comfort | sean and kaycee.

second time.

the second time it happened, sean woke up first.

it was months later on another sleep over, but this time during a brief vacation in the rice family's lake house. it was one of the few times that sean and his friends could enjoy each other's company outside the busyness of their passions. the living room of the lake house had high ceilings, glistening wood floors, and a huge flatscreen tv that hung from the wide, white plastered walls. it was more than spacious enough to fit a long, corner couch and a couple of tired teens, who only wanted to wind down on its floors and indulge in ridiculous horror movies. and as a plus, the kitchen was directly connected to the living room with no walls or doors in between, so snacks were easy to attain.

horror never really scared sean, at least not the gory type. of course, he overreacted at the phantom pains that came with watching a masked man slice through someone in a bloody fit, and sometimes the visuals were too disgusting for him to stomach. but no matter what, he thoroughly enjoyed the reactions of his friends. he and julian almost always teamed up with spooking a nearby friend since neither of them took the concept of silence during at-home movies so seriously. for julian, it was josh and bailey, and for sean, it was kaycee and tahani. at some point, sean jabbed tahani exactly as the masked murderer stabbed a woman onscreen, and to his surprise, tahani retaliated by swinging a pillow into his face.

there was no way sean would back down from such an audacious taunt. he could see the challenge in her smirk, a light-hearted tension rising as their audience 'ooooh'-ed at the action, as if sean was a little boy being scolded by a teacher.

a laugh and a swing of a pillow later, and the clique crescendoed into a rowdy pillow fight. teams formed, the movie forgotten, with sean, kaycee and julian facing against bailey, josh and tahani. a few minutes later and it developed into much less of a pillow fight and more of a who could be the most extra in their fighting style contest. they were all striking exaggerated ninja poses, yelling goofy noises to punctuate hits, performing ostentatious back-flips off the couch to outdo one another, the stupid extravagance of it all seizing their lungs with laughter. it elevated into the silent kind, the type that attacked you with such overwhelming humor that it debilitated your balance and ability to function. they all dissolved onto the floor in laughing fits, sean plopping his head against the couch's seat cushion and struggling to breathe through his fit of giggles.

through his squinted eyes, he saw josh rolling on the floor and julian weakly hitting him with a pillow, both heaving with laughter. he saw the giggling tahani staring at them, leaning against bailey as bailey's body shook with uncontrollable guffaws, eventually collapsing to her knees and bringing a screaming tahani down with her. and finally, he saw kaycee on the floor, near where bailey and tahani fell. her curls were plastered against the sweat of her flushed skin as she laughed and laughed and laughed, her body curled among the mess of pillows and blankets. she looked like bliss.

their eyes found each other amidst the crowd of friends, hers ecstatic. somehow, kaycee smiled wider, even brighter than before. somehow, it made him feel happier than he did before he caught her eyes. something in him was giddy, like this single look was a secret that only they could understand the importance of. it kept them stuck. their mutual gaze held until their breath calmed alongside their liveliness.

everybody lowered out of the collective emotional high and grounded themselves in some sense of reality again. sean and kaycee glanced away from each other, sean rubbing his nose and kaycee clearing her throat and falling into her neutral smile. julian pointed out that the movie had ended, the credits rolling with soft violin. that signaled to everyone else that it was probably time to sleep.

the floor was fixed, makeshift beds of blankets and comforters reorganized into one neat row. there was enough space between each of them that there was no worry about personal space being invaded in the middle of the night. kaycee had made sure of that with the way she positioned everything. sean thought nothing of it.