-a year and half before the events of chaos theory is when Brooklynn and Kenji break up

-Darius and Kenji are obviously closer than Ben and Kenji are but, for some reason Darius has been avoiding him lately & has been really busy

-late night gaming session between Ben and Kenji, Ben being an avid Minecraft fan, Kenji only playing it a few times before he left for Nublar.

-Ben always places their beds together

-Kenji learns what TNT is and becomes the worst for the villiagers

-after a couple of weeks of playing Minecraft together Kenji finally tells him what happened

-Ben is sitting there on the other side of the call like

-the two have a heart to heart about it, Ben is surprisingly not that bad at giving relationship advice despite never having been in one or even mentioning having a crush on anyone

-ben and Kenji make plans to see each other since ben is done w finals

-Ben gets there while Kenji is helping teach rock climbing, Kenji invites Ben to get a free class, Ben is freaked out and unsure of it at first, getting passed and made fun of by children

-Kenji is actually such a good teacher and so sweet with the children Ben is swooning

-after the class, Kenji cooks Ben dinner with Ben being his assistant (just yapped his ear off)

-the tension is thick they wanna kiss each other soo bad

-to Ben’s suprise, Kenji is actually a really good cook like super good, “are you lying did you get takeout?” “YOU WATCHED ME MAKE IT”

-Ben sleeps on the floor despite Kenji telling him he can sleep on the bed and he’d take the floor, Ben doesn’t budge

-the two spend the next couple of days hiking, at one point Kenji takes him to see the Parasaurolophus lux on top of the cliff

-on fourth day of Ben’s stay the two decide to go camping as Ben was leaving the next day to see his parents

-but Kenji only has one tent.

-you know what that means? THEYRE SHARING THE TENT

-the two are getting drunk, smoking sharing jokes and memories and then Kenji brings up the campfire on Nublar and how strong Ben’s grip was

-Ben drunkenly admits to having had a crush on Kenji

-“oh.”

-Ben starts apologizing for even saying that, the tension is thick, Kenji, just as drunk as Ben, asks “did you want to kiss me back then?” Kenji knows the answer to this, Ben knows Kenji knows the answer. Ben finds himself nodding, despite the answer being obvious, “so do it.”

-“what?”

-“kiss me, Ben.”

-AND THEY DO

-so they have this summer long fling of Ben visiting Kenji, when Kenji visits Ben at his school before summer ends they have an argument idk use ur imagination, maybe Ben doesn’t want to keep it a secret from everyone, Kenji doesn’t see what the big deal is idk

-Brooklynn “dies” so that rlly solidifies their distance, at the funeral it’s rlly awkward, although, everyone is more focused Kenji’s rage towards Darius completely unaware of the tension between Ben and Kenji

-Ben and Gia had been friends since she got her homework eaten by a pterodactyl, they grow close, Ben figures he needs to move on from 7 yr long crush and summer situationship and so he and Gia begin dating