(HIGH SCHOOL AU!!!)
Cole sat in the Smith's driveway, staring down at his phone with an anxiety significantly worse than it should have been for the situation at hand.
The minutes ticked down as he waited fruitlessly. 7:10. 7:11. 7:12. And still, no sign of Kai, not even a text to let him know if he was okay. Cole always drove him to school in the mornings, since Kai hadn't gotten his license yet and they both despised riding the bus, and he had never been this late before.
Cole shouldn't have been as worried as he was. He should have had the emotional intelligence to know that unexpected things happen sometimes— he wasn't Jay for god's sake.
Kai simply could have overslept, forgotten to text him, gotten into an argument with Nya and lost track of time, or any number of things, really.
But Kai was Kai. Stupid, overprepared, never late for anything in his life, willingly wakes up at 5am because 'it's relaxing,' Kai. And to have not gotten any sign that he was even alive was very atypical, enough so to cause him more stress than he was willing to admit.
7:13. 7:14 7:15. They were going to be late if this kept up, not that Cole really cared. Obviously it wasn't ideal, but it was the absolute the last thing on his mind at the moment compared to making sure Kai was, well, alive.
As the old, crusty, somehow still-functional clock on his dashboard hit 7:16, Cole decided to get out and investigate. He stepped out of the car and quietly knocked on the door to the Smith household. No response. He knocked louder. No response. He banged on the door like his life depended on it. No response.
Okay, cool. Now he was actually becoming Jay levels of worried, and he didn't like the feeling one bit. He didn't particularly enjoy doing this, but Cole reached for the small silver key in his pocket. Both he and Kai had decided to get each other keys to each other's houses, for use in emergencies only.
Or when the other was too lazy to unlock the door. Or when Kai broke into his house to ask for the last of his cheesy poofs. Okay, they had been very loose on the definition of 'emergency,' but still, it made Cole uneasy to just enter his house without permission. But he pressed forward, deciding that a breaking and entering charge was more than worth it to make sure his boyfriend was alright.
"Kai?" Cole called out as soon as the door shut behind him. He heard a pained groan come from upstairs which, although technically a response, didn't make him feel any less tense. He rushed up the stairs to Kai's door as quickly as he could, absolutely hating the awful suspense he felt as he did so.
"Can I, uh, come in?" Cole's hand was already on the door knob, planning to open it if he didn't receive a response in the next millisecond, but it couldn't hurt to ask.
"Mhm." Kai's response was quiet, and pain was already evident in his voice. Cole couldn't have opened the door fast enough, swinging it open to reveal Kai slouched over on his bed.
And didn't seem to be doing so well from the looks of it, either. His body was contorted in a way that couldn't possibly be comfortable, he was underneath at least three blankets from what Cole could see, and he was making wheezing sounds every time he tried to take a breath. Cole was suddenly even more glad he'd decided to check in on him.
"Hi." Kai mumbled, a drowsy smile curling on his lips, before quickly losing it as he fell into a coughing fit. "I'm not going to school today, uh, obviously, so you can leave if you want. I don't wanna make you late."
"Dude, seriously?" Cole walked up to Kai and took a seat next to him on his bed.
"You think I'm going to just leave you here? You look..." Wow, he looked even worse up close. His normally well-kept hair were an unruly mess across his face, his bright green eyes had so little life in them that it pained Cole to look at, and his face was paled even more so than normal. He looked absolutely miserable like this, and it was a horrible sight he wouldn't wish on anyone.
