HALCYON

KAO

March 31st 2019.
That was the first time Bao and I both complimented each other's appearance.

It was late, on a Wednesday night, and we both had school the following day.
I had just got his number that day, and he said it was 'long overdue' because we had already known each other for about three months.

He texted me when I first got home at around 4:30 pm and we chatted until about 9, when I said I was going to go to sleep. He had texted me goodnight with all of the wrong emojis which made me text him even more to ask what the heck he was typing.

It was the first time I texted anyone other than Dr. Caleb,

someone my age,

and someone who I actually looked forward to speaking to.

At first I was not sure how to text Bao, I didn't know if I had to search up memes to send him or just talk to him about how his day was or something. I didn't need to use any memes because his choice of emojis became a source of laughter for both of us, but I did end up asking him how his day was.
You'd think that was his favorite question based on how descriptive he was when he answered it.

He gave me an entire rundown of his day, it seriously included everything. Well-almost everything.
He told me about how his toothbrush fell earlier that morning, how he made eye contact with John when he was trying to whisper to me, how he thought of skipping when he went to the bathroom during third period, and he even told me about our interactions that day-like I wasn't there with him the whole time.

I noticed he texted in small bubbles, so I would read a small sentence and have to look at the three dots before he sent another. I don't know why, but even that entertained me. Maybe I was just happy that I was texting a friend.

We eventually stopped texting after he sent even more bizarre emojis and I thought that was it for the night.
He told me he'd try to sleep too, and he didn't get on me about sleeping at nine like I thought he would've since he just seemed like the type of person to stay up late.

He definitely was the type of person to stay up late.

I guess I was too.

I tried to sleep after we bid farewell, I really did but, my mind had other plans. I closed my eyes and tried to think of a scenario to get a dream started but my brain just wasn't focusing that night. It was not the first time that I struggled to fall asleep, but it was the first time I ever considered talking to someone to pass the time.

I ended up taking more of a nap around 10:00 and just waking back up at around 2:30. The moon and a streetlight had slightly shined through my curtains, and I was fully prepared to just stare at the white ceiling above me before I thought about my phone that was sitting face up on my nightstand.

When I picked it up, it immediately lit up. I always kept my phone on full brightness sinceI was usually in light when I used it but, that didn't do me much justice then. I was thinking about reading something.

I squinted and my hand was already moving to turn the brightness down when I saw I had gotten a text from Bao-even after we both said we were going to sleep. My thumb moved to my home button instead to see what he had texted. As soon as I saw a text from him, my brightness was long forgotten.