Chapter Text
Anthony was sincerely, thoroughly furious.
It was the kind of rage that made your skin tight and your bones impossibly heavy—a low-frequency vibration that never leaves you alone if it stays unresolved.
And he had every single right to feel that way. He had been kissed within an inch of his life and left heaving on his bed, stripped completely raw, immediately after coming out to the guy he had recently figured out he was crazy infatuated with.
And for what reason?
None. Absolutely none—which was precisely why Anthony was furious, if not wildly frustrated and deeply, utterly miserable. Everything had been so glaringly right in that moment; all those chaotic feelings previously labeled with an ambiguous ? had clicked into place with terrifying ease at the first slide of a tongue. But Coy ran.
Anthony should have stopped him before he ran out the door. He should have grabbed his wrist, hauled him back into the room, and demanded an explanation. But doing that in the moment felt like it would have been infinitely more humiliating than rewarding.
Turns out, that logic was dead wrong. This was, without a doubt, the absolute worst-case scenario that had somehow solidified into a crushing reality.
What started as a single night of radio silence quickly stretched into a few excruciating days that bled into the new month, as the oppressive heat of August trailed quietly into September. Coy made an art out of staying completely out of sight. He drifted through the house like a ghost, sticking to his bedroom whenever he heard Anthony was home—tracking his presence through the heavy rhythm of footsteps down the hall or the muffled buzz of quiet conversations. Coy clearly didn't want to talk.
Logically, Anthony knew Coy should have also stayed out of mind.
His traitorous brain, however, refused to cooperate.
During the day, things were manageable. Staring at his PC until his eyes bled, running useless errands, working himself stupid, talking flippantly to whoever listened—anything served as a good enough distraction to keep his head above water. But the nights were plagued. If his mind wasn't torturing him with vivid, high-definition playbacks, it was phantom sounds—the honey-thick whines Coy had exhaled directly into his mouth, his shallow intakes of breath, the rough rustle of denim against denim. And if not the sounds, it was the phantom ghost of his touch: the warm, undeniable weight of Coy pressed down squarely in his lap.
Every night, his nightmare would start the same—Coy’s fingers tangled in his hair, the taste of him hot and desperate—only for Coy to suddenly turn into cold, slick water mid-kiss, slipping straight through Anthony's useless fingers and pooling onto the mattress, leaving Anthony shivering, soaked, and entirely alone in the sheets.
As stated: absolutely infuriating and very, very miserable.
It took two days for Will to finally, if a little fearfully, approach him with the topic. After all, talking to Coy had been his brilliant idea in the first place. They sat at the island in their kitchen, sharing a quiet dinner of spaghetti bolognese Will had cooked as a peace offering to ease the household tension. To Anthony, who could barely swallow past the lump of lead in his throat, the pasta just tasted kind of grim and oily.
Will stared down at the untouched, pristine plate he'd set out for Coy, his fork stalling in his hand.
"So," Will started, clearing his throat after choking down a mouthful of pasta. "I take it you talked to Coy..."
Anthony waited a few agonizing seconds for Will to add something else, to no avail.
"Yeah," he stated, letting out a bitter scoff. "Thank you for that."
Will hesitated for a second, shifting uncomfortably on his stool, but then his expression hardened into something serious. "Look, it's not my fault it went badly, Ant. I just wanted you guys to fix the issue like adults."
Anthony didn't answer. He just glared down at his plate, aggressively twirling a single noodle around his fork until the ceramic scraped.
"Honestly," Will continued, his voice careful, "I even told Coy there was no pressure for you two to fix everything right away. Just that you should've talked it out. Like you know... adults."
Anthony snapped. The fork hit the plate with a harsh clatter.
"That's the exact fucking problem!" Anthony barked, his voice cracking slightly at the edges. "Coy ran out on me while we were... fixing things!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, a sudden wave of heat flushed up Anthony’s neck. He caught himself, his jaw snapping shut, looking entirely flustered as he leaned back against the counter.
