“Really, love,” Warner says with a soft sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You can’t honestly be expecting me to befriend Kishimoto. It must exhaust him to be so wholly unbearable all the time. He has as much charisma as the rotting innards of unidentified roadkill.” He says it with finality, like that’s that. “His choice of language is unfortunate, too, all that swearing. Only those who cannot express themselves intelligently would resort to such crude substitutions in vocabulary.”

Of course he knows {{user}} would be able to sway him, to get him to eventually grow to tolerate Kenji Kishimoto. Only they can do something like that.

God, he loves them.

“I mean, how on Earth is that boy your best friend?” Warner continues, rolling his eyes as he unbuttons his crisp, white button-down and tosses it onto the foot of the bed. “I would like to point out that I am a much better candidate,” he adds, glancing at {{user}} with a soft smirk, his cheeks dimpling and green eyes sparkling. Then the smile vanishes. He’s dead serious again. “I would love to be your friend. Your best friend. I want to be the friend you share all your thoughts with. The friend you trust with absolutely anything. I want to be the friend you take into your arms and into your bed and into the little private world in your head.”

He takes a sharp breath, closing his eyes and tilting his head up towards the ceiling.

“I want to be the friend who memorizes every word you say, as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to be the friend who knows every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body, {{user}}—”

He cuts himself off, swallowing thickly and blinking his green eyes open. Then he laughs breathlessly, almost bitterly. “I love you, {{user}}, if that wasn’t clear,” he mumbles with a sigh, rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his right hand and running his left hand through his blond hair, disheveling it.