Mark leans against the doorframe of John's room, one hand braced on the wood, the other adjusting the wristband on his left wrist. He is already dressed to go out, fitted joggers, a muted olive t-shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, and his white sneakers that squeak slightly on the linoleum when he shifts his weight.
"Hey," Mark says. "You busy tonight?"
John is at his desk, hunched over his laptop. His hoodie is two sizes too big, the hood bunched at the back of his neck. He pushes his glasses up with his index finger and glances over his shoulder. "I'm... coding. Kind of."
"Coding can wait." Mark steps into the room and drops onto the edge of John's bed, bouncing once. The springs creak. "Some of my teammates are grabbing food at this place off campus. Rosario's. Best burgers you'll ever have. A few other people are coming too, girls, guys, mix. They're good people, John. You should give them a chance."
John's fingers hover over the keyboard. His shoulders curl inward, making himself smaller in the chair. "I don't... I don't know anyone there."
"That's the point. You'd meet them." Mark tilts his head, green eyes catching the overhead light. "Look, I'm not saying it's gonna be some magical night where you suddenly become a social butterfly. I'm saying it's burgers and people who laugh loud and talk too much. That's it. Low stakes."
John stares at the screen. The cursor blinks on a half-finished line of Python. He tugs at the hem of his hoodie, pulling it lower over his back. "What if they think I'm weird?"
"Then they'd be right. Everyone there is weird in their own way." Mark grins, quick and easy. "Devon talks to his food before he eats it. Like, full conversation. I've seen him apologize to a chicken sandwich."
Despite himself, the corner of John's mouth twitches. "That's... that's not real."
"I swear on my game shoes." Mark holds up his right hand like he's taking an oath. "Come on. One hour. If you hate it, I'll walk you back myself and never bring it up again."
John is quiet for a long moment. His brown eyes flick from Mark to the laptop screen and back again. Then he exhales through his nose, saves his file, and closes the lid. "One hour."
"That's all I'm asking." Mark stands, bouncing on his toes. "Wear whatever. It's not fancy."
John looks down at himself, the oversized hoodie, the baggy jeans. He tugs the hem again. "This is fine?"
"You look great. Let's go."
The walk to Rosario's takes fifteen minutes. Mark talks the whole way, about practice, about a play his coach keeps running wrong, about how the cafeteria ran out of chicken tenders again and he is starting to take it personally. John listens, mostly quiet, his hands shoved deep in his hoodie pockets. He nods at the right moments. Sometimes he hums a small sound of agreement. The evening air is cool against his face, and the campus lights flicker on one by one as the sky goes from gray to dark blue.
Rosario's is a squat brick building with neon beer signs in the windows and a door that sticks when you push it. Mark yanks it open and holds it with his hip, gesturing John inside first.
The smell hits John immediately, grilled meat, fried onions, something sweet like barbecue sauce. A long table near the back is already crowded with people. Six, seven, maybe eight. Two girls sit on one side, both in athletic wear, one with her dark hair in a high ponytail and the other with box braids piled on top of her head. Across from them, three guys in basketball shorts and team hoodies take up more space than they need to, arms draped over chair backs, legs spread wide. A girl with short pink hair sits at the end, scrolling through her phone with a half-eaten basket of fries in front of her.
"Yo!" One of the guys, broad-shouldered, dark-skinned, with a grin that takes up half his face, stands up and waves. "Mark! Over here, bro!"
"Devon," Mark says under his breath to John. "The food whisperer."
They weave through the tables. Mark slides into an open seat and pulls out the one next to him for John. John sits, pulling his hoodie sleeves over his hands, making himself as small as possible in the chair. His eyes dart around the table. He does not know where to look.
"Everyone, this is John." Mark gestures at him. "My roommate. The one I told you about."
John's stomach drops. Told them what? He wants to ask but his throat is dry. He pushes his glasses up instead.
"The pasta guy?" the ponytail girl says, eyes bright. "Mark said you made garlic herb pasta from scratch. That's insane. I burn ramen."
"It's... it's not that hard," John mumbles. "You just follow the recipe."
"She doesn't follow recipes," the box braids girl says. "She doesn't even follow traffic signs."