Will blinked, his eyes widening in immediate alarm. The subtle shift in Anthony's tone hadn't gone unnoticed. "Wait... what did you do?" Will asked, his voice dropping into a cautious whisper, clearly afraid of the answer.
"I didn't do anything!" Anthony deflected instantly, crossing his arms tight over his chest, his eyes darting away. "He's the one who's being completely unhinged! He initiates things, he spirals, and then he bolts like I'm going to kill him! He makes zero logical sense!"
"Anthony," Will pressed, his exasperation finally boiling over as he slammed his hand flat on the island. "Stop dodging! What does 'while we were fixing things' mean? What happened in that room?"
Something in Anthony's chest popped and crackled.
"I am in love with him, okay?!" he hissed, the words tearing out of his throat before he could stop them.
The kitchen fell into suffocating silence. The hum of the refrigerator was deafening.
Anthony stood there, breathing heavily, his chest heaving as the raw truth echoed off the tile walls. He felt defenseless, still furious.
Will sat frozen, his mouth slightly parted. It took him a full minute to process the information—the puzzle pieces finally slamming together in his mind with force.
Slowly, without saying a word, Will stood up from his stool. He stepped around the kitchen island, approached Anthony, and wrapped his arms firmly around his shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug.
Anthony froze for a fraction of a second. Then, the rigid line of his spine completely collapsed. His eyes stung violently, and he buried his face into Will’s shoulder, hugging him back with a crushing grip as a few lone, hot tears finally slid down his cheeks, soaking into Will's shirt.
"Okay," Will murmured softly, patting his back. "Okay. Come on."
They sat back down at the island, the plates of cold pasta pushed completely out of the way. Will looked at him, his expression intense but gentle. "Start from the beginning. Tell me everything."
Anthony did. He spoke with a hollow detachment, laying out the timeline like he was reading a clinical autopsy report: the weird lingering, the kitchen fight, the bar, the slurred confessions, the talk in his room, the coming out, the kiss—the desperate, teeth-bruising, knee-weakening reality of it—and then the sudden abandonment.
By the time Anthony reached the end, Will had both of his hands pressed flat over his face, his fingers dragging down his cheeks in sheer, unadulterated shock. He looked moved almost to the brink of insanity by the sheer stupidity of the situation.
Will lowered his hands, looking at Anthony with a bewildered expression. "Ant... why the hell didn't you confront him after that? Why did you just let him stay locked in his room for days?!"
Anthony felt the heat flare right back up his throat, his chest constricting as a knot of defensive tension coiled tight in his stomach.
"So it's my fault now?!" he spat harshly, his vision blurring as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes again. "He runs out on me for no fucking reason after I spill my guts out, and I'm supposed to go crawl to him and apologize?!"
"No, Ant," Will said softly, resting a hand placatingly on his shoulder, tipping awkwardly over the counter. "He's in the wrong for doing that to you. You had just been vulnerable with him and he left you when you least expected. He fucked up. But..."
Will hesitated, his jaw working as if he stood in front of an unstable explosive, calculating exactly which wire to cut to avoid a detonation.
"You need to be a little more open-minded in this situation."
Anthony blinked, a crease forming between his brows. His hands tightened into fists over his knees, his knuckles turning white. "Okay, but... I know I just figured myself out, but obviously I've always accepted Coy—"
"Oh my god," Will groaned, letting out a long, agonized sigh as despair completely morphed his features. He rubbed his temples with two fingers. "Not like that, Anthony! You need to stop trying to catalog everybody's reactions like they're conscious, calculated blueprints! Coy was wrong for leaving, but you have to stop attributing some deeper, malicious motive to what he did."
Anthony stayed still and wide-eyed, the air trapped in his lungs. His skin felt suddenly too cold, his throat tight. He hated when his carefully constructed, logical maps of human behavior were challenged, because without them, he was just standing in the dark.
"Just talk to him," Will added, his voice dropping into a gentle, almost desperate plea. "Give him a chance to explain himself."
