You need to calm down
“You need to just stop. Like, can you just not step on my gown? You need to calm down” —Taylor Swift
Life, Kai often mused, was a series of ridiculous coincidences wrapped in irony and bad decisions — but mostly, it was about people crashing into each other at the worst possible time, like a multi-car pileup of destiny.
The scent of burnt espresso and vanilla syrup clung to the air, clashing with the faint, cold-weather smell of wet wool and expensive cologne. The soundtrack was a low, murmuring mix of clinking ceramic cups, the aggressive hiss of the steamer wand, and an acoustic indie guitar riff playing a rhythm too complex for a Sunday afternoon. Kai was sprawled in the coffee shop’s chair, the kind of plush, oversized velvet armchair that seemed designed to encourage loitering, treating it like it was his own couch at home.
He has a way of owning every inch of space he occupied – always expanding, like a star demanding gravitational attention. Right now, though, he wished he could collapse into a black hole of silence. The past forty minutes had been a relentless parade of “you shoulds” and “you musts,” delivered by none other than one of his best friends: Meli.
“Honestly, Kai, at this point you’re not helping — you’re enabling,” Meli stated, her voice dropping to a theatrical whisper that still managed to carry three tables over. She tapped a perfectly manicured nail against her iced latte cup. “He’s like a houseplant you keep watering even though it’s already drowning. You are drowning him in comfort.”
Kai ran a hand through his artfully messy, grey hair and resisted the urge to scream into the remains of his now-lukewarm caramel macchiato. This again? He felt his usual reservoir of easygoing charm start to drain away. “He’s not a Ficus, Meli. And if he were, he’d be one of those expensive, temperamental ones that require minimal attention to thrive.”
Meli’s expression, however, suggested he was defending a moldy piece of fruit. “No, he’s worse. A Ficus wouldn’t glare at me in silence for twenty minutes, making the air feel like I just walked into a funeral home, every single time I walk through your door.”
Kai exhaled through his nose, a long, audible drag of air. “Meli, he’s an adult. We’re almost thirty. He’s just... not great at communicating with people, that’s all. It’s an efficiency thing. Why waste words when a look gets the message across? That’s why he always comes off a little offbeat. But he’s fine.” He had said this before, countless times over the last year, tweaking the words like he was copying from his own emotional homework, hoping one day the message would stick.
“Don’t kid yourself. He’s the most unpleasant person I’ve ever met who hasn’t actively committed a crime. And the only reason he hasn’t even tried to change is because you’re always there, the Kai-shaped shield, bailing him out the second something remotely social enters the picture.”
“You’re being dramatic. Aron just gets overwhelmed around new people, or loud people,” Kai corrected pointedly, his brown eyes practically begging her to drop it. “Not everyone has to be an extrovert, Meli. Let it go, please. You’re trying to force him into a shape he doesn’t fit.”
Kai knew Aaron had a long way to go when it came to social skills — he wasn’t blind. Aaron was prickly, reserved, and often radiated an aura that said, “Please don’t speak to me, I am considering the structural integrity of the universe”. But ditching him, or pushing him into situations that made him genuinely uncomfortable? That wasn’t going to fix anything. It would just make him retreat further.
Meli wasn’t exactly suggesting abandonment, not out loud. What she was pushing for, though, was something close: dragging Aaron into new environments, new people, like this was middle school and Kai was the cool kid trying to socialize the class misfit. It would’ve been funny if they weren’t twenty-eight, post-grad professionals.
Aaron had been Kai’s best friend since they were five, back in kindergarten. Kai loved to talk; Aaron liked to listen — it was simple, Newtonian math. Their friendship grew easily, year by year, cemented by the shared experience of surviving high school and then the beautiful, brutal freedom of university.
Kai had always been the loudest person in any room, thriving in the spotlight, the human embodiment of a spotlight itself. But somehow, watching Aaron shrink into himself — trying to disappear behind a book or a pair of headphones — brought him a strange kind of peace. It was a counterpoint, a necessary anchor to Kai’s own effervescent nature.
Aaron wasn’t exactly celebrity handsome or anything, but he was definitely good-looking, in a sharp, intimidating way—all angles and height. The main issue? He was almost two meters tall. People stared at him constantly. And Kai couldn’t help but laugh every time Aaron squirmed under the unwanted attention, his face going slightly pink with annoyance.