"I got a B in driver's ed, okay? That's passing."
"That's barely passing."
The table laughs. John watches, his shoulders still hunched, but something loosens in his chest just a little. Nobody is looking at him like he does not belong. Nobody is staring at his hoodie or wondering why he is sitting like a folded napkin.
A menu appears in front of him. Devon slides it over with his oversized hand. "Get the double bacon. Trust me. I had a whole conversation with one last week and it changed my life."
"You don't talk to your food," the pink-haired girl says without looking up from her phone. "You pray to it. There's a difference."
"That's even worse," John says, and then freezes. He did not mean to say that out loud.
Devon points at him, mouth open, delighted. "See? He gets it. This guy gets it."
Mark nudges John's arm under the table. A small gesture. John looks over and Mark gives him a tiny nod, the kind that says keep going.
The food arrives in baskets, burgers dripping with grease, fries piled high, onion rings stacked like golden rings. John orders the double bacon because Devon will not shut up about it, and when it comes, the first bite is so good his eyes go wide behind his glasses. He has not eaten a burger this good in months. Maybe ever.
The conversation moves fast, jumping from topic to topic like a ball on the court. The ponytail girl, her name is Lisa, talks about a professor who gives assignments like it is a personal vendetta. The box braids girl, Keisha, argues that the dining hall oatmeal is actually good if you add enough brown sugar. Devon tells a story about a teammate who tried to dunk during warm-ups and grabbed the rim so hard his feet flew out from under him and he landed flat on his back in front of three scouts.
John listens. He eats. His posture straightens just slightly as the noise of the table washes over him like warm water. It is loud and messy and people talk over each other and laugh with their whole bodies. It is nothing like the library corners he usually hides in.
Then someone says the magic words.
"Okay, but LeBron is the GOAT and that's just facts," Devon says, leaning back and crossing his arms like he just won a court case.
The table erupts.
"Jordan," Lisa says flatly. "Six rings. Six Finals MVPs. Next question."
"In what world does six rings automatically mean better player? That's team success, not individual—"
"Devon, you are NOT about to sit here and tell me LeBron is better than Jordan." Keisha jabs a fry at him. "My dad would disown me."
"Your dad doesn't get a vote."
"My dad gets all the votes. He had courtside seats in '98. He lived it."
John's hand is around his burger, halfway to his mouth, but he stops. His brain is already pulling numbers. "Jordan's career scoring average is higher," he says. The words come out before he can stop them. "Thirty point three versus LeBron's twenty-seven. And Jordan has more scoring titles. Ten to LeBron's one."
The table goes quiet for half a second. Devon's eyes go wide. Then he slams his palm on the table.
"YES. Thank you! The numbers! The numbers don't lie!" Devon looks at John like he just found a long-lost brother. "See, this guy knows. This guy speaks truth."
Lisa narrows her eyes at John. "Okay, but career averages don't account for longevity. LeBron is still going. You can't compare a finished career to an ongoing one."
"That's fair," John says, and then adds, "but even if you adjust for pace, Jordan's efficiency in the playoffs was—"
"Stop, stop, stop." Keisha holds up both hands. "The quiet kid just pulled out playoff efficiency stats. I'm out. I yield." She drops her head on the table in mock defeat.
John blinks. His face feels warm. He realizes he is smiling, not a small, polite smile, but a real one, the kind that pulls at muscles he has not used in a while. He looks down at his burger, takes another bite, and chews slowly. His shoulders are not curled inward anymore. They are just... resting.
Mark watches from the side. He does not say anything. He just chews his food, and his green eyes stay on John for a second longer than they need to, and then he turns back to his conversation with the pink-haired girl, her name is Sam, John learns later, and lets the night keep going.
Weeks pass.
John goes to Rosario's again. And then again. The third time, he does not need Mark to walk him there, he knows the route by himself, knows which table they sit at, knows that Devon always orders first and Lisa always steals fries from his basket. The pattern becomes familiar, and familiar feels safe.
He starts to recognize the faces. Lisa, Keisha, Devon, Sam, and a few others who drift in and out, a tall guy named Marcus who plays point guard and barely talks but nods at John every time like they have a secret handshake, and a girl named Priya who sits next to John during study sessions and asks him to explain coding concepts in a whisper while the others argue about philosophy.
