Chapter Text
He doesn't even see him approaching, he hears footsteps that are a little too quick, turns around and is met with a fist right to his face, connecting hard with his upper cheek and shooting pain through his entire face. He yells, because of course he does, it was a good hit and it fucking hurts like a bitch, unable to adopt a defensive stance because Kin has knotted his fists into his shirt and shoved him against the wall.
He looks livid, but he also looks awful, his face is bare and his eyes are bloodshot and drooping with exhaustion, he hasn't even styled his hair and it flops over his forehead greasily.
"What the fuck is your deal?” He snarls, he honest to god snarls and for a moment Mizuki realises that as nice as he seems, he really isn’t somebody worth fucking with, he bears that in mind as he continues speaking. “You act all nice one minute and then the next you think it's alright to fuck my boyfriend?"
Mizuki swallows, thinks perhaps that is rhetorical and stays silent until he is roughly shaken and realises he's meant to answer, "in my defence," he starts, and Kin growls, bares his teeth at him. "He told me you'd broken up."
Kin falters, but doesn't release him, stares at him with an eyebrow raised and a confused but still furious expression, voice a low hiss as if he thinks Mizuki is lying, "what?"
"He told me you'd broken up, told me you were doomed from the start. I admit,” he says, keeping his voice calm and even, trying to explain himself even though he knows he is at least partially guilty. “I still shouldn't have slept with him but we were both really drunk and he kissed me first."
Kin releases him, takes a step back, looks confused and hurt and disoriented, rubs at his eyes so hard it has to hurt and ends up just pressing his fingers into his temples like he’s trying to force his emotions back in. Mizuki watches cautiously as he tries to calm himself down with a deep breath that shudders out of him, "so, I just punched you for no reason?"
"I mean, sort of? I deserve it though, so you're good," Kin is still staring at him unseeingly, rubbing at his knuckles and six feet of hot mess. "You'd have done better punching Tio."
He frowns, looks upset at the mere notion, a flicker of disgust at the idea passing across his face and he speaks promptly and without consideration, "I wouldn't."
"I know," he says, softly. "I'm sorry. I really thought you guys were over. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known."
"Hm," he says, unhelpfully, then turns and leaves Mizuki to ice his cheek and wonder just how Kin is going to handle all this by himself with all his additional pressures on his shoulders.
Kin leaves it for a few days, he awkwardly apologises to Mizuki at the bar and is told not to worry about it and even gets given a supportive squeeze of the shoulder as he heads to his next appointment. It baffles him faintly, but considering Mizuki had been lied to, he suspects they’re both as angry as each other, and both at the same person.
Tio shows up and stays quiet, gets on with it and seems to ignore the frosty tone he gets whenever Mizuki speaks to him, ignores the way Kin doesn’t speak to him at all. They close up in utter silence and Kin only lingers while he locks the door to make sure it’s done properly, if somebody wants to try and get past Tio to break in, it’s not his responsibility to protect him, not any more. Tio turns to look up at him, says a quiet, soft good night that is not returned and heads through the streets alone.
Kin would like to say he doesn’t watch him go, but he can’t.
Tio must think he’s still processing the fact he slept with Mizuki, maybe he thinks he needs time to think and figure out what to do, whether he’s willing to accept is as a dumb mistake and take him back, or if that’s too much to handle and he’s going to lose his sort of boyfriend. He thinks this for six days, stays quiet and doesn’t try to explain (he can’t), doesn’t try to apologise (there’s no point), doesn’t do anything to alter whatever he ends up deciding (although he wants to).
He thinks this for six days, and when Kin appears in the doorway to his piercing studio, he knows the decision has been made but gets no time to prepare himself before Kin speaks, cold and distant and so disappointed he feels shame flooding, hot up his spine.
"You told him we'd broken up," Tio stares at him, full on deer-in-headlights, lowers his pen slowly and shrinks back into his chair. "When did I say we'd broken up? Tell me exactly when I said that to you. Because I sure as hell can't remember saying that."
