The Celebration Of A Lifetime

I wake up about two hours later, Knox is snoring loudly beside me and Keita is snickering from outside his door. Most likely because we're sleeping next to each other.

"Not dating huh?" He raises an eyebrow, quietly laughing between words.

"Still no girlfriend huh?" I shoot back, smiling with superiority.

His smile lowers, this time it's more like a smirk as if he's saying 'that was good.' "When's the cake gonna be ready?"

"Six," I respond, rubbing my eyes and trying to ignore Knox's annoying snoring. "Do I snore like that?"

Keita shakes his head, "No, you're completely quiet." He chuckles softly, "Sometimes it even seems like you're dead."

"Good to know that you will make sure I'm okay," I say sarcastically and carefully get out of Knox's bed, making sure that I don't wake him.

"You have no clue how I reacted the first time I thought you were dead," He smiles and furrows his brow as if to say he freaked out the first time.

"How did you react?" I ask in a whisper, getting quieter because Knox just moved.

"I drew all over your face," He gestures to his face. "Sadly Knox would constantly wash it off before you'd notice."

"That explains why sometimes he accidentally drops a glass of water on me then throws a towel at me whenever I sleep over here," I giggle. Looking back at Keita I start to notice some more stuff about him, like how he looks a lot like Knox but with a few easy to notice differences. His basic appearance is the same as his brother's, dark bronze skin, dark brown afro, dark brown eyes and they have nearly the same voice as well, except Keitas is deeper. The main differences would be in the style, Knox tends to wear anime-related clothing but Keita sticks with expensive name brands, and Keita also low-rides. Keita's afro is also taller than Knox's, plus Knox's hair is a little wilder. Knox has full lips but Keita's are slightly thinner and Ketia has a smaller nose than Knox too. Also, one of the largest differences between the two of them is their figure, Keita is absolutely ripped meanwhile, Knox is skinny like a twig.

Keita stares at me with an uncomfortable look on his face, "What are you staring at? Is there something on my face?"

I laugh quietly, walk up to him, and place my hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry to break this to you but," I pause dramatically. I gesture to his entire face, "You have a bit of ugly all over here."

He looks away with a smirk on his face then looks over my shoulder, "He's waking up, let's leave him alone." He grabs my arm and pulls me out of Knox's room, shutting the door behind him. We go upstairs where his sister is watching a Twitch stream and we sit beside her.

"Trying to steal Knox's girl?" Afia asks, not looking over to us.

"Shut up," Keita responds, suddenly pissed off.

Knox comes running upstairs and grabs my arm, "Seriously guys?"

Afia raises her hand in surrender, "I did nothing.��� She points to Keita who looks even more pissed than before, "He did it."

Knox rolls his eyes and pulls me off the couch, "Whatever, come on, let's go get Cerberus."

I nod and he leads me out the door, "See you guys later."

We get to my house and I attach the leash to Cerberus's collar. He's pure black and muscular, if someone were to put red contact lenses onto him then people would definitely piss themselves from fear. Are contact lenses even safe for dogs? Is there a pet version of contact lenses? Actually, it probably isn't the best idea to put anything in your pet's eyes.

"What was that about earlier?" I ask Knox as Cerberus tugs on the leash. The ice on the ground is already making it difficult to stay upright, now Cerberus is making it nearly impossible. "Is there something going on that I don't know about?"

"Not really," Knox responds, rubbing the back of his neck. He looks away, watching avoiding eye contact with me.

"Knox," I speak in a sincere, caring voice. "What's going on?"

He exhales a deep breath, "I promise it's nothing, we've just been really competitive lately." I continue to look him dead in the eye with a concerned look on my face. "He's just been annoying me a lot lately and I'd rather you spend more time with me, it feels like he's trying to take you from me sometimes."

I switch the leash into my left hand and place my right on Knox's shoulder, "Knox, we're best friends, me and you. Not Keita and I."

"I know," He pouts. "I'm just overthinking everything, I'm sorry."

I ruffle his hair and smile sweetly at him, "Let's make this stream amazing." He smiles at me, gazing into my eyes.

We get to his house and Cerberus bursts through his door. Afia jumps up at the sight of him and Cerberus runs over to her and tackles her, pretty much smothering her.

I look around for Keita as Knox takes off Cerberus's leash but no sight of him. "Where's Keita?"

Afia manages to push Cerberus away long enough to respond, "He went to the gym to workout his anger."

I really want to see that, but Knox would get upset. I can just wait until next time, once they stop arguing a bit. "What time is it?" I ask Knox.