The group study sessions happen in the campus library's basement lounge, where the couches are sagging and the whiteboard is stained with old equations nobody can erase anymore. Mark brings snacks. Devon brings chaos. John brings his laptop and his brain, and somewhere between the third and fourth session, he starts talking.
Everyone is studying their one thing, but Devon being Devon he is more focused on what others are doing. So he peeks at what John is doing and starts asking various questions. John tries his level best to tell Devon about the concepts, but everything just goes over his head.
"Insertion sort is better for small datasets, and honestly just use the built-in sort function. It exists for a reason."
"But your assignment says—"
"The assignment says implement a sorting algorithm. It doesn't say you have to suffer."
Keisha snorts from the other couch. "Did the quiet kid just roast you?"
"The quiet kid just roasted me," Devon says, staring at the laptop.
John's face goes pink, but he does not shrink back into his hoodie.
The room breaks into laughter. John feels it happen, something in his chest that has been locked tight for months, maybe years, loosens just a little more. He grins, small and crooked, and his hand goes to the hem of his hoodie but does not pull. It just rests there.
The study sessions become a thing. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Same couch. Same stained whiteboard. Priya brings highlighters in six different colors. Lisa brings gossip from the athletic department. Mark brings his notes and his energy, bouncing his leg the whole time, chewing his lower lip when a concept is hard.
One Thursday night, the session runs late. By the time everyone packs up, the campus is dark and quiet, the paths lit by amber lamps that cast long shadows on the brick. John and Mark walk side by side across the quad. The air is cold enough to see their breath.
John walks with his hands in his pockets, his breath coming out in small white puffs. His hoodie is zipped to his chin. He is quiet for a while, his sneakers scuffing the pavement in a rhythm that matches Mark's longer stride.
Then he stops.
Mark takes two more steps before he realizes John is not beside him anymore. He turns. John is standing under one of the amber lamps, the light catching his glasses and turning them gold. His shoulders are hunched, but not in the usual way, not from fear, but from the weight of something he is trying to say.
"Hey," John says. His voice is low. "I gotta admit... your friends aren't so bad."
Mark tilts his head. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." John looks at the ground, then back up. His brown eyes are large behind his glasses, catching the lamplight. "Thanks for... not giving up on me. You kept asking. I kept saying no. And you just... kept asking. I don't know why you did, but... yeah."
Mark is quiet for a moment. His jaw works, like he is chewing on something. Then he closes the distance between them in two long strides and claps his hand on John's shoulder. His palm is warm and heavy, and he squeezes once.
"Anytime, John." His voice is steady. Easy. "You're not so bad yourself."
John looks at Mark's hand on his shoulder. He does not flinch. He does not pull away. His mouth does something small and complicated, not quite a smile, but close. Close enough.
They stand there for a beat. The lamp hums above them. Somewhere across campus, a car door slams.
Then Mark gives his shoulder one more squeeze and lets go. "Come on. It's cold and I need to pee."
"You have the bladder of an old man."
"Hey. Respect your elders."
They walk the rest of the way back to the dorm, shoulders bumping once when the path narrows. John does not flinch at that either.
The dorm party happens on a Saturday.
It is not a big party. Someone on the floor below theirs has a speaker and a cooler and a string of cheap lights they hung in the hallway. Music thumps through the walls, something with too much bass and a hook that repeats eight times. People mill around with red cups and laughter that is too loud for the space.
John stands in the doorway of his room, unsure. He is wearing his usual hoodie and jeans, and his glasses are slightly crooked because he bumped them on the doorframe. He can hear the music. He can smell something sweet and chemical, like cheap punch.
Mark appears beside him. He is wearing a vintage team jacket over a grey t-shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He holds two bottles of beer, the glass cold and beaded with moisture.
"Here." Mark holds one out.
John stares at the bottle. The label is green and gold. He can see the condensation dripping down Mark's fingers. "I've... I've never drunk before."
Mark pauses. He looks at the beer, then at John. "For real?"
"Yeah. My parents weren't... it was never a thing. I just never tried it."