"You didn't," he says, voice small, eyes flickering everywhere, catching on his knuckles and inhaling a sharp little breath when he sees the graze on them, he’s seen Mizuki’s face, everyone has, he knows what link to make.
"I said I needed a break, for a little while, that's what I said." He had been concise and clear and it had been incredibly obvious in his tone that he didn’t want them to be over forever, he’s not entirely sure how Tio misinterpreted that.
"We- I thought we were as good as over."
Kin feels lost, it was Tio who insisted on no labels yet kept on coming back, Tio who said they could date, Tio who seemed to be slowly accepting their ‘relationship’, and now it is Tio who has ruined it all. He wonders what he’s done to deserve this. "Then you should have told me that, if you wanted to not try it's me you should have told, not Mizuki, and you shouldn't have fucked him instead of talking to me."
Somehow Kin feels stupid, this feels like a break up but they were barely even together, not in public, they had no title, no definition other than the broad area of ‘dating’, he feels like he’s somehow overreacting. He had no claim to Tio, not really, he’s not even sure he has the right to be angry with him since they weren’t properly together, since they were just seeing how things went. But he feels justified because even with that there is an implied rule that they aren’t seeing other people, he wonders if he should have been clearer with the boundaries of their arrangement then feels angry that he’s somehow blaming himself for this.
The bare truth is that Tio knows how he feels and he’d gone along with it and made it seem like he felt the same way and then he’d abruptly pulled the rug from under his feet all because Kin had been an adult and raised an issue with him, had tried to give him time to process things so they could be better, so they could be a couple that functioned.
"I know,” he sounds pathetic, like a child being scolded instead of the grown adult he is, he should be able to talk to Kin, to say that he’s sorry but relationships scare him and he’s frightened of what he might become if he isn’t careful. He should tell Kin how afraid his feelings make him, but his throat closes over and all he can do is avoid his gaze and feel weak.
Kin sighs, clenches his fists and slowly relaxes them again, voice softening, "why can't you just talk to me? Tell me what's wrong. Why can't you do that?"
"I don't know."
"You won't tell me what happened, with your dad?"
He stares at him, thinks about opening his mouth and spilling everything, his memories, his fears and similarities and everything else, and feels sick. "I can't."
He nods, he's not looking at him any more, the soft affection in his voice dies and without it he sounds so cold, so far away, "okay. Then I guess we are over now. Consider yourself broken up with, dumped, whatever works for you. I'll see you when your shift starts."
Tio never does show up for his shift, Mizuki looks at Kin, at the hard, angry set of his jaw and decides, just for once, to let it slip.
He has no idea why he’s ended up at his mother’s house, but there he is, standing on the doorstep at eleven at night when she could be asleep, pressing the bell and trying not to let the moisture in his eyes leak. He almost wants her not to answer, to be left alone and not to be given whatever he’s looking for here because he doesn’t deserve it, but the hall light flickers on and he can see a face peering through the window at him.
The bolt unlocks and she stands there looking warm and concerned and his eyes are so flooded now that he can barely see her, dressed for bed in her stupid pyjamas with the flower pattern and ugly slippers his sister bought her one Christmas.
He hasn’t seen her since he returned the photo album and hurt his sister and screamed accusations but she stands there and reaches for him with worried eyes and an affectionate smile he absolutely does not deserve right now.
“Tio? What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t even have to say anything, she just ushers him inside and locks the door behind him, explaining quietly that his sister is out for the night at a friend’s. He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly crying, because he isn’t twelve any more, he’s a fully grown man and he shouldn’t have come to his mother’s house for comfort.
But she just makes a soft noise in her throat and embraces him, shushing him even as she has no idea what’s happened, runs a hand through his hair and rubs at his back as he almost hiccups, buries his face in her shoulder and feels everything crash down around him.
“Oh, sweetheart, what happened?”