"Almost 5:30," He answers. "Want to get some candles from the store?"

I nod, "Yeah." I look back to Afia, "I'm guessing that you'll watch him while we're gone."

"Not like he'll get off of me," Afia struggles to respond. "See you guys in a bit."

Once again we leave his place, this time going to the nearest store that we know sells candles. The grocery store, and if my memory serves me right, the gym where Keita works out is on the way there. So if I'm lucky, then I might be able to see him working out. Wait, what am I thinking? Why do I want to see that? Keita is Knox's brother, I shouldn't be hoping for stuff like seeing him!

"Everything okay?" Knox asks me with one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, just thinking about what colour of candle would be the best," I respond.

"How about a rainbow?" He suggests.

I shake my head, "The most favoured colours are red, blue, green and black."

"So then let's just get those colours," Knox shrugs.

"But how are we going to arrange them to make them look good?" I bring up. "Did you make a logo for your channel yet?"

He shakes his head, "No, I'm too lazy."

"So we can't use your channel colours then since you don't have a logo," I mention, staring at the ground with my hand on my chin.

"Let's just stick with the red, blue, green and black," Knox shrugs nonchalantly again. "We can focus more on the colours on the next record and we can arrange the candles once we have everything." He pulls my hand away from my chin and looks at me solemnly, his big, dark eyes are sparkling from the lights around us, "Calm down, everything will be perfect."

"O- okay," I stutter out the words. "Wait, why am I taking this so seriously? It's your channel!" I mention in realization.

Knox laughs loudly, "I don't know." We're getting closer to Keita's gym, I can see people running on treadmills in front of one of the huge windows. Seeing how mad Keita was earlier he's either doing sprints or deadlifts or both somehow. Either way, I pretty much have a 50/50 chance of seeing him. Seriously, what's wrong with me? I shouldn't be thinking this way!

I avoid looking into the window but then Knox suddenly stops. I look up and see Keita carrying his Supreme gym bag, he still looks upset. I glance over to Knox and he also looks upset. Damn, it must be contagious. "You guys going to get some candles?" Keita asks us, well mainly looking at me.

I nod, "Yeah, why do you ask?"

Keita reaches into his bag and pulls out a few packs of candles, somehow they're the correct colours. "I bought some for you guys."

I walk up and take them from him, "Thank you very much."

"Yeah, thanks," Knox manages out, somehow not sounding upset despite his face.

We turn around and all three of us start walking back to their house. There are a few minutes of awkward silence and tension that feels suffocating. "How was your workout?" I ask Keita, in an attempt to break the silence. Though, showing attention to Keita will probably make Knox even more upset.

"Pretty good," Ketia shrugs, showing little interest. "I'm pretty sure I pulled a muscle though."

Knox twitches and grabs my hand, I squeeze it tighter to reassure him that nothing is wrong. I speak again to keep the silence away, "I guess that you'll have some more room for the cake later today then."

He chuckles, "I don't think I work out enough to avoid the potential of diabetes within that cake."

We walk back into Knox's house, luckily they don't live that far away from the store. I feel kind of good with how that turned out, nobody died, so that's good. Cerberus comes barreling towards us and Afia follows, she looks like she really was smothered that entire time. "Back already?"

"Yeah, Keita bought the candles before we got there," Knox mentions, gesturing to Keita who just threw his gym bag down the stairs. Neither of them look that upset anymore either, so that's also good.

"Want me to go pick up the cake for you guys?" Keita offers, leaning against the kitchen counter.

Knox squints at him, "Sure, see you in a bit."

"Try not to do anything to it, okay?" I joke.

He exhales a laugh, "I'll do my best."

Afia can finally sit comfortably on the couch and watch Twitch since Cerberus is sticking with us now. Knox, Cerberus and I all go downstairs to Knox's room and Cerberus immediately jumps onto Knox's bed and spins around like a tornado.

Knox shuts the door behind us and slumps onto his bed, Cerberus stops spinning and lays down on Knox's lap. I sit next to them, "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, can we just watch some YouTube videos while we wait for him to get back?" Knox mopes and lies down on his bed. "I don't really feel like talking right now."

"Sure," I smile and lie next to him. We grab his laptop and put on some gaming compilation videos. Watching them in silence with some occasional laughter here and there.

Keita finally returns Cerberus perks and runs straight to Knox's door and scratches at it. I laugh and let Cerberus out, Knox follows behind me in silence as we go upstairs.