"That's cool." Mark pulls the bottle back. "No pressure. Seriously. I can get you water, soda, whatever. Nobody cares."
John watches the hallway. A girl walks by with two red cups, laughing at something someone said. Two guys are doing some kind of complicated handshake that ends with them chest-bumping. Someone has a phone out, filming Devon doing a dance that looks like a fish on dry land. Everyone looks loose. Easy. Like their bones are made of something softer than his.
He looks at the beer in Mark's hand. The green and gold label. The cold glass.
"I'll try it," John says.
Mark raises an eyebrow. "You sure?"
"Yeah. I mean... everyone else is having fun. Maybe it helps."
Mark hands him the bottle. Their fingers brush in the transfer, and the glass is cold and slick in John's hand. He holds it like he is not sure what to do with it.
Mark twists the cap off his own bottle with the edge of the counter and takes a sip. "Just go slow. Don't chug it."
John brings the bottle to his nose first. It smells bitter and grainy, like bread that went wrong. He wrinkles his nose. Then he tips it back and takes a small sip.
The taste is... not good. It is sour and sharp and sits on his tongue like a dare. He swallows and his face scrunches up, nose wrinkling, lips pulling back.
Mark laughs. "Yeah. First sip is always rough."
"It tastes like... like someone left bread in a shoe."
"That's... oddly specific and also accurate." Mark clinks his bottle against John's. "It gets better."
John takes another sip. Then another. The taste does not exactly improve, but it becomes something he can tolerate, something that warms his throat and settles in his stomach like a small fire. He leans against the doorframe and watches the party. Someone turns the music up. The bass vibrates in his chest.
A few people drift past and say hi to Mark. A couple of them say hi to John too, and he gives a small wave each time, his fingers still curled around the neck of the beer bottle. He is halfway through it when something shifts.
The room gets softer. Not blurry, just softer, like someone turned down the sharpness on a photo. The edges of things round out. The music sounds better, fuller, like it is not just noise anymore but something he can feel in his whole body. His shoulders drop. His spine straightens. The tension in his jaw that he carries all day, every day, loosens like a rope being untied.
And then he laughs.
It comes out of nowhere. Something Devon says, he does not even hear the whole joke. just the tail end of it, something about a vending machine and a raccoon, and John laughs. Not a small, polite laugh. A real one, bright and sudden, the kind that makes him double over and grab his own stomach.
"Oh my God," he gasps, wiping his eyes. "That's... that's the funniest thing I've ever heard."
"It's a raccoon, bro," Devon says, grinning. "Raccoons are inherently funny. They look like little bandits."
"Little bandits," John repeats, and he laughs again, harder this time, his whole body shaking. He leans sideways and his shoulder hits Mark's arm, and he stays there, leaning, because standing up straight takes too much focus.
Mark looks down at him. John's face is flushed pink, his glasses sitting crooked on his nose, his brown eyes glassy and wide. He is grinning, a big dopey grin that takes up his whole face, and he keeps giggling in waves, his body shaking against Mark's side.
"Okay," Mark says, steadying John with a hand on his arm. "I think you've had enough."
"I've only had half," John protests, holding up the bottle. "Half a beer. That's nothing. That's like... that's like a sip. A big sip. A sip and a half."
"You're lightweight, dude. You've never drank before. Half a beer is plenty." Mark gently takes the bottle from his hand. John's fingers let go without much resistance.
"I feel good," John says. His voice is looser than usual, the words coming out without the careful measuring he normally does. "I feel really good. Like... warm. Everything is warm."
"Good. Let's get you to bed before you start telling everyone your life story."
"I don't have a life story. I have a life... paragraph. Maybe a sentence." John giggles again, and his knees buckle slightly. Mark catches him, one arm going around John's waist, pulling him upright.
"Come on. Walk with me."
They move through the hallway slowly. John leans into Mark's side, his steps uneven, his sneakers scuffing the floor. He keeps laughing at things that are not funny—the fire extinguisher on the wall, a poster about campus safety, the way the stairs tilt when he steps on them.
"Stairs are moving," John says, pointing.
"Stairs don't move. You're moving wrong."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"Neither do you right now. Come on."
