Yes, Mom (Jen)

[Deleted]

Thank God it was the weekend.  Kodi groaned and rolled over in his bed once he remembered this fact, glad that at least he didn't have to get up for a couple more hours so that hopefully his pounding headache would ease away by then.  Most mornings weren't quite this bad - he'd built up a pretty strong tolerance to alcohol throughout his years of abusing the stuff, so it took quite a bit to make him feel this unwell the morning after.  

He didn't even remember why he'd had so much the night previous.  He'd probably been looking at old pictures of Gryphon, or whatever.  And completely ignoring any texts he'd received from anyone, although he'd been doing that for a while.  Kodi didn't feel like talking to anyone apart from those he had to interact with at work, so whoever wanted to contact him would just have to deal with it.

He sighed and shifted again, wondering why his back was aching so muc- oh.  Kodi's hand hit something hard, and only then did he realize he'd been sleeping with a bottle of smirnoff in his bed, and that he'd probably literally been laying on it for a good portion of the night.  No wonder his spine was complaining.

Kodi couldn't even find the energy to toss it away, so he curled up on his side and closed his eyes again.  

[Jin-hwan "Jen" Park]

It was the first time that Jen had set foot on the Hammel campus since he’d graduated, but he took every step with such confidence that no one who saw him would dare to suggest that he didn’t belong there. Not that he was happy to be back; truth be told, his presence was more of a public service than anything else. He had responsibilities, and he wasn’t about to let anyone accuse him of slacking on his volunteer work.

He didn’t knock when he reached Kodiak Oubre’s bedroom door. He pushed it open with a decent amount of force, and was met with resistance from the mess on the floor. Undeterred, Jen shoved the door in as far as it would go, inch by inch, until he had plowed a small wedge of bare floor to put his feet on.

He was wearing his daily uniform: all black clothing, a large pair of Tory Burch sunglasses with leopard print frames, and a faint scowl. He made the mistake of sniffing the air, and the scowl deepened.

“You know, we could bottle this,” he said, taking special care to be obnoxiously loud. “Eau de Self Pity. Base note of cheap liquor, but the stale Cheetos add a certain depth… and who can resist the lingering aroma of rancid ball sweat?”

A few moments passed in silence. Annoyed that his joke had gone unappreciated, he grabbed several fistfuls of comforter and yanked it away from the snoozing form before him.

“Get up,” he said. “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. This is disgusting. You’re disgusting. You haven’t answered a single one of my texts. You’d better be dead, or dying.”

[Deleted]

How was Kodi supposed to know that Jen had been texting him? Oh, right, he could have been checking his phone more than once a week… But the only people he really cared about hearing from was his work in case there was anything he needed to know about his schedule, and they always called. And if Oriel was trying to contact him, he knew where Kodi lived, so he could just come bust in his door if he wanted to badly enough.

Apparently that was the route that Jen had decided to take, out of pure desperation to see his good friend (not really). Kodi shifted and groaned as he heard the door open, assuming it was the long-haired hippie boy. “Go ‘way Oriel, I ain’t in the mood…” he grumbled. After all, who else would even bother?

However, that voice definitely didn’t belong to the gruff, accented younger boy, and it took Kodi a few moments to recognize who it was. Immediately, he groaned again. What was he doing here? His cheeks flushed in embarrassment, knowing how clean and proper the older boy liked to be. Kodi hadn’t been taking care of his room at all, and it showed. Why bother? He hadn’t expected anyone to visit…

“Go ‘wayyy,” he whined, clinging more tightly to his mattress as his comforter was rudely pulled off of him. The sunlight streaming through his blinds wasn’t helping his headache, and he wrapped his arms around his head, trying to block it out. “Yeah, I’m dyin’,” he said sarcastically, voice raspy from his dry throat. “Now leave me in peace while I pass on.” Kodi grabbed his pillow and buried his face under it. He was not in the mood to deal with the pushy older boy. Although it seemed like he wasn’t going to have a choice.