"Okay," Anthony replied, his voice small, flat, and hollow. Will searched his face, clearly catching the hesitation in the rigid set of Anthony's jaw and the refusal to meet his eyes. "You need to trust him, Ant," he said with cutting, quiet honesty, staring straight into Anthony's soul. "If you don't trust me on this, at least trust him. Since you... Love him."
Anthony let out a slow, shuddering exhale, his ribs aching with the contraction.
"Okay."
The word hung in the air, heavy and uneasy. Anthony offered Will a stiff, detached nod of thanks—a mechanical gesture to signal the end of the conversation—before turning on his heel and retreating back to the safety of his bedroom.
The moment his door clicked shut, the artificial composure shattered.
He didn't make it to the bed. Anthony slid down the back of the wooden door, his knees pulling tight against his chest, and buried his face in his arms as he wept. He cried with a quiet, suffocating violence—the kind that wracked his whole frame, making his shoulders shake and his throat burn.
Will was right, and that was the most terrifying part. Anthony realized, with a sickening drop in his stomach, that he had spent his entire life stubbornly refusing to trust anyone. He operated under the arrogant, foolish assumption that if he just analyzed people hard enough, if he neatly cataloged their flaws, motives, and actions, he would have everything figured out before they could ever surprise or hurt him. It was a defense mechanism disguised as intellect. He did it with everyone—his friends, Coy, and especially his family.
He thought of his parents back home. He remembered the unspoken distance he kept during holidays, the way he pre-emptively decided his father's passive comments were calculated insults, or how he treated his sister's offhand advice as hidden judgment. He had classified them all into neat little boxes labeled Disappointed, Critical, or Unreliable so he never had to take the terrifying leap of actually opening up, risking disappointment, or trusting them to love him as he was. He had built an airtight fortress of his own mentality, only to end up utterly alone inside it.
Anthony stayed locked in his room straight through the night and into the next evening. He didn't turn on the lights. He barely touched his phone, dragging himself between his bed and his desk, endlessly dwelling on every relationship he’d managed to sabotage or misread because he refused to see past his own rigid assumptions.
Around eight in the evening, a soft, deliberate knock rattled against his door.
Anthony didn't move from where he was sitting on the edge of his mattress, his chin resting in his hands. "Go away, Will."
The door creaked open anyway, revealing Hanbon standing in the warm hallway light, holding two cans of cheap cocktail mix. She slipped inside, shutting the door quietly behind her, and stepped into the dim gloom of his room.
"It's not Will," she said gently, walking over and setting one of the cans on his nightstand before sitting down beside him on the bed. She looked at his pale, drawn face, the dark circles carved under his eyes. "How have you been holding up, Ant?"
Anthony let out a dry laugh, rubbing a heavy palm over his face. "Honestly? Shitty."
Hanbon didn't push or offer empty platitudes. She just leaned her shoulder against his, a steady weight. "Want to talk about it?"
Anthony stared at the floorboards, his chest feeling bruised. "I've just... been figuring some stuff out about myself. And realizing what a colossal idiot I am." He let out a frustrated breath. "I feel so insanely selfish, Hanbon. I fixate so much on my own perspective, on my own goddamn opinion of how things should go, that I completely steamroll over how anyone else might be feeling. I analyze everything to death until I've convinced myself I'm the only rational person in the room. Doesn't that just make me a terrible friend?"
"Ant, stop," Hanbon interrupted softly, her voice firm but laced with deep affection. She turned her head to look at him. "That doesn't make you selfish. It really doesn't."
"It feels selfish," he muttered, his voice cracking.
"You're like… hyper-focused," she corrected gently, placing a hand over his trembling knee. "You get like that because life forced you into a position where you felt like you had to control everything around you to stay safe. You built that habit to protect yourself, not to hurt anyone else. There's a big difference."
The sheer, unearned kindness of her words struck right through his defenses. Anthony choked on a sudden intake of air, fresh tears spilling over his lashes before he could stop them. He squeezed his eyes shut, his posture collapsing as he leaned sideways, resting his heavy forehead against Hanbon's shoulder.
