Old friends
It all started when we bumped into each other at the library. I had been out of town for a few years to study but now I was back home, mostly because I liked the calm of our small town. None of us had really seen anyone from school in a long time so we decided to have a coffee to catch up on some old memories. My new apartment happened to have a lovely balcony that bathed in evening sun so I invited him over to enjoy it with me.
We had coffee and talked for hours when we noticed that the sun was down and it was a bit too chilly to sit outside.
“I have a song I’d like you to hear”, he said as he sat down on my couch. Suddenly this very much felt like a throwback in time.
“Yeah? I don't have a speaker yet though…”
He pulled out headphones from his pocket, plugged them in and offered me one of them.
I smiled and sat down next to him. “Oh, this is very old school”, I said.
“I know, and I like it.” And with that, he started the song and we sat in silence.
I closed my eyes for a moment and started realizing how much I appreciated this moment with him. It was so calm and quiet, all focus on the music in our ears but I also felt this tension between us that was real and undeniable. He had to feel it too. If I ever felt something for him back in school, I think I just shook it off because I could never have dreamed about even doing something like this, with him. Yet here we were, ten years later. It was as if time had stood still in some ways but in other ways like a lifetime had passed.
It must have been a minute or so into the song when I felt a movement. With our backs resting against the couch I could feel each shift from him and I guess that must have been the same for him. I opened my eyes and glanced over at him but he wasn't going anywhere, his eyes were still on his phone but there it was again. With my eyes also on his phone it was very obvious, his belly just popped out and I felt that movement of the couch again. I immediately tensed up and I had to take a deep, calming breath. My brain had started counting without permission. One…two…three…four…five…six…sev…another pop. Now my face was heating up as well but he didn't do anything, didn't say anything.
Maybe it was nothing, it might just have been a couple of silent burps that he suppressed, right? That's nothing to get all worked up about. Ok, another pop and just the tiniest sound of air rushing in through his nose. Then a soft sigh. Definitely hiccups and that also meant I definitely needed to get a grip. Lucky enough, the song was still playing so neither of us had to say anything, it was natural to just keep listening. I just didn’t know what to do with myself, where to look, where to put my shaking hands. I was suddenly far too aware of my own body, both the parts I could still control and the parts I absolutely couldn't. My heart was beating fast as if I had just been running and my face was still burning, thank god for good make up or otherwise he would have seen it.
Then of course, there was this other thing, only partially doused by the slight panic I felt about it. The heat. Between my legs. Maybe it was good for me that the song suddenly stopped and I had to focus to stay normal. God knows I had practiced staying normal through something like this all my life. If only it had been something regular, like him taking his shirt off and me swooning over his body. It would still have been embarrassing but at least he could have probably related to the feeling. Now I was getting all worked up about a normal bodily function that he had no control over and he had no idea why I was suddenly being weird. Wait, maybe that was a good thing? Who would connect these dots? I mean I guess I would, if I met someone who reacted this way but that's because I know. Someone who doesn't know could never, right?
“What do you think?”
The sound of his voice suddenly broke the silence.
“What?” I know, stupid question but my brain had shut down.
"The s-huck..” he cleared his throat and started over. “The song?”
“Oh, I…” I trailed off and he hiccupped loudly again.
“HUP! Shit, excuse me”, he said, tapping his chest.
I couldn't look at him and I also couldn't find any words to describe my thoughts on the song. My head was all filled with hiccups.
“It was good”, was all I managed to get out and even that impressed me at this moment.
“Yeah?”, he smiled and closed his mouth right before another hiccup hit him and jolted his body back against the couch again.
“Mhm…”
“So maybe one m-UCK!”, he didn't even finish what he was saying, he just sighed deeply and ran his hand through his hair.
I stared at the dark screen of my phone so intensely my eyes started hurting. Every instinct in my body wanted me to look at him again. To watch the movement in his throat, his chest, the way he pressed his hand flat against his stomach after each hiccup like that would somehow stop them. Instead I sat completely still, trying to act like my entire nervous system wasn't currently on fire.
“You okay?” he suddenly asked.
My head snapped toward him. “What?”
“You’re really quiet.”
“Oh.” I let out a tiny laugh that sounded painfully fake. “I’m just tired.”
He studied me for a second and I genuinely thought I might die right there. There was no way he could know, obviously. Still, something about being looked at directly while my brain was spiraling like this made heat crawl all the way up my neck.
Then another hiccup cut through the moment.
“HUP!”
He groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus Christ.”