Sure, Aaron wasn’t easy to figure out. He was like a complicated equation written on a dusty chalkboard. But after twenty-plus years, Kai understood him. Some people just take time. You have to meet them at their pace, not yours. So yeah — that’s why this conversation should already be over, Kai thought, looking at Meli with a patience he didn’t actually feel.
“Whatever,” Meli said, giving up the fight with an exasperated flick of her wrist. “Do you want to come to Lucille’s party tonight? It’s going to be great. She’s got that new apartment, and the view alone is worth the Uber fare.” She casually shifted gears, tossing out a lifeline: a topic they both actually enjoyed.
Kai blinked, surprised she let it go so easily. Meli wasn’t exactly known for giving up on her campaigns — and lately, turning Aaron into a fully functioning social being had become her personal mission. Like she was trying to fix a particularly rebellious son who refused to be civilized.
“Sounds good, actually. I’m in,” Kai said, a wave of relief washing over him. He sat up a little straighter, finally engaging now that the conversation had taken a turn toward something that didn’t feel like a moral debate. “Have you seen her new place? It’s massive. I could probably host a whole drag show in her kitchen.”
Kai and Meli definitely had more in common with each other than Kai ever had with Aaron. They were both loud, party-loving people with a flair for dramatics. They shared the same sun-kissed skin tone and, as they liked to joke, a “human-being-ultra-inclusive” approach to sexuality — proudly, unapologetically bisexual.
They laughed loudly and often, so much that both had tiny laugh lines at the corners of their mouths and eyes — evidence of years spent turning every social moment into a chance to crack up.
But all that chemistry came with friction. Their similarities often led to long, passionate arguments — starting from a shared opinion, but with wildly different reasoning that escalated quickly into full-on debates. When one of those fights broke out in the flat Kai shared with Aaron, it usually ended the same way: Aaron would emerge from his room, stone-faced and calm, a living embodiment of the Viking Funeral concept, and say in his deep, unimpressed voice, “Could you yell until your vocal cords give out somewhere else? Please and thank you.”
Okay, maybe Meli had a point. Aaron wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine when she was around. But in his defense, Kai and Meli could be very loud, and Aaron liked his peace and quiet. He spent most of his time reading or studying something obscure and complicated, far from the noise they brought with them.
“Should we go to your flat and wait for the party to start?” Meli said, all innocence and mischief, her eyes sparkling like a cat knocking over a wine glass just to see what happens. “I could change, and we could pre-game. I know you hide those expensive whiskeys for special occasions.”
Kai froze. His spine went rigid against the velvet armchair. This was a trap. A beautifully wrapped, sarcasm-scented trap. He had walked right into it.
Aaron had made his position crystal clear before Kai left the apartment three hours ago, his voice surgical in its precision: ”If you bring someone over today, I’ll cut your dick off in your sleep. I must study for an operation tomorrow, and I require total silence. Do you understand, Kai?" The fact that Aaron was a surgical resident and meant ‘scalpel’ when he said ‘cut’ did not help Kai’s nerves.
So yeah — a pre-party hangout at their place was off the table.
Kai sighed. He should’ve known Meli wasn’t going to let the Aaron thing go that easily. She just wanted an excuse to bring it back up again, and she did it effortlessly.
“Umm... I think I’m out of beer,” he offered, pulling the first lie that came to mind. “Why don’t we go to yours tonight? I need to pick up a nice bottle of something anyway, and yours is closer to the liquor store.”
Meli stared at him in absolute silence for a solid forty seconds, her gaze piercing enough to shatter glass, clearly weighing whether this fabricated excuse was a hill worth dying on. Her lips parted slightly, ready to launch a fresh critique of Aaron’s anti-social habits.
Finally, she huffed, defeated. “Fine. Let’s go to mine tonight. But you’re buying the pre-game shots.”
Kai nearly wept in relief. He didn’t want to keep talking about Aaron — or how he should stop enabling his supposedly ever-worsening manners. He stood up, stretching his long frame. “Deal. Let’s go.”
As they stepped out of the coffee shop, the cold city air hitting his face, Kai wrapped his arm around Meli’s shoulders. “So, who do you think I should bring to my cozy bed tonight?” he asked, ready to drink himself into oblivion and forget the past hour’s interrogation.
What he should have considered, though, before indulging in his most primal urge to get wasted, was that Aaron had a memory like a steel trap. And a very real, very sharp scalpel collection. He would remember every promise of silence broken.
