Operation: KYLE

A yawn claws its way out of my mouth as my figure unfurled itself, stretching out every bone of my body. I quickly cover up my upcoming yawn with my spare hand. "Well, you look like shit." My eyes pop open. I turned my head, and gazed half-heartedly towards the direction of the voice. David's there, staring at me with a mixture of concern, and amusement while smiling lopsidedly. I send a spiteful glare at him in return. "Wow, thanks." I breathed out, my voice getting increasingly croaky the more I speak.

Tolkien chuckles beside me, not taking his eyes off his phone as he's playing online chess with me. "No, but, seriously, you actually kinda do look like shit." He says, moving his thumb on his phone. My phone vibrates in my hand, announcing that it's my turn to move my chess pieces. I drowsily move my bishop out to eliminate Tolkien's exposed, dark rook.

"What'd you do last night that made you all exhausted, anyway?" Asks Tolkien, raising an eyebrow. "Did you, like, what, read?" He smirked, huffing out a sneer as he properly looked at me. My apathetic, yet irked face was still intact when I rolled my eyeballs. "For your information, Tolkien, no, I didn't." I squint my eyes in a mocking way. "I was hanging out with Craig at his place, and we kinda lost track of time." I grumbled, feeling another yawn trying to escape my lips.

In the corner of my eye, I see Tolkien's teasing smile falter as his brows wrinkle a bit, like he's baffled by my words. David tilts his head, puzzled. Dropping his dark eyes on me, he asks– "Since when do you hang out with Craig?" I shrug, unknowingly. "Since now, I guess. He asked if I was willing to hang out, and I said, 'sure'." David hums acceptingly. His eyes were upon my face, blinking with curiosity. "What did you guys do?" I pursed my lips, eyes trailing off as I think back to yesterday. I suck in a breath. "Not much, we just mostly shared each other's tastes in music, and talked about some stuff."

I raise my head abruptly, suddenly remembering something else. "Oh, Craig also showed me the moon, and the venus." I say, without any sort of context. Tolkien, and David had their blank stares on me, both of them knitting their brows, and not fully grasping on what I meant. "The... huh?" Blinked Tolkien. I snicker behind my hand. "Ah, sorry. That sounded weird. What I meant was, he had this telescope, and he showed me the stars through that." Tolkien's mouth gradually dropped at a slow pace, nodding. "Ohh." Says David, also nodding.

I point at Tolkien's phone with my chin. "Your turn." He kept his gaze on my face for quite a while, before complying. I watch him as he moves his knight two squares over, and wipes out my bishop through my phone screen. I chew the insides of my mouth, poutingly. I hear Tolkien suck in his teeth. "I wonder why he didn't ask us to hang out, though." I lift up my gaze with narrowing eyes, then dropped my stare back to my phone. "He said you guys were busy. You had martial arts practice, didn't you?"

There was a pause. When there wasn't any sort of reply besides silence from Tolkien, I looked up from my screen with question marks surrounding my head. Our eyes meet, and lock in with each other, his stare drowning in wonder, and his eyebrows tinily furrowed. My body jumps slightly as a reaction, surprised by the unexpected eye contact. "Wh... what?" I muttered, blinking with puzzlement. David's looking at both of us, observingly. Tolkien parts his lips with an unreadable expression on his face. "I do, but I don't have practice on Wednesdays." He mumbled, shaking his head a little bit.

I remain still. "... Huh?" Was all I utter under my breath. Tolkien sets his hand beneath his mouth, his mind somewhere in a trance. "That's weird. I vividly remember telling Craig, and the others that I have practice every Friday." David decides to chime in, his eyes landing on my chess screen. "Maybe... he forgot?" I steal a glance at Tolkien. He seemed to be in doubt of Craig forgetting, but also had the face of someone being persuaded. I don't blame him, Craig was a bit of a difficult person. He wasn't Clyde, but he was the type of guy to forget things once he stopped caring, and deactivated his hearing.