Chapter Text
Emil seems to be floating on a cloud today. I smile, looking at him, happy for my friend.
Oh, I almost forgot introducing myself.
My name is Edward Edwards, but everybody calls me Eddy. As in Emil and his sister’s case, my name is not really creative, but that’s something I actually like. It’s easier to remember my name this way!
Oh, I don’t want you to think I would have forgotten my name otherwise. I’m bad at names, but I think I can manage with the one I have.
Emil and I have known each other since the last year of primary school. I didn’t have any friends back then, and people didn’t like me too much because I was shy, small and “behaved weird.” I remember as if it were yesterday how I was in one of the compartments in the toilet, trying to get out, but those guys wouldn’t let me.
I was starting to panic, listening to their laugh, unable to open the door, when suddenly someone entered despite everybody was supposed to be in class by that time.
“Please, let me go, it’s urgent,” I heard Emil’s voice.
I took the opportunity to push and go out of the compartment, though I ended up falling on the floor at the feet of the guys. Emil looked at me, stunned, and one of the guys looked at me with a menacing look.
“What is happening...?”
The boys went away and Emil helped me up. It turned out that he was late to class because he had been to a chess tournament, which he had won, but needed to go to the toilet before the lesson started. That was the day we became friends.
Emil is so amazing! He always wins at chess, which is a very difficult game, and has the best grades at school. He always asks me with the utmost interest how I did in the exams, because he’s really attentive. I only got a better grade than he did once!
I was happy about seeing my friend in such a good mood, though suddenly he became gloomy.
“Eddy,” he turned to me. “What would you say if you boyfriend jerked off to your picture?”
I startle, surprised by the question.
“Why do you...?”
“Doesn’t matter, just answer.”
“I guess, I wouldn’t mind?” I reply.
“You’re a great guy, Eddy,” he says and my face lights up.
“You too!”
Suddenly, Emil makes that ‘I’ve just realised I’ve never asked you something’ face and speaks up again.
“Is there someone you like?” he says.
“I like Emil!” I reply, smiling.
“I mean romantically, you moron.”
“Oh,” I let out. I try to give Emil a smile, though I can’t help but feeling how it comes somehow sadder than I wanted to. “I... don’t think it would work out.”
“Why not?” he asks me, truly puzzled.
“I had a boyfriend before,” I confess, “and it didn’t go really well.”
“You’re gay?!” he asks me in disbelief. “Wait, it didn’t go well? What happened?”
He’s making his ‘I feel guilty that I didn’t know this about you but I’m never going to tell you because I’m tsundere’ face and I smile.
“Problems with sex,” I shrug.
Emil looks at me, with a knowing face and snorts.
“The guy was probably a jerk,” he huffs.
He then starts making question after question about him and our relationship. I can’t help but feeling a bit flustered at the sudden attention, but moved at his interest. The subject painfully shifts back to my new crush.
“But are you sure he wouldn’t like you?” Emil asks me.
“He doesn’t even know I exist,” I smile, sighing as I remember him: a red-haired man with eccentric glasses and bright smile that thanked me when he picked Saeran up from school the other day. He probably doesn’t even remember me.
Emil nods and pats my shoulder awkwardly.
“Dude,” he simply says.
Sometimes I get the impression that Emil actually wants to say more than he does, but I don’t really mind. I smile, knowing that we’ll always be besties, even if he doesn’t say it.
***The narrative goes back to Emil***
Last weekend I lost my virginity.
Easy way to start a narrative, Emil.
It was fucking crazy (literally) but now I have a problem. I can’t stop thinking about him. About it. About everything. And I’m fucking scared that I’m falling too deeply and I’m getting too ahead of myself, because we’ve not been dating for a month.
I hope I’ll put an end to my lust today visiting him again. His cool brother told him to invite me over, so I am standing on the door of his house, freaking out because I’m falling in love, because I want to fuck him but I’m nervous about it, because I’m going to have tea with him and his brother, because...
For fuck’s sake, Emil, get a grip!!!
I breathe in deeply and knock the door. After a couple of weird riddles, Seven opens the door with an apologetic expression.
“He didn’t text you again, did he?”
Good way to go.
He invites me in and gives me some Dr Pepper –because they don’t seem to have anything else than Dr Pepper, HBC and ice cream at that house– and I sit on the sofa.
“It’s not your fault,” Seven sighs and I can already feel the anxiousness pilling on my stomach. “It just happens sometimes. He wakes up feeling bad and just can’t get out of bed. Today happened to be one of those days, I’m sorry,” he gives me a sad smile. “But! You’re with god 707 now! Want to play some videogames? I don’t want your walk here to go to waste!”
“I... Can you play chess?”
“Of course,” he grins.
We play a couple of close games, though I can’t set my mind away from Saeran.