That one was louder. Sharper. I felt it low in my stomach like someone had struck a match there. If a hiccup could be perfect, and I knew it certainly could, this had to be it. That didn't help my situation at all, however.
“You want water?” I asked immediately.
The words came out so fast we both blinked.
“…Sure?” he said slowly.
I was already halfway off the couch. “Yeah. Water helps.”
Why did I sound eager? Why did I sound excited about helping him hiccup less when some deeply humiliating part of me absolutely did not want them to stop?
I escaped into the kitchen before he could answer. The window was open and the cold air helped a little but not enough. I grabbed the edge of the counter and shut my eyes.
Get a grip.
People have weird things. People survive weird things.
From the living room I heard another muffled hiccup followed by his frustrated sigh and my entire body reacted before I could stop it.
Fuck.
I let the water run to get it really cold. My hands were shaking badly enough now that water splashed over my fingers and onto the counter.
I pressed the cold glass against my palm and took one long breath before heading back into the living room like someone walking willingly toward their own execution.
He looked up when I came back, he had moved one arm up, resting it against the back of the couch. His phone lay dark and abandoned on the seat beside him. There was another little hitch in his breathing right as our eyes met.
“Hmk!”
His face tightened in annoyance.
I handed him the water before I could react visibly to it. “Here.”
“Thanks.” His fingers brushed mine for maybe half a second and somehow that was worse than everything else combined.
He took a long drink, shoulders relaxing slightly afterward.
For one hopeful moment there was silence.
Then…
“HUP!”
He pulled the glass away from his mouth and laughed helplessly. “Okay, seriously?”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed too. Small at first, nervous, but real.
“Sorry,” he said again, grinning now despite himself. “I know this is ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It kind of is.”
Another hiccup interrupted him immediately afterward, smaller this time, and he closed his eyes in defeat.
Something about that finally loosened the knot in my chest just enough for me to sit back down instead of hovering awkwardly beside the couch like I had been. I kept a careful amount of space between us even though every part of me was aware of him anyway. The warmth coming off him. The way he shifted a little, perhaps to hide the visible signs of the spasms. The soft sound of his breathing while he waited to see if another hiccup was coming. Him clearing his throat after it came, probably also an act to try to cover it all up. To me, it made it all the more noticeable and I loved it, somewhere behind the terrible embarrassment that I was trying to cover up. The funny thing was, I did almost the same things as him, shifted a bit and looked down.
I grabbed my phone. “How about another song?”
“Sure, but you'll have to co–mk! closer again”, he said as he handed over the headphones so I could put them in my phone.
God, I was so obsessed with hiccups and another thing I absolutely loved was when a hiccup would finish a word like that. I could see my hand shaking when I took the headphones and apparently he saw it too because he looked at my hand, then up into my eyes and smiled. While jolting from a silent hiccup. He probably just thought I was being nervous because of the tension between us but I really had a hard time trying to put them in. When they were finally in place I realized I had to move quite a bit closer for them to reach the both of us. The whole situation felt so intimate to me but also so absurd.
We both put our pieces in and I started the song, keeping the volume down so I could hear him better. There was a new jolt every 5-8 seconds or so. Sometimes almost silent, just like a small clicking sound in his throat and other times a small hmk. Occasionally also a snorting sound that I think flustered him a bit because he would always clear his throat right after one like that.
Two minutes or so into the song, he put his arm around me and I was so embarrassed I almost stood up. However, I decided to just take advantage of the situation, he couldn't possibly imagine I was doing it to feel his hiccups. So I leaned against him and we were so close, I could feel his next hiccup. The side of his belly and chest popped out quickly against my side.
He looked down on me, smiling.
“Comfortable?” he asked, quietly.
“Very” I smiled back.
“HUP! Oops, sorry…” he whispered.
I melted, that was so cute.
The song ended but the playlist kept going. Neither of us felt the need to comment on it or change the song. We just sat there, in silence. Well, almost silence. I have no idea how many more songs passed before we looked at each other. His hiccups had stopped but neither of us said anything about it.
“This was nice,” he finally said.
“Yes, I really didn't see it coming.”
“Me neither,” he said with a chuckle. “But it's not a problem, is it?”
“I wouldn't say so…”
Neither of us moved for a second.
Then he smiled.
"Can I see you again?"
The question should have been simple, but somehow it wasn't.
"I'd like that."
He got up and made himself ready to go home, we exchanged numbers and I went to bed after realizing it was already night. My head was spinning and it took some time to process what had happened, both mentally and physically, and finally fall asleep.
The end