“I fucked up,” she doesn’t tell him off for swearing, doesn’t tut or seem disapproving, she just hums soothingly and gives him time to continue, ignores how wet her top is getting and smooths down messy curls. “I was- Seeing this guy but I- He’s my best friend and I messed everything up and now he hates me.”
Of all the ways to come out, this was not the one he’d envisioned, though based on her lack of reaction and the way gossip spreads she’d most likely already known, his significant lack of girlfriends had probably helped too and she doesn’t so much as bat an eyelid. “What did you do?”
“I-“ his breath catches on another sob and he doesn’t want to admit this, to tell his mother just what he’s done, how badly he’s betrayed Kin and how stupendously he’s ruined everything, but he needs to, so he does. “Me and Mizuki- Um-“
“Oh,” her sigh is sad and understanding and he knows already that she’s finished the sentence for herself, wonders how long she’s known about his feelings for his boss and best friend, considers how much she might have struggled with it. “Okay, okay, you don’t have to say anything else. It’s okay, shh, it’s okay honey.”
It isn’t okay, they both know that, Tio especially, but he just sniffs again and pulls away from her embrace, letting her pull the tissue she stores in her sleeve out and dab at his eyes with it, smiling gently and just nodding for him to sit on the couch.
She returns a few minutes later with a pot of tea, places it on the coffee table quietly and pours them both a mug when it’s done, the fruity scent meeting his nose brings back strange nostalgia. She doesn’t speak for a while, just lets him wipe his eyes dry and drink his tea and sniff feebly, maybe formulating words, trying to work out how to sensitively discuss this issue, how to gently ask what she needs to know.
“You and Mizuki, how long?”
“It was, um, just one time.”
“Ah,” she says like she gets it, “do you have feelings for him?”
“No,” his laugh catches wetly in his throat and he sounds so indignant and offended he surprises himself. “That’s why it’s so stupid, I haven’t felt that way about him in months, since me and Kin became friends, really.”
If she’s confused by that she doesn’t say anything, she hardly needs every detail after all, “what about this guy you’re seeing? Do you have feelings for him?”
“Yeah, feelings are, are something I’m having.” His voice falters again and his eyes are overflowing, dabbing away tears the second they try to fall and swiping wetness across the bags under his eyes, feeling terrible as he continues, “he’s so nice, mum, he’s the nicest person I’ve ever met and he’s jus- God, he’s so great and I’ve just been awful-“
“No, come on, stop this, stop crying,” she hands him the tissue box and he tries not to outright sob like a child because this whole situation is dumb enough as it was, he has nobody left to go to except his mother. “You and this Kin, guy, you’ve, what, been dating?”
“Kinda, but, some, stuff happened,” he can’t tell her, what Kin said he was doing, how he reacted, so he keeps it vague and she respects his privacy. “We went on a break, for a bit. That’s, when it happened.”
“Then you were with Mizuki, one time?” That was a soft way of putting it and they both know it as Tio shoots her a look and she just shrugs, smiling a little uncomfortably but reaching across the couch to rub his knee even as he mutters it had been something like that. “Okay, so does Kin know?”
“Yeah. I told him last week, I, guess he needed time to, think. He came to talk to me today, at work”
“What did he say?”
“That we’re over. He- He looked so disappointed in me and I- I’m always just so awful to him. He always looks after me and stuff and all I do is yell at him and get angry and it- It scares me because he’s perfect and I’m just so- So fucking messed up.”
“No you’re not, you’re confused. Come on, it’s late and you should go to sleep, you’ll feel better in the morning,” he nods a little blankly, lets her lead him to his old bedroom, empty now but set up as a guest room with fresh bedding and tasteful ornaments on his old chest of drawers. She bustles around for a little while, finds him pyjamas in a drawer and a toothbrush in another, doesn’t even give him the option to go home and be by himself, lingers in the room while he goes to the bathroom to get ready.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” he admits weakly, sitting under the covers with his mother perched neatly on the mattress by his side, he feels like he is very small and she is tucking him into bed, he feels vulnerable, raw and open and weeping with it. He feels young, like he wants protecting.
