It was Sunday afternoon, Kehi had just texted Jules to come over to the frat house to help him with yet another hangover. She was wary at first, as she always was, since she was not particularly interested in encountering his other hungover frat housemates, but Kehi sounded absolutely miserable.
Jules arrived at the frat house at around three o'clock. There was a passed-out frat guy on the stairs inside the house. His shirt was removed with the words "ONE OF THE BOYS" written in red on his back.
Ah, a new initiated member, she thought as she stepped over his limp body and traipsed up the stairs to Kehi's bedroom.
The upstairs area was just as a mess as the entrance downstairs. There was silly string hanging in every corner like spider webs, red cups littering the floor and coffee table, and all sorts of trash.
Jules kicked an empty whipped cream can out of the way before opening a door that had a "WARNING BEAR" sign.
"I'm here," she announced gently as she entered Kehi's bedroom, and she was grateful to see that his roommate was nowhere to be seen.
Kehi grumbled in his bed as a response, which made Jules shake her head as she gently made her way over to him.
"Did you drink water at least?" she asked as he moaned woefully into his pillow. His covers were over the bottom half of his body, revealing his bare back and arms, and his dark skin was shiny under the light seeping through the sheer curtains. "A shower could help too."
"I feel like shit," he responded hoarsely. "I can barely get out of bed."
"So, I'm guessing you didn't drink water nor shower yet," she assessed.
"NoâŠ" he admitted miserably.
"Okay, I'll get you a glass of water, and in the meantime, you should at least try to sit up on your bed," Jules instructed. She had seen her older sister in this kind of situation so many times before that at this point the solutions were drilled into her head.
Kehi groaned in reply as Jules trekked out of the room.
The kitchen was just downstairs, so she took mental note not to trample the guy that lay unceremoniously on the stairs as she went down the steps. She nearly staggered in shock as she witnessed the chaos of the kitchen. Somehow, there were slices of bread stuck to the ceiling, and a guilty jar of peanut butter lay open on the counter just below it. There were dirty dishes across the rest of the counter; pots, pans, plates, bowls, utensils, crusty food, you name it.
The dishwasher lay open with what looked like clean dishes on the inside. It seemed like the occupants of this house were too lazy to put away the dishes, so they left all their dirty dishes pilled up everywhere. Great.
"Disgusting," Jules mumbled as she tried to fill a cup of water at the littered sink. As soon as she was done, she swiftly made her way out of the messy kitchen, not wanting to look at the grossness any longer.
When she arrived back at Kehi's bedroom, she was pleasantly surprised to see him sitting on his bed, his feet on the floor, and his body leaned over.
"Do you feel like puking?" she asked her friend warily.
"No, just hungry as hell," he said.
"Okay, well, drink this." Jules gave Kehi the cup of water and he chugged it all immediately. "Uh⊠Do you want more water?"
"No, I'm okay for now," he said as he put the empty cup on his bedside table.
His room was pretty neat compared to the rest of the house, except for his undone bed. His roommate's bed was also undone, but the rest of the room was pristine. Clean framed pictures hung on the wall along with quaint banners and ribbons. Kehi's soccer awards were on clean white shelves along with his textbooks, comic books, and Mangas. His roommate still had boxes left to unpack, but Kehi had settled right in.
"Could you help bring me to the washroom," Kehi asked kindly. Jules snapped her eyes back at him and nodded.
"Of course. You should shower and brush your teeth and all that," she said mindlessly as she grabbed Kehi's armpits to try to lift him up.
Jules was fairly strong "for a girl" as people would say. Under her fat lay a lot of muscles, which she had worked very hard for indeed. She didn't play soccer anymore like Kehi (they had met in third grade on their elementary school's unisex soccer team), but she ran every day, participated in the university's cross-country events, and frequently went to the gym to build her muscles. Kehi managed to get on the local university's prestigious soccer team while he studied in Physical Education. His dream was to be a gym teacher and, ideally, a soccer coach too for an elementary school, just like his favourite teacher, Mr. Malik.
"Are you going to make me breakfast while I shower?" Kehi asked Jules, his bottom lip almost pouting like a sad puppy.
"Sure," she nearly groaned. "But as soon as you get better, you buy me lunch."
"Deal," Kehi said, delighted.
Jules left him at the entrance of the bathroom just outside his room. Kehi gave her a small wave before shutting the door.