Hanbon didn't hesitate. She wrapped her arms securely around his side, holding him while his frame shuddered with quiet, relieved sobs.
In the spur of the moment, surrounded by the quiet dark and her unwavering comfort, the truth slipped out of him without an ounce of his usual calculation.
"I think..." Anthony rasped out, his voice thick and muffled against her shirt. "I think I'm... queer. Or something. I don't—I don't really know yet, but... I'm not straight."
Hanbon’s breath hitched for a fraction of a second, her arms tightening around him in an absolute, fiercely protective embrace. She squeezed him so hard he could feel the steady beat of her heart against his ribcage.
"Oh, Ant, what the heck..." she whispered, her voice emotional and overflowing with warmth. "Thank you for telling me. I'm really proud of you."
They stayed like that for a long time, the heavy silence of the room broken only by their shared breathing. Slowly, his crying faded into quiet sniffling, and they shifted into a comfortable posture side by side against his headboard, their shoulders touching.
For nearly an hour, they drifted between comfortable lapses of silence and quiet, open dialogue. They talked about the house, college, and all the experiences they shared. Eventually, the conversation naturally circled around to the elephant in the room.
Anthony gave her a brief, stripped-down overview of what had happened with Coy—leaving out the invasive details, but admitting to the conversation, the sudden kiss, the raw panic, and the painful aftermath that had left them fractured.
Hanbon listened intently, her expression shifting from deep empathy to resolute understanding. When he finished, she turned to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders one more time, giving him a tight, grounding hug.
"You're going to be okay, Anthony," she murmured softly, pulling back and giving his arm a reassuring squeeze. She stood up from the bed, smoothing down her shorts.
"Where are you going?" Anthony asked, looking up at her, feeling naked in the sudden space.
Hanbon offered him a mysterious little smile as she reached for the door handle. "I need to go speak to Coy."
Anthony blinked, sitting up a little straighter, his chest tightening with a mix of confusion and anxious anticipation. "Wait—what? Why?"
"Just trust me," she said smoothly, opening the door and stepping out into the hallway, leaving him sitting alone in the warm dimness of his room, thoroughly confused.
Anthony tried to turn his focus toward anything that wasn't the sound of Coy and Hanbon’s muffled voices echoing from the far end of the hall. He paced up to his desk, adjusted a pencil, sat on the edge of his bed, and stood right back up.
He decided that as soon as Hanbon was done, he was going to march over and approach Coy himself. Enough running. Time stretched agonizingly thin through the closed door—punctuated by bursts of sharp, indistinct yelling, followed by a thick, suffocating silence, and then the quiet murmur of what sounded like crying.
All Anthony could do was think, and think, and think about what he would say. Every script he rehearsed tasted wrong on his tongue before he could even utter the words aloud.
Eventually, all sounds from across the hallway ceased. Anthony's heartbeat picked up a frantic, hammering pace as he registered the soft click of Coy's bedroom door opening and shutting. Footsteps padded down the hall.
That would be Bon, he thought, his pulse thudding in his throat.
With absolutely no idea what he was actually going to say, Anthony tried to psych himself up. He stood in the center of his room, taking two tense, nervous circles in place. With sudden, desperate finality, he marched straight up to his door, turned the brass knob, and pulled it wide open—
Only to find Coy standing right there in the doorway, his hand raised as if he had been just seconds away from knocking.
—
Coy was ashamed. So thoroughly, profoundly ashamed that the feeling had settled into his bones, heavy as lead.
He stayed locked in his room because of it. He couldn't bear to show his face to anyone in the house—couldn't bear to catch a stray glance from Will, couldn't stand the thought of running into Anthony, and couldn't even bring himself to look in the mirror without his stomach kicking and churning.
Interestingly enough, his nights were much better than his days. At night, he forced sleep to take him under, and despite his total inactivity, the sheer emotional weight of his existence left him exhausted by evening. It worked out; he would collapse into the dark and stay there until morning.
