Summary: Arthur Kirkland, English major extraordinaire, is a master of words. And yet despite this, he finds that it's almost impossible to read a word of what Alfred F. Jones sends in his text messages. It's apparently a phone malfunction, Alfred claims. A phone malfunction that happens consistently at the same hour every day.

A/N: The second half of the #usukvday2k18, which shouldn't be a day late like this but responsibilities and Internet problems got in the way. Read the first half at ixiepixie on AO3.

Everyday, right before Arthur's 3:30 pm class on analyzing the various motifs and cultural references pulled upon from Shakespearean texts, he would receive messages from his partner in crime, Alfred.

Arthur and Alfred were an unlikely duo, as the two were in entirely different departments for two entirely different occupational end goals. Despite this, however, three of the things they agreed upon being similar with was their 8:30 am English class, a preference for reviewing for tests in quiet study rooms and their extreme breakfast cravings.

During these times, it was clear that they, of course, talked often; Alfred did so for the two of them on most days. But Arthur enjoyed Alfred's humor and company, especially when the stresses of midterms and finals loomed near.

It's usually then, after their talks, that Alfred often sent a barrage of texts to make up for not being present with him throughout the day. They were either really horrific shortcuts for basic English words as well as ridiculous pictures with large white captions that he claimed was a category of underappreciated art called 'memes'. Arthur never usually replied back to him, and only ever needed to open his messages up just to ask when Alfred was going to come to the café.

But all of this was before the odd message that started it off.

Alfred: SSB0aGluayB5b3UncmUgY3V0ZQ==

Arthur: Jones? What is this supposed to mean? It's not more of that god awful text talk, right?

Alfred: oh shoot haha sorry man that was a mistake my phone was on in my pocket I guess

Arthur: I'm not even going to attempt to correct that mess of a sentence. Did you finish your assignment?

It was something that Arthur had passed off as a passive mistake on Alfred's part. Alfred tended to mash the keyboard when he was excited to explain something if it wasn't in all caps. But the odd messages just kept on coming. And Arthur had ultimately stopped replying for fear of his expensive phone contacting whatever virus had manifested itself into Alfred's message platform.

Alfred: SSB3YW50IHRvIGhvbGQgeW91

Alfred: WW91ciBhc3MgbG9va3MgZ3JlYXQgdG9kYXk=

Alfred: R29kIEkgd2FudCB0byBmdWNrIHlvdQ==

The texts kept on going and going, and it came to the point that Arthur would try and bring it up at breakfast. But almost always he would be shot down immediately after mentioning it. Most conversations would end up taking a hard left back to school and assignments. It would be dismissed with a "Yeah yeah, sorry I gotta get my phone fixed" before transitioning entirely to something unrelated.

And after about a week of no concrete responses, Arthur had finally settled on finally breaking the unspoken silent wall between him and his flatmate, Honda Kiku.

They never really talked much outside of who would be in charge of buying the groceries during that week, and Kiku didn't normally like to start conversations with Arthur unless perhaps absolutely necessary, like asking friends to stay over.

Kiku however, Arthur observed, spent countless hours on his computer with a white screen just as blank as Arthur's. Yet, he seemed to type endless strings of phrases that looked like something straight of a hacker's stereotype, while in between sometimes playing a few video games once and awhile. It's that instance that Arthur decides to connect that maybe Kiku might have an answer for him. Arthur was an old man to technology, and perhaps maybe even asking Kiku could help benefit Alfred and his phone problems.

Alfred was smart. But not smart enough to pretend to be dumb.

"Hey," Arthur said one day, while Kiku was watching what looked like an animated show. He's seated with his legs pulled up on the chair, with a pack of chips open and headphones right over his head. He tapped Kiku's shoulder, which caused him to turn around and pull the headphones off.

"Um, may I ask you something technology related?"

"Oh, sure."

Kiku had spun around in his chair, looking at Arthur with a curious expression. Arthur cleared his throat, taking the phone out of his pocket as he began to explain. He glanced at the messages again, as if to make sure that they were still there and not magically deleted from his phone.

"So, my friend has been texting me these strange messages. And by strange, I mean that they're messages that I don't think I'm understanding the full context of. I'm not quite sure if these are viruses or something else just as dangerous… but I've been too afraid to look these up online." Arthur hands the phone to Kiku. "Can you help me figure out what this means?"

It only takes about a few minutes of Kiku furrowing his eyebrows before he practically shoves the phone back into Arthur's hands, glasses skewed and cheeks scarlet.

"T-Those are base64 code lines," Kiku stammered.

Arthur furrowed his brows. The language of that word flew over his head. "Pardon?"

"They're, ah," Kiku seemed to straighten himself, adjusting back into the chair as he fixed his crooked glasses. "Binary to text formats. You know A-ACSII?"

"Uh," Arthur blinked. "If you could so kindly put that In layman terms please."

"Encoded words. Like a secret message."

"Oh? And what do they say?"

Kiku doesn't respond immediately. He only opened up a new tab for Arthur to copy those words into a translator, leaving Arthur only a moment alone to figure out what the rest had said.

And by the time he is done, Arthur picks up his phone again for a phone call and a phone photo gallery full of screenshots for later.

"Alfred?" his voice almost breaks when the receiver is picked up.

"Artie? What's up?"

"... can you please explain what you mean by your last message?"

"... what message?"

Arthur exhaled sharply. "Don't 'what message' me. What the hell do you mean that you want to fuck me? What kind of guy do you take me for?"

There was a shuffling of papers heard in the background before Alfred spoke. He sounded panicked. "N-No never! You're not stupid, I just… the message… I thought you wouldn't…"

Arthur sighed, not really sure if he's interested in letting Alfred finish his thought. His eyes glanced stare at his own bed, neat and clean. He then glanced back to his computer screen, reading the translated message again.

"You know, if you really wanted to, you could have just said so."

There was a pause on the other line. "Wait WHAT."

Translations:

SSB0aGluayB5b3UncmUgY3V0ZQ== I think you're cute

SSB3YW50IHRvIGhvbGQgeW91 I want to hold you

WW91ciBhc3MgbG9va3MgZ3JlYXQgdG9kYXk= Your ass looks great today

R29kIEkgd2FudCB0byBmdWNrIHlvdQ== God I want to fuck you

Posted March 16, 2018