With a slight eyeroll, Jules returned down the stairs, once again careful not to trip on the guy laying on the stairs. When she found the kitchen again, there was company. She tried not to groan when the shirtless frat boy said hi.
"Who are you here for?" he asked as he browsed the fridge for food.
"Kehi," Jules said. She eyed him suspiciously as he nodded.
"I didn't know he had a girlfriend. Good for him," the guy said mindlessly. He finally pulled out some grapes from the fridge and began snacking on them, standing in the middle of the kitchen as he looked at Jules with intrigue.
"I'm not his girlfriend. We're just really good friends â childhood friends," Jules clarified. She wondered why the man was so chill about having a girl in the frat house. The last few times she encountered someone around here, they could not resist either hitting on her or making some sexist comments about wanting her to make food for them or clean their filthy home. Someone even asked her if she was a maid once.
This frat boy, however, was someone she had never noticed before. He had dark slightly curled hair, falling ever so slightly over his bright blue eyes. He had a very easygoing air to him, as if nothing could ever be a problem.
"What's your name?" he asked after swallowing a handful of grapes.
"Jules," she said. "I'm looking for food for Kehi. He's pretty hungover."
"Ah. I'll make him some of my special hungover smoothie. He'll be good shape in an instant. Otherwise, I'd recommend something real greasy. We've got some ground beef, so I could make him a burger â Are you hungry too? I make some really good patties."
"Uh â You know what, sure. I could eat," Jules said with a shrug.
"I'm Knox, by the way," he said before going back in the fridge to put away his grapes and retrieve his ingredients.
"Nice to meet you, Knox. I'm Jules," Jules said without thinking. Knox paused and laughed. "What?"
"You already told me your name," Knox said with another chuckle.
"Oh," Jules responded rather awkwardly.
"Want me to show you how to make the best hangover smoothie?" he asked suddenly. He pulled out some milk and lime juice from the fridge.
"Sure," Jules said, not really caring either way. Knox placed his items on the kitchen table because there was no space left on the counters, then he returned to the fridge to retrieve everything else: yogurt, kale, ginger, and tofu. Jules couldn't quite believe that a frat house could even have that great a variety of healthy foods.
"Could you get me one avocado and two bananas over there," Knox asked as he went looking for the blender.
"Uh, yeah, sure."
When Jules returned with the fruits, Knox was getting everything ready on the table. There were more ingredients now: a can of chickpeas, protein powder, and peanut butter.
"Kehi's allergic to nuts," Jules said automatically.
Knox widened his eyes then tossed the peanut butter away. It rolled on the floor until it reached the wall.
"You didn't have toâ" she didn't even know how to phrase this.
"I don't know why I just did that. I'll go get it," Knox said, scratching his neck in embarrassment.
Jules giggled as Knox picked up the peanut butter jar and brought it over to the trash. He let it fall from his hands right into the bin and said, "Oops."
"That's very honourable of you," Jules said in a joking manner.
"Can't have my boy Kehi die by accident â should I wash my hands just in case?" Knox asked rather seriously.
"No. He won't die if there are micro traces of nuts in his food," Jules reassured the man before he could run to the dish-piled sink.
"Right. Where were we?" he mused, going back to the large amounts of foods on the table. "Is he allergic to almonds by any chance?"
"No, almonds are good," Jules said.
"You're a good friends, knowing all of these facts about him â you sure you two aren't dating?" he asked jokingly as he went looking for the almonds.
"Hah, no, definitely not," Jules said. "We're kind of like siblings, I'd say. We grew up together and all that."
"That's good. I can't think of anyone I knew in my childhood with whom I'm still friends â what's your program, by the way?"
Knox dumped a generous quantity of most ingredients into the blender as the two conversed, and Jules wondered if perhaps he was making too much.
"Psychology, and yours?" she replied.
"Law."
"You play soccer and study law? How the hell do you manage your time?" Jules questioned, bemused. This frat house was reserved for soccer players only. If you weren't on the soccer team, you weren't allowed to live here.
"Yeah. Well, I gotta make my parents proud and keep myself sane at the same time somehow â I just do a lot of assignments last minute is all," he said with a chuckle and a shrug.
"So, if you could choose, you would only play soccer and not study law?" Jules asked.
"If I could choose, I would live on a remote island and do whatever pleases me whenever I please, but you know, society exists and all," Knox said. Jules snorted.