By day, however, his brain was too well-rested, and it traveled a mile a minute. He spent hours tangled in his bedsheets, staring blankly at the dark wood of his furniture, tracing the knots in the grain. With the excruciating passage of time, he found himself imagining conversations he had never had, abashedly catching himself muttering audible replies to non-existent interlocutors in the quiet of the room. He imagined how his life was going to roll on—or, maybe more accurately, how it might be swiftly swiped from under his feet. His mind flickered endlessly through faces: his mother’s tear-stained cheeks when she'd checked his texts at fifteen, the towering stained-glass windows of his childhood church, Will’s disappointed frown, and then... Anthony's bed. He thought about the texture of those sheets, the smell of clean laundry and pencil graphite, and how, despite everything, it was probably his favorite place he had ever been.
When he absolutely had to, Coy moved around the house like a spy. Basic human tasks—filling a glass of water, grabbing food, slipping into the bathroom—turned into high-stakes stealth missions. Humorlessly, he thought to himself that these frantic sprints down the halls were actually nice distractions from his own head.
On the second afternoon, the silence in his room had been too thick, the phantom touch on his skin too loud. Shutters closed, Coy ended up jacking off to the vivid, frantic memories of that night—the bruising pressure of Anthony’s mouth, the sharp, cotton-soft gasp he’d drawn out of Anthony's lungs, the heavy, undeniable weight of their bodies pressed together.
The moment it was over, a sickening wave of guilt washed over him. He felt a desperate, visceral urge to slide out of bed and pray—to beg for forgiveness on his knees like he used to—but he couldn't even get himself to stand up. He didn't deserve to ask anything of the sky. So, he just wiped his hand on a stray piece of paper, buried his face in his pillow and cried himself to sleep.
When Will had knocked on his door that next evening to softly tell him he’d made dinner, Coy just ignored him. He barely even weighed his options before going with the uncomplicated one: ignoring everyone so he could finally, fully ignore Anthony —or at least, whatever he was feeling for the man. Still, a tiny, stupid thread of relief loosened the knot in his chest at his friend's quiet generosity. Knowing he wasn't entirely hated made the dark feel a little less cold, and that night, it took him even less time to fall asleep.
On the fourth night, after yet another thoroughly fruitless day of staring at the ceiling plaster, Coy lay in the dark, convinced he had finally run completely out of thoughts. His brain felt scraped raw.
Then, a sudden, firm knock rattled against his bedroom door. Assuming it was Will coming to try and feed him again, Coy squeezed his eyes shut and called out piercingly, "Fuck off!"
The door swung open anyway, slicing a line of yellow hallway light across his floorboards. Hanbon stepped inside, head haloed by the lamp light, before she shut the door behind her with a quiet click. She looked down at him where he lay sprawled on his bed.
"You know," Hanbon said, her tone lighthearted, though her eyes were serious, "that is officially the second time I've been told to go away tonight."
It went completely unsaid who the first person had been.
Coy sat up slowly, running an unsteady hand through his matted hair. He wanted this over with. He couldn't handle an intervention, couldn't handle a long, drawn-out lecture. He decided to get straight to the point, hoping for this to be a quick, painless ordeal.
"If you're here to yell at me, just get it over with," Coy rasped, his voice rough from disuse.
Hanbon walked over, pulling his desk chair out and sitting down across from his bed. Her posture was stern, her hands in her lap.
"I'm not going to yell at you, Coy," she started, her voice surprisingly measured. "But I do need to tell you that you were entirely in the wrong for telling me Anthony was the one at fault for that fight in the kitchen. You know the one."
Coy flinched, looking down at his lap.
"Anthony is one of my best friends too," Hanbon continued firmly. "And after actually getting more context about what's been going on... I wouldn't have given him the cold shoulder if I'd known the whole story. You made me take a side in something I didn't understand."
A hot rush of guilt bloomed in Coy’s chest. He swallowed hard, unable to look her in the eye.
"I'm... I'm really sorry, Hanbon. I am. I shouldn't have lied to you." He hesitated, his voice dropping to a mutter. "I had just... gotten off this infuriating phone call with my parents the night before everything went down. I was completely out of it. But that doesn't excuse what I did to you. Or to him."