“If he really likes you, he’ll fix it himself,” he isn’t sure that’s what he wants to hear, but she plants a kiss on his temple anyway and he feels a little better, eyes still refusing to stay dry even after he washed his face free of sticky tear tracks. “Now try not to think about it, and go to sleep. We can talk in the morning, okay?”
“Mm, night, mum.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
He can’t sleep, but he supposes that shouldn’t really surprise him, he lies there staring at the ceiling like he used to so often as a teenager and he feels physically sick, this used to be his bedroom, his bed, his personal space, his safe haven of sorts.
He hates being home, his mother has never moved and has lived there her entire life, Tio had lived there until he met Mizuki and got his job and moved out at the first opportunity, he hadn’t ever even paused to look back at what he was leaving behind. He lies there, warm and comfortable and exhausted and though he knows it’s long since over, he feels his ears search the house for any noises, a bang, a whisper, anything that suggests something is wrong. He doesn’t hear a thing, of course he doesn’t, but he lies there feeling tense and on edge for many hours before he drifts off into a shallow, troubled sleep.
He’s sat in the kitchen feeling very sorry for himself when Rei wanders in with a noisy bang of the front door and a yell to their mother that she’s back, she’s in the shower but there’s a faint returning yell from upstairs and she looks up from ditching her jacket to see him. She falters for a second, taking him in, then her face softens and she walks a little closer and smiles. She must be upset with him for the last time they spoke, but she can see he isn’t doing well and puts it behind her, she’s good like that, never one to hold a grudge.
“Yo,” her greeting is casual, they don’t see each other enough and it is obvious in her demeanour, slightly uncomfortable, surprised to even see him, “what are you doing here?”
“Oh, I ruined my entire life.”
“Again? Impressive,” she just opens the fridge, regarding it for a moment before returning with a banana, helping herself to the last of the coffee in the pot and dropping down at the table opposite him. “What you do this time?”
“I’m kinda seeing a guy,” she just nods, peeling her banana messily and licking the gross sour coating on the skin off her fingers, waiting for him to continue because that was hardly any reason to say he’d ruined his life, knowing worse is coming as she adds milk and sugar to her coffee. “And I slept with Mizuki.”
“Hm,” she doesn’t react much, the tinkling of her spoon hitting the edges of her mug as she stirs pausing for a moment as if debating this, Tio wondering if he’s said too much even as he knows he hasn’t, he could always be brutally honest with her. “Well that seems a little dumb.”
“I know. So I told the guy, he broke up with me. And I fought with Mizuki too, before I told him.”
“So neither of them like you much right now?”
“No,” to his increasing shame he felt his eyes get wet again, swallowing hard and aware of his sisters almost grey eyes on him. “I can’t even blame anybody else because I’m the problem.”
She stays quiet for a moment, regarding him with narrowed eyes as he tries to wipe his eyes dry because he’s a grown man crying in front of his little sister and this is so incredibly pathetic it makes him feel worse. “Stop crying or I’ll throw my banana peel at you.”
He’s so startled at her odd threat that it snaps him back into some semblance of emotional normality, frowning at her at the mere idea of having a peel launched at him, “please don’t.”
“Alright, as long as you stop calling yourself a problem. You’re obviously bothered by what you did, that’s something, right? You knew it was dumb but did it anyway, and you’ve always been the stupid one.”
“Hey, I got way better exam results than you!”
“Yeah, and what did you use them for? Stabbing holes in people and making drinks,” she has a point and their usual slightly mean but jokey conversation is so homely he feels better already, just snorting in derision and shrugging in agreement as he drinks some coffee and wipes his eyes. “So, I assume you told Mizuki to go fuck himself?”
“Oi, quit swearing!”
“I’m sixteen, I can do what I like. Hypocrite.”
