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You've reached Frisk. If I'm not answering my phone, please leave a message or find me on the second floor, Room 12.

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[Unexpected is one word. But it's not, really, unexpected. They'd made their opinions, since the last time they talked, quite clear, and whenever he's breached that gap, it's - it's always been him. Him reaching out. Him trying a little harder, because they're in a crisis, or because he just happens to be there. Happens to pick up on the knowledge of things he shouldn't know.

Can we talk?

They spend at least ten minutes with the phone on their lap, legs crossed as they sit on their bed, cross-legged, the room now slightly larger to contain a third such piece of furniture. It's wrong, probably, to feel a bit crowded, feeling like they're imposing on a state of affairs that should carry on without them. They spend ten minutes surveying the message with hooded eyes, trying to decipher the code and intent behind it.

In the end, they abandon the effort. Chara's better at interpreting him than Frisk ever was.

Keep it simple, for now.

One word.]

Why?

[Why, huh. It's a little better than he expected. He was prepared for an outright "no." Prepared to acquiesce and ask if maybe they could try again sometime later, maybe give them a few more weeks of not having to deal with him.]

["Why" is not easily answered, because there's a truckload of reasons, most of which are exactly why he wants a face-to-face conversation instead of just text messages.]

i want to apologize to you

for real. and in person.

also i kinda miss making pancakes

[Might as well be completely honest. And--and imply that this doesn't have to be impossibly heavy, doesn't even have to be a long conversation. Say a few words and then make pancakes in total silence. He just--needs to do better. Needs to make an effort.]

[Another five minutes pass with Frisk tapping at the caps of their knees, an erratic stutter of fingertips drumming against the ridge of their legs, shooting intermittent glances across the room. Wanting help. Knowing better than to call for it.

A low inhalation, a pull of air through their nostrils. Folding hands over the keyboard, bracing themself for the scintillating force of tired eyesockets, for the heaviness of someone else's words and someone else's expectations and someone else's problems to be tipped atop them, where everything else belongs. They've carried everything else so well up until this point, haven't they? Maybe not perfectly. Maybe not completely well. They've slipped and stumbled and cracks have shown in the frieze they've carved. But they're trying, and can't anyone just see that, and let that be enough?

Biting their lip, visualizing what lies ahead. A kitchen. White corners, clean tile, gleaming and slightly reflective. Almost neon against their retinas when it got dark everywhere else. A safe place, but a dangerous one too, home to more fits of irrational panic than they can say.

Picture it now. The scene.

The hiss of butter skittering across the pan. The smell of batter firming, the soft sizzle as the spatula jimmies underneath the pancake and flips it, arcing briefly before it lands with a faint splat. The perpetual grin, locked across from them, and the gaping black eyesockets that feel like they never blink, never waver, never look away. The full, complete power of someone else's gaze, unreadable.

He misses making pancakes. He doesn't need them to make pancakes. Is that it, then? The additional motive that's always painted behind everything he does? It can't be. He's never transparent about that sort of thing.

They've dithered too long. Disappointing him, even now.

You have to answer. Can't just press [x] and skip dialogue.

Don't hate themself enough to say yes. Don't not hate themself enough to just say no.

So compromise.]

30 minutes.

[He waits. He's patient. They can still say no, and that's fine. That's alright; they're entitled.]

[But eventually they answer, and again, it's better than he expected.]

thirty minutes. okay.

thank you frisk.

[They're giving him a chance, and that's a lot more than he could have hoped for.]

[Don't thank me.

They don't say it. It's not worth saying. It would be salt in the wound. Kicking him while he's down. Folding their phone to their chest, just for a moment, eyes closed and breathing through the rapid-fire rate of their heart, the swelling unburst bubble of tension that always forms in preparation for something big. For another interrogation session. Once more under the spotlight.

But this time.

...this time.

There's control. Choosing where and when it happens, and for how long. Not being pinned beneath someone else's scrutiny, the bribe of a burger or some fries steaming on the counter, suddenly thoroughly unappetizing. No being caught in the snares of a one-sided conversation, black sockets boring into them as a threat curdles out from a too-wide grin.

In control. For once.

For once.]

I'll be there soon.

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