Hanbon’s expression softened just a fraction, acknowledging the apology with a slow nod. But she didn't let him off the hook. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, addressing the actual, bleeding unspoken issue.
"Anthony told me his version of what happened in his room," she said quietly. "And I'm open to hearing yours."
Coy let out a bitter snarl, turning his head away. "What's there to hear? Whatever he told you is probably right. I made a mess, like I tend to do."
"Why did you run, Coy?" she asked gently.
"Because I felt… overwhelmed," Coy shot back, embarrassed, his hands pulling at his sheets, gripping them tight. "Everything was happening too fast. I just panicked, okay?"
“You still didn't talk to him afterwards. For days, Coy.”
“Well, he didn't either.” Coy retorted deflectingly. Hanbon stared at him, her dark eyes piercing right through the pathetic, defensive wall he was trying so desperately to build. She didn't buy it for a second. Matter of fact, she read right through him.
"Why won't you let yourself have this?" she asked softly.
Coy blinked, a cold drop in his stomach. "What?"
"Why won't you let yourself have this, Coy?"
"Because—" Coy stammered, his breath hitching as he scrambled for a logical excuse, his heart beginning to hammer violently against his ribs. "Because he probably doesn't actually want me! He's just... I don't fucking know! He's experimenting, and I was just the obvious, convenient option—"
"No, Coy," Hanbon interrupted, her voice firm, cutting right through his deflection. "Tell me why you won't let it happen."
"It's because—" Coy's voice cracked, his throat constricting so tightly it hurt to breathe. "We wouldn't even get along well! Look at us! We clash on everything! Why should we start something that's just going to fail anyway—"
"No. Coy," she repeated, unrelenting, her gaze steady ans sympathetic. "Why?"
"I don't know," Coy whispered, pulling his knees up to his chest, shrinking back into himself.
"Why, Coy?"
"I don't know!" he yelled, his voice breaking violently across the quiet room.
"Why?"
A ragged, agonizing sob violently broke straight out of Coy's chest, tears instantly spilling down his burning cheeks as his entire frame collapsed inward.
"Because I don't fucking deserve it!" He choked out, burying his face into his arms, weeping so hard his chest heaved. He felt the world cave in on itself, ugly shame curling in his stomach. "I don't deserve—"
It was almost like his point of view had suddenly popped right out of his own brain. Coy was vaguely aware that he was sitting in this dark room, sobbing his lungs out, frantic hands rubbing his back as he was comforted by his friend. But he felt completely on the outside of it, his mind spiralling until he forgot what he was even crying for. He felt the sadness in the distant way you feel sadness while watching a lunatic despair from across the Metro's rails. For a quiet, surreal minute, he thought he had become God—finally understanding why a creator wouldn't step down to change things Himself, finally grasping the vast helplessness of watching a world break.
It was comfortable, that numbness. So comfortable that the sudden pop back into his own skin was brutal.
Hanbon was speaking to him in a hushed, steady tone, her comforting words initially gone unheard as the crushing weight of reality slammed back into his chest. The shame bit him the hardest. Just admitting something that humiliating—yet so painfully, undeniably true—to another human being made him tremble with pure fear. Fear of her response, fear of the absence of one, fear of being considered bizarre or pathetic for even carrying such a stupid fear in the first place. He was so terrified that the emotion stopped making sense entirely, turning into a cold, static hum behind his ears.
At some point, Hanbon had reached out and grabbed his face firmly in both of her hands, her eyes searching his as she practically begged him to just breathe.
It took him a long while, but eventually his violent bawling melted down into uneven, wide-eyed sniffling. He sat there, exhausted, his ribs aching from the force of his emotions. He was actively debating whether to beg Hanbon to just leave him alone so he could sleep for a thousand years, but she didn't really give him the chance.
She smoothed a stray piece of sweat-damp hair off his forehead, took a breath, and started talking.
“You know everyone here is like— in love with you basically?” She said earnestly.
