You thought it was silly.
The trend had been everywhere. Your feed drowning in grainy clips of girls shoving cameras in their best friend’s face, leaning in like it was nothing, and then: boom. Sparks. Fireworks. Half the time the guy froze, deer-in-the-headlights, and half the time he went for it.
Of course, when you saw it, your first thought was Soap.
Because Soap, your best friend always went for it.
That was his whole thing: too much, too fast, too loud. If life gave him an inch, he built a castle out of it. You’d watched him turn the most boring downtime into a one-man circus: water bottles stacked like dominos, pranks set like landmines, some dumb game that had the whole team screaming. He didn’t know how to take anything at half-speed.
So when you found him in the rec room, hoodie halfway off, shaking his blender bottle like it owed him money, it hit you: perfect opportunity.
You set your burner phone on the counter, angled just right, and said absolutely nothing.
Soap barely glanced over, distracted with twisting the lid off his shake. “What’re ye smirkin’ at? Gonna make fun o’ me protein addiction again? Go on then: get it out yer system, bonnie.”
You didn’t answer. You just stepped closer, close enough to smell the faint tang of sweat and the vanilla powder on his breath, and before he could snark again...
You kissed him.
And it was instant.
No hesitation, no stutter, no “wait, what are you doing.” His brain didn’t even bother sending up a flare of surprise: just that pure Soap instinct, muscle memory of a man who never second-guessed taking the shot. One second you were brushing lips against him, the next you were caught, his hand coming up like it had been waiting years for an excuse to hold your jaw.
And the thought inside his head, clear as gunfire, was: Finally.
Like he’d been carrying it, tucked away, hidden under all the jokes and all the noise. Finally, finally, finally.
The shake clattered to the counter, forgotten, because there was no universe where he could waste even a heartbeat on anything but this. You could feel the grin in the kiss, that stupid reckless grin of his, and the way he pressed forward, taking the inch you’d offered and making it a mile-long sprint. His thoughts were running faster than his mouth ever could: Don’t stop. Don’t pull away. Please don’t let this be a prank, don’t let this be just another daft video. Let it mean somethin’. Let me mean somethin’.
You’d thought he might be shocked. You hadn’t expected the way he poured himself into it, like he’d been saving up years of banter, every sly look, every too-long glance, and cashing it all in at once.
And the wildest part? He kissed you like he already knew the ending. Like of course this was where you’d both end up...
Because it wasn't just silly