“Whatever. But no, he had every right to yell at me, I dragged him into this. He was the one who told me I had to tell Kin, it’s me who’s the ass”
She snorts at his choice of swear word, looks up a second later as their mother enters the room, dressed ready for the day in a flowery blouse and one of her collection of identical cardigans, kisses his sister on the head as she passes and frowns at the empty coffee pot.
“I see nobody thought to make me a cup,” she raises an eyebrow and then rolls her eyes exasperatedly as both her children stare blankly at her. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll do it myself, it’s not like one of you had an emotional breakdown yesterday and the other one lied about where she was staying the night. It’s a wonder I got any sleep at all.”
Rei pales and immediately busies herself brewing a fresh pot, not able to see the smug little smile that plays on their mothers face showing she really doesn’t care where she’d stayed, Tio finds it faintly amusing how crafty she is and manages a timid smile as she lowers her voice to speak to him. “How do you feel today, sweetpea?”
“I’m okay,” he somewhat lies. “I’m just, mad at myself.”
“For going with Mizuki?”
“Yeah, but, more because I hurt Kin. He’s, got a lot on his plate already and I just added to it, he didn’t deserve more to worry about.”
She sighs, “I wish there was something I could say, but everything’s up to him now. I won’t tell you that you did a stupid thing, you already know that, and I can tell you feel guilty. All you can do is try and make it up to him somehow, be his friend, talk to him.”
“I can’t talk to him,” he shakes his head, looks down into his empty mug and sighs. “I don’t know why, I just can’t.”
“Are you afraid you’ll tell him something that will make him not like you?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” he shrugs and rounds his shoulders feeling stiff and sore and tired. “Thanks, mom, but I should go, I’ve got a shift later.”
She looks unhappy but ultimately lets him choose what to do and walks him to the door, Rei waves a farewell distractedly as she fiddles uselessly with coffee filters, “you’re welcome here whenever.”
“I know.”
“I hope you manage to work something out,” she says, cups his cheek affectionately and smiles at him. “You’re not a bad person because you did a bad thing, if he knows you well enough, he’ll know that too.”
“I hope so,” his smile is tremulous but he does feel a little better and when she leans onto her tiptoes to kiss his forehead he feels the warmth of it all the way down to his toes. If nothing else, his mother will always love him, it is little comfort.
“This fucking sucks,” Kin announces rather dramatically, plopping himself down beside Yuu with a rather pitiful expression and immediately stealing one of his cigarettes, ignoring the half teasing hands that try to slap him away.
“You’ll need to use your words, big guy. Kinda don’t know what you’re on about.”
Kins head raises rather quickly, an as yet unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth stupidly, “Tio didn’t tell you?”
Yuu stares back blankly, “look at my face, do I look like I know what you’re talking about?” He looks amused, faintly so, offering a lighter which Kin gratefully takes and polite enough not to ask what has prompted him to just walk into his flat with no announcement or warning.
“We broke up,” he says shortly then says nothing else while Yuu processes this with a serious of alarmed and shocked facial expressions and an amusingly wide open mouth, making various cut off noises which don’t transform into words. This continues for a good minute or so and Kin feels a little better watching him be so stunned, laughs faintly, “now who needs to use their words?”
“You broke up?” He sounds so honestly shocked, so upset that Kin’s faint smile flickers because if Yuu finds that so far-fetched, he thinks that Tio’s feelings were obvious to outsiders too. It doesn’t help him feel much better, just raises way more questions he’s not sure he has the energy to answer. “I didn’t know you guys were properly together but seriously, you broke up?”
“We weren’t,” he shrugs, sighs, pulls on his cigarette and watches the end flare red in front of his nose, his long, pointed nose that Tio had once said he liked with a playful grin in his eyes. “We weren’t, that’s why it sucks because it’s not even a real break up, like, he wasn’t my boyfriend.”
“Oh please, he absolutely was.”
“He didn’t want to be.”