"I don't—Bon, don't do that," Coy choked out, his voice thick as he weakly tried to turn his head away, pulling his knees tighter to his chest. He really couldn't handle pity at that moment.
"I do not pity you, Coy. Just listen to me," Hanbon said, basically reading his mind, her hands staying firmly anchored on his knees, refusing to let him slide back into his own head.
She took a breath, leaning in a little closer. "Remember when you went back to Florida for that week? Right after we all moved in?"
Coy blinked, wiping his swollen eyes with the back of his hand. "Yeah... what about it?"
"It was so weird," she said, letting out a small laugh. "Seriously. The guys walked around the house like some freaking widows. Will was hourly wiping down counters that were already clean, everyone kept moping, and I swear to God, we kept accidentally ordering way too much takeout because none of us could wrap our heads around you not being there."
Coy swallowed hard, staring stubbornly down at his lap.
"You think you're this huge inconvenience, Coy," Hanbon continued, her tone shifting, softer now, but totally grounded. "You act like everyone's just putting up with you. But you're literally the reason this house even works. You care about everyone way too much, you work your ass off, and honestly? Things just kinda suck when you're not around."
Coy sat there, completely stunned, a flush creeping up his neck from the sheer embarrassment of hearing it out loud. But underneath the sting, the tight knot in his chest finally started to give way.
Hanbon leaned back a bit, a knowing grin catching the corner of her mouth.
"And if we're talking about him..." she added, raising an eyebrow. "Out of everyone, he is by far the worst. Oh my god! The second you leave the room, he just kind of wanders around looking like a lost puppy until you come back."
Coy stared at her, his throat bone-dry, his brain short-circuiting.
"He... he does not," Coy finally managed to croak out, his voice cracking on the last syllable.
"Coy. Once, he literally asked me three times in one day if I knew what time your flight landed," Hanbon said, deadpan. "It was embarrassing. He's like— obsessed with you."
Coy let out a half-sob, half-laugh, burying his red face into his hands. "Bon, I literally kissed him and ran away like a psychopath. He probably hates my guts."
"He doesn't hate you, couldn't if he tried," she said, giving his knee a sharp nudge. "He's just as big of a mess as you are. Now get out of bed, wash your face, and go talk to him before you both drive me insane. I've seen eniugh crying for today."
Coy unenthusiastically complied.
He dragged himself to the bathroom and spent ten agonizing minutes staring into the mirror, leaning heavily against the porcelain sink. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot, his skin blotchy, and his hair stood up in messy tufts. He genuinely wondered if this face—mangled by an embarrassing amount of crying—could even pass as an interesting love interest to anyone, let alone an angel.
"Coy! Come on!" Hanbon’s sharp voice echoed from his room.
Coy sighed, splashed some cold water on his face, and made quick peace with his reflection. When he walked back into his bedroom, Hanbon didn't even look up; she had already unceremoniously splayed out across his unmade bed, propping her head up on his pillow without a shred of hesitation.
"Go," she commanded, waving a dismissive hand toward the hallway.
Coy finally stepped out of his room, taking in the house for the first time in days. The hallway felt strangely vast, the space tilting around him for a dizzying second as his feet adjusted to moving past the confines of his four walls. He padded quietly down the floorboards until he reached Anthony’s door.
He stood there for a beat, his heart in his throat. He raised a trembling hand, hovering his knuckles an inch from the wood, hesitating.
Before he could even make contact, the hinges squeaked. The door swung open to reveal Anthony.
Anthony looked equally worn down—his hair tossed, dark circles deep under his eyes, and his jaw set tight. He was even wearing a ridiculous withe t-shirt that read White boy of the year. Yet, to Coy's dismay, he still looked gorgeous.
They both froze on the threshold. The tension snapped taut instantly, heavy and intense, feeling suspiciously like a standoff in an old Western.
Then, right on cue, they both started talking at the exact same time. Again.
"Look, I—" Coy started.
"I'm—" Anthony said.
They cut off in unison, staring at each other.
"You go ahead," Coy muttered, playing with his fingers.