Afia is holding Cerberus back as Keita places the cake on the counter next to the candles. "I promise it's not poisoned," Keita jokes.

I smile and check out the cake. There's cookie dough frosting with bits of cookie dough sprinkled all around the cake and crushed cookies lining the sides. "Want to make some frosting to write something on it?" I ask Knox.

He shrugs, "Yeah sure, I'll go look for a good recipe that we both may like." Knox goes back downstairs and I take the cake out of the container.

I can feel Ketia wanting to say something, and I don't know if I want to hear it or not. "What's up?" I ask him, grabbing a plate from the cupboard.

He shakes his head, "Nothing." He takes a seat next to Afia on the couch. Cerberus is standing guard at the top of the stairs, he probably is trying to decide which person to run to.

Knox comes walking upstairs as I place the cake into the fridge. "I think I found a good recipe, it's not too sweet which is good considering how sweet the cake already is."

Knox places his laptop on the counter in front of me. It's a peanut butter cookie dough frosting recipe, and he was right, it doesn't have that much sugar in it. "This looks perfect, and it doesn't match the colour of the rest of the frosting so it will be easy to see."

Simultaneously, we both get to work on grabbing the ingredients and supplies. At the rate we're going we should be ready to go live by 7.

We both finish making the frosting, I take the cake out of the fridge as Knox puts it in a piping bag. "What should we write?" He asks.

"How about 'Thank You'," I suggest, carefully placing the plate down. "It's probably best to keep it basic for now."

"You guys made that much frosting just for two words?" Keita shouts from the other side of the room.

"We could write it a bunch of times all over the cake," I shrug. "Wait, no, some people may find that obsessive if it's not done perfectly."

"Wait, I have an amazing idea," Knox perks up, smiling happily. "We can write down the two words and then at the end of the stream we can explode the rest of the frosting all over the cake!"

"Perfect," I smile. Knox starts writing the words 'Thank You,' onto the cake and I take the candles out of the packages. "How should we line these up?"

"Let's do one half a pattern of black and red and the other half a pattern of green and blue," Knox answers, finishing piping out the words.

"Alright," I answer and start to place the candles around the cake. "You set up the camera and everything, also, don't forget to notify your followers."

"On it," Knox salutes and runs downstairs.

At 7 o'clock on the dot, we start the stream. Knox greets his viewers as they join in and Keita hands me a lighter to light the candles. Cerberus is smiling and being the most adorable creature anyone has ever seen. Afia is playing the stream on the TV, I can see everyone's comments. Some are saying how adorable the dog is, others are asking about the cake and like one or two are calling this cringy, one being Keita, the other probably secretly being Afia.

"I just wanted to thank you all for coming to my channel and showing your support," Knox speaks with a genuine yet nervous voice. I notice in the corner of my eye someone wrote 'CRINGY,' and Keita smirking. I punch him in the shoulder and he smiles. "So to show my appreciation, I wanted to celebrate," Knox walks behind the cake and angles it to show the camera. I grab a knife from the kitchen and hand it to him, but he shakes his head and whispers to me, "You cut it."

I smile and turn towards the cake, making sure to face the camera while also not covering up anything. I slice it and place a slice onto a plate that Keita handed me, that's when I noticed that, it's chocolate. "It's chocolate," I mumble. It feels like we just revealed our child's gender and I'm disappointed with the results. Why am I upset? This is his cake, not mine.

"I- I'm sorry," Knox whispers. As I hand him the plate, we both still have smiles on our faces.

I take off a chunk of icing and lick it off of my finger, "I can still eat all of the icings."

Knox smiles more genuinely, "Thank you all for watching my channel, and I hope that you all have a great day." Knox grabs the bag of extra icing and pops it. Icing splatters all over the cake and Cerberus nearly jumps up and ruins the entire cake. There are bits of icing on the wall and the comment section is being spammed. One I notice is from Keita and it says, 'That was actually pretty sick,' I smile ruffle up his hair. He smiles back.

With that, the stream ends and we start cleaning everything up. Keita walks over to me and asks, "Are you sure you're not upset with the cake?"

"I'm guessing that's what you wanted to tell me earlier?" I follow up with another question.

He nods, "Yeah, that's one of them."

"I'm so sorry, Alina," Knox apologizes and pulls me into a hug.

I smile, "It's fine it is your cake after all, besides, the icing is good."

"Thank you," Knox whispers. "Today was amazing."

"Anytime," I whisper back then pull him out of the hug. "Now, let's watch that movie and stuff our faces with cake!"