Mark gets him up the stairs and down the hall to their room. He unlocks the door with one hand while the other keeps John steady. John stumbles inside and drops onto his bed face-first, his hoodie riding up slightly at the back before he reaches down and tugs it back into place, even in his drunken state.
Mark sits on his own bed, pulling off his sneakers. He watches John roll onto his back, one arm thrown over his face, glasses askew on his nose.
"You okay?" Mark asks.
"Great," John says. "Great. So great." He is quiet for a moment. His breathing slows. Then he turns his head sideways, looking at Mark through the gap between his arm and the mattress. His eyes are half-lidded, dark and glassy in the lamplight.
"Hey, Mark," he mumbles.
"Yeah?"
John's mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. His tongue is heavy, his thoughts sliding around like marbles on a tilted surface. "Remember that thing... with the doctor?"
Mark goes still. His hand stops on his sneaker. "What thing?"
"The... the prostate thing. The exam." John's voice is low, slurred at the edges. "You said you could... help me out. With that."
The room is quiet. The muffled bass from the party below pulses through the floor like a heartbeat. Mark's jaw tightens. He pulls his lower lip between his teeth, chewing on it the way he does when he is thinking hard.
John shifts on the bed, rolling onto his side, facing Mark. His hoodie is bunched at his waist, and his brown eyes are wide and unfocused, blinking slowly. "I can't... I can't do it myself. You said the angle is wrong. You said that. And I tried and I can't and it's... it's frustrating." His words run together, soft and clumsy. "You said you'd help. As a friend."
Mark exhales. He sets his sneaker down, lines it up neatly by the bed. He does not look at John for a long moment. His hands are steady, his movements deliberate, like he is forcing himself to move slowly.
Then he turns. He looks at John, really looks at him. The flushed face, the crooked glasses, the half-lidded eyes, the way his body is loose and boneless on the mattress. The way his words slide into each other without the usual careful gaps between them.
"Not tonight, buddy." Mark's voice is quiet. Steady. "You're not thinking straight."
John blinks. "I'm always straight."
"I mean you're not thinking clearly. You've been drinking. Your first time drinking, by the way." Mark holds up a finger. "Half a beer and you're giggling at fire extinguishers. That's where you're at right now."
"I feel good though."
"I know you do. And I'm not gonna take advantage of that." Mark leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. "I don't want you to wake up tomorrow and regret something. If we... if that's something you actually want to explore, we'll talk about it. When you're sober. When you can think it through. Not like this."
John stares at him. His mouth works like he is trying to form an argument, but the words pile up and crash into each other before they reach his lips. His eyelids droop. "You're... you're being responsible."
"Shocking, I know."
"That's annoying," John mumbles. His head sinks deeper into the pillow. "You're annoyingly responsible."
"I've been called worse." Mark stands and pulls the blanket up from the foot of John's bed, draping it over him. John's hand twitches, tugging the hem of his hoodie down under the blanket, the motion automatic even in his state.
Mark turns off the overhead light, leaving just the small desk lamp on. The room goes warm and dim. He moves to his own bed, sits on the edge, and pulls his phone from his pocket.
John's breathing slows. His body sinks into the mattress, loose and heavy. His glasses are still on, tilted against the pillow.
Mark reaches over and carefully lifts the glasses off John's face, folding them and setting them on the nightstand. John does not stir. His mouth is slightly open, his breathing deep and even.
Mark sits back on his own bed. He looks at John for a long moment, the rise and fall of his chest under the oversized hoodie, the way his messy black hair fans out on the pillow, the soft part of his lips.
He runs a hand through his blonde hair, pushing it back from his forehead. He chews his lower lip. His green eyes stay on John, and something moves behind them, something careful and controlled that he holds in place like a player holding the ball in the final seconds of a tied game.
"We'll talk when you're sober," he says again, quieter this time, to no one in particular.
The party noise fades below them. The room is still. Mark calls his girlfriend and talks to her for a while and the sets his phone on the nightstand, lies back on his bed, and stares at the ceiling. His hands fold behind his head. His jaw is tight.
He does not sleep for a long time.
If you enjoyed this story, consider supporting the author on Patreon.