"You were the one standing at my door to knock," Anthony countered automatically, his tone deadpan, "so you should talk."
"Well, it looks like you were leaving your room to do the exact same thing," Coy shot back, crossing his arms defensively.
"You couldn't possibly have known what I was leaving my room to do," Anthony replied without missing a beat, an unyielding edge to his voice.
God, Coy thought, this man is infuriating.
Coy closed his eyes, took a long, deep breath, and let the ridiculous posturing drain out of him. "Look. I'm sorry," he began softly, looking down at Anthony's socks before forcing himself to meet those piercing blue eyes. "I... I panicked. My brain completely short-circuited after the kiss because I was terrified I'd just turned a totally normal maybe-platonic coming-out moment into a weird mess." He let out a nervous, self-deprecating laugh, shifting his weight. "You know me. Professional overthinker, Olympic runner."
Anthony didn't laugh. His expression softened, stripped completely of its sharp armor, leaving him looking profoundly, heartbreakingly vulnerable.
"Coy," Anthony whispered, his voice dangerously fragile. "Please just be honest with me. I don't think I can handle another mix-up."
The lingering hum of playful deflection died instantly. Coy swallowed the lump in his throat, taking a small step closer into Anthony's space.
"The plain truth?" Coy asked softly. "I ran because I thought I was being selfish. I thought I was taking advantage of you being open with me, and I was terrified that if I stayed, you'd snap back to reality and realize you didn't actually want me."
Anthony opened his mouth, but Coy held up a hand, a sudden flush burning up his neck as he scrambled over a messy turn of phrase.
"And—and frankly! If we're putting everything on the table," Coy blurted out, his posture growing hilariously rigid as the words tumbled out in a chaotic rush, "I have been carrying around an inconvenient, absurd amount of feelings for you for so long that my brain literally panicked when I didn't immediately wake up after we kissed, so…"
Anthony just stared at him. The silence stretched for three agonizing seconds. Coy watched Anthony's eyes go wide, his jaw slightly parted, utterly motionless.
The embarrassment hit Coy like a freight train. He took a hasty step back, turning half-away. "Guess I'll just—"
"I love you."
Coy froze in his tracks. He slowly turned his head back.
"What?"
"I love you, Coy," Anthony blurted out, the words bursting out of him like air escaping a punctured tire.
They stood dead still in the quiet hallway for a single, suspended heartbeat. Then, as if an invisible thread had snapped and tipped them directly toward one another, they collided in a desperate, breath-stealing kiss.
It wasn't neat. It felt like a violent thunderstorm breaking after a month of drought—a sudden, electric rush of heat, static, and pouring rain. It felt like finding the missing piece of a circuit, a sharp spark jumping the gap and blinding them both. Anthony pulled Coy in by the waist, fingers digging desperately into his shirt, while Coy’s hands flew to Anthony’s face, cupping his jaw as if anchoring himself to the earth. The taste of salt, warmth, and quiet relief crashed over them, drowning out every doubt, every nightmare.
It didn't take long for the weeks of sheer physical and mental exhaustion to catch up with them. Within minutes, their frantic movements slowed, their heavy breathing evening out as they stumbled backward into Anthony's dark room, collapsing side-by-side onto the unmade mattress.
They lay tangled together in the covers, limbs intertwined, chests rising and falling against each other. The quiet room filled with softly murmured conversations that made little logical sense, "I love you"s slipping effortlessly into the middle of random sentences like they were two runners desperately trying to catch up on miles of lost time.
"I love you, by the way," Anthony murmured into the crown of Coy's head, his fingers absently tracing patterns on Coy's forearm. "Even though your timing is terrible."
"I love you too," Coy muttered sleepily into Anthony's collarbone. "And for the record, your shirts are embarassing."
"You're embarassing."
"You suck. I love you."
"I love you."
They kept whispering until the words blurred into soft, rhythmic breathing. Tucked away from the world in the warm quiet of the room, they both fell asleep deep into the night—sleeping better, softer, and more soundly than either of them had in over a month.
That night, the angels in Coy's dreams were his friends.