Knox turned on the blender and it made a lot of noise. The two wouldn't be able to speak for a while, so Jules opened the fridge to find the hamburger ingredients.
"No, I've got it. You're a guest. I'll cook." Knox paused the blender just to say that.
Jules left the ground beef on the table and decided to sit down as Knox did everything. After a few more loud whirring sounds from the blender, Knox announced that the smoothie was ready.
"Here you go, Jules," he said, handing her the first cup. There was enough left in the blender for one more cup.
"Oh, I don't have a hangover," she said with surprise.
"I meant, bring it to Kehi," he said.
"Right, yes. I will go do that now," Jules shook her head at her own absentmindedness. What was wrong with her? Why did she keep saying the wrong things?
"I'll cook the burgers while you're gone," Knox informed her. She nodded and left the kitchen with the fresh cup of hangover smoothie in her hand.
The guy that was previously laying on the stairs was gone, which was good for Jules since she didn't feel like having to jump around on a set of stairs with a cup of smoothie in her hand. The sound of the shower was still going on, but the moment she went to knock on the bathroom door, the water turned off.
"Uh, Kehi? I've got a hangover smoothie for you," Jules called through the door.
"Just put it on my bedside table, for now," he shouted back. With a slight disgruntled look on her face, Jules found her way back to Kehi's room.
That's where she found the guy that was laying on the stairs just earlier. It was definitely him, even though she couldn't see his face. That much was obvious just by the same large "ONE OF THE BOYS" words printed on his back in red. It seemed he had migrated from the stairs to his bed.
He snored softly as his body moved up and down with every breath. Jules hoped the guy must be sleeping better now, though his body was still somewhat contorted in what looked like an uncomfortable position on his bed. She supposed he was too exhausted to care about his sleeping position.
Just as she deposited the smoothie on Kehi's bedside table, his roommate grunted.
"Water," he mumbled. "Water⊠pleaseâŠ"
Jules tried not to roll her eyes. She did not come here to play mother with every frat boy she came in contact with (except for Knox in the kitchen, of course, who seemed perfectly capable and enthusiastic with taking care of things by himself), but she also felt a tinge of sympathy as Kehi's roommate was likely hungover as well.
"Just a moment," she said lowly as she yanked the empty cup that Kehi had drank from earlier.
Jules went back to the bathroom, not keen on going all the way back downstairs just for water, especially since she already had an empty cup with her. The bathroom sink's tap water would be fine.
Without knocking, Jules pushed open the bathroom door. Thankfully, Kehi was not naked, rather he had a towel wrapped around the bottom half of his body as he was brushing his teeth.
"Was anyone awake when you went downstairs earlier?" Kehi asked her just after spitting out his toothpaste.
"Yeah, Knox is downstairs making us burgers."
Kehi nearly dropped his toothbrush.
"Knox is here?" he queried, crestfallen. "You met Knox?"
"Yes, is there a problem?" Jules asked, wondering why the hell Kehi cared so much.
"Is there a problem? Of course there's a problem, Jules. He's a fuckboy! You have to stay away from him, do you understand? He's always bringing girls in here just to sleep with them and then he ghosts them the next day â God, did he try anything with you?" Kehi said all of this with more concern than Jules had ever heard from him before.
"No, nothing happened. He just made you a hangover smoothie and offered to make us burgers," Jules said. Was Knox flirting with her this whole time? She couldn't tell.
"Okay, his hangover smoothies are quite amazing, I won't lie â and his burgersâŠ" Kehi made a chef's kiss, then pointed his finger sternly at Jules as if he'd just remembered something important. "But you can't let his cooking fool you. He's a sneaky bastard. You have to promise me you won't fall for his tricks, okay?"
Jules wasn't sure what was going on, but she nodded anyway.
"You have to promise me," Kehi insisted.
"I promise. I won't let him trick me or whatever." Jules shrugged, finding Kehi's solemnity quite amusing.
"I'm being serious."
"Yeah, me too. I just met the guy. I'm not interested in him or anything," Jules clarified. Kehi nodded in satisfaction at her answer then went and rinsed his mouth in the sink.
Except that Jules felt like she had lied, somewhat. She did not want to tell Kehi, but there was a shameful part of her that found Knox quite interesting. Of course, she had just met him, but he seemed like such a good guy. Could he really be a fuckboy? No way, right? But then again, you never really knew people upon first glance.