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“Dude, you have to come over, like, right now.” Hyosu’s voice sounded nervous next to Kasuga’s ear, quietened by the phone line.
Kasuga levered himself up on an elbow to get a good look at his bedside clock.
3:05 stared back at him, all neon green.
“Hyosu, it's three in the morning. Why would I come over?”
“Cause I need you, dude. Cause if you don't, I could die.” The last word was drawn out for all the drama it could give.
“What if I don't care that you die?”
“Dude, rude- Oh shit! It's moving! Please come!” There was a crash and then the beep of a dial tone as Hyosu hung up.
Kasuga stared down at the horrifically bright ‘call ended’ shining up from his phone and heaved a sigh.
I'm not going, He decided. Not again. I won't do it. The idiot can take care of himself.
He threw back the blanket, disconnected his phone from charge, and struggled free of the bed.
I don't even like the guy. He's loud, and far too energetic for anyone's good.
The hallway outside his room was dark. The key to getting out without his parents waking was absolute silence, so obviously this meant that Kasuga tiptoed past their door.
It's not like it's ever an emergency. Dude is just a massive drama queen. With his stupid singlets, and his stupid shoulders.
Moving the door slowly, least it creak and give him away, Kasuga let himself out of the house. His bike was where he had left it, in the shadow of the veranda.
One unlocked garden gate later and Kasuga was riding to Hyosu’s rescue. Again.
“You’re a sucker for a pretty face, Kasuga, you know that?” He said aloud.
The stray cat he peddled past meowed with all the infinite wisdom of cats everywhere. Kasuga was not comforted.
***
Lights could be seen in the windows when Kasuga rolled up at Hyosu’s house.
The rest of Hyosu’s family must have been away for the holidays, Kasuga decided, otherwise the idiot wouldn't be awake at three in the morning, let alone calling him.
He leant his bike on the inside of the garden fence and headed for the door. Might as well get this over with.
If an enterprising thief wanted to steal his bike at three twenty-five in the morning, they deserved it for the effort put in alone. And really, he probably deserved it for agreeing to go riding at three twenty-five in the morning.
“Yo, Hyosu, what's your- what the hell are you doing?”
Hyosu was standing in the middle of the table, broom clutched to his chest and wearing nothing but his boxers and a singlet. He looked like he was about to cry.
“There's a spider.” He whispered, and flicked his eyes to the floor.
Kasuga followed the glance to a rather small spider, frozen in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“Okay, but why didn’t you just kill it?”
The tears welled. “I was going to! And then I remembered that spiders are alive too, so I tried to capture it.”
There was a cup on the floor near the spider, and a rather sad looking newspaper.
“But then it moved and I remembered I'm terrified of them.”
“So, you called me?”
A snotty swallow, “Yes.”
“At three in the morning?”
“Yeah?”
“While standing on the table?”
“Nah, I climbed up here when it moved again. But you're not scared of them. You can save it, right?”
Kasuga stared into tired eyes, with tears at the corners, and knew that even if he had been scared of spiders, he would have tried anyway.
“Hormones make you do some stupid shit.”
“Pardon?” Hyosu said, hugging his broom.
“Nothing. And of course, I'm not scared of spiders!” To prove his point, he grabbed the cup, and sniffed his lack of fear at the spider. It wiggled one hairy leg.
The fact that Hyosu looked at him like he had just punched a bear in the face didn't do any harm to his pride either. The thrill of being needed in no way made sure that he would come back again, whenever Hyosu called.
“I'll just scoop it-“
The spider scuttled just out of reach of the cup. Kasuga clicked his tongue in irritation and tried his luck for a second time. The spider, onto his trick, scuttled further out of reach.
Hyosu giggled from his spot on the table. Crouched down now, he was still clutching his broom, just at a lower point.
“Oh, shut up, you.” Kasuga hissed. “You're sitting on a table in your underwear.”
He tried to creep up closer to the spider but it shuffled away.
“It's cause I was scared. You’re not meant to be mean to people who call you when they're scared.”
“Whatever.” Kasuga said, and tried to push the spider towards the cup with the paper. The spider, out to test his patience, shuffled in the only direction he hadn't covered.
He gritted his teeth and decided he was going to capture this bloody spider if he had to be here all night.
In the end, he lured it into the cup through a complex blocking pattern with cup and paper that would have made coach proud of him.
“Front or back garden?” He asked, holding the paper and cup prison away from himself.
“Back. I don’t go out there much.” Hyosu said, as he climbed down from the table, still holding his broom. What the broom’s purpose in all this was, Kasuga had no idea.
Hyosu followed him cautiously to the back door, broom held in front of him defensively.
There was a bush at the far end of the garden, illuminated by a nearby street lamp, that looked both spider friendly and far from the house. Tipping the cup upside down, he tapped the bottom until the little bugger fell out and dropped onto the bush.
“And don’t come back inside.” He told it. Taking its little leg wiggles as an affirmative, Kasuga headed back to the house.
“Thanks.” Hyosu said from the doorway. He looked ridiculous clutching his broom, with that little hopeful smile on his face.
You are a massive, massive idiot, Kasuga. A massive idiot.
“No problem.”
“Did, did, uh, you want to stay and hang out for a bit? I have coco and marshmallows somewhere. I know you like marshmallows.”
Kasuga didn't even bother to look at his phone.
“Sure. Whatever.”
He's only going in for the free marshmallows. That's all. He deserved something for being up this early.