HOME ALONE

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"Even if your interests align most of the time, there's bound to be times where disagreements will come up" my friend Yusuph was saying

I wasn't ready to listen to his words even though I knew there was some kernel of truth in them.
It wasn't the idea of letting the issue go that was my problem, I'd done that on many occasions in the past. It was simply one word, PRIDE.

I and my cousin had argued earlier over who got to do the dishes, my argument was that I'd done the cooking while he equally argued that he cooked a lot more than I did.
We were both right and no one was willing to succumb to the other's will. Unfortunately for me, my friend walked in on us arguing, hence his attempt at playing intermediary.

"Guy you just won't understand." I replied

"What exactly won't I understand?" Yusuph asked
He continued seeing that I didn't have any reasonable reply forthcoming "It's just your ego talking bro"

My friend eventually took his leave after spending time with us. What had been a few minutes of simple argument soon turned into a day spent avoiding each other as much as possible.
Which was awkward because we shared the same room and mostly ate the same food.

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I woke up the next morning and noticed my cousin was still sleeping since he had a lecture later in the morning.
I also had one in about an hour, so I had to rush inorder not to get to school late.

I left him still sleeping and headed to school to face the stress of the morning. About three hours later I was already back home and just as I stepped in, I saw him sitting and eating in the living room.

Normally anyone bringing anything back home would always get enough for the other, but from the looks of what was left in front of him it seemed like he was almost done with eating.

I was already playing different scenarios in my head about what must've happened. The most obvious was that he didn't get me anything because of the argument from the day before.

I was about to go into the room when he spoke up.
'My bus was involved in an accident"

I stopped and turned to look at him. He certainly didn't look hurt and what kind of accident victim goes on to buy food to eat.
He was probably joking and trying to break the ice, I thought.

"Accident? When? You're joking right"

"It was on my way to school, luckily none of us in the bus were injured"

He explained what had happened and seeing I wasn't really believing him, went on to show me pictures of the damage on the bus.
I was soon fussing over him, asking and checking if he was sure there wasn't any injury he missed.

Apparently he wasn't expecting me home yet, which was why he'd only gotten food for himself alone. I told him to forget about it and we were soon gisting with all enmity from the previous day long forgotten.

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It was in the evening that day when he told me he would be staying with a friend who lived closer to school till the weekend because they had a large workload that week.
I didn't mind and actually saw reason with him. He probably didn't want to admit the accident had shaken him up a bit.

It was the first time we would be staying away from each other in school for more than a night.
I would have some peace, quiet and the whole apartment to myself, it looked like a win-win situation for me.

It didn't take more than two days for me to get bored whenever I got back home.
I could do anything whenever I wanted, but somehow there was simply no fun in eating alone or playing games alone.
In one sentence, I was missing my cousin.

I couldn't wait for the weekend to arrive and I kept dropping subtle hints whenever we chatted online on whether he was enjoying staying with his friend.
I realized in those few days that even though we had our arguments and some friction from time to time, it was exactly that friction that made our bonding a lot stronger.

I began reminiscing about the times we spent together from time to time growing up. Getting involved in one mischief or the other (he was mostly the one getting me in trouble), disagreeing only to end up together.
I realized we enjoyed more of each other's company together than apart and I couldn't wait for him to be back home.

We could both function independently, but we were better together.