“You mean he didn’t want to admit it, that boy knows he was your boyfriend as well as you do,” that doesn’t really help, but then it doesn’t make things worse either. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure I should tell you.”
“You came here to talk about it, seems like you want to tell me.”
Kin looks at him, earnest eyes and constant playful, teasing smile that suggests mischief, and feels his shoulders sag and fall, “he slept with Mizuki.”
Yuu laughs like he’s said something ridiculous, God, Kin really wishes it was a joke, just sits there staring at him until he registers the serious silence and stops abruptly, eyes narrowing, “oh, you’re serious.”
“Deadly,” he mutters darkly.
“He-” Yuu pauses, sucks his teeth and raises his eyebrows heavenward, face settling into an unpleasant mixture of disappointment and anger. “Wow, okay, I didn’t see that coming.”
“Shockingly enough, neither did I,” his tone is bitter and hard and he hates it, hates that he’s gone from being head over heels for Tio to being angry at the very thought of him. “He told Mizuki we broke up when we were just on a break, and they got drunk and they had sex and then he came to mine and apologised for being an asshole and we got back together and then he told me they’d had sex like, weeks later and then I found out he’d lied to Mizuki about us being broken up but only after I’d already punched him and then I broke up with him.”
Yuu stares at him, all traces of humour gone from his face, eyes serious and crinkled, “that’s, a lot.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe he did that to you. I really thought he, I mean,” he hesitates but Kin waves absently at him to continue. “I thought he loved you.”
“Yeah, well, guess we both thought wrong about that.”
Yuu, for once, has nothing to say.
“I trusted you,” he says quietly, watching the back of Tio’s head as he slowly sits up straight, back tense and fingers nervously flexing and unflexing around the body of his pint. “I really did. I told you about my mum, I let you meet her, I told you about my dad, and the fire, and my acne, and- I told you things I’ve never told anybody.”
Tio doesn’t speak but his hand is shaking very slightly, Kin doesn’t get any closer, he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to know if his words are hurting Tio or if he truly doesn’t care, so he just keeps going, “but you never told me anything, and I know that’s not how it works, but it makes me wonder, did you not trust me?”
“Of course I did,” his voice is very small, very quiet in the emptiness of the room around them, nothing is running, no music playing, the street outside is quiet and there are no sounds from the flat above, just their own breathing and Kin’s blood pounding in his ears.
“Then why won’t you tell me anything? If you trust me, why wouldn’t you just open your mouth and talk to me?”
“Some secrets are worse than others.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tio turns around and he doesn’t look great, he looks tired and his eyes are pinkish around the lower lids, as if he has been crying, “you don’t tell people about your mother because you’re ashamed and that is not why I keep secrets, that isn’t a good enough reason to keep things a secret.”
He recoils as if hit, Tio’s words aren’t spoken with particular cruelty but they hit that way anyway, “I am not ashamed of taking care of my mother, I don’t want to be pitied.”
“And I don’t want to be judged!”
“Why would I judge you? What have I ever done to suggest I would judge you?”
“Nothing. But you would.”
“You told Mizuki, and Yuu, why them and not me?”
“I didn’t tell them everything,” he shakes his head and a shadow of darkness passes over his face quickly, settling into the mottled circles under his eyes, finding a home in the flaked skin of his lips.
“Then what stopped you from telling me the same?”
“Because I knew if I told you about any of it that I’d have to tell you everything and I can’t do that!” He’s shouting now, looks frustrated and angry and tired. “I can’t just open my mouth and talk because it isn’t that easy! I can’t tell you what I’ve done because I know what will happen and I couldn’t stand the idea of- Of-”
“Of what?” Tio’s shaking, his skin is pale and he looks frightened of something, Kin really wishes he knew what it was, wishes he understood the subtext here.
“Of losing you, of losing anybody I care about. That is why I can’t tell you because I would have told you it all and then you would have hated me and I couldn’t stand the thought of you hating me!”
“You thought sleeping with Mizuki would help with that?”