“Can’t I get into his room?” I ask Seven after I unconsciously take the queen out of the board to rub it against my thumb for the third time that afternoon.
Seven lets out a sigh.
“I don’t know if he’ll want you to see him like that.”
Gooooooooooood! This is freaking awful.
“What if I don’t give a... duck?” I don’t want to swear in front of my brother-in-law, alright?
Seven arches an eyebrow and I’ve realised saying ‘duck’ is even worse than swearing. Good, Emil. You just can’t talk like a normal person, now can you?!
“Then you shouldn’t give a duck about if I give you leave to enter his room or not,” he smirked.
Thank you, God, Buddha, Allah, Victuuri. I stand up and rush to his room, taking care of knocking the door before entering. I don’t really wait for an answer, though.
Saeran’s room is dark and I can distinguish his form shaking his lightly under the covers. I go to his side, acting like a decent human being for the first time in my life and not saying a single word, and sit on the bed.
“Sae...young?” he mutters.
“It’s me, Emil,” I reply.
He turns. He fucking turns and fucking takes my hand and I’m heriukfdj. I feel slightly guilty that I’m happy because he approaches me feeling bad, but damn. He sighs, and I can feel and apology in the air that goes out of his mouth with his breath. I just stare at him, quite clueless about what to say or do, but squeeze his hand reassuringly, which makes me earn a look from those green eyes which I don’t know how to interpret.
“If I disturb you, just tell?” I say, my sentence coming out more as a question than an affirmation.
“Stay,” he sighs and I feel my heart trying to burst out of my chest.
Should I lie next to him?! Should I not risk it and stay still?! My body is starting to ache from keeping the same position for so long, but damn, I don’t want to disturb him and be kicked off. I don’t want him to remember I’m there either, just in case he changes his mind and wants me out.
Nevertheless, he moves closer to me and I stop breathing and if I keep on like that more time, I’m going to die. God. I breathe, much to my distress, and whine as I feel Saeran looking up at me. I don’t know what his expression means, so I stand up, and he suddenly goes pale.
“Leaving?” he asks me.
“No? Yes? I don’t know,” I reply and Saeran gives me a shaky smile.
Oh. Oooh. Maybe he doesn’t want me to leave. As he actually told me. Yus, I need to relax.
I sit again on the bed and he lets out a shaky breath.
“Maybe you’re bored,” he says.
“Nah, this is exciting compared to what my day usually is. I mean, maybe not exciting, but it’s entertaining. Not that it entertains me that you’re sick. I don’t want you to be sick. It’d be funnier if we could eat your damn ice cream together and play around. Oh, shit, I don’t... it’s not... it’s fine if you don’t feel like it. Gaaaaaah,” I facepalm and stand up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to hit my face against a wall,” I honestly reply.
“Don’t,” Saeran whines and I turn to him with a light blush.
“Just why do you cope with me?”
“I could ask the same.”
“It’s not the same thing,” I point an accusatory finger at him. “You’re an angel, so st... an angelzovsky, which is ‘jerk’ in Russian!!!” I move back in embarrassment, realising what I’ve just said, my face about to explode.
“Actually, it’s тупица,” I hear Seven’s voice at the other side of the door.
Saeran hides himself under the covers, but I can see the tip of his ears turning of a bright crimson.
“Whut?” I ask him, clueless, turning to face him.
“Jerk in Russian,” he smirks. “I brought ice cream,” he says in a sing-song voice before I can reply.
I take it and sit next to Saeran, who takes a look out of the covers as he hears his brother closing the door behind him. He sits up and I give him one of the spoons in silence, which he takes with an unspoken ‘thanks.’
We eat his favourite treat in silence, feeling our bodies against the other, and I want to kill myself. Should I say something? Should I not? Is he comfortable? Does he need a cushion, water, a hug???
“Do you need something?” he asks me after a while, his voice husky.
Yes, I do. I need a new brain, thanks, Saeran.
“I’m fine,” I reply. “Do you?”
“Just... stay,” he says, looking away from me with a light blush.
As much of a clumsy person that I am, I know I can do that. I’m more than eager to do that. I intertwine my free hand with his to tell him just so, not trusting my words. They always betray me.
We may be clumsy, awful at saying how we truly feel, awkward and scared, but now, as I sit on Saeran’s bed experiencing one of his bad days, I know that neither of those things really matter to me. Because going through all those brainwrecks it’s worth it. It will take a lot of time for me to get to understand Saeran, maybe more than it would take someone else. I may never understand him completely. But I’m eager to make the effort if he’ll have me.
“Thank you,” he says and I realise I’m saying all this aloud, and for the first time in my life, I keep on going instead of shutting up and getting flustered.
“Because I’m falling more in love with you the more I’m getting to know you.”