "Laurance, it is actually 11." Travis said with a giggle.

   Laurance quickly got up and fell off the couch in the process. He bolted to his room and grabbed his phone off the charger to see 1) it didn't charge, 2) it's dead, and 3) the clock on his table said 11:04. From the kitchen, we could hear a faint yell of  "god damn it!"
    He ran out of his room with his phone and charger in either hand and directly went to an outlet that actually works. (Little did he know, his charger just wasn't plugged in all the way, so it still won't charge.) He came into the kitchen extremely hostile. He was throwing things around and almost tipped Travis' chair over.

   "Chill dude, you are the one who picked your room without checking."

   "Okay smartass, I had a meeting at 10."

   Travis and Laurance began having a heated argument.  Lots of yelling was involved.

    "I literally told you that I had this meeting like 3 days ago!"

    "How am I supposed to remember something from 3 days ago Laurance?! You're acting crazy!"

   "I'm acting crazy?!"

   "Yes! You are!"

    The screaming went on for another minute or so until more things were starting to be thrown at each other across the table. Bad choice of battle zone.
    One of the things they threw, which happened to be a fork, flew right into my shoulder. Luckily it was just the handle, but it was still thrown extremely hard by Laurance.
    Laurance knew what happened before the fork even hit me. I could tell by his face he realized how he threw it.

     "Ow! If you're going to fight do it not at the table!"

     Laurance's voice was extremely calm. "Garroth, are you alright?"

     "Ahh... yeah I'm okay, Laurance." That was a lie. The handle hit just the right way where my body felt like it shut down for a second.

  "Awwww look at Laurance, going all soft~~" Travis was already right back to teasing Laurance.

"Knock it off, Travis. He has every right to be upset and you are not helping." Dante tried to aid the situation, but now he has only made it worse.

"Oh I should knock it off?! Laurance is the one who threw the damn fork!"

The tension quickly got heated again. Though instead of Travis and Laurance fighting, it was now Dante and Travis. Laurance was not participating at all.

While they were distracted, Laurance got up and walked over to me.

"Are you sure you're alright? I didn't mean to throw it, it just kinda happened. I'm very s-"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Laurance. It didn't really hurt. It's okay, u forgive you." I smiled at him afterwards, and he seemed to relax a little bit.

"You sure?"

"100% sure."

He poked my shoulder and I flinched back.

"Liar."

"Laurance—"

"Garroth, it's okay to feel pain. You don't have to act all tough and everything just to try and spare my feelings. I can tell it hurts, and I can tell you only said it didn't because you didn't want me to worry."

He has a soft gaze when he said that. He soon pulled me into a hug and continued talking.

"I can tell you are a very sensitive and soft person. That's nothing to be ashamed of at all. Having emotions doesn't make you any less of a guy if that's what you're worried about. I could tell it hurt by how you reacted when it originally hit you, Garroth. If you haven't noticed, I'm a very observant person. It takes a lot to fool me. I'm sorry I hit you, and I hope you know that I didn't mean to do that. We're friends right? You can be honest with me, you know. I can also tell you're a very shut away person, you're insecure and hide everything about you. But, try and be more open, okay? For me?"

I started to tear up. No one has ever told me anything like that before. His hug tightened and one of his hands moved up to my hair. It was very comforting. I guess he can tell that it's comforting and calming for me. I never really expected this from him if I'm being honest. I'm not close with him at all and we only reconnected a few days ago, and he hasn't changed since middle school. He's the same Laurance I knew back then, even if I didn't know him well at all. He's always been confident and caring, something that's always stood out to me. Let alone, he's always acted very protective towards his friends and any girl friends he has had, and it's probably one of his best traits. The aura he gives off is always so protective, yet calming. It's like anytime he's around, you know you'll be okay.

"Travis, get the hell out."

Dante's sharp words interrupted my blanking out. Laurance's hold further tightened, as if he was saying that he'll protect me.

"What did you just say....?"

"I said, get the hell out, Travis."