He looks stunned, freezes in place and his anger fades away and he is just hurt, “doesn’t matter, you don’t get it.”
“No, I don’t,” he steps a little closer, he’s aware he’s adopted a slightly desperate tone and he hates that he’s gone from coming here to tell Tio how much he’s hurt him to trying to patch things up, he hates that he wants to patch things up. “Because you won’t talk to me. Please, Tio, just tell me, whatever it is, I’m not going to hate you.”
“Sounds to me like it’s too late for that.”
Kin is fumbling, he’s confused, because he is furious at Tio but seeing him so clearly upset, so obviously struggling with something brings out every protective instinct in him and right now all he wants is to make him feel better. He hates it. “I’m angry at you, I don’t hate you. Look,” he pauses to rub a hand over his face, and when he removes it, Tio is gone, almost as if he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” he says, and Yuu, sweet, lovely Yuu, just passes him a beer and hums sympathetically as he sinks down onto the small couch, mutes the TV so he can listen better and turns to face him.
“Tio?”
“Tio,” he affirms, sighing and letting his head loll back onto the couch, staring up at the nondescript ceiling blankly, “I’m so angry at him but I, I still- I care about him so much and it’s, I hate knowing he’s hurting, I want to help but he won’t let me. I don’t get why he won’t let me help.”
“You’ve got it bad.”
“I know,” he says softly, shakes his head when Yuu asks if he wants to talk about it. They pass the evening in companionable silence, the television goes back on and Kin stares at the action flick and thinks that he’s in so deep he might drown.
“Could you pass me the vodka?”
Tio does as he’s asked silently, he does everything silently these days and Kin misses the sound of his laugh, the way it makes his face light up, he decides it’s best not to mention and goes back to his cocktail with a heavy heart.
“Tio,” he turns when his name is called but his face is shuttered, carefully blank, “can we talk, please?”
“What about?”
“Us.”
“There isn’t an us,” he responds, his jaw tenses and grinds after he speaks despite the emptiness in his tone, the idea of it clearly upsets him as much as he tries to hide it.
“I know,” Kin says, feels stupid and foolish and lonely, like some sort of yearning character in a trashy youth fiction novel. “I just- I liked it, when there was. I know you said you can’t talk to me, and I don’t get why but-”
“You told me you loved me, once.”
He blinks, startled by the sudden announcement, can only shrug in agreement, “yeah, I did.”
“If I talked to you, you wouldn’t any more,” Kin tries to object but Tio carries on and his voice is acidic and gritted, words firing out like bullets aimed inwards. “You wouldn’t love me any more if I told you, but I’d still love you so I’d just be stuck, loving you and you hating me and knowing it was all my own fault!”
“You love me?” He’s so incredibly dumbstruck that he doesn’t read any of Tio’s tells, not his hands tightening at his sides or the obsessive grinding of his jaw or the heavy tension in his shoulders, doesn’t see the explosion coming.
“Of course I fucking do! I might be shit at showing it but I do! You’re ten feet tall and you always taste of energy drinks and you wear the grossest socks and you do a hell of a lot of things that piss me off but yo-”
That’s enough for Kin, nobody has ever told him they love him before, not like this and he feels his chest swell even though his heart is still heavy with so many things and he crosses the room and takes Tio’s angry, sad face into his hands and he kisses him. He freezes under him, still and motionless as Kin moves back and wonders what the hell is going to happen now, what on earth he’s even doing.
Tio’s chest is heaving and he looks like he’s about to cry, face tilted up towards Kin but looking stubbornly to the side, voice small and fragile, “why do you still want me? I’ve done- Awful things.”
“Nothing that can’t be forgiven.”
Tio looks at him then, takes in his expression, opens his mouth and says, sure and steady, “I killed someone, can you forgive that?”
Kin stares at him, stunned silent, he doesn’t know what his face is doing but Tio sees it and steps back and smiles very, very sadly and says, “that look on your face? That’s what I was afraid of. I’ll see you around.”