#something short and dumb bc i love macaukim besties

[the-cookie-of-doom]

He’s living in a nightmare. Kim is certain of it. He doesn’t know why, or how, or even when it happened. But at some point he went to sleep and he never woke up again, even though he thought he did. There’s no other explanation for it. 

What is “it”? 

It is his ex-something laughing with his favorite cousin, and sending furtive looks his way like he knows Kim is watching. Like he wants Kim to watch. Macau looks painfully aware of the tension but is doing nothing to cut it. When Chay isn’t looking he does try to offer Kim an apologetic shrug, which Kim responds to with a shake of his head. 

He gets up and leaves as soon as Tankhun gives him a chance. He is not doing this. 

***

Kim isn’t surprised to get a call from Macau hours later. He thinks about not answering it. There’s been an irritated little itch under his skin since he saw them together, though, and he can’t quite scratch it. 

He answers. 

“Dude, it’s not what it looked like,” Macau says immediately. 

“What did it look like?” Kim asks, because he’s an asshole when he’s feeling hurt. 

“We’re not dating.”

“Do you want to?”

“No!” 

Macau sounds pretty certain about that. He might also just think Kim would kill him if he said yes. Which, he wouldn’t. Probably. If he did, Kim would need a new favorite cousin, and Vegas really doesn’t meet his standards. 

“I would be okay if you did,” he says carefully. He tries to sound like he means it. 

“Ew, no, we’re like. Cousins.” Kim very carefully does not respond to that. Kinn and Porsche are ignoring… all of that, and Kim is following their lead. Not that it matters because he and Chay aren’t together anymore. “Sorry, dude.” 

Before Kim can think better of it, he starts to ask, “Is Chay…”

“He’s doing okay. Mostly angry, at a lot of stuff. He, uh, he asked me to help make you jealous?” 

Kim smiles at that. Chay isn’t totally ambivalent to him, then. Part of him still cares. 

“And you agreed?”

“He didn’t really give me a choice? We were just hanging out and suddenly he saw you and then he was just. All over me. And he told me to go with it.”

“Why did you?” What he means: do you know what happened? 

“I already got the full story from Chay.” Kim doubts that, when not even Chay had the full story. Then again, he’s smart, maybe he got it all figured out on his own. “He made it sound pretty bad. And he’s my friend, y’know? My only real friend, so I was, I dunno, trying to be supportive.” 

“You’re a good friend.”

“You’re a terrible boyfriend.” 

That startles a laugh out of Kim. 

“I know.” 

“He still misses you, though. He won’t admit it, but he does.”

And it’s only because this is Macau that Kim quietly admits, “I miss him, too.” 

“... Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”

“About what?”

“About getting you two back together, duh. Because I’m a good friend and you suck as a boyfriend and clearly you both need help. So, are you in?”

“... What do you have in mind?”