"Oh Dante, come on. I live here too now. You can't just—"

"Just go away. Go annoy the girls or something. You seem to never be able to admit you're in the wrong. If your opinion doesn't prevail, you get mad. You've pissed off Laurance over something you never had to open your mouth for and now you were fighting with me for defending it. You're also the direct cause Garroth was hit."

"Oh, so now it's my fault Laurance overslept?"

"You missed my point."

"No, Dante, you aren't listening to yourself. You're just the same as me. You always have to be right. Is this what it's like to be a little sibling? I know damn well Gene and your mom spoiled the hell out of you. You always got what you wanted, and-"

"That is not true at all, Travis."

"But it is! I've seen it with my own two eyes."

"You don't even know the half of it."

"Then would you like me to tell the rest of the class what happened?"

Dante went silent.

Travis snickered. "That's what I thought."

"Get out of my sight and don't come back until you're willing to place nice."

Their fight has made it really uncomfortable. You can cut the tension with a knife. The atmosphere only continued to increase.

From what I know, Travis and myself are the only ones who really know about Dante's past and it's the one thing to never bring up to him. Travis just went to an extremely different level. Dante and Travis were best friends, but now it almost seemed like they couldn't be any farther apart from that.

"Travis. I will not tell you this again. Get the hell out. Pack your shit."

"What? We just moved in, and now you're kicking me out?"

"You are not signed up under the house. I am. This is my house and I can pick who lives here. If you don't wanna play nice and get your act together, you can get the hell out of my house."

There was complete silence. Nobody said a word. Nobody made a sound. Dante was technically not wrong at all, as Travis had stated before he agreed to move in that he wouldn't even be able to help pay rent for the first few months. Travis was probably never going to help pay rent to begin with. He only moved in because Aphmau, Kawaii-Chan, Katelyn, and Lucinda were some of our neighbors. Though, this is the first time I have ever seen Dante this pissed off. He has never looked so enraged before. And, this is the first time I have ever seen Dante and Travis fight. Everybody thought they were inseparable.

"Dante, What the fuck."

"I'm dead serious. Get out of the house before I kick you out. You can come back tomorrow morning if you get your act together. Otherwise, you are not welcome back here. You only have one chance, and that chance is to swallow your ego and get your act together, or I'm throwing your shit on the porch."

Without a word, Travis stormed out of the house. The tension eased. Dante didn't radiate any threatening or scary aura anymore. He was quickly back to the same Dante we knew. His quick change signaled us to drop the subject and not to talk about what just happened, even though that's the only thing that was on my mind right now. Once Travis left, Laurance let me go from the hug.

"Now that that's over, Laurance, are you gonna reschedule your meeting?"

"Too late now, the meeting was to hire me on and he said if I missed it I wouldn't get the job since there were so many other great candidates. If I would've been hired on, I would've been making double what I make now, but I'm now stuck until my term is up."

"It's never too late to try?" I said, but I guess it came out as more of a question.

He sighed. "Yeah, I guess I can try, though it's gonna suck if they say no."

He got up and his hand left my waist, and he went to his phone... his uncharged phone...

"God damn it."

"Laurance, is that another faulty outlet?? Your luck is shit."

"Don't remind me."

He made his way to a new outlet and finally one that was charging. It was going on 12 now.

After a few minutes, his phone turned on and he called immediately, sitting on the floor next to the outlet.

Dante walked over to me and gave me a hug.
"Sorry."

I smiled. "Don't worry. It's okay. It was probably for the best."

Dante's phone dinged and one of the worst things that can happen right now happened.

He added Laurance and I to the groupchat, meaning Laurance was now able to see all of the hate messages from the picture Travis sent prior, and now a new message was sent to it.

It was a picture of Laurance and I hugging.
That wasn't the bad part, though. He sent to the chat that he just got kicked out and had a massive paragraph about how poorly Laurance and Dante treated him.

Quickly, almost everyone was against us. The only ones still on our side was Zane (of course), Kawaii-Chan, and Lucinda, as Travis based his argument around me and Laurance supposedly being a couple...

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